Finally, a good photo!

Ryan has been taking a photography class, and last week turned her skills on the aquarium.  She was a more talented photographer to begin with, and pretty soon it will be ridiculous.  She took this without a flash or anything.  Anyway, I was lucky enough to get a copy of this shot of the two Montipora capricornis corals.  Enjoy!

For comparison, here is an older photo from August 2009.  You can see they have grown pretty well since then.  I even broke a decent piece off of the orange colony since then!

I did a little tank maintenance last night, such as cleaning the circulation pumps and pulling out some of the hair algae (bryopsis) so here are some new (and hopefully improved) photos.  I also started dosing amino acids for the corals today, in lieu of feeding them as regularly.  The idea is that the amount of nutrients in the water will decrease while the health, color, etc. of the corals will improve.  This concept is the brainchild of Chris at Einstein Aquatics.  There should be noticeable changes in coral colors in a couple of months, so it will be interesting to look back at these photos then. 

Front:

Side.  Note that I brought the Hill acan up from downstairs.  It does not look very good.

The tuxedo urchin has started camouflaging itself with random objects from the bottom of the aquarium:

Updated Tank Shots

Here are some updated tank shots from today... 

There is a new member of the "clean-up crew"; it is a small tuxedo urchin.