I went to my local fish store last week and they had a very healthy looking pair of Mandarin dragonettes for sale. I observed them for a few days and decided to get them. They are the cutest animals, interacting with each other and hopping around the tank. Just got back up to the tank after a long weekend and its so sad.

The male mandarin when I got him in the tank the tail was shredded a bit. I didn’t notice it at the store, so i thought maybe it happened in transport. Well I get home a week later and I notice he’s not bouncing around the tank like the female so I pull up a chair and watch him. After about 20 minutes he gets up and he’s got NO TAIL FIN. Sigh… I think he’s got ich too because his skin looks a little lumpy like pre-stage ich. I hope this little guy makes it. I tested my water and the NO3 is about 20+ its hard to tell..but its weird that I do 32 gal water changes on a 150 every 2 weeks and the Nitrates are still high. I’ve just brought in a larger 45 gal bin to do larger water changes…I’ll keep you posted on if it works.

I just added a double stuffed bottle of Tigger Pods to the rocks while the lights were out, and another double stuffed bottle to the fuge. That’s at least 5,000 pods in the tank now. I also bought 100 live mysid shrimp to start my culture back in my fuge that I lost from the move. They are my favorite things to watch.

Hopefully the male will make it through with enough food and love because I have no hope for him to make it in a QT system with no food source.

I got my order of Reef Nutrition food in this weekend. One huge bottle of Phyto Feast Live, a big bottle of Arcti Pods and those two bottles of Tigger Pods. I squirted some of the arctipods in the tank and everyone (not the mandarins yet) came out to gorge. The anthias especially liked them. They have been spitting out their food alot lately.

What is Creative Soup you ask? It’s my marketing and design company for small business. A little background how it came about…

When I was 18 living in Tampa, FL I started my own company doing graphic designs and logos for companies. The business evolved over the course of my undergraduate degree and my MBA into a full service marketing company. I graduated through an interesting chain of events at the age of 21 with my Master’s in Business Administration and almost four years of business ownership under my belt.

At this point, I decided to leave everything I had built in Tampa for the sunny shores of San Diego, California. I felt that since most of my skills in design and management were self taught, I’d take this opportunity to submit to someone with more experience and be mentored in a larger company. I eventually accepted a position as Marketing Manager at InfoSonics Corp. (NASDAQ: IFON). I was a one-woman marketing department. Concept, design, roll-out, evaluation all under my task list. Ironically I started working for someone else to learn how things are done in the big bad world, and I end up running the show single handed again.

After almost two years of the typical 50+ hour work weeks, I decided that while I was afforded with great opportunities and challenges in a large company, I really missed interacting with the “little guys”. I worked on projects saving the company hundreds of thousands of dollars, and no one really batted an eye. I missed getting in the trenches with the small business owner and creating something for them that they could have only dreamed of.

I started working for myself again in June of 2008 and I haven’t been happier with any decision I’ve made in my entire life. Giving up the steady upper-management paycheck was terrifying, but my quality of life has improved so much.

My advice to anyone unsure about what career path to chose is this: Find something that makes you happy, and figure out a way to charge money for it.

In the end of June 2008 I upgraded from a 90 saltwater tank to a 150 gallon tank.

Tank:
Custom build by Charlie @ www.fishtankfactory.com
Glass (not drilled) 48″L x 30″W x 24″H
Rimless, 1/2″ regular glass, Polished edges

Stand aka “The Beast”:
Built by Dave @ Mitchell Construction (davocean on the boards)
49″L x 31″W x 31″H
2″x4″ construction to be faced later. This thing is a tank (as in the army kind with a big gun…the run over you and squish you like a bug kind) A++++ on the construction. As Dave so perfectly put it, “Glued, Screwed, and Tattooed.”

And the story begins…
I called Charlie and got a great quote from him for the tank. Literally 1/2 the cost Leemar wanted. So I ordered and gave him a deadline of the 26th of June which was only about two weeks from the day I called him. There was a chance it would have gotten done much earlier but he had jury duty, but I give him an A+ on communication through the whole build. He kept me up to date on when to expect it the whole time. I specifically ordered the tank just as it is. I wanted it without the trim at the top and polished on the edges. I couldn’t afford Eurobracing, and I don’t mind a center brace at all, so I ordered it with 18″ openings so my equipment could fit in the openings perfectly and HOB. In then end, I picked up the tank on the 25th. I drove up to Alhembra, CA to the factory and got a pretty cool tour of the whole place up there. I’d highly recommend them for a stand or a tank. Really solid operation they have going on up there.

6/25/08 I drop off the tank in Temecula on the way down to SD.

6/26/08 Davocean begins work on the stand at his place and I go pick up 160lbs of sand and a big ol’ bucket of Red Sea Coral Pro Salt. (Pics of the stand build from dave coming soon)

Dave finishes the stand about 5pm (Rome wasn’t built in a day, but my “Beast” of a stand sure was) and we load it into my RAV4 (”Tonka”) along with 8 empty jugs of water, 160lbs of sand, and a big ole bucket of salt. That truck has never failed me in fitting an enormous amount of stuff in it and still be able to close the back door.

I make a run to the closest LFS Deep Sea Creatures on the 79 and fill up 50 gals of RO/DI water. Must give huge props to this store for having an AWESOME design and layout. I talked to the owner and I guess the store design was a design final for some student. It paid off. Nicest LFS I’ve ever been in. The livestock was sorely lacking, but that can always be fixed later. I’ll have to go back and get pictures later.

Went back home, mixed up the first 50gals with Instant Ocean salt since that is what my animals are a custom to now, and put the sand to settle in that water overnight with a powerhead for circulation.

Current Stock list from smallest to largest-

1 hecktor goby (that I think has paired up with a rainsford??)
2 rainsfordi gobies
1 blue flasher wrasse
1 osc clown
1 black osc clown (he has no time for her and spends his days far away )
1 cherub angel
2 Mandarin Dragonettes
1 purple firefish
5 lyretail anthias (one is turning to male)
1 Massive Yellow Coris wrasse
1 Copper Banded Butterfly
1 Carribean Blue Tang
1 Blue Hippo Tang

Tank Video as of September 2008

So I’ve finally got my1uplife designed how I want it. I hope you like the look and feel of the site, stay tuned for new images in the gallery. I’ve got a ton to load of all my travels.

Why is it when you reach your financial limits and decide to take on a part time job, do the flood gates open and you get so many phone calls for new business you can’t even afford to sleep at night? I got tired of not sleeping and decided to take off work at the new part time job until November 4th so I can get all the new work done.