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Snow's 20G Lazarus Pit - One Last Tribute.


Snow_Phoenix

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9 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

I suppose plump fish = healthy fish, as you've mentioned. I admire your pony tank, btw. Takes a lot of time, patience and dedication to keep such a system going long-term. I've only tried to keep dragonface pipes once, and even then I struggled. Not easy trying to make sure they are well-fed and don't accidently fall sick along the way. 

Thank you Snow for the kind words.  Yes, ponies are work but once I have a pet I try my hardest to do what is necessary to take care of them.  I have noticed that you do the same. 😊

 

Another thing I have noticed is that hungry fish can turn into ornery fish (come to think of it, I can be pretty ornery myself when I am hungry) so I try not to let that happen for the sake of peace.

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12 minutes ago, vlangel said:

Thank you Snow for the kind words.  Yes, ponies are work but once I have a pet I try my hardest to do what is necessary to take care of them.  I have noticed that you do the same. 😊

 

Another thing I have noticed is that hungry fish can turn into ornery fish (come to think of it, I can be pretty ornery myself when I am hungry) so I try not to let that happen for the sake of peace.

Agreed on the ornery bit. Plus, chubby fish are content fish. Although with Thanos, his appetite never ceases. I just had to 'rescue' him from the fugebox again. I swear he is heavily addicted to my caulerpa. I'm thinking of humoring him by deliberately feeding him some macro every now and then. He is, after all, primarily a herbivore by nature. :) 

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1. Weeping Willow Toadstool has finally begun to grow more polyps at its base. The leather shrunk for a while when I accidently crushed it a little whilst moving my rocks to glue over the Palys. I was worried it'd never recover, but I'm glad to see it's slowly coming back to life:

 

 

2, Thanos loves terrifying/squashing my coral. He usually does this to get my attention and basically demand for more seaweed pellets:

 

 

 

3. My Tuxedo Urchin is still going strong and devours my coralline when I'm not looking:

 

 

 

4. Rare footage of my Saron prowling the tank at night. He's nocturnal, but has a habit of hiding and switching colors. Usually he alternates between red and green, although he prefers green more than anything:

 

 

Now, on to non-reefing-related stuff:

 

1. I finally procured some cocopeat soil to continue my grindal worm culture for my baby spiny eels. I'm personally not sure if my culture survived the transfer, but only time would tell:

 

 

2. These are my little ones, which I strive very hard for to keep alive, healthy and growing. From 0.5" & 1", they've both now almost touched 3.75". I believe the larger of my two babies will hit 4" by the end of this month. They're fed live grindal worms (supplemented on oats) and mosquito larvae once a day now. I'm spacing out the feedings because eels usually consume food twice/thrice a week - but those are full-grown specimens. These guys are still juvis and need all the nutrients they can in order to thrive and reach their maximum size. 

 

 

 

I'm currently waiting on a shipment of three new eels from Selangor. They've been QTed by a friend for several weeks now, but we're just trying to find a suitable time and courier to ship them. It's a huge risk because the chances of DOA are very high. I'm relying on the fact that we're hitting monsoon season soon, so the weather is cooler and the packages housing the eels won't overheat and kill any of the fish. I'm just steeling myself. After losing Beast, my Fire Eel, I was and still am quite crushed by his loss. I didn't expect it, and I'm trying my best to move on by occupying myself with taking care and maintaining my other pets - dog, bird, and multiple fish tanks. 

 

Back to lighter things, here's my 3-year-old Sun Conure, Phoenix - you might have seen him before in my older/other threads, but I raised this guy from a 2-week-old chick until the amazing goof of a bird he is now:

 

 

My animals give me a lot of peace and joy, and are therapeutic in a way. Sometimes it can get stressful, especially when they fall sick (because I have this 'must-save-them-all' habit), but I do my best to keep them healthy and happy with my limited space, time and resources. It can get difficult at times, but I do my best. 

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Those eels are so cool! I love their noses. Your bird is beautiful too... My grandmother bred and hand raised love birds and had conures including a sun conure. I had a love bird growing up from her. Hope to have a parrot again someday (when I don't have to work so much).

 

I didn't noticed anything repeated in your posts but I was in a car accident and sustained head injuries many years ago and my memory is pretty crappy at times. 

I've adapted at work with insane organization and color coded note taking skills that I call 'my brain'. 

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7 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Those eels are so cool! I love their noses. Your bird is beautiful too... My grandmother bred and hand raised love birds and had conures including a sun conure. I had a love bird growing up from her. Hope to have a parrot again someday (when I don't have to work so much).

 

I didn't noticed anything repeated in your posts but I was in a car accident and sustained head injuries many years ago and my memory is pretty crappy at times. 

I've adapted at work with insane organization and color coded note taking skills that I call 'my brain'. 

Yep, their noses are adorable lol. They have very poor vision and rely mostly on their sense of smell to detect food. That's cool that your grandmother used to handraise birds. It isn't an easy task and I did struggle with handraising Phoenix in the beginning but now he's a happy, healthy bird. Still behaves like a toddler though, but that is a parrot for you. :lol:

 

I usually use my phone's memopad to write and remember things. Otherwise I list everything out and color code like you do. It does help. 

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I have a question about SPS - which ones are hardy enough to keep? I visited a LFS and this is a short vid of some of the SPS frags they had:

 

 

 

I didn't buy any because I wasn't sure which ones were suitable for my tank. There was a Superman Monti, Red Monti Caps, various Acros (bright green, green with pink tips - like Kat's Katropora), blue/orange Poccis etc. I was quite confused and couldn't make up my mind. The Superman Monti and the may-not-be-Katropora-but-looks-like-it Acro looked really beautiful. Price is expensive, but still affordable, if I don't purchase any new corals for the next 2 months or so. 

 

Anyone can recommend some good SPS-starters which would make good mixed reef inhabitants? I run a 'rojak' tank - meaning, I have everything and I mean everything (except NPS) in there. My biggest battle is keeping all corals happy at once - my mushrooms, zoas, LPS and orange digi are growing very well, but my softies have their moments of glory or utter despair. 

 

I did end up picking up a small neon GSP frag though - here it is, trying to get by customs in my reef:

 

 

I saw an amazing collection of gorgs, sun corals and dendros, but I have no plans on adding NPS to this tank because it requires heavy feeding. (I might consider it for my mantis's tank though).

 

So, if anyone has any tips to help me with this SPS thing, lmk. Eager to hear your thoughts/opinions.

 

Non-reefing notes:

 

1. I started a vermidigester and seeded it with 500g of (costly!) organic earthworms - basically trying to start my own earthworm culture to feed my discus & eels:

 

 

2. Through sheer dumb luck, I was doing a dry supply run at my FW LFSes and found another Fire Eel! He's nowhere near Beast's size (only 18" and more slender), but anyway, meet Franklin: :happy:

 

 

 

He's missing a small patch of scales on his forehead and body, so my only hopes is that he won't contract fungus or any bacterial infection. I rescaped my 70G by adding new PVC elbows/tubes/T-joints and re-adding my river pebbles, but my older eel, Spot, went berserk. For the 3 years that I've had him, he's never openly attacked any of my display fish, until yesterday - my guess was that he was upset over me re-scaping his territory without permission. I had to temporarily place him and his favorite barrel ornament in a 5G plastic holding tank within the 70G itself, so that he can calm down, and adjust to his new surroundings. I'll release him from his box after a few days, and observe him closely. Thankfully, today morning he's feeding as usual, so no worries there. 

 

Also replaced fresh plants in my baby spiny eel picotank:

 

And my grindal worm culture transference was a success:

 

 

So yesterday turned out to be a good (but exhausting) day for once. 

 

Just need to figure out what sort of SPS to buy for my nano, and begin rescaping Zephyra's tank. :happy:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Your freshwater tanks are fascinating, I know basically nothing about FW fish. Kept bettas and tetras before, thats about it. That fire eel is sooo pretty, his tail is amazing, prettier than the salt water types. 

 

Does your LFS have fancy names for them?

 

Cliffs acro, green slimer staghorn, pavona, psammacora are some I find very hardy. More hardy than birdsnests and monti's for me.

 

The most hardy SPS of all for my vote is the mint pavona. Easily recognizable as it has a very unique growth pattern. I am thinking about picking one up since I think the growth is so cool.

 

 

Pavona-Coral-WM.jpg

 

 

I don't really care if the SPS I have is easy or hard or has fancy names or common or not.. I'm just going for different colors and shapes. 

 

 

 

 

 

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4 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Your freshwater tanks are fascinating, I know basically nothing about FW fish. Kept bettas and tetras before, thats about it. That fire eel is sooo pretty, his tail is amazing, prettier than the salt water types. 

 

Does your LFS have fancy names for them?

 

Cliffs acro, green slimer staghorn, pavona, psammacora are some I find very hardy. More hardy than birdsnests and monti's for me.

 

The most hardy SPS of all for my vote is the mint pavona. Easily recognizable as it has a very unique growth pattern. I am thinking about picking one up since I think the growth is so cool.

 

 

Pavona-Coral-WM.jpg

 

 

I don't really care if the SPS I have is easy or hard or has fancy names or common or not.. I'm just going for different colors and shapes. 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you! Unfortunately, I think he's coming down with fungus (which is odd, because I've treated this whole tank recently - I think I might have missed something). As usual, it manifests in the tail region of the fish. I'm debating if I should QT him - I lost Beast in QT and am still quite shaken over finding his corpse on my porch tiles. I really, really don't want to lose another fish this way, but I have to do what's best for my fish by the end of the day. If there are no signs of improvement, I'll pull him out, but I'll keep triple lids on the QT bin and add an extra brick on top for good measure (I don't think he's strong enough to throw off 15kg since he's far less muscular than Beast).

 

SPS do have fancy names here, but I'm just not familiar with them. I'm going after things that catch my eye, and are within reasonable price range that doesn't break the wallet. I've never seen a Pavona up close - it's so beautiful!

 

I think I might stick to Montis. If I get a little bit 'braver', I'll try out some Acros - the common green ones first. Does that sound ok?

 

Don't want to unload too much on this tank all at once. My coral additions have been very slow, and I'd like to keep it that way. 😉 

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I think staghorns are pretty hardy and avoid smooth skin acros as they tend to finiky. 

 

Common is usually a good sign... Means it's doing well somewhere enough to keep showing up for sale. 

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4 hours ago, Tamberav said:

I think staghorns are pretty hardy and avoid smooth skin acros as they tend to finiky. 

 

Common is usually a good sign... Means it's doing well somewhere enough to keep showing up for sale. 

Thanks for the tip. Common ones, it is then. :)

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Some good news, some bad news. Well, I'll start off with the bad:

 

1. Lost Bob II few days ago due to a bad molt. I found him crawling naked on my sandbed early in the morning and gave him 2 extra shells for him to switch into. He picked one, and I thought that was it:

 

 

Came back home few hours later and I saw his dead body (not an exoskeleton) outside of the shell. He wasn't twitching or stinking, so I presume he had just died before I arrived. R.I.P. Bob II: :tears:

 

 

2. Back to slightly better things, found my duster worm's new regrown crown is double its original size and a handsome shade of violet:

 

 

3. Weeping Willow toadstool is also finally (!) taking off and growing new polyps at the base. 

 

 

4. Goblin the Warpaint Goby is doing very well, and now actively takes a bite of NLS pellets without me needing to target feed him:

 

 

5. Chili/Leo the Ornate Leopard Wrasse is growing quite fast. He's now hit 2.5" and very active. 

 

 

6. Overlord Thanos is...well, Thanos. :lol:

 

 

7. I also did a 40% WC yesterday, and check out the amount of weekly gunk I pull out from my floss and skimmer cup - yuck!

 

 

8. Topshot view of semi-unhappy corals prior to WC. I delayed by 1 day, and I could already see how some of my corals weren't at their best (nil PE etc.):

 

 

I haven't spotted Ghost, my brotulid in a week. I have no idea if he's even alive, but I guess if/when I break down this tank and shift it to a larger one, he *might pop up. Quite frankly, I'm not sure. :ninja:

 

Back to non-reefing stuff:

 

1. Vermidigester is going strong - few worms managed to escape through the corners of the lid during the first few days, so I had to seal it tighter:

 

 

2. Grindal worm culture is a blooming success. The choice of using cocopeat (rather than common potting soil) as a medium has actually provided a better environment for the grindal worms to thrive and expand colonies in:

 

 

3. My baby eels are doing very well too, and this pleases me the most. It's extremely rewarding to raise fry and watch them grow into juvis, and later (hopefully) mature into adulthood. :happy:

 

 

4. Franklin is recovering in QT. He has mild discoloration on his nose, but the tip of his tail has eroded a little (similar to what happened to Beast, but with far less extremity). I'm treating him for fungus first (just in case), and then running a course of antibiotics. Franklin was purchased from a different shop than Beast, and I'm aware he fell sick in my system or might have actually introduced something to my tank. So I'm running another course of antifungal/antibiotic combo on my 70G as well as the 20G QT Franklin is in. It's easier for me to isolate Franklin and treat him separately because I can monitor him directly, feed him more easily and also perform 75% to 100% WCs daily. He's in good spirits though, but he hasn't accepted any food yet (which is not unusual for a newly purchased eel):

 

So, between running around and trying to stay atop multiple WCs, feedings, culturing my own live fish food and taking care of other non-fish animals, I have been neglecting Zephyra's (the mantis) tank. She's doing fine though, but once I get everything settled down, I'll actively give her tank a makeover. My greatest issue is moving the clownfish and hawkfish out of there. They are quite aggressive, but have been with me for a long time now, and I don't want to give them up. So I'm trying to shuffle everyone around to create more space or think of another plan. Right now, I'm leaning towards setting up a separate fishless system just for my mantis, but it'll be a picotank. Only time will tell, I suppose. 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Few updates:

 

1. Spotted Houdini up and about with his shrimpy partner this morning. Both of them are doing very well and I think the pistol has gone through a few molts because she has grown bigger:

 

 

2. Pippa stays exclusively under my green yuma and has made a permanent home out of it. I don't move/toy with this frag anymore because I don't want to disturb her:

 

 

3. My Saron was doing some weird 'twitchy' movements with his antennas this evening. Not sure why, but it almost seemed like he was 'tasting' the water flow or something.

 

 

4. I bought a GSP frag! It's neon green and took a week to fully open but here it is:

 

a) When I first brought it home:

 

 

b) 6 days ago:

 

 

 

c) 3 days ago:

 

 

Today it's fully open! (No pics yet, sorry!)

 

5. Goblin is doing very well. I'm very happy that he's feeding and stable in the tank. I tried 3 YCGs since the beginning of this year but each one perished due to different reasons. One simply vanished and never reappeared - so I presume he died and was eaten by my super-efficient CUC.

 

 

 

6. His Great Overlordness Thanos is doing okay. He was flashing few days back and under advice of this forum, I was supposed to remove him from my DT to treat with copper (which I currently do not have). I debated the merits of leaving him in and boosting his immune system with garlic, or pulling him out and treating him in isolation which would cause him stress. I'll be honest - I have around 6 fish that I know of in this tank. If I treat Thanos, I have to get all 6 of them out. One of them lives permanently in the rocks with my pistol, and will be impossible to remove. A second one has most likely wedged himself in my LR and won't come out unless I break down my system (speaking of the brotulid here). And until today, I have this teeny tiny bit of wishful thinking that my dartfish Ben is still somehow alive and also in my rocks (most likely not). It would be extremely difficult to remove all the fish, and worse still, finding them to treat all of them. So I left Thanos in. I most likely have Ich and a gill parasite running around in this system, which for some reason, affects my blenny the most. Not a good fishkeeping practice, but it's either boost his immunity or lose one (or all six) of my fish during QT. For obvious reasons, I picked the former and not the latter. Anyhow, he's doing much better. No more flashing, and still eating like a pro.

 

 

Oh, and ever wanted a Starry Blenny? Then be prepared to deal with poop. Loads of it!

 

 

7. Chili the wrasse also snuck into my fugebox to pig out on the pods there. I had to rescue him, and remove 90% of the rocks to get to him because he literally hit rock-bottom in the box and played dead there:

 

8. My duster worm has also tripled in size:

 

 

9. FTS of tank:

 

 

 

It's nothing fantastic, but I love it. Corals are doing very well and my digi is encrusting very fast too. 

 

Non-reef-wise, things are going well. Franklin the Fire eel is recovering very fast and can be re-added to my DT soon. My Spiny eel babies are also lengthening, and one of them is actually growing thicker rather than longer, so I suspect that one might be a female:

 

 

I also picked up 2 tiny 1" long, thin spotted squeaker catfish for my 70G. Day 1:

 

 

Day 2 and they both have little potbellies after being fed a mixture of frozen bloodworms and pellets:

 

The best part of my day is when I go out, my fish actually know when I'm coming out and they wait for me. Like, literally. It's almost as if they know me = fish food = feeding time = full bellies. So they wait. This is what I get every time I step out of the backdoor and into the side porch:

 

My marine fish are the same way. And that is the beauty of fishkeeping (in my eyes). This hobby has its high share of ups and downs, but when you get your animals literally waiting for you to come out of the house or step into a room, it just makes your toes curl inwards with joy. I never expected to get this much happiness and pleasure from owning fish, and each loss has been a gut-blow, but I love them regardless. Certainly makes my more difficult days bearable. 🙂

 

P.S. Houdini the Hi-Fin goby turns 1-year-old tomorrow. This fish is a miracle, but mostly, he's a survivor

 

P.P.S. The 5 torpedo and filamented barbs in my freshwater DT turn 1-year-old tomorrow as well. Spot the flower/spotted/leopard eel just turned 3-years-old several days ago. 

 

Happy advanced birthdays, everyone! 🤗🐟🎂🍰🎉🎊🎈

 

Thank you for all the advice/pointers/opinions, NR! :grouphug:

 

To be continued... :flower:

 

 

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Beautiful fish :wub: I love the Discus, I have heard they are difficult? 

 

One of my wrasse flashed a bit in QT, prazipro took care of it for me so thinking just gill flukes. I used it in my DT too but not sure how it would do with your feather duster and stuff. It made my toads and mushrooms angry for a few days. 

 

 

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11 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Beautiful fish :wub: I love the Discus, I have heard they are difficult? 

 

One of my wrasse flashed a bit in QT, prazipro took care of it for me so thinking just gill flukes. I used it in my DT too but not sure how it would do with your feather duster and stuff. It made my toads and mushrooms angry for a few days. 

 

 

They can be. The greatest problem with discus is stability. Any change in water params or even temperature causes them to fall sick and die very easily. Acquiring healthy specimens is also difficult, because the fish from breeders are usually offered at premium prices (and prices also vary according to grade, color, marking, size and shape). Once they're stable in the tank and you perform regular WCs, they tend to live very long. Nutrition is also important - and making sure nitrates are kept less than 5ppm (0ppm is better). 

 

We have something called PraziGold here - it's expensive, and probably worth to buy, but as you've mentioned, it can't be dosed directly into the tank because it has an adverse effect on the inverts and corals. So I'm still holding on to boosting Thanos's immune system while I figure out a better treatment plan that won't stress out or kill any fish. 

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Update:

 

I consulted two members on this forum and under advisement, decided to QT all my fish. Getting them out took me 2.5 hours - I had to break down my 20G, remove all rocks + fugebox out and even then, it took me a while to get my GCG and Hi-Fins out.

 

Due to the sensitivity of some of the fish, I'm doing a 2-week treatment using PraziGold (which is our version of Prazipro):

 

 

And then I'll do a 2-week period of TTM. I have already purchased extra storage bins for the TTM:

 

 

These bins are smaller (around 12G capacity each) and easier to manage. For now, all my fish are currently in a 20G storage bin in my bedroom, right next to my DT:

 

 

 

 

36 hours into QT, I lost my Brotulid, Ghost. He developed red lesions along the length of his body after 24 hours of being treated with Prazi. Since there's hardly any info about Brotulids online, I'm unsure if he was scaleless and therefore had a bad reaction towards Prazi, or if he simply broke out in secondary bacterial infection and succumbed to it. :tears:

 

His loss was definitely upsetting, but there was nothing much I could do about it. QTing any animal and treating them with meds has always been and will always be a risk.

 

The transfer of the fish from the DT to QT went smoothly, but I hit a snag. I accidently ripped my duster worm into half while pulling out my LR. (Ouch!) The bottom half of the worm was attached to my base LR while the upper half was stuck to my fugebox (which I didn't know). So when I yanked the rocks out, he was scissored in the middle. Through some miracle, he's still attached to my fugebox and his fans are out (even until today). His butt is exposed, but I think he'll remake a new tube around it in time.

 

 

I also did a major WC on the main DT when I set up my QT. Corals are still growing (albeit slowly) and are quite healthy, so I'm pleased:

 

1. Purplish-orange Ric Yuma & babies:

 

2. Green Ric Yuma:

 

3. Zoas:

 

4. Orange digi:

 

5. Weeping Willow Toadstool gaining new polyps and larger base:

 

6. Saron Shrimp molt:

 

7. Goblin the GCG leather-surfing (before being pulled out of DT):

 

 

8. Last footages of brotulid before QT: :tears:

 

 

 

9. FTS 4 days ago (before all fish were removed):

 

 

Also, one of my Hi-Fins was pregnant (I suspect). She had a full, rotund belly, and both my fish have been behaving oddly for some time. Pippa, the smaller Hi-Fin, later left the burrow of Houdini (my larger, older Hi-Fin) and took refuge behind my purplish-orange yuma frag instead of the green yuma she always favors. She continued behaving oddly and I had to target-feed her because she didn't venture too far from her frag while being berried. When I removed all my fish from the DT, I noticed her belly was much slimmer, so she must have either laid the eggs somewhere (and they got eaten) or she re-absorbed them (maybe?). Anyhow, I'm hoping she and Houdini would sire another clutch in the future after QT. I've decided not to raise any fry and let nature take its course. I have no experience raising marine fish fry (only FW fish and eels), and I've poked around numerous online sources to read that most private aquarists don't succeed in raising Hi-Fin fry past larval stage for some reason.

 

As for non-reefing stuff:

 

1. Franklin the Fire Eel made a 100% recovery from fungus and has been reintroduced to my 70G: :happy:

 

2. Spiny eel babies are doing very well too. My grindal worm culture crashed few days ago and I've been trying to (unsuccessfully resuscitate the culture). If can't, I'll be ordering a fresh batch of worms from out-of-state again. For now, my babies are feeding exclusively on mosquito larvae. 

 

 

 

Lastly, doggo: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I took a trip to my LFS last Sunday. It was supposed to be a dry-supply-run only. :rolleyes:

 

But...check out all these: 

 

I mean, really. Now I have to bring home some 'extra' stuff too. Wallet was decent so I bit the bullet and got these:

 

1. Dry:

 

 

2. Wet a.k.a. frags:

 

 

There were montis, Acros, zoas, one yuma and one nepthea (Japanese import) in there. Took me 30 mins to figure out what will go where. Took me another 30 mins to actually stick stuff without breaking or tearing anything else by accident. Anyhow, here we are:

 

1. Green & Red Monti Caps:

 

2. Green Acro:

 

3. Pink Acro:

 

4. Orange Yuma:

 

5. Green Nepthea:

 

*Will get better pic of zoas later. One of the frags fell off the rocks yesterday, so I'll have to re-glue it soon. 

 

Topshot view of tank:

 

FTS:

 

 

I have an issue of shading in the left side of the tank, so I *might pick up a second PAR 38 LED down the road. Am also planning on picking up a second small wavemaker and attach it to the right side of the tank to improve flow. 

 

LFS manager was pleasantly surprised I run a mixed reef without any chillers and outstanding issues (yet). I told him I did have an outbreak of Ich and flukes, and have QTed all the fish, and he advised me to not use a copper since my QT is right next to my DT. So, as difficult as it is, I'll be doing TTM from next week onwards - right now, everyone is being treated with a second round of Prazi and has been downsized to a smaller 12G tub for convenience. Thanos is not too happy about it. 


 

 

But I'll do my best to save whoever is left if I can.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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7 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

Nice new coral additions, that looks like a stellar LFS!

 

Glad to see the quarantine is going well so far, keep us posted.

It is a very good LFS and they've come a long way in improving their ethics. I've been their customer for 8, going on 9 years now. The manager of this branch actually treats the sick fish he has, and doesn't write them off as a dead-case. And he QTs everything, and he's very honest with me over the animals that are doing well, and the ones that aren't. If he's newly fragged stuff, he won't sell it until the frag stabilizes. He showed me some gorgeous Utter Chaos zoas/palys, but he hadn't fragged any so he didn't sell it (even to me). He's a good guy. We need more people like that - the ones who actually care, in this hobby. 

 

---

 

And guys, I just wanted to update in general - I lost my older Hi-Fin, Houdini, few hours ago. I found his mummified remains in a tangle of hair well-hidden on the carpet behind the QT tank. I checked up on him this morning and he was there. Then I went out to have lunch with my family and help my mother run some errands. I had a severe backache afterwards and my mother's leg failed (cramped) in the parking lot, so I had to drive her and my little sis (who was already very sick and having breathing difficulties) back home. I was so exhausted when I returned that I dozed off for a short nap and didn't check any of my tanks/animals. 

 

I only found Houdini's remains after I did the usual 'pet' work at home (feeding/cleaning up after my dog, bird, fish tanks etc.). I suspect he jumped out while I was out of the house, because he was very crunchy when I found him. I had 3 lids covering my QT tank and there was a very tiny 0.5" gap near my filter outlet edge which no lids could cover. He slipped out through that gap. I feel like I've failed in some horrible way. He just turned one, and survived through so much shit, and I accidentally killed him through my carelessness. :tears:

 

I'm now down to four fish - Ornate Leopard Wrasse (Chili), Starry Blenny (Thanos), GCG (Goblin) & Hi-Fin (Pippa).

 

Here's a short compilation of Houdini's best pic/vid moments based on my Insta as a tribute to him:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

R.I.P. Houdini, the Survivor a.k.a. the Miracle. Nov 2017 - Nov 2018. 😞

 

 

 

 

  • Sad 2
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8 hours ago, Tamberav said:

I am really sorry 😞 I have lost jumpers too out of tiny holes. If you have packing tape or something maybe you can tape over the hole?

 

7 hours ago, WV Reefer said:

So sorry about Houdini. 😞. We try so hard and it’s so disappointing sometimes. 

 

 

I know. Jumpers are unavoidable at times - all my fish jump, doesn't matter how big or small. Still, I genuinely thought 3 lids would stop them from carpet-surfing. I'll try taping over the hole as suggested. Will use masking tape. Just hope no one tries to jump and gets caught on the sticky end by accident. 😞 

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Update:

 

Nothing much going on except everyone is still miserable in QT:

 

 

This will be my last treatment of Prazi with these fish (for now). Most of them have not eaten since entering QT, and I'm very worried. Thanos is huge and usually has a good appetite but he's been spitting out pellets every time I target feed him. My smaller fish - Goblin the GCG & Pippa the Hi-Fin, are more open to a few bites. The wrasse has not eaten a single piece of food since entering treatment. He slips into stasis mostly in the sandbed. Every time I do a WC and clean out the bin, I 'wake' him up to make sure he's alive. He's not skinny, but he's not as plump as he used to be either. 😞

 

As for my major DT, I did a 30% WC and some routine maintenance. Took me three hours because I wasn't feeling well, and it wasn't easy mixing and hauling up so much SW at a go. I cleaned down the glass, swapped out the floss, cleaned out the major filter & skimmer, basted the rocks etc.

 

 

I also shifted the position of my toadstool. It kept stretching out of the water and no matter how much water I topped up, a part of the flesh would still be above the waterline. So I brought the frag down and positioned it behind the arch-rock. It was pissed off in the beginning, but opened back up within a few hours. 

 

I took a few shots of my yumas too:

 

And I visited my LFS. Found some cool things:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only thing I did bring home was this lil' guy. He was very, very small and did lose a claw during transport. I saw him hunkering behind my filter inlet the first night, and he's vanished since then, but knowing how things go 'poof' and reappear again in this tank, I'm quite positive he's alive and hanging out behind my major base LR, hidden out of sight.

 

 

On a non-reefing-related note, my grindal worm culture for my spiny eel fry exhausted itself and crashed. I ordered 3 fresh containers from out of state:

 

 

But I wasn't satisfied with the medium used to grow out the colonies (sponge). So I transferred them onto cocopeat soil and made 3 new batches of my own:

 

 

 

So I now have backups in case any one of the colonies crash again. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Prazipro suppresses appetite so could be the cause. The glass tanks at the LFS look like they are floating? They are so long too? Idk how they pull that off.

 

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Prazipro suppresses appetite so could be the cause. The glass tanks at the LFS look like they are floating? They are so long too? Idk how they pull that off.

 

 

 

 

Ah, that explains it then. As for the tanks, if I'm not mistaken, there is bracing below each tank but it's designed in such a way that it isn't noticeable in a passing glance. And yes, they're quite long - my guess is around 7' to 8' or so, although they aren't very tall. The bottom tanks are equally long, but far wider and still just as shallow. 

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I've decided to make a short compilation of all the blennies I've owned in the past in various reef tanks from 2011. I am an avid blenny enthusiast, and I personally think that every dedicated nano should have a blenny (but this is just my opinion). Blennies are wonderful, interactive and personable fish. Each individual has a different 'character', ranging from mellow to complete psychopaths, so it depends on your luck. I've had a taste of different types of blennies thanks to my location, and would like to dedicate a small portion of this thread to each of this fish which has given me much joy (and grief). So, enjoy! (In no particular order of acquirement):

 

1. Bicolor Blenny. (One of my personal favorites and a commonly owned blenny by many reefers).

 

1234501477_Bicolor1.jpg.bd59bac03828d1842ff6656176ec713d.jpg

 

2. Flametail Blenny. (Mine was very territorial, personally wouldn't recommend for any nano tanks below 20G).

 

1245267673_Flametail1.jpg.c66e3e2d4afc262c172e4705c7a423a7.jpg

 

3. Grammistes Blenny. (My absolute favorite of all time. Beautiful, venomous and swims in the upper column so is visible 95% of the time. Very active too).

 

 

1718161728_Grammistes1.thumb.jpg.367325bdebf147f95287477d093537cf.jpg

 

4. Lawnmower Blenny. (I've seen specimens reach up to 6" in an LFS DT many years ago. They can be HUGE, and I think it's ill-suited to any nano below 30G).

 

1147791374_Lawnmower1.jpg.d89962833e549503eedec905296ded2e.jpg

 

5. Lizard Blenny. (Not sure if this is classified as a true blenny, but it's one of the more curious ones I've owned. Unfortunately, it didn't make it past QT for me and perished due to shipment stress).

 

1757098978_Lizard1.jpg.a1986c73e1f5428dcdd5cbad51c93f2b.jpg

 

6. Midas Blenny. (Golden Gal. Very striking and bold fish).

 

1532786536_Midas1.jpg.c38ff2a2eb09d004e213e34d6168ed9b.jpg

 

7. Rockskipper Blenny. (Took a lot of digging through websites to discover that this 'mystery' blenny belongs to the Istiblennius sp. group. This fish, to be more specfic, is an Istiblennius dussumieri. The markings are beautiful in a 'checkerboard' style, but it can be quite territorial and holds itself well against other fish).

 

1080114192_Rockskipper1.jpg.792e14e3ad1ec4217d5740e09ff70038.jpg

 

1153760751_Rockskipper2.jpg.22c785657821d679a7119ee8f60869b0.jpg

 

291433757_Mystery1.jpg.a65a59e652bcf2d3c5d78055b2345d53.jpg

 

8. Segmented Sailfin Blenny. (This is one of the more shy species and takes some time to adapt to tank-life.)

 

1151193756_SegmentedSailfin1.jpg.bc4c3d144f6582c2e89bba11cac00d2c.jpg

 

9. Tribal blenny. (Gorgeous facial markings, especially during 'camo-mode'. I'm sorry about the quality of the pic - I had a lot of pics of this guy, but seemed to have misplaced them. In those pics, you can see his facial markings in full view during lights-off, and damn, they're beautiful and 'glow' light blue).

 

1464068152_Tribal1.jpg.7366c6abd29c3cb3565cf4539a9d438e.jpg

 

10. Tail-Spot Blenny or TSB. (Very commonly owned blenny in the West, a little bit difficult to find here (ironically). This is a 'red' variant of the species, although the colors are usually more muted in most TSBs.)

 

242699870_TSB1.jpg.7f6557b9700970cd95a159642dd3a737.jpg

 

11. Two-spot or bimaculatus blenny. (I had to return this one because I made a mistake of adding him to a nano with a bicolor blenny already in it. This was when I first learned you can't keep two different blennies in a small <10G tank, unless you want to risk territory-battle-royale).

 

1092314877_TwoSpot1.jpg.b97e8967dc7403b69b4e6e9849b77459.jpg

 

12. Pictus blenny. (This was the first blenny I've ever purchased, and this was the first time I fell in love with blennies. In my entire 8+ years of reefkeeping, I've only seen this blenny being imported twice, and for the last 3 years or so, all LFSes have stopped pulling them in completely. If ever I get a hold of one, it'll be in a species tank with lots of macros just for it. I truly love this fish - it's small, adorable and very, very personable).

 

1795166690_Pictus1.jpg.6b3ce8aa944c908ff7f40f1da7d0c206.jpg

 

13. Starry Blenny. (Who could forget my current monster-sized fish? He's quite trippy this guy - gets into a lot of trouble, and also merits an upgrade from my current nano. It's because of this silly goofball that I'm planning to get a larger SW build in my bedroom, because I would love to see him swim more. (Not that he does swim very much, but I'd appreciate him trying to stop squishing my goni every time he perches somewhere in my tank)). 

 

1593074135_Starry1.thumb.jpg.4ef803fb3758e80ca26022ce30589b7d.jpg

 

So these are the blennies I've owned. There are other types offered at my LFS - like Forktails and even the rare Leopard Blenny on occasion, but I've never kept any of them, so I can't comment. Hope you've enjoyed this post (sorry for the photo-heavy thread!). :happy:

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