Fishfreak's foxy BC29: Brine Shrimp!

[fishfreak0114]

I'm a little concerned by the damsel. As soon as it got in the tank, it wedged itself into a little cave. I hope it didn't scrape itself.

 

Polka dot has had this snail/shell stuck to it most of the day! Can't shake it off lol

 

 

Edit:

The damsel came out and is hovering above the sand. Thus far the clowns haven't bugged it. They've swam near but no nipping. Bad pic, but when I took it it was nearly black so at least you can see the fish now

[pappadumplingz]

Nice tank! Had mine for around the same time as yours, except yours has progressed a lot more.

[fishfreak0114]

Nice tank! Had mine for around the same time as yours, except yours has progressed a lot more.

Thanks! I'll have to check out your thread

[pappadumplingz]

Whoops you have been in the hobby for an extra year. My mistake

[fishfreak0114]

I haven't seen the damsel since the morning after it went in before the lights came on. It's MIA, gone without a trace Hopefully it's just hiding. The last time I saw it it did have a couple small scratches and minor dorsal fin damage from wedging itself into the little cave.

 

The baby plates are growing at a ridiculous rate! Some are nearing a cm already I wonder when they'll start popping off?

[fishfreak0114]

Quick FTS! I'll try to get the camera out this weekend for a better one, but I've just been so tired lately I didn't feel like it.

 

The damsel still hasn't turned up, I think it's a goner . This weekend I'm planning on picking up a tailspot blenny (it's small though apparently so we'll see if it's still available or if it disappears like the last two I've planned on buying) and a coral beauty. And maybe, just maybe, I'll get another talbot. Perhaps I should upsize the QT?

 

The leather has begun disintegrating On a happier note, the acans are nice and fluffy, and the gorgonians have begun to heal

 

The zoa transplanting seems to have gone well. I hope they fill it in nicely

 

My school has a new block this year, the last hour on Wednesdays is "collaboration time". We all signed up for activities. I chose pottery, and last week I managed this lumpy bowl on the pottery wheel. Today's exploits went somewhat better, and I made an Unidentified shape that's smooth. Progress!

[pappadumplingz]

Nice. I like how you have incorporated the macro into the sandbed. Reminds me of a seagrass plain. Sorry to hear about the damsel, hope you find him.

[fishfreak0114]

Nice. I like how you have incorporated the macro into the sandbed. Reminds me of a seagrass plain. Sorry to hear about the damsel, hope you find him.

Thanks I'm so happy I added the caulerpa. I was worried it would be a nightmare because so many people have issues with it, but so far it hasn't been bad at all. I've haven't pruned it yet, I'm just letting it grow and fill in.

[fishfreak0114]

Well today has been a long long day. I'm not even home yet (still on the highway). First, we went to kamloops (about 45min from home). Stopped at petland and got 20' of airline tubing. Went to Walmart and picked up a three way splitter and an air pump (today we got most of the stuff for the experiment).

 

An hour drive later we were in Vernon. Stopped at seahorse bay aquatics and got a coral beauty and tailspot blenny (which won't even see the QT tank that I made nice and clean late last night, they're going straight to a bucket for TTM, at least one has mild ich ). I also got a scarlet hermit and two blue legs. The lady who owns it is really nice and she threw in two small zoas for free, and a piece of finger leather (purply-brown). Next stop was AJ's pets, where I got some fw fish, a large finger leather (more pink, gonna be fragged for the experiment) and two money cowries which are just too cool looking. The crazy thing is, 6 months ago when I was at a taekwondo tournament in Vernon I stopped there briefly, and the guy who helped me then helped me today and he recognized me! And remembered that I had a sw tank. I also bought bio median

 

Then we drove half an hour to kelowna. Stopped at the purple seahorse where I got two leather frags, $10 each. The people there often just throw out a random price (they don't usually know a set price), and today it happened to be low so I took advantage of it. The next stop was pet city, where I got another small zoa frag for $10 (not sure what they look like. I didn't have a very good view but oh well, they didn't look invasive). Over to petsmart, where I had planned on getting some IO for the experiment. None on the shelf and the employee refused to check the back for more we phoned purple seahorse and they had some so we went back over and got it. Stopped at Walmart (different one) and got another 3 way splitter (the other had only had 1 in stock). An hour and a half drive from kelowna back to merritt (home)

 

Almost home now! And might I note that I only listed fish related stops. Also had the chiropractor, costco etc. whew! I'll get some pics of the new stuff up tomorrow. It's gonna be a long night! My goal is to finish acclimating/dipping everything by 11pm

[fishfreak0114]

Well I finished acclimating stuff about 15 minutes ago.. All seems fine so far. I'm glad that it only took me 'til 10.

[fishfreak0114]

Unfortunately there won't be any nice camera pics tonight ... I did take a few with my phone however and I'll try to get them up.

 

It's gonna be a busy week with the tank transfers. And in amazing news, my mom just bought a 100g corner tank! Not sw, just an upgrade for her freshwater community tank. It was quite the steal, the tank, custom made oak stand, heater, fluval fx5, lights and all the odds and ends for only $500! Tonight we have to move our 45 gallon to the other side of the living room, and on Tuesday we're getting the tank! It'll have to be setup ASAP, because it comes with all his fish (cichlids and a knife fish). We are going to trade the fish in to a store and try to get some credit towards other fish. But in more exciting news, my moms letting me keep a pair of convict cichlids!!! That means I'll have 6 tanks I'll be redecorating the 45g to suit their needs. My ultimate goal is to breed them. And something else that is making me super happy right now is that I'm doing most of the aquascaping on the 100 and 45! This has been quite the day! We went to the river and got tons of driftwood so hopefully I'll be able to make something that looks cool.

 

The new additions seem to be doing fine so far, the scarlet hermit is such a nice color! I already placed 3 of the 4 leathers, I left the one that isn't attached on the sand. The zoas turned out be ok looking, one types grayish, ones more radio active dragon eyes, and the other is a yellow-y brown (I know that sounds ugly but it looks decent). The blenny still has his stress splotches. The coral beauty is looking good.

 

And here we go again...The fish went into the 5g at 9pm on Saturday October 1st. Next transfer by Tuesday October 4th at 9pm.

[fishfreak0114]

I've been using the schools microscopes on my lunch breaks again. It's so interesting looking at things from the tank up close.

 

I'm not sure what this is, but it grows on a sponge

 

Sponge

 

Stubby little bristleworm

 

Asterina arm

 

The blenny has since lost his stress splotches and started moving around the tank. I couldn't get a good pic of the coral beauty.

 

My crappy FTS. Mostly just so you can see what the new large leather looks like up there

 

The unattached leather

 

The yellow-y brown zoa. Can't really see it's color here. I'll try to get a better pic

 

The greyish Zoas

 

I really need to work on photographing fish. This is the clearest pic I could get

 

The scarlet hermit is so pretty I may to pick up a couple more next time I head out to seahorse bay aquatics. They're only $2.95 there!

 

I'm a little concerned right now. This algae that looks oddly like Dino's grows on one cabbage leather, and the bare skeleton parts of the gorgonians. It doesn't grow anywhere else though, and it's in very small amounts. I'm hoping it's just some other algae that gets caught on those corals. Later this week if I can get a good sample I'll try to ID it under a microscope.

 

That's all the updates for now! I'm getting ridiculously excited to get the 100g. It feels like Christmas!

[fishfreak0114]

Wow. Last night was a disaster. We got the tank home safe and began setting it up, a couple of the fish almost died from low O2 while we were setting it up but they're totally fine now, so we're setting up, we fill it all the way turn the filter on...and it started leaking! We have to but a replacement seal. So, my mom was freaking out (it was actually kind of funny) worrying that our insurance wouldn't cover 100g of water damage. I, however, stayed calm, got a towel and put it under the leak, grabbed buckets and began taking water from the tank and filling a 25g, a 10g and a 5g bucket. I split the fish as best as I could between those three and hooked up filters/airstones. Then we finished draining the tank. So problem solved, crisis avoided, and so far all the fish are doing ok and the aggression seems limited. I made sure they had something in there to break the line of sight. I've decided that I'm going to keep a regular convict, a pink convict and these two Unidentified cichlids that I may or may not be able to house long term. I need to figure out what they are first.

[xAyanex]

Wow, you've had quite the ups and downs in the last 3 weeks or so while I've been away from N-R. Nice to see the baby plates plopping along!! Wish I could get one of those later on. Sorry about all your fishy losses. Ever since I lost the second black clownfish, I drained my QT tank and literally did nothing for my DT except feed Bob and the occasional water change. I'm sure my alk is probably still running low, but everything in my DT seems happier than ever. The toadstool stands up straighter than it ever has, the candy cane finally doesn't look like a pissed off POS, everything is just thriving. But I'm starting to think Bob might get lonely so I really need to go get another fish. Maybe I'll do that this Saturday.

 

I've been working 60 hour weeks so I haven't had much time for anything. I finally got my house cleaned up today. I'm at work until 7am, then I have an hour drive home, a total of 6 hours to sleep/shower/eat/anything I need to do that day, another hour drive back to work because I have to be back here at 3pm... So maybe tomorrow when I get home from the 3pm shift at midnight I can do a W/C, test the tank, and set up the QT.

 

The question is... should I go for another black clown, or settle for an orange?

[fishfreak0114]

Wow, you've had quite the ups and downs in the last 3 weeks or so while I've been away from N-R. Nice to see the baby plates plopping along!! Wish I could get one of those later on. Sorry about all your fishy losses. Ever since I lost the second black clownfish, I drained my QT tank and literally did nothing for my DT except feed Bob and the occasional water change. I'm sure my alk is probably still running low, but everything in my DT seems happier than ever. The toadstool stands up straighter than it ever has, the candy cane finally doesn't look like a pissed off POS, everything is just thriving. But I'm starting to think Bob might get lonely so I really need to go get another fish. Maybe I'll do that this Saturday.

 

I've been working 60 hour weeks so I haven't had much time for anything. I finally got my house cleaned up today. I'm at work until 7am, then I have an hour drive home, a total of 6 hours to sleep/shower/eat/anything I need to do that day, another hour drive back to work because I have to be back here at 3pm... So maybe tomorrow when I get home from the 3pm shift at midnight I can do a W/C, test the tank, and set up the QT.

 

The question is... should I go for another black clown, or settle for an orange?

I'm pretty happy with the plates growth. I've continued to baste the juice from frozen food over them, not sure if that's helping or not. I'm pretty bummed that I've continued to lose fish in QT, but every time I learn something and I think this time I might just get it right. For instance, since this time I started them with TTM without them ever touching the QT tank, I don't have to drain it and sanitize. I also do frequent water changes on the QT, and I now have a sponge over the intake of the filter. Thats great to hear that everything's doing good Maybe your corals are liking slightly higher nutrients? I know mine do.

 

I seriously do t know how you can do 60 hours a week! That's barely any sleep! When I get less than 9 hours I'm super tired

 

Why settle? If you want a black one I say go for it! When I got mine I considered a black one, but in the end I wanted them to match.

[xAyanex]

I'm pretty happy with the plates growth. I've continued to baste the juice from frozen food over them, not sure if that's helping or not. I'm pretty bummed that I've continued to lose fish in QT, but every time I learn something and I think this time I might just get it right. For instance, since this time I started them with TTM without them ever touching the QT tank, I don't have to drain it and sanitize. I also do frequent water changes on the QT, and I now have a sponge over the intake of the filter. Thats great to hear that everything's doing good Maybe your corals are liking slightly higher nutrients? I know mine do.

 

I seriously do t know how you can do 60 hours a week! That's barely any sleep! When I get less than 9 hours I'm super tired

 

Why settle? If you want a black one I say go for it! When I got mine I considered a black one, but in the end I wanted them to match.

Working so much is exhausting, I'll admit. But the money's great.

 

I am going to go for another black one. I called the LFS and asked if they were still having issues with the black ones dying after a few weeks and the store said yes-they JUST switched suppliers for those and the fish from the new supplier aren't expected to arrive until next Thursday. So I won't be getting one tomorrow, but that's okay, because next Thursday I am off because it's actually my birthday! I'll be turning 25, woo!

[fishfreak0114]

Working so much is exhausting, I'll admit. But the money's great.

 

I am going to go for another black one. I called the LFS and asked if they were still having issues with the black ones dying after a few weeks and the store said yes-they JUST switched suppliers for those and the fish from the new supplier aren't expected to arrive until next Thursday. So I won't be getting one tomorrow, but that's okay, because next Thursday I am off because it's actually my birthday! I'll be turning 25, woo!

Exciting!!! Happy early birthday!

 

I forgot to post last time, but I will this time. The fish were transferred at 5:30 this evening. Next transfer by 5:30 pm on Monday.

[pappadumplingz]

Looking good as usual! You must be jealous that your mum has a 100 gal tank. Been off nano reef for a while too, combination of a busy weekend, school starting and going to Uluru last week. Nice microscope pics.

[teenyreef]

Exciting!!! Happy early birthday!

 

I forgot to post last time, but I will this time. The fish were transferred at 5:30 this evening. Next transfer by 5:30 pm on Monday.

Good luck with the QT! How are the leathers doing?

[fishfreak0114]

Looking good as usual! You must be jealous that your mum has a 100 gal tank. Been off nano reef for a while too, combination of a busy weekend, school starting and going to Uluru last week. Nice microscope pics.

Thanks! I'm a tad jealous, but she refers to it as our tank and some of the fish are mine so I look at it as having a nice big fish tank that's cleaned for me just like she get to enjoy a reef tank without having to put her hands anywhere near bristleworms

Good luck with the QT! How are the leathers doing?

Thanks! So far it's going smoothly so I'm happy. The new leathers are all doing good and opening up nicely. And the one that wasn't attached hasn't floated away from where I rubber banded it yet! I'm afraid that it's too soon to remove the rubber band though so I'll probably leave it another day or two.

 

The watermelon Favia has continued to grow super quick! It's reached the edge of the epoxy extension yet again. It's either time to frag it or move it because there's no more room for it to grow outwards where it is. I'm tempted to move it, because it's one of my favorites and I want to keep watching it get bigged bigger. I can see if I can wedge the Duncan up there some how. But then I won't know where to put the Favia...

[fishfreak0114]

Happy Thanksgivng!!!

 

I used my camera today to get a few pics. I was little rushed, and still no FTS. I did scrape the glass really good though with intention of taking one tomorrow. I finally pruned the caulerpa and the red macro as both were getting a little out of control.

 

So you can see the size difference between some of them

P8261465_zpsnsjvurmz by orb1915, on Flickr

PA091569_zpskvqqzxkb by orb1915, on Flickr

PA091576_zpslhw3m4ll by orb1915, on Flickr

For whatever reason some are big and some are so tiny still that they're barely visible. When do you guys think the larger ones will start popping off?

 

The acans are looking pretty nice these days.

PA091580_zpsri5lp38s by orb1915, on Flickr

I'd consider getting more next time I make a coral order which will likely be Boxing Day when there are sales and I have Christmas money to get rid of. That's also when I buy most of my supplies for the year. Hopefully I'll be purchasing stuff for a new tank, I've been looking at the IM10's lately after looking at lots here on NR, and my mom said they are a reasonable price for a Christmas a gift so it's looking good.

 

Here's the Favia in all its glory. I think I might put the Duncan where it is and move the Favia up between the leathers. Not sure whether that will work out, but might as well give it a shot.

PA091569f_zpsd0kx4rnz by orb1915, on Flickr

PA091583_zpsasli5tnt by orb1915, on Flickr

 

The dendro

PA101585_zpshvweuhj9 by orb1915, on Flickr

[fishfreak0114]

New FTS!!! I finally used my camera And soon (by the end of the weekend) I should have a video!

 

bc29 9_zpsggz0vmud by orb1915, on Flickr

PA111601_zpsntun7k0p by orb1915, on Flickr

 

Jim!

PA111607_zpsejsatout by orb1915, on Flickr

PA111609_zpsvgbw8iu4 by orb1915, on Flickr

 

This Jacques isn't quite as obnoxious as the others were during feeding time. Usually he doesn't steal food from the corals.

PA111608_zpsh6l4ovxm by orb1915, on Flickr

 

Some Zoas...

PA111627_zpsc8wwdvb3 by orb1915, on Flickr

PA111630_zpsncjpk0eg by orb1915, on Flickr

PA111631_zpsa3peebuc by orb1915, on Flickr

 

A few other corals...

PA111603_zpskkqjtqdc by orb1915, on Flickr

PA111604_zpsdmlpvvoq by orb1915, on Flickr

PA111618_zpsgdh0530p by orb1915, on Flickr

PA111626_zpsyqgujmhd by orb1915, on Flickr

 

This guy has gone from one mouth to three. I hope it splits soon

PA111605_zpsfmjos3h6 by orb1915, on Flickr

 

Here's the worrisome algae. It was particularly bad yesterday so I snapped a pic. A lot less grew today. It is only on coral, caught on them (leather mostly). If it stays in these small amounts I won't worry too much about it

PA111613_zpssestrvnn by orb1915, on Flickr

 

I still can't snap a decent pic of the coral beauty. A bit camera shy

PA121673_zpsgks6p7m2 by orb1915, on Flickr

PA121680_zpsltzh6twp by orb1915, on Flickr

 

The fish went into the new tank today at 5:20pm. Next transfer by 5:20 pm on Saturday. I really need to work out how long they've been in there. I think it will be two weeks Saturday, in which case they'll go into the 10g!

[fishfreak0114]

Here's a video (not a tank video, that will come soon though ) Because I'm not terribly good at using youtube, this may not work, so please let me know. It's a pretty blurry video, my camera didn't deal well with the change in brightness.

 

[fishfreak0114]

Well, here's a quick video of the tank I'm glad that I had something fish tank related to work on, it calms me down. It's been an emotional day, we were at an event for school called "breaking down the walls", where we learn more about the people in our school. I'll admit it, I cried, and cried when I got home, and I'll probably start crying again soon. And it takes a lot to make me cry in front of other people. A LOT. I found out that someone very close to me did/still does self harm and has considered suicide. And LOTS of other things. And it brought lots of things about myself to the surface that I try not to think about.

 

[fishfreak0114]

The QT fish are in the 10g! If all goes well, they'll go into the DT in 3 weeks (I've decided so shorten my QT time). Fingers crossed that this goes smooth and they don't have to stay in QT while I go on vacation.