Long Lost Update

When I started this I had intended to regularily post updates on how the tank is doing, etc.  That hasn't happened.  A lot has gone on since my last update so let's see where we are.

Harry - the tail spot blenny is still doing fine.  He has his own little place that he beds down in at night.  He likes to ride the current of the power head and likes to just hang with the other fish.  He's a fun little fish to watch.

Pinky - is the pink spotted watchman goby that I bought to replace the dimond watchman that committed suicide within 20 minutes of being in the tank.  The fish leapt out and I found a corpse the next morning.  Pinky is the hider of the tank.  He comes out in the afternoons but I can go days without seeing this fish.  I'd like to get a pistol shrimp to keep him company but I worry that I'd never see either of them again.

The Stalker and Unnamed Shrimp - these are the two shrimp I have.  The Stalker is a cleaner shrimp that desperately wants to clean.  The fish won't let him though.  He's resorted to sneaking up on them when they sleep.

I've been trying to come up with a name for my peppermint shrimp but as I rarely see him, I haven't noticed any traits to name.  He has taken care of the tiny aptasia problem I had.  I'll love him forever for that.

Diana and Steve -  the clown fish, the fish that hooked me in the first place.  These are not the clowns I started with.  They both died within a week of being in the tank.  These two have been much better inhabitants.  They love to taunt the Stalker and demand attention.  They rush up to the water's top when I feed them.  I almost think they want to be petted.

Corals and such - I now have a collection of corals.  The Euphyllia above as well as a candy cane, a couple of zoa colonies, a pair of mushrooms and a green star polyp colony.  All are growing like mad.  The candy cane has split once and looks like it'll do so again.

And finally - the full tank shot!

First In Tank Death

I've experienced a fish jumping to its death and now I've had to pull out a body.

I bought a pair of clownfish on Saturday. Apparently they were too close in size because the female nipped the male to death. She took a huge chunk out of his tail and it was too much for him. She still hasn't eaten so I'm worried about her too but I think she's fine. She's not labouring, just mean.

New inhabitants

It's a bit like a new pregnancy in that I don't want to announce something else in the tank because it just might not make it. I've already lost a colony of zoas to some kind of infection. Or flatworm, or something. Now I'm dosing calcium and iodide so hopefully that's under control.

This is my tail spot blenny: Harry. He's been here three weeks and doing fine.

October 20, 2013

So here's the first full tank shot.

I added a power head today to increase the flow. The algae problem is nearly dealt with. Hopefully with the Tunze and reducing the lights and doing a big water change I can nip this thing.

Through a Lucky Move...

I have caught my mantis shrimp. It swam into the filter. Now I just have to figure out what to do with it.

Speedy

I got myself the start of a clean up crew. This is Speedy the Turbo Snail.

My Cycle is Finished... I Think

So I think I'm at the end of my cycle.  The ammonium never got higher than 0.5ppm and the nitrites and nitrates never spiked.  Aside from a bit of nitrate when I started I haven't seen anything move but the ammonia.  Everything is sitting at 0 so I might as well try to move on.

I got the diatom bloom.  Yay!  That's normal.  And then the green hair algae outbreak.  Am I going to do a full tank shot?  Not on your life.  It looks terrible.  Absolutely.  I'm trying to black it out for a couple of days and have turned off the light so we'll see how that goes.

I also picked up the start of a clean up crew today.  The turbo snail is a machine.  It's buzzing around the glass and where it's been i things are already looking better.  I've already decided to call it Speedy.  There's an astrea snail that hangs out with it that I'm tempted to call Lian.  These two snails are going to town on the glass.  Three more astrea are hanging out on the rocks.  They don't look like they've done much yet, but this is where the algae is worst.  My three hermit crabs are Red, White and Blue.  Red and Blue have been busy in the sand.  Red is fearless, it was trying to climb up the rocks.  White has been having trouble with the two margarita snails that were thrown in for free since the narcissus were all so small.  These two dicks of snails have latched onto a hermit crab and tried to use it to give them a ride.  They've both let go and moved off on their own but White is upside down.  I hope it's just tired out.  That leaves the three narcissus.  The two small ones have found the glass and are working away at the bottom.  The third (and biggest) is somewhere in the rocks.  I saw its proboscis for a while but it's gone missing.  It's either being productive or it's fallen prey to the possible mantis shrimp hitchhiker.