Dawn's pony garden.

[JBM]

2 hours ago, teenyreef said:

...well that escalated quickly 

indeed it did

[vlangel]

8 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

So many blennies! I love them all! Tank looks great too. Those barnacle blennies are adorable. 

I love all the blennies too but the barnacle blennies are my favorite.  Thanks Snow in regards to the tank.  I am pretty happy with it though.

[Snow_Phoenix]

4 hours ago, vlangel said:

I love all the blennies too but the barnacle blennies are my favorite.  Thanks Snow in regards to the tank.  I am pretty happy with it though.

I've never seen a barnacle blenny on sale in my country. We usually import fang blennies, bicolor blennies and algae blennies. Occasionally we'll get something rarer like a TSB, two-spot, segmented blenny or starry blenny. We used to import Pictus and tinier clown blenny species, but I haven't seen one in my LFS for almost 3 years now. I love Pictus blennies. That was the first ever blenny I owned in my first ever reef tank in 2011. Very beautiful and funny fish. 

[vlangel]

8 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

I've never seen a barnacle blenny on sale in my country. We usually import fang blennies, bicolor blennies and algae blennies. Occasionally we'll get something rarer like a TSB, two-spot, segmented blenny or starry blenny. We used to import Pictus and tinier clown blenny species, but I haven't seen one in my LFS for almost 3 years now. I love Pictus blennies. That was the first ever blenny I owned in my first ever reef tank in 2011. Very beautiful and funny fish. 

I am not familiar with the Pictus blenny but the species as a whole seem to have the market on personality. 😆

[Lula_Mae]

Tank and porch both look great! Shame on Linus lol. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

1 hour ago, vlangel said:

I am not familiar with the Pictus blenny but the species as a whole seem to have the market on personality. 😆

Indeed they do! I've seen the Pictus pop up from time to time on DD. Not sure about the price though.

[vlangel]

On 10/1/2018 at 7:12 AM, Lula_Mae said:

Tank and porch both look great! Shame on Linus lol. 

Thanks Lula!  We need to enjoy the porch these nice days since they are numbered.

 

Linus was a bad boy in the seahorse tank but he seems ok in the QT with the barnacle blennies.  A 10 gallon is small for a linear blenny but their is micro algae as I get rock from the seahorse garden.  Also I am feeding emerald entree to meet his needs for greens.

[vlangel]

I have some sad news which is also worrisome.  Both bangaii cardinals disappeared.  I have moved rock, algae and coral but can not find their bodies.  Of course I am sad about their loss, and perplexed.  They had seemed to be doing well and then to just disappear is odd.  I am sure they died which is why I am worried.  Dead fish bodies will certainly fuel pathogenic bacteria which could hurt the seahorses.  I am doing water changes every day to attempt to dilute the density of pathogens.  I do not know if the nassarius/bee snails or peppermint shrimp found them.  I am at a loss but I sure hope my ponies weather this crisis.

[vlangel]

Today is the 2 year anniversary of the start of this tank!  Wow, that is hard to believe.

 

Yesterday was the 4 year anniversary of me getting Eve, one of my first seahorses, also hard to believe.

 

There has been a lot of learning curve in that time and I am not done learning everything about seahorses yet!

[Pjanssen]

It is perplexing to lose fish without a trace, Its happened to me a couple of times. All I can figure is we have a very efficient clean up crew. But PJs are much larger than my little gobies that disappeared, and I lost mine weeks apart. Can't imagine what could have gotten to two larger fish at the same time. Hope all goes well with the ponies

[vlangel]

1 hour ago, Pjanssen said:

It is perplexing to lose fish without a trace, Its happened to me a couple of times. All I can figure is we have a very efficient clean up crew. But PJs are much larger than my little gobies that disappeared, and I lost mine weeks apart. Can't imagine what could have gotten to two larger fish at the same time. Hope all goes well with the ponies

It was the bangaii cardinals that disappeared, not the PJs.  The bangaiis were actually very small, much smaller than the little pajama.

[debbeach13]

Sorry for your loss. But Happy Anniversary! 

[vlangel]

3 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Sorry for your loss. But Happy Anniversary! 

Thank you!  So far so good.  If the ponies weather this unscathed I will consider myself very fortunate. 

[Christopher Marks]

Happy anniversary to the seahorse garden! 🎊

 

Sorry to to hear about the cardinals, I know you’re doing all you can! Water changes is a great move, better safe than sorry. Wishing them well ❤️

[vlangel]

14 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

Happy anniversary to the seahorse garden! 🎊

 

Sorry to to hear about the cardinals, I know you’re doing all you can! Water changes is a great move, better safe than sorry. Wishing them well ❤️

Thanks CM.  A good thing is my cuc, with 5 ever ravenous peppermint shrimp, 3 bee snails and 3-4 nassarius snails, I doubt that there could be much left of the cardinals now.  I will keep doing the daily WCs for another 5 days or so and by then I will be pretty sure that I will be safe.  The ponies appreciate your sentiment. 😊

[Sharbuckle]

Whoa! 2 years. Went by so fast. Way to go Dawn. Great job. Sorry to hear about the cardinals.

[JBM]

2 years is a fabulously long time! YAY!

 

Keep doing water changes and run carbon. Lots of carbon

[vlangel]

22 hours ago, Sharbuckle said:

Whoa! 2 years. Went by so fast. Way to go Dawn. Great job. Sorry to hear about the cardinals.

Yes, it did go by fast.  Cardinals are a fish that I often have trouble with at the start.  Once I have had them for a month they seem to live forever but getting them past that can be tricky.  I will probably try again.

[vlangel]

12 hours ago, JBM said:

2 years is a fabulously long time! YAY!

 

Keep doing water changes and run carbon. Lots of carbon

Thanks JBM.  Carbon is awesome but it does not stop pathohenic bacteria from taking a foothold.  Only getting rid of the substance where the bacteria is growing helps with that.  That is what makes seahorses a bit tricky to keep compared to other fish.  Other marine fish are vulnerable to the ammonia given off by a dead comrade but are not so much susceptible to the bacteria growing on the dead comrade's body.  Seahorses are susceptible to both and it does not take much pathogenic bacteria to overwhelm the seahorses' immune system.  One piece of rotting mysis will do it.

[Subsea]

I love the school of seven Pajama Cardinals that I put into my 120G new build, because of your notice of their social etiquette.   I had previously put five that were aquacultured, but my resident Bangha killed them all.  I was able to remove this 8 year old fish and put him with the Blue Devils in the 25 year old tank.  So with schooling Pajamas, I now have a school of tiny hippos.  The social hierarchy in pajamas is very kind.  

 

The third picture shows my favorite growout tank that is doubling as a refugium.  Last picture shows bully banghai with blue devils.  He is holding his own just fine.  No body messes with him.

 

 

[vlangel]

23 hours ago, Subsea said:

I love the school of seven Pajama Cardinals that I put into my 120G new build, because of your notice of their social etiquette.   I had previously put five that were aquacultured, but my resident Bangha killed them all.  I was able to remove this 8 year old fish and put him with the Blue Devils in the 25 year old tank.  So with schooling Pajamas, I now have a school of tiny hippos.  The social hierarchy in pajamas is very kind.  

 

The third picture shows my favorite growout tank that is doubling as a refugium.  Last picture shows bully banghai with blue devils.  He is holding his own just fine.  No body messes with him.

 

 

You have a very nice mixture of fish.  Lots of color with the tangs,  and dwarf angels.  I like the schooling concept too..

 

Its nice that you have multiple tanks to move fish around when they aren't playing nice with their roommates.

 

I see you have some mollies in your grow out tank.  Are they mixed in with marine fish or are they the only fish in that tank?  I have wondered about keeping some pretty sailfin mollies with the seahorses.

[Subsea]

I have fourth & fifth generation mollies in outside growout tanks.  Mollies would do well with your ponies.  They are great dither fish as well as outstanding herbivores.  With Damsels, it would not go well for the mollies.

 

Bully came from the macro growout tank with the mollies.  He ignored the adults and eat the babies along with the amphipods in same tank.  This growout tank has thousands of amphipods and is used to seed amphipods into live rock, similar to rotating pod condos from refugium to display.   

 

PS:  mature amphipods were bigger than mollie fry.  When feeding flake food, amphipods would eat in the open with adult mollies grazing next to them.

[Subsea]

I am still laughing about “multiple tank syndrome”.  

 

Your display tank is inspiring.  TLC makes the difference.

[vlangel]

3 hours ago, Subsea said:

I am still laughing about “multiple tank syndrome”.  

 

Your display tank is inspiring.  TLC makes the difference.

All I know is I am glad that there are no reality shows about us aquarists.  We would either be portrayed as fish tank hoarders or crazy folks who plug too many things into 1 outlet! (or maybe I am the only aquarist who does those things, LOL.  I do at least have a dedicated circuit, if that makes me a little less crazy!)

[vlangel]

I took a good look at all my new blennies and they are all filling out nicely and none of them look skinny.  I feed emerald entree so that I know that they are getting their greens, enriched brine shrimp and mysis.  They all seem content in their enviroments too.