Snow's Bridge of Flowers

[FlowerMama]

I don't know what they're called, Someone told me it wasn't aptasia but it's not a mojano either. But I have 2 on my rock w the rose coral and its baby and a beautiful pink nem so I'm afraid I'm gonna have to try to zap them. I've used aptasia Rx and it's come back. GOOD LUCK!!!

[Snow_Phoenix]

I don't know what they're called, Someone told me it wasn't aptasia but it's not a mojano either. But I have 2 on my rock w the rose coral and its baby and a beautiful pink nem so I'm afraid I'm gonna have to try to zap them. I've used aptasia Rx and it's come back. GOOD LUCK!!!

 

Ah, no worries - hopefully I'll come across an ID someday. I too realized it wasn't an aiptasia or mojano - but it looked so familiar, and then I remembered you had this nem (albeit a larger version of it) in one of your tanks. Speaking of your tank, I need to catch up on your threads. Hope Gertie is doing okay - I miss my Freya deeply. Wished I hadn't made the choice of leaving her in the store, where she eventually died out of possible stress. I was genuinely thinking whether I should convert my nano to another mini mantis tank, but I am a bit fond of having ornamental inverts, and it isn't possible to mix the two in a single tank sitting.

 

As for getting rid of the nem - have you tried concentrated lemon/lime juice? Not necessarily a readily available one from the LFS (Joe's Juice) but freshly squeezed juice. I tried it once on a particularly pesky aiptasia and it worked. Of course, you can super-glue the crevice/hole where the nem's hiding at shut too.

 

Thanks for the well wishes.

[Snow_Phoenix]

Merry Christmas everyone. I am back in the hospital, waiting to get my wounds dressed. It's a painful Christmas, but at least I am healing. ???

[WV Reefer]

I hope 2017 will offer you some relief!

[Snow_Phoenix]

I hope 2017 will offer you some relief!

 

Thank you VW Reefer! Blessed belated Christmas and best wishes for the year ahead to you and your family too.

[FlowerMama]

Wishing you more health of course! That's pretty much all I'm wishing as I've had so many friends' families having losses this year. I've never seen anything like it. Sometimes you just have to go back to basic needs to be happy.

[Snow_Phoenix]

Wishing you more health of course! That's pretty much all I'm wishing as I've had so many friends' families having losses this year. I've never seen anything like it. Sometimes you just have to go back to basic needs to be happy.

 

Thank you Flower. Wishing you a wonderful belated Christmas and a merry year ahead too. I understand about the losses - I lost two of my previous high school teachers this year as well, which came as quite a rude shock to all my ex-schoolmates. Hopefully the next year will be far better.

[Snow_Phoenix]

20 days post-surgery - I'm doing far better than expected. Two wounds have healed almost completely, one almost there, but three more are still bleeding through the bandages. Have to pop in the hospital every 2 to 3 days to get the wounds cleaned and re-dressed. At least it's less painful now, and the gory crater in my left arm has almost leveled up thanks to a high-protein diet, high Vit. C intake and a couple of soothing prayers for some inner peace.

 

Tank-wise - the DT is covered in grubby diatoms and a gazillion pods. There's so much life in the rocks - I've spotted tiny striped filter-feeding crabs, spaghetti worms, tube worms, sponges - you name it, these rocks have it.

 

I'm still not strong enough to lift the rocks and swap out the sand - the surgery weakened both my arm muscles considerably. But with some time and exercise, I should be able to lift and then clean the tank.

 

QT tank has a few late birthday + Christmas combo gifts from my dad:

 

 

1. Baby Clarkii clownfish

 

 

2. Male White Spotted Nem Shrimp + Bicolor Hammer

 

 

3. Juvi Male Saron Shrimp.

 

 

4. Neon Green GSP frag + War Coral frag.

 

The other older survivors include: Cowrie snails, turbo snails, porcelain nem crab, Indo-Pacific nem, feather duster worms, toadstool leather, soft finger leather, scattered green Paly polyps.

 

It's not much, but my corals/fish actually appear happier in the QT. I'm not sure if it's because 1/3 of the QT is occupied by a giant blue basket full of Chaeto, but they actually look healthy and lively in there. Hmmm.

 

Anyhow, the 10G will probably be only cleaned out either end of Jan or early Feb. The cycle has finished, but I'll let the rocks sit in the water and mature a little while longer. I'm in no rush.

[Snow_Phoenix]

I want to share something with all of you. I have had several other small come-and-go mini marine tanks over the past 4 years. One particularly notable tank around 2 years ago was my slightly less than 5G Pico tank which had a mini maxi carpet nem, clam, macro, corals and a host of inverts. It was strictly a NO FISH tank.

 

I was scrolling through my phone's old pictures and here's were the last few snapshots I took of it:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This tank, was actually the result of breaking down a bigger tank - which was split into two smaller tanks. Therefore, only the fresh sand in this tank was cycled the old-fashioned way - but the rest of the livestock were moved and added completely to the new tank in one sitting. No, you didn't misread that.

 

The tank never crashed. It thrived. For a few good months, until my parents -at that time- made a lot of noise because I had easily 7 to 8 aquariums around the house, stashed in the most inconvenient of areas - including the dining room, on a study desktop etc.

 

So I sold this tank to a lady and her engineer husband for $800, which was dirt cheap. Everything, lock, stock and barrel.

 

I told her the tank can't hold a fish, and was perfect the way it was because there wasn't a fish in it.

 

Obviously, she didn't listen to me and purchased 3 damsels and tossed it in there, before uploading a pic of her efforts and posting it on Whatsapp. I wasn't amused, but it was no longer my tank. Still, I wonder till this day if any of the original inhabitants have survived.

 

Just food for thought because I'm horribly nostalgic all of a sudden. -sigh-

[FlowerMama]

Good to hear you're healing better than expected. That's wonderful news. Would probiotics help the healing any? I just read on a probiotic juice I got that drinking it will help reset my stomach, though there's nothing wrong w/ my stomach but occasionally I have elevated liver enzyme & just found out I have gallstones & will have outpatient surgery at some point here soon.

 

You had some nice pieces in that tank. How many gallons and they put 3 damsels in? Yeah, I'm sure that didn't go well. I like the bubble coral there. I want a bubble coral and yellow fiji leather to finish out this 40g tank.

[Snow_Phoenix]

Good to hear you're healing better than expected. That's wonderful news. Would probiotics help the healing any? I just read on a probiotic juice I got that drinking it will help reset my stomach, though there's nothing wrong w/ my stomach but occasionally I have elevated liver enzyme & just found out I have gallstones & will have outpatient surgery at some point here soon.

 

You had some nice pieces in that tank. How many gallons and they put 3 damsels in? Yeah, I'm sure that didn't go well. I like the bubble coral there. I want a bubble coral and yellow fiji leather to finish out this 40g tank.

 

Oh, I've heard about probiotics helping the digestive system - I used to be on them during college - but I'm not sure if they would help with the healing process. And I'm sorry to hear about the gallstones - those will definitely have to be removed surgically - it's unavoidable unfortunately.

 

Thank you - it was slightly less than 5G which is why I never did a fish in it. A YCG or TSB might have been alright in there, but anything larger...no. I'm not sure how long the tank lasted under the woman's care - I lost touch with her after a few weeks. Oooh, do get a Bubble. They're beautiful coral - make sure you get a nice, fluffy one that's preferably been in the LFS for some time. Stable bubbles last very long, based on my experience.

[uwharrie]

glad to hear you are on the mend.

[Snow_Phoenix]

glad to hear you are on the mend.

 

Thank you, uwharrie.

[Snow_Phoenix]

There is a very nice selection of hitchikers in the tank. Here's a rather crappy pic of one of the filter-feeding crabs I mentioned a few days ago:

 

 

There was also a brown mithrax crab picking algae off the back wall - I had a pic of it but accidently deleted the pic from my phone last night. Definitely an interesting selection of crabs.

 

As for the tank itself - the sandbed is clogged with detritus, cyano and GHA. My guess is there is a major nutrient buildup from all the decaying/dead material sloughing off the LR, and the tank is overdue for a proper WC. I've been practicing lifting to strengthen my arms, and I think my right arm is strong enough to slowly lift the rock - one piece at a time - out of the water.

 

Doing the WC manually, of course, is a tougher challenge. Plus I do need to clean out the back chambers, replace the dying Chaeto in there with the fresh/healthy Chaeto from the QT and clean out the dirty skimmer. It'll take the whole day, so I'm thinking of doing it on Monday or Tuesday since I'm visiting another specialist at a different hospital on Sunday (Sunday is a working day here, following Islamic state law regulations).

 

SW news aside, my major filter for the Discus tank failed around three days ago. Worse still, the backup filter was only working at only 50% capacity and making this awful grinding sound - like it was straining to compensate for the lack of the primary filter. And to make my day even more complicated, this had to occur during late Monday evening, whereby all the LFS were closed, and I could not head down to my two most trusted LFSes because they both close on Tuesdays. So I had to throw in a cheap airstone and pray for the best.

 

Thankfully, my losses were minimal - but I still felt the blow. I lost my juvi yellow discus - the sweet little guy I've been raising since May last year.

 

As soon as Wed came about, I got into my car, drove 15km all the way to my LFS despite the difficulty I encountered in steering (no arm strength, remember?), and managed to get a much needed new filter. Also purchased some delicious frozen bloodworms for the fish, filter floss, carbon, fish food - and a few interesting critters - including a new Discus pair since my Discus hierarchy is terribly unbalanced after the death of Yellow.

 

Here were my acquisitions after I slowly did minor WC on the tank :

 

 

After settling in:

 

 

 

Other interesting additions:

 

 

 

There was also this lovely giant Banjo catfish - a wonderful collector's fish for people like me - but it came at a whooping $$$ so I averted my gaze and walked away lol.

 

Malayan Bamboo Shrimp (currently in breeder box - about to be moved into separate shrimp habitat):

 

 

 

As for some of my old timers - I am still keeping my eels, which have grown quite chunky and thick:

 

 

And lastly, my Kuhli loach army is still going very strong. These guys ferret through every nook and cranny - have to thank them for the effort since the tank is quite clean due to their persistent scramble for food morsels.

 

 

That's it for now, I guess.

[GunslingerGirl]

I want to set up another FW tank and do discus someday. Such gorgeous fish.

 

That is a chunky eel!

 

Yay for healing arms! Keep working hard and you'll be there in no time!

[Snow_Phoenix]

I want to set up another FW tank and do discus someday. Such gorgeous fish.

 

That is a chunky eel!

 

Yay for healing arms! Keep working hard and you'll be there in no time!

 

Yeah, but make sure the tank is 'tall' though. And yep, they're beauties alright.

 

Thank you! He's grown so much over the past 7 months.

 

Thanks once again! And hope you're well on your way to recovery too!

[GunslingerGirl]

 

Yeah, but make sure the tank is 'tall' though. And yep, they're beauties alright.

 

Thank you! He's grown so much over the past 7 months.

 

Thanks once again! And hope you're well on your way to recovery too!

 

I lifted a horse (pony) leg in anatomy today. It hurt. lol I don't plan on doing it again. That's what my lab mates are for, right? But hey, the x-rays and an arthroscopy was clean. So gotta wait it out.

 

I want a giant tank for my future office. It'll give the cats something to look at. That's my excuse anyway

[Snow_Phoenix]

Don't strain that arm too much! Glad to know the tests came back alright.

 

You could try doing a simple planted setup. Just get some hardy plants and moss, some nice branching driftwood and mess around with the aquascape. I am thinking of getting another 16G set up under the discus tank once the marine tank is underway. Will probably keep either a Rainbow snakehead species tank or some other interesting fish.

[vlangel]

Just catching on your thread Snow. I am glad to hear that surgery went well and that your arm is healing, even if a bit slow. Forward progress is good since its in the right direction. Your discus are beautiful. If I ever do a fresh water tank again it will be dicus and neons in my(now empty) 30 gallon XH as a planted tank.

[FlowerMama]

Pretty discus! Glad to hear you're continuing to heal.

[Snow_Phoenix]

Just catching on your thread Snow. I am glad to hear that surgery went well and that your arm is healing, even if a bit slow. Forward progress is good since its in the right direction. Your discus are beautiful. If I ever do a fresh water tank again it will be dicus and neons in my(now empty) 30 gallon XH as a planted tank.

 

Hi Dawn, so glad to hear from you. I need to catch up on your lovely seahorse thread too - I miss seeing that pretty white-pinto one. Hope all your ponies are doing well.

 

Thank you for the well wishes. I just got my wounds re-dressed again today, but the bandages are still soaked with blood. The only upside is that I'm now getting used to the pain, so it doesn't hurt as much when the nurses clean out the wounds.

 

And good choice on going with a Discus tank! Be sure to post some pics once it's up and running.

 

One word of caution though - discus, even though they look gentle, are still cichlids and therefore naturally predatory fish. I've kept my Discus with Ticto barbs before and the barbs were eaten. Tiny tetra species might not stand a chance, but larger tetra species such as Congo tetras, black skirts, ruby skirts, bleeding hearts, red eyes etc. are compatible. Anything the size of a neon should be avoided unless you wish for them to become a discus buffet. Just my two cents based on previous experience.

 

Pretty discus! Glad to hear you're continuing to heal.

 

Thank you so much, Flower! How is your father doing? Has his condition improved? I'm keeping you and your family in my thoughts and prayers.

[FlowerMama]

Thank you so much, Flower! How is your father doing? Has his condition improved? I'm keeping you and your family in my thoughts and prayers.

 

He is doing better than I thought when I visited the other day so I think he's going to be fine. I think home health or some speech therapy is to start next week but his speech is doing rather well. Thanks for asking. I'm also glad he didn't have any kind of paralysis in his arms or legs.

[vlangel]

Thanks for the tip on the discus, I did not know that. I have seen them with angel fish too, is that a good choice? I know angels can do well in the slightly acidic water which is what I heard discus should have.

 

I should warn you that I lost Boaz, my male seahorse right after the new year. It was tough but I am thankful the girls weathered the tank problem.

[Snow_Phoenix]

Thank you so much, Flower! How is your father doing? Has his condition improved? I'm keeping you and your family in my thoughts and prayers.

 

He is doing better than I thought when I visited the other day so I think he's going to be fine. I think home health or some speech therapy is to start next week but his speech is doing rather well. Thanks for asking. I'm also glad he didn't have any kind of paralysis in his arms or legs.

 

That's good news. Just be careful and monitor him carefully over the next month or two. My grandfather had a mini stroke once and a blood clot in his brain that only became evident months later, when he suddenly collapsed in church. He was rushed to the hospital and was declared dead, but miraculously came back to life and lived until a ripe old age of 88. (a very rare oddity, but we only knew he had died and come back when he wrote a personal note in his will to his sons - my father and his brother - which was evident after his passing).

 

It's good to know your father has retained mobility and speech with minimal or no issue. I hope you're taking good care of yourself too - hopefully that gallbladder stones get resolved in a jiffy as well. -hugs-

 

Thanks for the tip on the discus, I did not know that. I have seen them with angel fish too, is that a good choice? I know angels can do well in the slightly acidic water which is what I heard discus should have.

 

I should warn you that I lost Boaz, my male seahorse right after the new year. It was tough but I am thankful the girls weathered the tank problem.

 

You're welcome, Vlangel. And yes, I learnt it the hard way. I had my babies with neons once - the neons were all eaten come evening. I still do feed my discus feeder guppy fry from time to time, just as a treat.

 

I have seen setups whereby people mix discus with angels as well. Personally I've never mixed both, but I see nothing wrong with it. Some hardcore discus keepers disagree though because Discus and angelfish come from different regions, and therefore need different requirements. But the difference between these requirements are very slight, and both fish share an almost similar biotope, so I think it should be alright if you choose a nice setup that balances the needs of both species equally. If you're getting angels though, make sure they're from a healthy source - angels are more prone to disease than discus if they're bred in poor conditions. Hope this helps.

 

So sorry to hear about Boaz. Glad the girls are okay though.

 

Ponies are so sensitive. I still miss my dragon girls. I truly wish I could try keeping pipes again, but I'm in no position or condition to manage such high-demanding livestock. Someday in the future, when I am much, much better and more informed, I shall try again. But not anytime soon.

[Snow_Phoenix]

Few quick updates:

 

I didn't get a chance to swap out my sandbed in the nano. I had to undergo another emergency minor surgery on Saturday morning - a new cyst/abscess had formed right under my stitches on the chest. The swelling was over 1" after 3 days of its appearance, and my surgeon had to lance it and clear out the infection. Good news is, the other parts of my body have healed up really well except the left arm, which is still raw and bleeding. It might take another month to close and stop bleeding.

 

I'm slowly regaining strength and my right arm is strong enough to lift up the rocks from the aquarium. So I'm planning on cleaning out the tank either today or tomorrow. My extended relatives are coming this Friday, and the nano is in horrible condition - so I might as well get that silly sandbed swapped out ASAP.

 

Here's the cyano/GHA on the sandbed in the tank now:

 

 

On the upside, I have these two duster worms that are flourishing amidst the muck and actually growing:

 

 

I will be gently uprooting the worms and keeping them in the QT while I sand-swap.

 

My green War coral is actually growing and encrusting on its plug in the QT.

 

 

Oh, and guess what I found at the night market? Some delicious fresh fish roe for my fishies.

 

 

Here's to hoping nothing else outward will happen this week, and I'll finally get the nano back on track. I'm taking brandon429's advice on sand-swapping, and praying there won't be a cycle as expected. I'll see how my shrimp and a few odd-coral do in the tank first, before shifting my clownfish in there. Cheers.