Our Aquatic Friends

Our Marine Aquarium

We love aquatic life. It is nice to come home after a tough day and just veg in front of a fish tank. It is very relaxing. We have been enjoying the hobby for about 3 years now. For others interested in the hobby, our setup is a 55 gallon glass tank with a corner box which feeds a 15 gallon wet-dry trickle filter and a 36 x 4 inch counter-current protein skimmer. The skimmer and wet-dry were made by some guy here in San Diego. The whole thing is run nicely off a single Quiet One water pump and a Tetra Luft air pump makes the foam in the skimmer. The lighting is done by two Coralife Wizard electronic ballasts which illuminate four 48 inch flourescent tubes: generally 2 trichromatic bulbs, one actinic bulb, and one standard cool white bulb.

Pictures of the Creatures

The picture on the left shows the live rock and mushroom rock in the center of the tank. You can also see our clown tang, a green pseudochromis and our maroon clown in this photo. The clownfish has been a member of the family for about 2 years now, I guess. The tang has approximately tripled in size since we got him about 1 1/2 years ago and is still growing! I wish he would stop. Pretty soon he'll be too big to have anywhere to sleep! Click on the picture to see the full size 39K jpg file.

This is a better picture of our maroon clown, Gilligan (yes, there used to be another maroon named Skipper, but she was way too big and mean to Gilligan, so we took her back to the pet store). He is kicking back in his (ex) sebae anemone (no longer with us). He (actually, probably she by now, since adult clownfish change to female when there is no other female around to challenge them) is really cool. Such a funny personality. He is constantly rearranging his accomodations to suit his needs. We finally gave up trying to mak the tank look how we want it. Now he pretty much lets us know which pieces of rock, coral and seashells are permitted in his immediate vicinity. Click on the image to see the full size 35K jpg file.

Not shown (yet) are our rainbow wrasse, royal gramma, peppermint shrimp, and flower pot coral. Look for these photos coming soon.

Links to Marine Aquaria Related Sites