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Innovative Marine Aquariums

Dawn's pony garden.


vlangel

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On 9/13/2018 at 6:20 PM, Muffin said:

Wow, your tank is beautiful. The gorgonians are awesome!

Thank you Muffin for the kind words.  The seahorses really like the gorgs

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The beautiful klausewitz blenny I bought at the lfs was not playing well with the other blennies.  I caught it with its jaws around the neck of the linear blenny and was shaking it, like dogs do when they catch groundhogs!  It was also harassing the striped blennies so I put it in a baby fish keeper net for time out.  Today I went back to the lfs to see if I could trade it for a fish worth less.  To their credit they gave me a refund minus a 20% handling fee which pleased me.  I came home with 2 bangaii cardinalfish instead.  

 

That means when the fish in the QT are ready to move into the seahorse garden, it will have 3 seahorses, 2 pajama cardinals, 2 bangaii cardinals, 2 striped blennies, 2 barnacle blennies and 1 linear blenny.  The barnacle blennies are pretty little (guppy size) and I don't trust Eve not to eat them so I am thinking of moving them into the shrimp chalet first, until they grow some more.  Even so the seahorse garden should be a lot more active and busy!

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Wow that klausewich sounds like a bad operator! I hope the bangais do better. 

 

I loved mine but they did a Highlander and killed each other off over a couple months until there was only one. 

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2 hours ago, teenyreef said:

Wow that klausewich sounds like a bad operator! I hope the bangais do better. 

 

I loved mine but they did a Highlander and killed each other off over a couple months until there was only one. 

There are the 2 pajama cardinals so maybe that will offset the 'Highlander' mindset, I hope.  I have had a pair of bangaiis before and they did not kill each other off.

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3 minutes ago, Pjanssen said:

No damage to the Linear Blenny? That's good.

No amazingly he did not have any marks on him after being man-handled, (or should I say blenny-handled 😂).  He was a bit gun shy about coming out in the open for a day or two however.  He is fine now.

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Yesterday I moved all the QT fish into the seahorse garden, except the barnacle blennies who looked like they could be an expensive fish dinner for the ponies.  They all seemed to have settled in very comfortably and the tank looks nice....more activity but not hyper or crowded.  The seahorses do not look nervous about their new room mates.  I will be doing more WCs than usual for the next month or so to hopefully flush the water column of dangerous pathogens that the ponies have not been exposed to.

 

I have named the new fish now that they seem to have settled in well.  The bangaii cardinals are Bamboo and Moo-shoo.  The striped blennies are Sir Lancelot and Sir Galahad.  The linear blenny is Linus..

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The ponies are eating well even with their new roommates darting around to get their share.  In fact I would guess that less food is getting wasted since the fish find the mysis that the ponies spit out or swish out of the feeding bowl.  I can definitely tell that the tank has experienced a change in bioload however.  The skimmer crudded up faster and there were more bubbles.  Also the glass has more film algae.  I may need more snails.  We'll see how it goes when I go to 5 WCs a week from 3.

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I have decided that more frequent smaller meals are going to be better.  Both the blennies and seahorses should benefit from 3 small meals rather than 1 or 2 larger meals.  I have added prasipro to the tank since I saw some scratching and twitching in the fish.  I am happy to say that has stopped.  I add Seachem Stability to the tank with each WC.  So far so good.

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“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”

I'm going to copy your deep sand bed wall! I had one in the beginning of the 100 days tank when I thought I was going to have yellow headed jawfish, but I change it when I re-scaped. I like yours so much better. The wall face has such nice growth, and the top just flows so nicely. 

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3 hours ago, Pjanssen said:

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”

I'm going to copy your deep sand bed wall! I had one in the beginning of the 100 days tank when I thought I was going to have yellow headed jawfish, but I change it when I re-scaped. I like yours so much better. The wall face has such nice growth, and the top just flows so nicely. 

Thank you Penny for the compliment.  One thing I wished I had done is epoxied the wall together before putting it in the tank.  Mine has too many holes for the sand to escape out of, so I am constantly scooping sand from the shallow area and moving it into the deep area.

 

I may yet re-do that and correct it by filling in holes.  That will probably happen when I get ambitious enough to change my plumbing and overflow box.  Ha ha, it might be awhile!

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1 hour ago, vlangel said:

Thank you Penny for the compliment.  One thing I wished I had done is epoxied the wall together before putting it in the tank.  Mine has too many holes for the sand to escape out of, so I am constantly scooping sand from the shallow area and moving it into the deep area.

 

I may yet re-do that and correct it by filling in holes.  That will probably happen when I get ambitious enough to change my plumbing and overflow box.  Ha ha, it might be awhile!

I can't remember, what did you make the walls out of? I really like your natural drop off!! 

 

Do you think it would work if you put in a tupperware container to contain/elevate the sand? and place rocks around it to hide the container.

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1 hour ago, Orangutran said:

I can't remember, what did you make the walls out of? I really like your natural drop off!! 

 

Do you think it would work if you put in a tupperware container to contain/elevate the sand? and place rocks around it to hide the container.

The wall is just the large dense rock that I had been using.  When I built the wall it looked pretty tight but putting sand in (especially since I used fine sand) 'told the tale'...there were holes where sand could go through and does!

 

I considered using a plastic container of some sort but then I was afraid excess mysis could be trapped between the container and the rock, (causing the ponies to get a bacterial infection).  I felt that there was less chance of that with just rock, although even there I believe there is some risk.  I do like the natural drop off too, even with its flaws.  To me it looks so authentic and I like having 2 levels in the tank.

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Tonight I was doing my turkey blasting of the rockwork and was almost ready to turn on the powerheads when I saw a blenny head sticking out of the powerhead.  Wow, I almost had blended blenny, yikes!  Now there is netting blocking his entrance.

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1 hour ago, teenyreef said:

Whew! The newer Ecotech pumps have a soft start feature. The propeller runs in reverse half a revolution then pauses for a moment so any fish can get out 🙂

I might have to consider those in the future.

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1 hour ago, Christopher Marks said:

The new fish are beautiful @vlangel, thanks for the video tour of your tank ❤️ 

Thanks CM.  I am really liking them a lot.  The added movement especially in the open water area of the tank is an overall enhancement.  Choosing fish that were healthy and seahorse safe were priority so I was limited, but I think they have their own beauty.😆

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Well Linus got banned to the shrimp chalet from the seahorse tank.  I caught him/her harassing Delilah.  Delilah was so upset she was trying to get behind the caulerpa tree away from Linus.  That was it.  I got a net and Linus lives with the barnacle blennies.

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