Mind the Gap: Snow!

What an amazing snowfall we've had. Amazing because it has been at least three years since we've had any appreciable snow in this area, and by appreciable I mean enough to drag a sled through. So today was extra special. Unfortunately, it didn't start falling until close to 5:00, so there was not as much time to play outside as we would have liked before it got dark and colder, but there was still plenty of time to make a snowman, a snow hotdog, pull Rutledge and Frances around on a sled, have a snowball fight, and go to the school to ride the snowboard down the hill.

This picture demonstrates the concept of why raking pine needles is sometimes a good idea. Mr. Piney Snowman.

Happily, some more snow is expected tonight. The Weather Channel was saying somewhere from 4-8 more inches, but the local evening news sounded like it downgraded the expectation some--not as heavy as the snowfall earlier. I would say maybe we got 2 inches. It depends on where you measure. It would thrill me beyond belief if we got 8 more! I'm not holding my breath, but I literally expect to dream of snow tonight.

And speaking of snow dreams, as time winds down on this year's ski season, this seems to be the week we need to go. I am hoping for Wednesday or Friday. Wednesday sounds like it might be great conditions--recent heavy snowfall, still cold but not bitter (I hope!). I am mildly nervous about going because I always get a horrendous migraine by the end of the day at Wintergreen; the altitude and humidity and heaviness of the air on the slopes really gets to me. I'll be armed with my barfilicious migraine pills in case of the worst, but I'm so excited to be taking not just Ollie, but Walter this year. They may be able to entertain each other, putting less impact on me--more skiing at my own pace!

This weekend was also my birthday, and in my case, I suppose we really are talking about both days of the weekend. I just have to share my beautiful birthday gift (and no, it's not the GPS!).

Though it is looking less than spectacular in this photo, I promise more and better to come in the future. This is my slightly more than nano reef aquarium. It seems I have a consuming new hobby to, well, consume me. I had not quite meant to stumble so heavily into a research and labor and finance intensive hobby such as this. I originally had only wanted a really big freshwater aquarium with some pretty fish. After looking at Petsmart and Petco and not seeing something quite perfect (and the joke is, I thought much of what I saw was out of budget...talk about a budget buster!), I suggested we look at Fish World, whose billboard I have seen on the way to Costco so often. I didn't realize that they are saltwater specialists, meaning that they carry *only* saltwater livestock and supplies. And when I did discover this, I thought it would be interesting to look around, but wasn't thinking that this was a complexity level that I was interested in taking on myself. Surprise! The next thing I knew, I was cleaning out the back of the van to make space for 6 ten gallon buckets of saltwater, a 34 gallon all-in-one tank and a stand, a styrofoam cooler full of nearly 30 pounds of live rock, and a bag of "live sand." I had never even heard the term live sand before. I still don't know what is meant by the word "refugium." Sounds Latin. Now I find myself thrust into the intricacies of protein skimmers, evaporation replacement systems, reverse-osmosis and deionized water, power heads, and numerous lessons on the evils of things like putting a fish like Dory in a tank under 55 gallons and the stupidity of crushed coral as a substrate (not sure why...just read it and it sounded like gospel).

My tank is currently cycling, which is a short way of saying that I have had to give myself a crash lesson in chemistry, a subject I got a C in while I was in high school. Hopefully I'm learning in a bit more of a mastery way this time around--$200 in living, breathing fish and invertebrates will probably be at stake here. I am seeing some positive signs of the nitrification process. Already today I have seen some red stuff starting to grow and wave around on my live rock. There are obviously organisms waking up in there. As they do, they will produce ammonia, which still peak and then decline as it is converted to nitrite, which in turn is then turned into nitrate. When the ammonia and nitrite levels fall to zero, then things are moving in the right direction to start thinking about adding the livestock--the fish and anemones and corals and other living things that are going to make it amazing.

Part of what I'm having to do in a short period of time is sort through acronyms. A FO tank is "fish only," meaning nothing but substrate and fish. FOWLR is "Fish Only With Live Rock," meaning that there are, okay, fish and live rock, but no other organisms intentionally placed. What I'm going for is called a reef tank, or, because of my semi-small size, a nano-reef (and yes, there are whole online communities dedicated to nano-reefers). In this, the focus is on creating the entire enclosed ecosystem--a miniature ocean. With this, there are typically fewer fish and a higher focus on invertebrates like hard and soft corals, anemones, crabs and other crustaceans, starfish, shrimp, and other beautiful and strikingly colorful and very alive thingies. I can barely wait for all of this to develop in my tank. I'm also scared out of my wits.

Here is an excerpt from the website www.ratemytank.com that I found particularly compelling:

"Why keep a reef tank? Anybody who's ever stood in front of one will tell you. They are mesmerizing. You can't take your eyes off a reef tank. It's like having a little bit of the ocean, right there in front of you. Pros to keeping reef tanks include:

Reef tanks provide a welcome challenge
The beauty and uniqueness found in a reef tank is unparalleled
Keeping reef tanks helps raise interest in protecting wild coral

Some people just like a challenge. You tell them "it can't be done" or "it's really hard to do," and what do they do? Turn away? No way, they're drawn towards the reef tank and make it their life's dream to successfully keep a reef tank in their home. With a reef tank, you're replicating even more of an ecosystem than a FO or FOWLR tank. You need to account for not just how fish interact with each other, but how fish, corals and invertebrates interact with each other to help support each other in a more sustainable environment. You'll learn more about the biology of organisms and how ecosystems manage themselves than you would with other set-ups.

In terms of the beauty of a reef tank, truly, there is not another experience in the world except for reef snorkeling or scuba diving that will let you appreciate up close what makes a reef tank special. Reef tanks are like none other. The beauty of the corals, anemones, and other invertebrates are unparalleled. There's simply nothing else like it. The relationship between all the different animals in a reef tank just adds to the experience."

These tanks truly are a sight to behold. They are, indeed, mesmerizing. I am looking at our entire year's science curriculum all balled up and tossed into one 34 gallon curved-front glass container. The life cycle, the chemical cycle, the carbon cycle, the water cycle. We have to think about, observe, worry about, and help engineer all of these. If any of these get "off," the consequences will be dire for our mini-ecosystem. We have contraptions to try to help with all of these--containers of fresh water that automatically drip in to maintain sufficiently diluted salinity as evaporation occurs; containers that collect the protein "foam" that results as organisms die off and give off waste and chemicals; things that mimic the movement of crashing waves and undulating waters so that food and nutrients are carried where they need to go to stationary animals, appropriate habitats that take into account the needs of our inhabitants (the cave dwellers, the skittish, the territorial, the symbiotic relationships, the rock snackers), filters and pumps to keep oxygen and carbon dioxide interchange in check; test kits to ascertain that even though chemical cycles are natural, that certain chemicals don't start to dominate and put the various living things at risk. We need to study up on the feeding and dietary needs of each inhabitant. Some need to be fed multiple times a day. Some need food placed right near their "mouth." Some may need to be trained to accept a variety of foods or to eat in their new and possibly stressful environment. We need to make sure our species are compatible. We have a particularly fancy light fixture that supposedly will allow us to keep the most finicky corals and anemones, and there is so much to learn about how long it is to be kept on and when each day, how the excessive use might cause unpleasant algae or bacterial blooms. Problem solving might be a skill we hone. It's rather exciting.

My local fish store (LFS, as I must now refer to it) suggested that we could come in 3 days after we bought the tank and set it up cycling to have our water tested and likely begin to add livestock. This goes against what I'm seeing in most forums and informational sources, both print and online. It makes me nervous. I'm all for seeing our position in the nitrogen cycle, and I do trust the expertise of a very respected aquarist, but I'm also nervous because the fish are so dang expensive ("dang" rhymes with "tang," a fish I'm not allowed to have but that I am already coveting a 75 or 120 gallon tank for). I want to take no chances and rush nothing.

It is most likely that our first acquisition will be a Dory. That is, a clownfish or percula or false percula. I'm smitten with the black and white False Percs, I believe they are. Alas, they cost a little more than the orange Dories. I suspect it is likely anathema to call these fish a "Dory" and I don't know...Finding Nemo has probably been the bane of most fanatical hobbyists existence. I just can't help myself ;)

I am crazy about the torch coral, but it sounds like it is not a great specimen for a beginner, so I will probably have to wait to introduce it. The idea of an "aggressive" coral and watching it in action is so very cool.