AQUARIUM UPDATE

I am happy to report that the battle of the Saltwater Aquarium at work is being won by me and my equally obsessed SW reef enthusiast friend, Janet.  We are both working hard at making it beautiful.  I think we have come such a long way since we first started reading and learning about what it takes to maintain the aquarium.  In case you've forgotten, here is a picture of it in the beginning.

  Believe it or not, we were pretty happy with it. We just didn't know how pretty it could get.  After countless hours of research (every night I would come home and read anything I could find online.  I joined a Saltwater Tank discussion site where I could ask questions and get answers by very knowledgeable people), and lots of Janet's hard earned moola, here is how it looks today...

 Center, a mushroom that was teeny tiny and has grown by leaps and bounds! The yellowish thing next to it we believe is a sponge that piggybacked into the aquarium.  We're not really sure what to do with it. Also you can see one of the clown fish - we have two.

In the lower center, a very pretty mushroom (it has a light blue mouth, can you see it?) 

Far left, Shaving Brush, center Blue Ricordea, right Green Flower Anemone. I love the Ricordea and hope we can get other colors to form a pretty colony. 

My very favorite resident of the aquarium, our Watchman Pink Spotted Gobi.  And watch he does! He sits on his little fins, propped on the rock and watches!  He is so adorable.

  We have worked very hard to get the aquarium to this point.  The fish and corals are not cheap and we have lost several due to high salinity. We are finally getting the salinity down to acceptable levels so will hopefully be shopping soon!  I really love the soft corals like the mushrooms and anemones.  Janet would like to get an anemone to host the Clown Fish.  They are kind of expensive, so we want to be sure our water parameters are really good.  But won't that be fun!! It's so cute to see the Clown Fish playing in the anemone. Funny how they don't sting the Clowns.  Thanks for stopping by. I hope you are having a wonderful Sunday.  I am excited about having a week off from work for Winter Break.