My other hobby

[Rey Ramon]

So yeah I've been away for a while. My more recent hobby..maybe the past 2.5 years...is Saltwater aquariums. More specifically, reef aquarium. When I moved from the East, rather than doing the main sane thing, I transported everything over. Leaving or selling my livestock would be sane because these animals live and thrive in pristine water conditions. And immediately preceding me moving out here, we did a week vacation at OBX. Then I left from OBX to Texas. Not sure I'd do it again, but I knew had I sold everything off, I would've of never gotten back into it, well at least not for the next 5 years or so. So not only did I move my livestock, I upgraded my tank. A few weeks before moving, I picked up a 90 Gallon reef ready tank for free. It has scratches and what not, but hey..it was free. That's a savings of like +$500. So I'm running a 90 gallon mixed reef with a 20 gallon sump beneath the main tank. I built the stand myself. Anything I can do to cut cost because it is an expensive hobby indeed. But I followed an engineers design for the tank. A 90 gallon Mixed reef weighs in at well over a ton. My most expensive piece made the trip. I won a Walt Disney Tenius Acro. In fact I wont it for $15 in a raffle. Retail, well over $350 for a 1 inch fragment of it. Unfortunately, during rearranging, I put it too close to a favia coral, it's sweeper tentacles killed it. Heartbroken to say the least. I may be speaking a different language to some of you so i'll just post some photos of some of my coral. All taken with my Samsung GS7 in Pro mode. It's not the easiest taking pictures of coral since the blue lights wash all colors out. Fortunately the Pro mode allows for manual white balance so I can get true colors.

[Rey Ramon]

...and I'll be honest. This hobby is an addiction. The more you don't know, the more you want to learn. The more you learn the more you want to try. And the cycle starts all over again. The science behind it all...the chemistry...the biology. It's just addicting.

[Rey Ramon]

And here is a video I took tonight. Watch it in 1080P60 frames so you can actually see what I'm trying to capture. Sweeper Tentacle from Favia (on the right) reaching all the way over to hammer coral (on the left). Actually goes between hammer head and then sweepers retract quickly at the end. Sweepers are how the catch food, and also sense other coral around so they can defend them self with chemical warfare. Kind of curious as to who would win between the two pieces.
https://youtu.be/51L9dfUiqUI

[Michael Blakely]

WOW Rey. Those are incredible.

[Theodore Martin]

Interesting hobby Rey and great pics.

[Tom Pletzke]

Very nice Ray. Pictures are awesome.

[Rey Ramon]

Thanks everyone!