melev

Two nights ago, I was tinkering in my reef a little, as the cyano on the substrate was getting too close to some livestock. I didn't do much more than use a long handled scraper to peel the cyano mat away from some stuff. However, the next day the prettier of my two maximas was dead - the shell was completely empty.

One of the BTAs lives under my shelving Acropora plana, and occasionally gets snagged on some of the dead branches. I've intentionally left them in place to act as a shield to the living branches above. That night, the BTA pulled the defensive 'fence' down, much to my annoyance. That piece that I pulled out was larger than my hand, and to think that is just a tiny section of what grew from mere twigs years ago. It may be time to remove that BTA once and for all.

I've had some serious issues with my back lately (which started about 8 months ago), but I'm continuing to forge ahead as best I can. Yesterday was a bad day though, where the pain moved up my neck and brought on a full blown migraine. My son wanted me to watch "The Inconvenient Truth" but I wasn't able to maintain my attention too well. The pain forced me to close my eyes often, and I even took a break to down 800mg of Ibuprofen before it got worse. By the end of the movie, I crawled into bed and under the covers, away from any light or sound while my stomach was hinting at nausea. A few hours later, I felt better and could do a few things. After one person stopped by to discuss an acrylics project, I ran down the my LFS to see what's the latest. He's recently moved locations and the construction phase is nearly completed. I helped out for a bit to speed things along since I used to work construction myself (framing, trim carpentry, roofing, etc) and have the proper tools.

When I got home, it was nearly time to feed my reef and that's when I prefer to do a water change. While the return pump is off, I can pump out about 50g or so from the sump, and replace it with saltwater that had already been mixing for the past 48 hours. Once that was completed, I was up for another hour, then back to bed for the night. Today is better than yesterday, and hopefully the physical therapy I was prescribed will help lessen the daily pain.