Live Rock

I purchased 80kg of cured live rock from Exotic Aquarium. After a 4 hour transport I rinsed them one by one in saltwater from the tank. Since I am clueless about aquascaping I merely placed them all in a brick wall in the tank.

Grrr The Big Tank Leveling Exercise

Damn JC did not level the tank as I asked. So between Karin and myself we managed to drain about 85% of the water into both bath tubs and the buckets I had standing around. The rest was discarded. With much pain and suffering we leveled the tank and refilled it with the water that was now in the bath tubs...

Since I lost about 15% of the water, I had to make up some new water. I did not really have the RO unit connected, so in went some more tap water with Tropic Marine salt (non Pro-Reef). I guess the calculation on the side of the bucket was not that accurate since the Specific Gravity went up dramatically to 1.028.

Started Reef Tank

Got a guy by the name of JC in to set up the tank. He did the plumbing for the skimmer as well as connected up everything else. He washed the aragonite once to get rid of the dirt and some calcium I guess. The salt (20kg Tropic Marin Pro Reef) was thrown in on top of the sand and we used tap water to fill the tank. The salt dissolved through the night.

The skimmer was turned off since it immediately boiled over with foam once started. There was some leaks in the plumbing and the hole where the outlet of the skimmer was passing through.

The sump is a bit small...

Full Article

Tank Arrived!!!

The tank was just delivered to our home. Sadly I am in Stellenbosch and cannot do anything until I get back.

Why I am faithful to Canon

I have invested more in photographic equipment than most people do in their cars - 90% of which are Canon equipment. I also own two 580EX flash guns and one 550EX flash. I use them interchangeably when I do wedding shoots. Recently I needed to use them in a master/slave wireless configuration, just to discover they did not fire...

So I started testing them intensely - just to realise they never worked in wireless mode. The master just do not want to trigger the slave. Eventually I decided to take them to Canon for repairs. After a week Canon told me they could not resolve the issue since the cannot fix the flash gun. Since it is out of warranty, they also cannot replace it. Bummer.

It was then when I went back to my retailer - Cats Digital in Sandton - and asked for help. Diraj quickly phoned Canon's marketing director and within 1 hour it was sorted. I went to Canon and picked up two brand new 580EX flash units in return for my old ones. No paperwork - no costs.

Full Article