This morning I was going through the photo's in order to come up with a tank update for July since nothing really went on that month. This must have been the month we added the LED's to the tank. Why do I think this? Because most of July's pictures are of Chris trying to capture the glow from the LED's onto the corals. It's an amazing sight here in the house, on the camera however...eh...not so much.
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In case anyone is wondering, we only use the LED's to add a 'pop' of color to our tank. We are die hard halide supporters.
When I talk about this folder and going through it let me tell you, this takes time. There are thousands of photo's in it from all the years we've had our new camera. If I want older ones, I have to search through six or seven disks to find the picture or pictures I'm looking for. These ones are usually so awful in clarity though, that I only put them up for a before and after type of logic.
That's pretty much what I plan on doing right now too :)
About eight years ago (give or take) Chris was wandering through Fin & Feather looking for coral. He would always end up talking to one particular worker there or we would get into conversations with the owner, John. This particular day he was off with John in coral land as I wandered around and looked at the other animals. After some time he tells me he's all set as he's walking out of the fish area with three bags in his hand. He's all excited, he just got a really great deal on some coral. Cool! So, what did he get? We go to the register and I look into the bags. I will never remember the other corals he bought that day or if we still have them but, this one...oh for crying out loud! Really?! It was a thick brown stick with a ball on the bottom. I remember complaining about him buying brown coral again and then expressing my absolute distaste for this ugly, brown dick looking one. He was excited however because they were only $20 a piece. I then expressed that they were this price because they were ugly and one of them looked like a dick.
The coral went into the tank and it was forever deemed 'The Big Brown Dick' by me.
This was the time when we were still getting used to keeping SPS in the tank so, for some time, this coral remained simply long, brown, and dick-like in resemblance. Chris moved it to the basement tank for a while. I'm not sure if it was because of my comments or something else but, it was gone for a while.
A few months went by and the coral started to show a little bit of life and started to grow from the base. It also started turning dark green. See it in the picture? You can't miss it! Towards the front and to the right of our frogspawn in the sand.
About six more months went by. I'm peering into the tank one day and see this amazing coral. It's light pale green and goes to blue and the very tips of it are an amazing yellow. I ask Chris what in the hell this coral is and he smiles at me, "It's The Big Brown Dick" he says. He proceeds to give me the 'I told you so' talk about corals and lighting.
After some time it grew enough to be fragged which was a good thing. We lost the main colony some time ago when our tank crashed the first time for unknown reasons.
When people would come over and look at our tank they would always ask about it. We would tell them the story of my dislike for it when it was bought and how it grew into a thing of beauty but, we never had a name. Chris knew it was a stag and that was all he was ever able to find.
About two years ago, someone was over and bought a frag of it. When he asked the name and we told him the story he said we should just start calling it Chriskid's Stag. From then on, that's what we have done or for short CK's Stag We've joked and said that we should have named it The BBD Stag.
Before the tank upgrade Chriskid's Stag looked like this...
In July it has grown into a monster coral in our tank...
So, (another) lesson learned in the reefkeeping hobby. The brown sticks can truly turn into things of beauty if provided proper lighting and water conditions.
Chris buys a lot of wild coral now for two reasons. One is to prove to himself that he can keep them alive because we have noticed most hobbyist have a lot of difficulty with them. Two, to see what will happen to that one that has no color but, looks like it has a lot of potential. It's fun to see what we get sometimes.
Until next time, happy coral shopping!
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