Sleeping with the Fishes [a pe(s)t project]

[cherokee2871]

That's gorgeous man

[holy carp]

That's gorgeous man

 

Thank you.

 

I'm afraid that elegance is outgrowing the space pretty quickly, so I am working on figuring out if I can manage another home (2nd tank) or if I have to sell it.

[cherokee2871]

I vote it gets its own tank! It would definitely be a great center piece.

[metrokat]

I missed the livestream, next time text me.

[holy carp]

I missed the livestream, next time text me.

The livestream should automatically get archived. I think it's still viewable there as a regular YouTube video now. I'll notify you next time so you can watch it in real time.

 

I have to see if I can get it to work more smoothly. Instalively crapped out after they upgraded their software, so this was with an app called Live on YouTube... looked a little digitized to me.

[holy carp]

So I got a little tail spot blenny on Monday. I always thought they were so cute. Well he was a bit shy and spend most of his time hiding by the drain. Last night I saw him there and he was wearing his white camo spots... I think Bruce Jenner may have been harrassing a bit, but I didn't see a lot of aggression.

 

This morning, I noticed my dendro was fatter than ever... Yup, you guessed it.

 

 

 

Never even got to give him a proper name...

 

This was the only pic I had gotten of him when he first went in the tank after acclimation...

[Mariaface]

Oh, no!

[metrokat]

Bloody hell!

[cherokee2871]

That's horrible. Saw a video on You Tube of a dinner plate sized mushroom eating a huge Blue Hippo Tang. That really sucks.

[xilez]

Sorry to hear! Blennies have such fun personalities.

 

 

Can we get an updated FTS? Would love to see how your corals have grown

[holy carp]

To make things worse, I came back a little later only to find the dendro chews with its mouth open... gross.

 

Sorry it took some adjusting for the camera:

Pretty cool how you can actually see the inside of the coral at some points.

 

I'll get a new FTS up as soon as I clean my glass. Will shoot for Saturday.

[Mariaface]

Wow.

 

It's probably trying to avoid a bacterial infection from eating too much at once?

[holy carp]

Not sure, really. The mouth was closed for a while and then opened up pretty abruply. I had filmed it for 20 minutes before that footage posted above, since it looked like it was doing something. I turned the camera off and looked back after 2 minutes and the mouth was agape. That lasted about 5-7 minutes and then it closed up again. (by the end of the video the mouth was almost closed again, and it was completely shut about one minute thereafter)

 

I have a feeling it might have been trying to rearrange its meal to digest more effectively. I am really curious to see how it looks when I get home this evening.

[metrokat]

That's horrible. Saw a video on You Tube of a dinner plate sized mushroom eating a huge Blue Hippo Tang. That really sucks.

Elephant ear mushroom. Stay the hell away from it.

[pappadumplingz]

Damn that sucks

[holy carp]

The irony is I wanted a dendrophyllia for a long time, but put it off because I thought it would eat Lenny, my little clownfish. But eventually, I would see Lenny be so bold as to steal mysis away from the dendro, so it didn't even occur to me that the little blenny would be at risk. Sadly, I don't think it was because he was weak or dying. It's true he hadn't found his stride in the tank yet, and was still skittish and timid, but he had his favorite place already next to the drain. He was chillin' there last night. So I'm wondering if this was just a stroke of bad luck or if I shouldn't chance it with another.

[pappadumplingz]

The coral must have a pretty powerful sting if it was able to take down a relatively healthy blenny. I guess the clownfish would be able to handle the sting, since it can host some corals with really powerful stings.

[holy carp]

I think dendros are super sticky, so if the fish doesn't have much slime coat or isn't strong it can get caught. I don't believe they have much of a sting, since they don't seem to hurt other corals at all.

 

But, yesterday, my day went from bad to worse.

 

Came home to find my timed topoff dumped all of my reservoir into my tank. Long story - moving it to an apex outlet after this. Or course this happened with a nearly full reservoir, so it was probably close to 18 quarts. Salinity got down to 1.021, and something of a mess on the floor. Luckily, in my sloppiness, I had a pile of towels under the sump which seems to have collected much of the liquid, but there's some in the hardwood now.

 

Most corals were closed, but not as shocked as I feared, and the fish and other inverts didn't really seem to be affected. The dendro had retracted its tentacles a bit, but mostly remained fat dumb and happy with its digestion.

 

Argh! Did a quick drain and replaced with 1.5 gallons at 1.040 to bring the salinity up to 1.023. Then a bit more after a few hours to come up to 1.024. I'll let it get back up to 1.025 through evaporation. Fortunately, no apparent casualties, just a mess.

 

On the bright side, the extra dilution/draining/water change should help reduce phosphates.

 

Do bad things really come in threes? What's next...

[Mariaface]

Hope everything continues to pull through

[holy carp]

Everything is stable and looks as well as it did previously, thankfully. I'm going to have to set up alarms and fail-safes if anything like this happens again.

 

[metrokat]

Argh. SPS don't like salinity changes, up or down. Hopefully you caught the problem early enough that they won't react badly.

[debbeach13]

Sorry to read about the ATO fail. I hope every thing is OK.

[holy carp]

Argh. SPS don't like salinity changes, up or down. Hopefully you caught the problem early enough that they won't react badly.

 

I was afraid of that. PE was back this morning on my acros. My montis is what I'm worrying about. They (especially the sunset) haven't been looking too great lately. That sunset even has a few spots that have begun necrosis over the last week. Not rapid, but I can't figure out what parameters are off.

[Mariaface]

Is that the frag I have? The little guy's polyps are loving life, but it hasn't been encrusting like it should... Plus, it did not enjoy being right under the LEDs, even in the bottom third of the tank. Staying on the frag tree until I can trust it

[holy carp]

No, the one you have was the rainbow monti. That one seems to be doing fine in my tank for now. The sunset monti had encrusted over the top of a rock but unfortunately lost PE in the center section and the pink skin turned purple. Over months, the purple slowly spread out and the PE remained around the perimeter. With recent air exposure during algae treatment, I think it was too much stress and it has started losing some tissue. Wimp...

 

I've been wondering if it could be due to high phosphates. I don't have high phosphates in absolute terms (0.05ppm) but they may be high relative to my nitrate level (don't register on test). Otherwise I'm at a loss on that one. I'm going to add some new phosguard and carbon this weekend and cross my fingers. Maybe I'll even throw in a polyfilter. I found a new one lying around during my emergency cleanup yesterday.