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Snow's 60G Secret Predatory Sanctum 🐲🐉 - Shutting Down


Snow_Phoenix

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Thanos conquered the yuma bridge today morning - he's massive! 😮 

 

This is a pic of the symphyllia I picked up yesterday - pic itself was taken by the LFS using an underwater camera (full credit to NOA for the pic). Background was a black sheet of acrylic:

 

 

Something bristly lurks in the rocks:

 

He was eyeballing me the whole day:

 

The two new brains - I can't capture their actual colors properly. I guess there is the option of playing around with the white balance or using a filter, but I didn't, so here is how they look under my lights during the afternoon, when I run heavy whites:

 

New elegance is very puffy and healthy. Sometime in the middle of the night, one of the snails/urchins has pushed my green hairy mushroom against one side of the elegance, but thankfully both corals didn't melt at the point of contact:

 

Banded pipes were a bit shy today because I was scraping the glass. The film algae is incredibly hard to remove, even with a blade, so I'm trying to figure out a way to clean the glass without using any chemicals or objects that would harm the fish or the tank: 🤔

 

 I absolutely love the hitchikers in my fuge - especially these guys:

 

They're tiny and beige, but so fun to watch when they wiggle their arms when I feed the pipefish. I couldn't get a good shot of the dragonface today because it was at the bottom of the fuge, hidden behind the rocks and pecking off pods, but I'll try tomorrow. The macro needs to be pruned. My fern caulerpa is getting quite unruly.

 

Hungry cynarina tonight:

 

Lastly, I took some sideshots and a FTS of the DT today. You can see how poorly my frogspawns are faring, and how browned out they have become. My hammer is also brown, but the tips are still a bright neon green, so I'm a little bit confused over that (???). I was using a yellow filter lens, so my apologies if the pics came out too bright/white. 

 

I'm thinking of adding 1x AI Prime HD to this tank next year. Not sure yet, because there are many things I have planned out for next year which will require a lot of :bling: so I'll be on a tight budget. Flow-wise, I seem to have enough flow going on in this tank, so I don't think I'll be adding an extra wavemaker. Will skip out on my original plan of adding a skimmer as well, since the skimmer-designated area is occupied by a fuge. I am considering creating a second fuge in the area Derp currently occupies (Derp will be moved to the first area which has my filter sock and some coral stones, in that case) and maybe move my Dragonface permanently over to that area.

 

I do have enough macro for it, but this is a tentative plan, because I might need to replenish my macro stock when I return after Christmas (I'm expecting some parts of the fern caulerpa to shrivel while I'm gone). Will definitely try to put aside some money for a proper ATO though, so that I can stay away from home for longer breaks without worrying over the tank too much. So yep, lots of things to ruminate on and plan out. 🤔

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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58 minutes ago, Ratvan said:

really enjoyed seeing the LFS, is a lot local collection and wild collection?

I think this round is mostly wild (eg. euphyllia & brains etc.). Although the frags are mostly local (eg. red goni). In the case of the leptastrea, it was a gift by a reefer from Singapore, and was fragged into smaller pieces because it grew rather quickly. 

 

Usually we get a mix of things, but if you see large colonies, there's a high chance it's wild. Smaller frags are local. I try not to rely on other reefers to get any of my animals - I prefer dealing directly with my LFS because they're honest and upfront with me. I was cheated very badly once by a local reefer (years ago) when I purchased 2 mini maxi nems from him. He packaged the animals so badly that the package arrived burst and rancid in the small cardboard box he mailed to me. He refused to cover DOA even though I sent him pics and told him very politely about what happened. Instead of accepting responsibility that he did a shitty job at packaging, he blamed the local postal service, blamed me (?) and was very rude. I lost a lot of money, and afterwards I just stopped dealing with local reefers entirely. 

 

If there's anything I wish to purchase, I order directly through my LFSes. It takes time, but it's worth the wait. Plus, since I'm a regular/long-term customer, I do get some very good discounts at the store for various things. So I'm more content coral/fish-shopping this way. 

 

(Also, discount rack still exists, so as long as it does, I can still reef and enjoy some unique coral pieces). 🙂 

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Finally, a long overdue major WC of 15G was performed today:

 

I still had half a bucket of SW left when the pump crapped out on me. So I had to use the bucket method to fill up the tank, which was definitely not fun for my back or wrist. :sad:

 

However, the fish seemed a lot more content after the WC - my clownfish pair, Nero and Sushi, did a bit of a zoomy-run up and down the tank for a while, which was quite amazing to watch. Only my Lubbock's wrasse, Bo, seemed unafraid of the hose dangling above the waterline - he's the only fish that actually came all the way to the top to eye the hose and the new water flowing into the tank.

 

I'm hoping with this relatively large WC, my LPS can recover from whatever it is that's ailing them. I'm especially hoping my hammer will bounce back to it's original full-neon-green color, and that my frogspawns will recover (although this seems slim, especially considering the orange frogspawn has lost a good deal of flesh). I made a mistake - I didn't realize the lower parts of my dual-toned symphyllia was buried under the sandbed for months. Only after I basted off the sand today did I realize that the bottom parts are bone-white and skeletal. 🤦‍♀️

 

Definitely need to watch out for my new lobo and symphyllia next so that the same issue will not occur with those pieces.

 

I have a small slice of good news though - my leopard discosoma bopped out another baby! So now I have 4 of them, and they appear to be growing relatively quickly - so I think mushroom mountain might be covered very soon with these beauties! :wub:

 

I also really like one of the new shrooms I picked up for my birthday. It appears to be a rhodactis (?) and it has three different colors. Hopefully it'll either split or bop out more heads like the discosoma: :happydance:

 

I'm still having a bit of trouble with getting Rose the Yasha to a healthy weight. She's not paper-thin, but is still very skinny. The only upside is that she eats quite well during each feeding session - I was originally worried she'd be outcompeted with the more boisterous fish in the tank like the wrasses, but she seems to be capable enough to snatch a few pellets as they drop to the bottom of the tank:

 

Draco the dragonface pipe is tentatively doing okay. He's not too keen on frozen just yet and prefers live pods, so I've watched him swim from compartment to compartment to peck off the glass. He's very relaxed though, and so far gets along well with my banded pair:

 

Prince and Lady are doing well. I know this might sound ridiculous, but I think they've slowly began to recognize me as the 'pod-bearer'/'food-bringer'. :tongueout:

 

When I was trying to film Draco, they both kept photobombing my shots and swam up and down the glass like a pair of stripey-stretched-out puppies seeking attention. :lol:

 

All three of them together:

 

I'll be gone for three full days and I am admittedly worried about leaving them on their own. Food is my greatest concern - so I'm going to seed the fuge with 2 or 3 bottles of live pods before I leave, feed them a few rounds of frozen, and then as soon as I return, check on them and feed them frozen again. I'm thinking of blending some mysis (I think the Hikari ones are too big for their tiny mouths) and mixing that up with some pods, to slowly wean them onto a mysis-pod mix. 

 

I just found out through my LFS that we're no longer importing mysis. Closest place to get mysis would be Singapore - but crossing the border will be hectic, and I'm not even sure if we're allowed to bring back 15 to 20 packs of mysis into the country. Also, since the food is frozen, it might spoil in our weather - so it looks like I'll have to be frugal with the 2 packs I have left, until I can figure out a way to get my hands on mysis (somehow). 

 

I *might purchase another 3 more pod packs when I return from my break. I already have 1 opened and in use, and 3 more sealed frozen ones lying in the freezer. I estimate each pod pack can last for up to 3 weeks or a month with 3 pipefish. According to my LFS, each pod pack has roughly 5 million pods in it (lab-tested). And the pods were gut-loaded with spirulina right before they were frozen. So it technically should be nutritious enough for the fish. 🤔

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Hey guys, a lot of updates ahead - some good, some bad. You can skip the pics and the vid and hop straight down to my update at the bottom, if you don't staring at pics:

 

Update #1. Fish & Corals.

 

I woke up and decided to take a few snapshots of the tank early in the morning, when the lights were not fully on as scheduled. Manage to grab a shot of Thanos lurking under my elegance as well:

 

 

My little baby green yuma has more pronounced bubbles now! Growing quickly! :wub:

 

Update #2: Afternoon Feeding session.

 

I took a quick video of the afternoon feeding session using NLS pellets. I had fish popping out of burrows and basically swimming all over the place. It was full of so much motion - that I had trouble focusing on a specific area of the tank because there were other fish constantly swimming in and out of focus. It might seem a tad overcrowded with 16 fish in the DT, but there is so much motion in the water.

 

Update #3: Pipefish!

 

I think Draco the dragonface *might actually be a female. I'm not entirely sure, but I haven't seen a dark blue/orange patch underneath its belly, so according to several articles online - this means my pipefish is most likely a female. I will try to check again, but it's difficult since the fish is at the bottom of the tank or slithering across the rocks, as expected of its species. Speaking of Draco, he/she wound up in Derp's compartment today!

 

I'm personally not too comfortable having a hermit in such close proximity with my pipefish, so I tried to scoop it up using a brine shrimp net - and the fish *jumped. :eek:

 

It actually sailed ~16" up and plopped back into the fuge section on its own. :scarry: 

 

I was worried I'd stressed it out - I didn't even know pipes could jump, let alone jump that high, but I monitored the fuge for several hours afterwards (occasional check-ins to make sure everything was okay) and Draco was breathing normally and back to foraging for pods on the glass. Phew.

 

I also had to prune my caulerpa and chaeto in the fuge, and my banded pair were very curious over what I was doing in the tank. The drifted close, but stayed just out of reach so that they could swim off if my hands came too close. I took extra care not to touch them or even brush them with the macro strands I was pulling out. They were eating normally when I fed them some frozen pods:

 

 

Update #4: Gary the starfish.

 

Bad news here - Gary evidently died last night, and I only realized he was dead almost 24 hours later, during the late evening today. Two days ago, I saw him plastered against my back wall and unmoving, which is not unusual, because he sometimes sticks to a certain area for few hours before wandering off. Before I did my major WC, I noticed he was flopped over on his back, at the bottom of mushroom mountain. :scarry:

 

Usually he uses his legs and sort of scooches around a bit and rights himself up, or I'll help lift him up using my fingers and set him back correctly. Unfortunately, with the amount of things occurring yesterday (it was an ultra-hectic day), I completely forgot about him. Today evening, I checked up on him and he was still flopped over, in the same position, with the tips of his legs slightly twisted and none of his tube feet were moving. Immediately, I had a flashback of Lola - my smaller double seastar, who died in a similar way. 😥

 

I quickly used a pair of steel forceps to try and lift him up, but he pretty much disintegrated as I was moving him. :tears:

 

His arms dropped off, then pieces of his 'tile' like pattern dropped off in tiny pieces. I knew he was already gone at that point. 

 

My guess is he did die yesterday, and through some amazing stroke of good luck/miracle - his death thankfully (!) didn't crash my tank. I know most of you don't own starfish - but when they die and disintegrate into pieces, it can be very difficult to siphon out each piece or any flesh left behind. They also reek when they die, but Gary wasn't smelling awful yet, so I'm a bit confused over that (?). 

 

I think his death was caused by starvation. Once I added my refugium and chucked a lot of macro in it, I noticed the usually fuzzy gray growth covering the rocks in my DT began to vanish. This growth was what Gary feeds on - I've seen/filmed him eating it numerous times. With his primary food source gone, I pretty much doomed him without even realizing it. Which was incredibly careless on my part. :tears:

 

So I guess my takeaway from this is that perhaps this particular species is best left in the sea. I've seen people with smaller tanks succeed with keeping tiny red fromias long-term, but I think larger species of starfish (even linkias) is best avoided entirely. 

 

R.I.P. Gary. You were an amazing critter and I miss you terribly already:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Hey guys, a lot of updates ahead - some good, some bad. You can skip the pics and the vid and hop straight down to my update at the bottom, if you don't staring at pics:

 

Update #1. Fish & Corals.

 

I woke up and decided to take a few snapshots of the tank early in the morning, when the lights were not fully on as scheduled. Manage to grab a shot of Thanos lurking under my elegance as well:

 

 

My little baby green yuma has more pronounced bubbles now! Growing quickly! :wub:

 

Update #2: Afternoon Feeding session.

 

I took a quick video of the afternoon feeding session using NLS pellets. I had fish popping out of burrows and basically swimming all over the place. It was full of so much motion - that I had trouble focusing on a specific area of the tank because there were other fish constantly swimming in and out of focus. It might seem a tad overcrowded with 16 fish in the DT, but there is so much motion in the water.

 

Update #3: Pipefish!

 

I think Draco the dragonface *might actually be a female. I'm not entirely sure, but I haven't seen a dark blue/orange patch underneath its belly, so according to several articles online - this means my pipefish is most likely a female. I will try to check again, but it's difficult since the fish is at the bottom of the tank or slithering across the rocks, as expected of its species. Speaking of Draco, he/she wound up in Derp's compartment today!

 

I'm personally not too comfortable having a hermit in such close proximity with my pipefish, so I tried to scoop it up using a brine shrimp net - and the fish *jumped. :eek:

 

It actually sailed ~16" up and plopped back into the fuge section on its own. :scarry: 

 

I was worried I'd stressed it out - I didn't even know pipes could jump, let alone jump that high, but I monitored the fuge for several hours afterwards (occasional check-ins to make sure everything was okay) and Draco was breathing normally and back to foraging for pods on the glass. Phew.

 

I also had to prune my caulerpa and chaeto in the fuge, and my banded pair were very curious over what I was doing in the tank. The drifted close, but stayed just out of reach so that they could swim off if my hands came too close. I took extra care not to touch them or even brush them with the macro strands I was pulling out. They were eating normally when I fed them some frozen pods:

 

 

Update #4: Gary the starfish.

 

Bad news here - Gary evidently died last night, and I only realized he was dead almost 24 hours later, during the late evening today. Two days ago, I saw him plastered against my back wall and unmoving, which is not unusual, because he sometimes sticks to a certain area for few hours before wandering off. Before I did my major WC, I noticed he was flopped over on his back, at the bottom of mushroom mountain. :scarry:

 

Usually he uses his legs and sort of scooches around a bit and rights himself up, or I'll help lift him up using my fingers and set him back correctly. Unfortunately, with the amount of things occurring yesterday (it was an ultra-hectic day), I completely forgot about him. Today evening, I checked up on him and he was still flopped over, in the same position, with the tips of his legs slightly twisted and none of his tube feet were moving. Immediately, I had a flashback of Lola - my smaller double seastar, who died in a similar way. 😥

 

I quickly used a pair of steel forceps to try and lift him up, but he pretty much disintegrated as I was moving him. :tears:

 

His arms dropped off, then pieces of his 'tile' like pattern dropped off in tiny pieces. I knew he was already gone at that point. 

 

My guess is he did die yesterday, and through some amazing stroke of good luck/miracle - his death thankfully (!) didn't crash my tank. I know most of you don't own starfish - but when they die and disintegrate into pieces, it can be very difficult to siphon out each piece or any flesh left behind. They also reek when they die, but Gary wasn't smelling awful yet, so I'm a bit confused over that (?). 

 

I think his death was caused by starvation. Once I added my refugium and chucked a lot of macro in it, I noticed the usually fuzzy gray growth covering the rocks in my DT began to vanish. This growth was what Gary feeds on - I've seen/filmed him eating it numerous times. With his primary food source gone, I pretty much doomed him without even realizing it. Which was incredibly careless on my part. :tears:

 

So I guess my takeaway from this is that perhaps this particular species is best left in the sea. I've seen people with smaller tanks succeed with keeping tiny red fromias long-term, but I think larger species of starfish (even linkias) is best avoided entirely. 

 

R.I.P. Gary. You were an amazing critter and I miss you terribly already:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I didn’t realize you’d lose Lola too! They were so cool- I’m sorry to hear this!

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4 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Hey guys, a lot of updates ahead - some good, some bad. You can skip the pics and the vid and hop straight down to my update at the bottom, if you don't staring at pics:

 

Update #1. Fish & Corals.

 

I woke up and decided to take a few snapshots of the tank early in the morning, when the lights were not fully on as scheduled. Manage to grab a shot of Thanos lurking under my elegance as well:

 

 

My little baby green yuma has more pronounced bubbles now! Growing quickly! :wub:

 

Update #2: Afternoon Feeding session.

 

I took a quick video of the afternoon feeding session using NLS pellets. I had fish popping out of burrows and basically swimming all over the place. It was full of so much motion - that I had trouble focusing on a specific area of the tank because there were other fish constantly swimming in and out of focus. It might seem a tad overcrowded with 16 fish in the DT, but there is so much motion in the water.

 

Update #3: Pipefish!

 

I think Draco the dragonface *might actually be a female. I'm not entirely sure, but I haven't seen a dark blue/orange patch underneath its belly, so according to several articles online - this means my pipefish is most likely a female. I will try to check again, but it's difficult since the fish is at the bottom of the tank or slithering across the rocks, as expected of its species. Speaking of Draco, he/she wound up in Derp's compartment today!

 

I'm personally not too comfortable having a hermit in such close proximity with my pipefish, so I tried to scoop it up using a brine shrimp net - and the fish *jumped. :eek:

 

It actually sailed ~16" up and plopped back into the fuge section on its own. :scarry: 

 

I was worried I'd stressed it out - I didn't even know pipes could jump, let alone jump that high, but I monitored the fuge for several hours afterwards (occasional check-ins to make sure everything was okay) and Draco was breathing normally and back to foraging for pods on the glass. Phew.

 

I also had to prune my caulerpa and chaeto in the fuge, and my banded pair were very curious over what I was doing in the tank. The drifted close, but stayed just out of reach so that they could swim off if my hands came too close. I took extra care not to touch them or even brush them with the macro strands I was pulling out. They were eating normally when I fed them some frozen pods:

 

 

Update #4: Gary the starfish.

 

Bad news here - Gary evidently died last night, and I only realized he was dead almost 24 hours later, during the late evening today. Two days ago, I saw him plastered against my back wall and unmoving, which is not unusual, because he sometimes sticks to a certain area for few hours before wandering off. Before I did my major WC, I noticed he was flopped over on his back, at the bottom of mushroom mountain. :scarry:

 

Usually he uses his legs and sort of scooches around a bit and rights himself up, or I'll help lift him up using my fingers and set him back correctly. Unfortunately, with the amount of things occurring yesterday (it was an ultra-hectic day), I completely forgot about him. Today evening, I checked up on him and he was still flopped over, in the same position, with the tips of his legs slightly twisted and none of his tube feet were moving. Immediately, I had a flashback of Lola - my smaller double seastar, who died in a similar way. 😥

 

I quickly used a pair of steel forceps to try and lift him up, but he pretty much disintegrated as I was moving him. :tears:

 

His arms dropped off, then pieces of his 'tile' like pattern dropped off in tiny pieces. I knew he was already gone at that point. 

 

My guess is he did die yesterday, and through some amazing stroke of good luck/miracle - his death thankfully (!) didn't crash my tank. I know most of you don't own starfish - but when they die and disintegrate into pieces, it can be very difficult to siphon out each piece or any flesh left behind. They also reek when they die, but Gary wasn't smelling awful yet, so I'm a bit confused over that (?). 

 

I think his death was caused by starvation. Once I added my refugium and chucked a lot of macro in it, I noticed the usually fuzzy gray growth covering the rocks in my DT began to vanish. This growth was what Gary feeds on - I've seen/filmed him eating it numerous times. With his primary food source gone, I pretty much doomed him without even realizing it. Which was incredibly careless on my part. :tears:

 

So I guess my takeaway from this is that perhaps this particular species is best left in the sea. I've seen people with smaller tanks succeed with keeping tiny red fromias long-term, but I think larger species of starfish (even linkias) is best avoided entirely. 

 

R.I.P. Gary. You were an amazing critter and I miss you terribly already:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RIP Gary. 😞

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13 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

I've seen people with smaller tanks succeed with keeping tiny red fromias long-term

Even those don't usually fare too well.  Brittle stars (as well as serpent stars) are really the only reef safe sea stars which can find enough food, or be fed.  Sorry for the loss.

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1 hour ago, seabass said:

Even those don't usually fare too well.  Brittle stars (as well as serpent stars) are really the only reef safe sea stars which can find enough food, or be fed.  Sorry for the loss.

I figured as much. I have three large brittles in the DT and many microbrittles in the fuge, and it is very easy to feed all of them since they eat pretty much anything I throw in the tank. 

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Just before I left home, these two were busy being kinky again:

 

 

Thank goodness brittlestars are a lot hardier than regular seastars. My 3 larger brittles are mostly scavengers, but I do target-feed them pieces of chopped shrimp/frozen mysis/brine or pellets every weekly, just in case.

 

Also, I'm currently staying at a beach resort which has a turtle hatchery hut. These pics were actually taken by my mother, but I have a bit of mixed feelings about it. On one hand, it's good to see them rescuing/rehabilitating/hatching sea turtles on the west coast of the peninsular. Wild turtles usually lay eggs along the northeastern coast of the peninsular of my country, in the state of Terengganu, but occasionally we do get them laying eggs here in PD. This turtle hatchery is the first of its kind in this state down here. They're cute, and the feeding sessions are amazing, but I'm not too keen by the settings they keep the animals in (algae-ridden tiled SW pond):

 

Maybe if it was a more natural setup - larger pond with lots of LS, it would be better. Right now, it does seem more of a touristy-thing. (Also, that's the keeper feeding the turtles, not us - we're not allowed to touch them, feed them or handle them in any way).

 

I might drop by again tomorrow to try and film another feeding session. The resort is super-crowded, but we do have a lovely view of the beach, and access to the beach itself:

 

Thinking of dipping my feet into the water tomorrow. 

 

I am a little bit worried about my tanks and other animals back at home, but I *think I took all the necessary precautions so far. I switched off my fuge light & AI Prime before leaving, kept all the doors closed to minimize humidity and evaporation, and left trays of food/water for my parrot. My therapy dog is at a boarding center though, but I miss her already. 😥

 

It hasn't even been 12 hours yet and I'm already eager to get back lol. (And make sure all the fish are okay - especially the pipes)

 

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Not exactly reeftank-related, but SW-related all the same.

 

We dropped by one of the more isolated beaches today - the sand was so fine like sugar, and your feet literally sinks right through it. Since there were so few people, it wasn't noisy or covered with litter, and there was so much life scuttling about in the shallows! Here are some of the things I managed to film:

 

1. Fiddler crabs! :happydance:

 

 

2. Tiny hermits. :wub:

 

3. More hermits and tiny tongan nassarius snails! Hurray for free CUC lol. :lol:

 

 

4, Macro washed up ashore!

 

 

5. Found a huge horseshoe crab concealed in the shallows. 😮

 

 

6. A huge chunk of coralline-encrusted base rock covered in duster worms and sponges (extremely heavy):

 

7. This next bit is a little bit sad. It was a dead zebra mantis shrimp found right next to its burrow. I'm not sure how/why it died, but this was my first time seeing a zebra mantis firsthand and up close. (I checked it, it wasn't a molt - definitely a dead shrimp). :sad:

 

8. Also found a small dead flower crab:

 

Before anyone asks, I didn't bring any of these critters back to the resort with me. Although collecting a whole bunch of hermits and nass. snails was sorely tempting, I just filmed them most of the time - and in the case of the fiddler crab(s), picked a couple up to let it run over my hands for a bit before settling it back in the shallows. I did however, dig up the horseshoe crab and carry it to deeper water and release it back there (where it swam-crawled off). Mainly because I was afraid someone else might step on it (the edges of its carapace is pretty sharp), or one of the kids nearby might grab it and mess around with it/harm it. 

 

I spotted two very tiny gobies (transparent with brownish spots) which were both around 2" each and in the shallows. They moved too quickly for me to film them, but it was amazing to watch - usually you'll get a small fish wind up in a tidepool when the waves retreat, but you'll never really see one swim very close to the sand. I'm not sure what type of gobies they were though - looked a bit like my tangaroa with bland colors and no hi-fins. Maybe sand-sifters? Hmm. 🤔

 

We cut our resort stay short though. Long story short, we couldn't utilize most of the facilities because it was overcrowded, the swimming pool reeked of raw eggs, our room had a lot of issues and the food was pretty bad. So we drove up north and are now in my grandmother's home - she was very happy to see us a day before Christmas. 🙂 

 

I'm still a bit concerned over my tank at home, and how it's holding up. Hoping for no losses, and hoping to enjoy this Christmas with a little less anxiety than usual. 

 

 

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Just now, WV Reefer said:

Merry Christmas to you! 😊

Merry Christmas to you too, Christy! :wink:Have a great day ahead! (Going to spend mine stuffing my face with cookies while the parental units head off to church. Shh...:rolleyes:)

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3 minutes ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Merry Christmas to you too, Christy! :wink:Have a great day ahead! (Going to spend mine stuffing my face with cookies while the parental units head off to church. Shh...:rolleyes:)

Let the face stuffing begin!! 😃

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1 minute ago, Tamberav said:

I am jealous you live near beaches! I am so land locked. :sideeyes:

Tam, I live very far from beaches! We travelled ~300km up north to get to this one lol. I'm pretty much land-locked like you too. 😓

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Hi, NR!

 

I reached home some time late in the evening yesterday (on the 26th). The first thing I did was beeline to the tank upstairs and check on everything. Overall, I had a couple of upturned corals on the sandbed/rocks - probably caused by my sea urchins (?) picking them up and dropping them all over the place:

 

My tenius was actually upside down and shoved into a pocket of LR. I immediately righted it up again and reglued it to the LR, but I noticed some parts of its flesh was missing. 😞

 

The tank suffered minimal losses. I had a bunch of moody coral and fish peeking at me from various corners, but nothing was dead (yet).

 

 

 

I also lost a few strands of my Caulerpa prolifera, but the fuge overall was intact and most of the macro made it! Phew.

 

The first thing I did was check up on the pipes rather than the main tank, actually. All 3 of them were there, although Draco the dragonface was in the sump compartment with Derp the hermit again, rather than the fuge section. It didn't matter - because I immediately thawed out a pod pack and fed all three of them as much frozen pods as I could. Feeding response for the banded pair was 100%, but my dragonface was too shy and mostly eyeballing whatever that floated in front of his snout:

 

 

I fed the main DT NLS and Hikari pellets yesterday and today. The only fish I didn't see was my Leopard wrasse yesterday. It didn't concern me much because my leopard retires to my sandbed in the middle of the afternoon everyday (early-sleeper), but what did concern me was my Yasha. She has lost half of her hi-fin and she was ultra-skinny again. 😞

 

So I made sure I basted enough food in her direction so that she had ample food to eat during the feeding sessions (and she was eating voraciously). 

 

I checked on my Draco again this morning - and again! he was in the sump partition with Derp. I gently scooped him out using an extra large brine net and slowly placed him back into the fuge:

 

Prince and Lady received an extra round of feeding to compensate for the days I was away (4 days, 3 nights). The main issue with pipefish is that their bodies are quite rigidly-shaped, so there isn't really a way to tell if the fish is skinny/starving or not. I try my best to overfeed them to keep them healthy, and even though I've only had them for a very short while, this seems to work best with my pair:

 

Big boy Thanos concerned me a little. Now that the lights are up again, I realized he has lost a *bit of weight and isn't as chunky as he was before I left him. So I spam-fed him with a *lot of seaweed pellets today. I'm waiting to order a magnetic seaweed clip for my tank since my old rubber-suction one has lost its elasticity (the clip itself is still functional though, but it just won't stick to the glass and will float around the top of the water).

 

My smaller blenny - the TSB, Miko, was faring better:

 

(And I know this pic is far from stellar, but here are both my blennies in one shot):

 

Goblin the GCG is currently the smallest fish I have in this tank, I believe. And also thankfully quite hardy, but easy to miss. He was one of the first nanofish I spotted today up and about early morning, which didn't appear to be affected by my absence at all:

 

My Cleaner Shrimp, Doc, was on standby duty to clean the gills of any fish. Thanos occasionally uses his services, although I have seen Doc cleaning my wrasses as well:

 

This little yuma also appeared to have developed slightly brighter coloration during the no-lights period. Not sure how, or why (?) 🤔:

 

 

Also did a mandatory evening-check on the fuge. Caught a lot of tiny microbrittles waving their little arms about when I fed the pipes:

 

Also found this amazing sponge growing and covering one of the LRs in the fuge. It's actually a light shade of lavendar and very pretty, but turns up whitish/translucent in my pics:

 

Good News:

-All fish are alive and accounted for

-Almost all corals have bounced back with full PE by today evening

-Green monticap regained more color

-Christmas favia grew a little *bit more

-A small part of the Jack-O-Lantern leptoseris has encrusted to the LR

-Older elegance coral looks much better with better PE

-Found this cool oyster/clam-like bivalve (?) partially opened up in the tricolored mushroom colony-mountain

-Found two new tunicates in that same colony-mountain as above^

-Found a lot of cool hitchikers in the fuge, including a new sponge, hyroid jellyfish & weird worm-like thingy

 

Bad News:

-Leopard wrasse still refuses to eat prepared

-Rose the Yasha lost half of her hi-fin 😥

-One baby red devil mushroom is missing (maybe melted away?)

-One red blasto from the blasto garden is missing a part of its flesh (melted away too)

-Remember the tenius? It RTNed throughout today. There is still a bit of skin on it, but I doubt it will survive the night. :tears:

-Tank temp was a 30'C (!!!) when I returned home. Evap. was minimal with only <1" of water loss in the sump.

-Two of my leathers are still closed up.

 

What I plan on doing:

-Get that wrasse on prepared ASAP!

-Restore tank temp within the 26'C to 28'C (shouldn't be a problem now that I'm home and turn on the A/C at night)

-Wait for the leathers to shed, and see if they pop out some polyps - might take a while

-Feed, feed, FEED! this tank and raise nutrients to a more stable level again

-Scrape the glass in the fuge and top-up the water in the sump

-Wait for the melted blasto head to regrow by sticking to my dosing/WCs/regular routine

-*Maybe try out another acro frag in the future

-Pick up my red people eater zoa colony and red/yellow symphyllia from the LFS tomorrow/next week 

 

Will update accordingly. 🙂 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Hey everyone,

 

There's actually quite a number of updates, but I'll break it up throughout the day so that it doesn't clutter the thread too much.

 

1. Pipefish:

 

I tried feeding the pipes some frozen mysis/brine mix enriched with Selcon and they literally swam away from the food the moment I put it into the water:

 

It is a bit hilarious, because initial reaction to me prepping the food in front of them was this:

 

So nope, definitely not accepting any new frozen for now. I managed to coax them back to the fuge by creating a podstorm and that got my banded pair back into feeding-mode within seconds:

 

Overall, all three of them appeared to be doing well (or so I thought):

 

I was out really late last night, so when I returned, the routine evening feeding session was pushed to night. I noticed right away that something was wrong with Draco, my dragonface. She was breathing a lot heavier than usual, and upon closer observation, had red gills. I scrolled back my Insta feed to check if her gills were indeed this red, or that I was simply tired and imagining things.

 

Scroll back to a day/two days ago (before feeding the tank mysis):

 

Note that the gills are mildly pink, but breathing was not rapid. The following morning - gills are still tinged pink, but breathing is still even:

 

Last night, gills are darker pink (almost red?) and breathing is rapid:

 

Today morning, gills are definitely red and breathing is still very rapid:

 

The day I fed my pipes frozen mysis/brine mix, I also fed my DT the same frozen mysis/brine mix rather heavily. Although most of the food was eaten by both the fish & corals, I think I might have kicked up my nutrients (nitrates especially) a little bit too high, too quickly. It's either that, or I *might have an outbreak of gill flukes, which is tentatively affecting my dragonface the most. I observed the fish in my DT today for any signs of flashing/reddened gills. So far, none of the fish have any reddened or inflamed gills, although I did catch Thanos (!) glance off the sandbed once (!!!) today. 

 

I can, in theory, remove all the carbon from the sump and Prazi my DT and fuge. I'll probably lose my duster worm in the process, but what I'm not sure is if I'm actually facing gill flukes, and if the pipes can handle a round of Prazi. We use PraziGold here, which is 3x more concentrated than PraziPro. I have lost several fish in QT (wrasses mainly) due to using this med. Which is why I'm very hesitant to use it.

 

I read a seahorse-keeping website that methylene blue dips might help seahorses/pipes experiencing flukes. 

 

I'll need to do more reading before I take a single article at face-value. So for now, I'll be doing more observing, and feed the tank as usual. If Draco still exhibits labored breathing by tonight, I'll try to catch her and move her to a QT downstairs before planning on what to do next. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Don't be sad, @Dirté Sanchez - I'll find a way to treat all of them. My guess is that my Leopard had flukes (this was the only fish I didn't QT properly and dumped straight into the tank), or one of the coral pieces I brought home from the store had flukes/parasites hitchiking on it. I do dip the pieces before adding them to my tank, but with flukes and parasites, there's no telling if they can survive a single round of dipping.

 

I'm still monitoring all my other fish, and they're eating and behaving normally. I might do a Prazi-dose at 1/3rd the recommended dose for a system my size, since the wrasses are exceptionally sensitive towards it. And I'll do more reading on pipefish treatment in the meantime. Really wish they had some good books on seahorse/pipefish care locally, but I checked all the online bookstores and there are no copies available in my country. 😞 

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Update #2: My Yasha is a badass!

 

(I think I've finally figured out how she lost half of her hi-fin - here she is, trying to take on my 6" zebra dartfish. It's like watching a toothpick trying to posture against a sausage 🤣 ) :

 

 

Tic is really cool though. I wish his buddy hadn't gone tile/carpet-surfing all those months ago because he was constantly out in the open when the other fish was around. Now I only see him during meal times, or the occasionally morning lap around the tank:

 

(Clownfish photobomb!):

 

Update #3: LFS-run!

 

I bought a couple of things from the LFS - mainly a new scraper, 3 extra pod packs for the pipes and one new cute coral cutter so that I can trim my own frags without store assistance in the future:

 

I also saw this *huge & amazing red goni for sale at my LFS for $$$$ - it was stunning! :wub::

 

I finished paying off my tri-colored symphyllia and red people eater zoa colony, and brought both coral pieces home:

 

 

Goblin was quite thrilled over the new symphyllia and kept using it as a new couch:

 

Update #4: Fish & Coral:

 

Rare footage of Prowler last night - he's actually quite big now (around ~2.5" or so):

 

The Jack-O-Lantern leptoseris seems to be growing rather quickly. A tiny part of it has already encrusted to my LR, and it's only been 2 weeks! 😮

 

 

The older yumas have become wider and larger:

 

Update #5: Back to the pipefish:

 

Draco is still breathing hard, although his gills are now less redder than before (and more light-pinkish):

 

If this persists, I'll find a way to safely remove him (trying not to use my hands) and shift him to Derp's compartment so that I can monitor him better. My banded pipe pair are doing okay though (thankfully!) and eating normally:

 

I guess the only thing left to do at the moment is to keep reading and monitoring all the fish. 😕 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Don't be sad, @Dirté Sanchez - I'll find a way to treat all of them. My guess is that my Leopard had flukes (this was the only fish I didn't QT properly and dumped straight into the tank), or one of the coral pieces I brought home from the store had flukes/parasites hitchiking on it. I do dip the pieces before adding them to my tank, but with flukes and parasites, there's no telling if they can survive a single round of dipping.

 

I'm still monitoring all my other fish, and they're eating and behaving normally. I might do a Prazi-dose at 1/3rd the recommended dose for a system my size, since the wrasses are exceptionally sensitive towards it. And I'll do more reading on pipefish treatment in the meantime. Really wish they had some good books on seahorse/pipefish care locally, but I checked all the online bookstores and there are no copies available in my country. 😞 

Was just worried about your cool fish! Hope all the effort keeps things in line.

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  • Snow_Phoenix changed the title to Snow's 60G Secret Predatory Sanctum 🐲🐉 - Shutting Down

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