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

[Snow_Phoenix]

I have some very bad news. I just checked the fuge and found Draco dead - the fish was lying between the basket that holds my Chaeto and the glass. 

 

 I flipped the fish over and it's actually a male (he had orange claspers midway through his belly) like I originally thought, and not a female, like I perceived him to be few days ago. There was a large hole in the middle of his belly, under the claspers - I presume he was being cleaned up by my CUC some time throughout the night/early morning. 

 

I genuinely thought he had more time. I was still very hesitant dosing Prazi in my system and still doing more reading on fluke treatment in pipes. Was planning on getting to treatment today - but turns out me hesitating wasn't the best idea either. 😞

 

Dragonfaces are usually very hardy compared to other pipes. I've kept a group of four before in a nano once and they were very active and eating frozen. Draco preferred eating live pods and only took frozen copepods every once in a while. 

 

I'll monitor the fuge and DT for any signs of redness in the gills of all the fish. So far, I see no issues, but just because I can't see it, it doesn't mean it's already there. Definitely a bad call on my part for delaying treatment. I'll try to be more proactive in the future and work faster. I admit I was very ill day before yesterday (hit by a bad seizure in the night) and resting throughout yesterday, but that's still no excuse. I'll try to be more vigilant. 

 

R.I.P. Draco. In the short time that I had you, you were an amazing fish. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

I am still a bit crushed over Draco's passing this morning, but I needed to focus on the animals still with me, so I tried to do a headcount of all the fish throughout the day and observe them for any signs of rapid breathing, flashing or red gills. With some fish that have darker coloration (like my Starry), it can be difficult to tell if the gills are red, but thankfully - everyone seems to be behaving normally today.

 

I did get some not-so-high-quality footage of the two most reclusive critters in my tank - my circus barred goby & fire shrimp:

 

Also, these are currently my 4 smallest gobies taken during feeding time:

 

My Yasha's persistent skinniness still concerns me. She eats, but evidently this isn't enough to put more meat on her bones. I'm not sure what else I can do to help her. 😞

 

I do have a few slices of good news - my new Christmas Favia is already growing down the sides of the frag (so quick!):

 

 

The metallic GSP is slowly spreading across the rocks:

 

And the edges of the leptoseris appears to be 'flaring out' a little, while the bottom part is encrusting slowly:

 

Lastly, the new red people eater colony is almost fully open:

 

I checked up on both my remaining pipefish several times today because I was worried. They were swimming between the fuge and the sump area that holds my floss (they like chillin' in this area) so I tapped the glass to get their attention during the feeding session. They came swimming back into the fuge the moment they saw me, which makes me wonder. Can these fish recognize the person who feeds them/takes care of them, and associate that person with food? 🤔

 

I presume yes, but I'd like to hear any of your views on it:

 

They also have surprisingly decent eyesight. Maybe not as good (?) as a regular fish (not sure about this, will have to do more reading/researching into it), but they can definitely pick off pods in the water column with ease:

 

I'll definitely need to clean the glass again. Hopefully the new scraper will be able to get rid of most of the film algae stuck to the sides. I debated adding a small turban snail into the fuge - might go with it, since I can't use an urchin because they'll snack on the macro. 

 

And Miko was being extra cute today, so I took some snapshots of him as well:

 

 

Overall:-

 

Issues I'm currently experiencing/still struggling with:

-Possible fluke outbreak

-Frogspawns are still not recovering

-Yasha is still too thin

-Leopard wrasse still refuses to eat prepared

 

Things I'm planning to do:

-Research more into medication and compatibility with extra-sensitive fish like pipefish and wrasses before adding meds to the tank

-Consult more experienced forum members about medicating the tank with my current mixture of fish

-*Shift both frogspawns to the nanotank downstairs once I can get a hold of a cooling fan (might even do this without the cooling fan)

-Figure out a better diet plan to get the Yasha to eat more (maybe target-feed Selcon-enriched crab roe? 🤔)

-Figure out a diet plan for the Leopard to get him to eat prepared ASAP

-Measure levels before and after the feeding of frozen pods to the pipes, to see if there are any changes to the NO3 or PO4 levels

-Save up for a proper ATO so that I can be away from the tank for longer periods of time in the future (vacation breaks/work conferences etc.)

-Get more Fritz RPM salt from the LFS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[A.m.P]

Yes, fish absolutely recognize people, some can be trained to do tricks as well.

 

I personally cannot find any information on flukes causing redness in the gills, anytime I've seen anything like that it has been associated with the animal's stress coloration. I haven't had personal experience with flukes of any form thankfully, but from what I've read external symptoms are much rarer than patterns of coughing, yawning, gill flaring, or even a little gill-distension...

 

Sorry I don't have more to offer =/

[ef4life]

Sorry to hear about Draco. 

 

But it I do believe fish recognize people. I think they can tell time too, my fish surround the auto feeder starting around 1:30pm waiting for food to drop at 2pm. 

[ECLS Reefer]

I’m so sorry Snow! 😢 Your fish collection is so amazing and it’s horrible to see one of them die. 

[Hannahhhh]

13 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

I have some very bad news. I just checked the fuge and found Draco dead - the fish was lying between the basket that holds my Chaeto and the glass. 

 

 I flipped the fish over and it's actually a male (he had orange claspers midway through his belly) like I originally thought, and not a female, like I perceived him to be few days ago. There was a large hole in the middle of his belly, under the claspers - I presume he was being cleaned up by my CUC some time throughout the night/early morning. 

 

I genuinely thought he had more time. I was still very hesitant dosing Prazi in my system and still doing more reading on fluke treatment in pipes. Was planning on getting to treatment today - but turns out me hesitating wasn't the best idea either. 😞

 

Dragonfaces are usually very hardy compared to other pipes. I've kept a group of four before in a nano once and they were very active and eating frozen. Draco preferred eating live pods and only took frozen copepods every once in a while. 

 

I'll monitor the fuge and DT for any signs of redness in the gills of all the fish. So far, I see no issues, but just because I can't see it, it doesn't mean it's already there. Definitely a bad call on my part for delaying treatment. I'll try to be more proactive in the future and work faster. I admit I was very ill day before yesterday (hit by a bad seizure in the night) and resting throughout yesterday, but that's still no excuse. I'll try to be more vigilant. 

 

R.I.P. Draco. In the short time that I had you, you were an amazing fish. 

I’m sorry for your loss! It’s really rough loosing a fish. I’m also sorry you ill recently, sounds like a rough few days. Sending you positive vibes! 💕 

[Snow_Phoenix]

12 hours ago, Amphrites said:

Yes, fish absolutely recognize people, some can be trained to do tricks as well.

 

I personally cannot find any information on flukes causing redness in the gills, anytime I've seen anything like that it has been associated with the animal's stress coloration. I haven't had personal experience with flukes of any form thankfully, but from what I've read external symptoms are much rarer than patterns of coughing, yawning, gill flaring, or even a little gill-distension...

 

Sorry I don't have more to offer =/

 

11 hours ago, ef4life said:

Sorry to hear about Draco. 

 

But it I do believe fish recognize people. I think they can tell time too, my fish surround the auto feeder starting around 1:30pm waiting for food to drop at 2pm. 

 

11 hours ago, Dirté Sanchez said:

I’m so sorry Snow! 😢 Your fish collection is so amazing and it’s horrible to see one of them die. 

 

9 hours ago, Hannahhhh said:

I’m sorry for your loss! It’s really rough loosing a fish. I’m also sorry you ill recently, sounds like a rough few days. Sending you positive vibes! 💕 

Thank you, all of you.

 

Glad to know that fish do have the ability to recognize people. That's actually very interesting. Thanks for sharing all your experiences/pointers with me. 

 

As for my health, I'm on the mend and still recovering. So I'm holding off doing any WCs for the moment because it requires a lot of physical work and my body isn't at its best at the moment. 

 

Also, I realize I'm almost a day ahead of everyone, but I'll wish all of you anyway: Happy New Year! Happy 2020! 🙂 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Before the 1/1/2020 ends (we only have ~2 hours left to go on my end), just wanted to swing by and say - thank you all for following along on this incredible journey for my reeftank.

 

Although there were many ups and downs with this system, I think one of the two best things that happened to me last year was that I could actually upgrade to a much larger reef, and actually manage to keep it in my bedroom. This particular dream of mine - upgrading to a large reef - has always been there since I bought my first nanotank in 2011. I admit I used to see all the larger systems some of the other folks in my area had set up, and I kept wondering if I could have the time, space or resources to set one up for myself too. 

 

Nearly nine years later, and somehow, I managed to do it. It has been a bumpy ride, but the reef is here, and every morning I wake up to one of the best views I could only imagine in my otherwise dull life lol. 

 

And special thanks to all of you on NR for secretly making this happen. I honestly don't know what I'd have done if I hadn't found this forum all those years ago - its full of tons of info, and I'm constantly learning, even years later!

 

Last official update(s) for today:

 

^(Check out how she 'rolls' sideways to eat in some of the pics - quite amusing to watch, really)

 

And of course, the good ol' bristleworm(s):

 

Looking forward to expanding my reefing journey this year. Keep an eye on this tank:

 

Am planning 'stuff'. 

 

Can't wait to see what this year brings - hopefully *moar corals, a second fuge (and *maybe moar nanotanks, IDK. ). Stay tuned. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[WV Reefer]

3 minutes ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Before the 1/1/2020 ends (we only have ~2 hours left to go on my end), just wanted to swing by and say - thank you all for following along on this incredible journey for my reeftank.

 

Although there were many ups and downs with this system, I think one of the two best things that happened to me last year was that I could actually upgrade to a much larger reef, and actually manage to keep it in my bedroom. This particular dream of mine - upgrading to a large reef - has always been there since I bought my first nanotank in 2011. I admit I used to see all the larger systems some of the other folks in my area had set up, and I kept wondering if I could have the time, space or resources to set one up for myself too. 

 

Nearly nine years later, and somehow, I managed to do it. It has been a bumpy ride, but the reef is here, and every morning I wake up to one of the best views I could only imagine in my otherwise dull life lol. 

 

And special thanks to all of you on NR for secretly making this happen. I honestly don't know what I'd have done if I hadn't found this forum all those years ago - its full of tons of info, and I'm constantly learning, even years later!

 

Last official update(s) for today:

 

^(Check out how she 'rolls' sideways to eat in some of the pics - quite amusing to watch, really)

 

And of course, the good ol' bristleworm(s):

 

Looking forward to expanding my reefing journey this year. Keep an eye on this tank:

 

Am planning 'stuff'. 

 

Can't wait to see what this year brings - hopefully *moar corals, a second fuge (and *maybe moar nanotanks, IDK. ). Stay tuned. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Thank you for letting us follow along. 

[Tamberav]

Love the saron! Your fuge looks great....wish mine would fill in and look that healthy. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

12 hours ago, WV Reefer said:

 Thank you for letting us follow along. 

You're welcome. 😊

8 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Love the saron! Your fuge looks great....wish mine would fill in and look that healthy. 

Thanks! 😊

[Snow_Phoenix]

Tales from the fuge today:

 

I'm getting a lot of sponge growth in the lower levels of the fuge. The lavendar-colored sponge I documented earlier several posts back appears to be developing a projection of sorts, but is otherwise harmless to my system, so I let it be:

 

The dark, shadowy bottom of the fuge has many pineapple sponges, few tunicates and mysterious web-like sponges and worms plastered against the glass. Also a couple of spirochaetes and the occasional hydroid jellyfish, which is pretty cool.

 

I used a new scraper today and the blade is razor sharp! 😧

 

Good news: It managed to clear out most of the film algae adhering to the glass. 

Bad news: I need to be extra careful not to accidently cut myself or one of the pipes (!!!) when I'm scraping the algae off. 

 

I have to admit though, now I have a much clearer view of my fish, and they can see me better too! 

 

Also quickly caught another short video of these two today having a nice snack:

 

I wager I've purchased around RM 150 worth of frozen food so far for the two of them. This officially makes them the highest-maintenance fish I'm currently keeping, although my FW eels come in at a close second. 

 

I still have yet to finish the first pod pack. My guess is 1 pod pack can last ~1 month, and I currently have 6 unopened ones lying in the freezer. I'm thinking of purchasing another 6 so that they'll have a steady food supply all the year around. Weaning them onto other frozen food is tough. They always swim away when I give them mysis or brine, and they only come back if I tap the glass and add pods back into the water. They're smart critters, I'll give them that. 

 

I'm still working on trying to feed my Leopard wrasse and beef up my Yasha. Good news is that Rose (my Yasha) love the frozen pods more than pellets - she was taking huge gulps of it yesterday. As for the wrasse, he's as finicky as ever.

 

So an overview:

 

Issues:

-Two fish which still aren't stable diet-wise: Leopard wrasse & Yasha goby

-Older elegance coral looks very small & scrunched up (but not goopy or disintegrating)

 

What I plan on doing:

-Enlist the help of my LFS over feeding my leopard wrasse. Usually this happens the other way around, but I figured the girls could help give some pointers since they always maintain a steady stream of wrasses shipped from the Pacific

-Monitor the elegance - if it starts sliming, I'll toss it out. Not risking another BJD infection, which may affect my other LPS colonies. 

-Look into other types of liquid coral food. I have some Reef Roids and Brightwell's Zooplankton, but I was thinking of picking up some Phyto & Marine Snow as well.

-Pick. Up. New. Box. Of. Salt! This/Next. Week. 

-Prep. the nano to host my two frogspawns. 

-Scrape the glass of the DT.

-*Maybe get another 2 (?) Turban snails. 

-Order. The. Magnetic. Seaweed. Clip. 

 

And...

 

-Stop counting mushrooms on the mountain before heading off to bed. It doesn't work. 🙄

 

 

 

[mcarroll]

4 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

pod pack.

 

4 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

They always swim away when I give them mysis or brine

What is a pod pack?  Is it branded?

 

Consider options other than brine and mysis, which are pretty dang large.

 

Decapsulated or newly hatched brine shrimp would probably be better.   Frozen, refrigerater or fresh fish eggs, roe, small reef plankton (e.e. San Francisco Bay Brand "Reef Plankton"), calanus or anything else small and red/orange like that would be a recommended try.

[Snow_Phoenix]

11 hours ago, mcarroll said:

 

What is a pod pack?  Is it branded?

 

Consider options other than brine and mysis, which are pretty dang large.

 

Decapsulated or newly hatched brine shrimp would probably be better.   Frozen, refrigerater or fresh fish eggs, roe, small reef plankton (e.e. San Francisco Bay Brand "Reef Plankton"), calanus or anything else small and red/orange like that would be a recommended try.

Hi @mcarroll,

 

It's basically a small packet full of frozen copepods. The pods are spirulina-enriched - they were fed spirulina powder before being immediately frozen and packaged into small packets. It looks like this (speaking of that little orange pack at the top of the pic):

 

 

To my knowledge, my LFS is the only one that does this locally, and this is a relatively new product by them. They lab-tested it and each pack has roughly ~5 million pods per pack, and it's very dense. They haven't really released it to the public yet. A few customers (including myself) got a chance to test out and try them because we either own pipefish or dragonets. They also wanted feedback on the product and measurements on differences between NO3 & PO4 levels in our tanks before & after feeding our fish with these pods. So far I haven't noticed any changes in levels between before & after feeding sessions, and I feed my pipefish a *lot of frozen pods a day. (Twice/Thrice the recommended dose)

 

I tried flower crab roe once with my pipes when I had just acquired them - they took a few pecks but were mostly waiting for me to feed them the pods. Since I only attempted the roe once, I'll try them again (maybe sneakily mix them in with the pods so that they'll snick a few up - it's a good thing crab roe is orange too!). 

 

I'll definitely look into BBS. My health keeps dipping and I'm not fully stable yet. Even now I'm not functioning at 100% - I usually culture various live food for my FW & SW fish, but everything had to take a backseat these last few weeks. I know it seems like a poor excuse - but I am struggling, and I am trying. I'll get back to culturing microworms, grindal worms & earth worms, & hatching BBS when I'm stronger. Just need more time to rest. Hope this is understandable. 😞 

 

As for now, I'm mostly feeding all my fish & corals prepared food - pellets, reef roids, frozen mysis/brine/pods & liquids (plankton). And I'm a little bit behind on WCs and maintenance, but the tank looks steady, just the glass in the DT is a bit dirty and needs a good scrape. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Another tale from the fuge today:

 

Hitchikers! 

 

Microbrittles are seriously adorable. I'm wondering if I can get differently colored ones if I take more macro from a different store. But these beige ones are quite pretty too:

 

And this is just a small example of stuff I have growing on my motor pump in the sump tank:

 

I make it a point not to scrape off too many of these guys when I clean the panels because I believe they are beneficial in some way to my tank's health - mostly by adding more biodiversity to what I already have. 

 

Also - quick vid of the pipes today:

 

And Prince & Lady are doing fine:

 

I realize I haven't taken any pics of the DT but I'll try to do so tomorrow. DT glass still needs to be scraped first, because it's quite blurry otherwise. My red/yellow cyphastrea was knocked down by an urchin overnight though, so I've reglued it to the front right corner rock instead (the same rock that has my leptoseris, GSP(s) and christmas favia on it). 

 

Nothing much to report otherwise - everything is the same for now, which I guess isn't really too bad of a thing. I'm trying not to mess around with the corals too much. Pretty much having a hands-off approach on things for now until I get better. So I guess the tank is on auto-pilot mode. I'll let it sit that way a for a few more days. (Except maybe clean the glass).

 

However, I've decided to pick up 2 more turban snails if possible. I currently have 7 to 8 turbans which are very active and good at munching on any film algae that pops up, but since there are no hermits in the DT, I figure I might as well beef up my CUC by adding more snails. 🤔

 

[mcarroll]

9 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

It's basically a small packet full of frozen copepods. The pods are spirulina-enriched

Very cool.  No idea where they got em though eh?

 

Were they a freebie to try or what did you pay for them?

Keep posting about your experiences with them!  😁

[Snow_Phoenix]

13 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Very cool.  No idea where they got em though eh?

 

Were they a freebie to try or what did you pay for them?

Keep posting about your experiences with them!  😁

Well, there was an external supplier that cultivates and sells pods. The LFS bought several gallons of them and fed the pods some spirulina powder. Main issue with live pods is that they tend not too last very long - the water they're kept in fouls very quickly too, so the pods die. They also do not stay enriched for long - meaning if you feed them spirulina now, it'll be gone within 24 hours. Kinda like how BBS is only nutritious for a short period of time. So my store decided to freeze the pods (while they're still alive & gut-loaded with spirulina, and pack them into tiny packets instead). This way they last longer and remain nutritious for the fish. 

 

The tester batch (which I received) was offered at a discount. So I snatched up 1 pod pack first to try it out with the pipefish. Once I realized that the fish were quite happy with this particular type of food, I purchased more pod packs, but was offered the same discounted rate as the first pack. 🙂

 

And yes, I'll keep posting about them. 🙂 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Some quick updates about the DT today:

 

I managed to scrape the glass this morning. The new scraper is wonderful! Dangerous, but much, much easier to use than my older scraper. 

 

So here are some quick coral pics:

 

1. Yumas (first pic under heavy whites, second & third pic under heavy blues):

 

2. Blasto garden - I have several new tiny baby blastos popping up under the skirts of the bigger blastos (can't be seen in pic, but can be seen when the corals are retracted) so I'm quite excited that they're growing:

 

3. Symphyllias & lobo:

 

4. Purple encrusting monti finally encrusted past the glue and directly to the LR below! 😄

 

5. Some shrooms on the mountain(s):

 

6. There's a new teeny-tiny new polyp that popped up underneath the older polyps. The frag itself is coloring up rather nicely (the two white dots are actually sand granules - must have accidently been tossed on the frag while I stirred the sandbed this morning and scraped the glass):

 

7. Sideview of the Christmas favia:

 

8. My blenny bois: 😎

 

9. Rose is still skinny, and I'll keep working on her. For a tiny fish, she has a *lot of fight left in her:

 

10. Casper the tangaroa peeking out of his burrow:

 

11. Bo the Lubbocks, out swimming with his friends:

 

12. Prince & Lady still rockin' it in the fuge:

 

Lastly, two quick vids shot from one side of the tank, and front-on:

 

Based on the vids, you will notice how my frogspawns and older elegance are all retracted and not faring too well. The strangest thing is that none of these pieces are dead, they're just very badly retracted in some areas. I'm comparing this to the other corals I have in my tank - softies, zoas, shrooms, SPS & other LPS. I'm not facing any trouble with any other corals atm, and from the earlier pics, I'm actually seeing growth in some corals. (More heads, larger size, wider-encrusting-arc etc.). So yes, I'm a bit baffled.

 

My older elegance was never the same after being hit by BJD. I tried and am still trying to get it back to its original splendor, but it's like trying to poke a boulder up a hill using a needle. It's a losing battle. I'm not giving up on it on the off-chance it can bounce back, but this piece is from the Indo-Pac region (not Australian), so I think the chances of recovery is quite slim. 😞

 

As for my frogspawns, they're still here and still accepting food - but just not recovering. I'm at a loss. I haven't observed any recent sliming from either of them in my tank, although the orange one did slime pretty badly when I dropped it on the green one. Tbh, I'm extremely lucky the cynarina recovered in full because the orange one plonked on it directly after it bounced off my green frogspawn. 

 

Ever since this incident, I've been more careful in trying to move the larger coral pieces in my tank. Even while I was adding my new symphyllias, I weighed them in my hand (out of the water) first, to see how heavy they were, and if I could physically hold them (or ask for help placing them from my father ---> thankfully, I didn't need to ask his help & could do this independently). But I'm definitely trying to be more cautious. Can't risk dropping something on a perfectly healthy coral (or worse, a fish) and squish it. 😞

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

I actually woke up to something very peculiar in my tank today. Mainly, this:

 

Basically, Thanos has a thing for my thermometer. I've heard him smooch/peck the heck out of it in the middle of the night, until it detaches from the glass completely. Usually, I wake up to a thermometer floating/bobbing idly on the surface of the water, but today I saw it balanced precariously on my Jebao lol. It's not trapped in the grates of the wavemaker either, it's just perfectly balanced between the grates and the magnetic holder. I was too lazy to fish it out and re-stick it to the glass, so it's still there, hovering upright in the middle of my tank. 😁

 

Speaking of Thanos - I think he's maxed out in size now. I haven't observed him growing any longer than the current 6" he has on him, but he has gain more thickness/chonkiness/whatever you want to call it. 

 

I also found out that my galaxea has many tiny new polyps rimming the sides, which is amazing. I have this frag placed independently on the sandbed, where it won't be in contact with anything else. But it's growing *past the tiny bit of LR it's own - almost like how a chalice would grow. 

 

Ultra-blurry pic of the latest cyphastrea in its newest position on the rocks - it's not bleached btw, the pic quality is poor enough that it drowns out its actual red and yellow colors:

 

Sideshot of my multi-colored yuma - which I just decided to call 'rainbow' yuma since it now has up to six different colors on it:

 

 

The parent red devil shroom that I have - I think the white 'bubbles' are actually starting to bounce, but I'm not too sure: 🤔

 

This is a snapshot of my older elegance - it's still very small and diminished now, but at least the tentacles are still out, and coral is feeding so... :

 

 

 

Here's a small mystery I'm currently facing. Day before yesterday, I noticed my pink streaked wrasse, Miu, had a few black spots/speckles along the orange lines on either side of her body. The fish is behaving perfectly normally, and even eating well - no loss of weight/appetite, no rapid breathing or open sores/lesions, no flashing off the rocks/sand etc etc. Basically, there's nothing wrong with her, except the spots, which are new:

 

I know the pics are very blurry, but she moves very quickly around my rockwork, so it's hard to focus on her. I'm curious as to what this is? Is this some form of melanism (can wrasses even get melanism like clowns?), or was it because she was stung by my elegance coral? Because I noticed for the past one week, she's been cruise between the tentacles of my older elegance coral quite a number of times. She's small enough that she can literally pass through the coral, and I know my elegance packs a sting, because it has melted nearby zoas before back in its glory-days. So what could this be? Is it, or will it become deadly to my fish? Will it go away on its own? Should I even be worried, or should I ignore this? 

 

-

 

Quick Tales from the Fuge:

 

Cute microbrittle in the fuge:

 

Prince & Lady doing fine - although the caulerpa might need a trim. It's become a bit unruly in some places:

 

Still picky about their food, but thankfully not picky on the pods:

 

I'm tentatively planning on creating the second fuge next week/week after - but I wish to procure different types of macro first. Currently, I have grape, fern & prolifera types of Caulerpa & Chaeto, but I would like to get a proper frag of galaxaura (hard to come by) and maybe some Halimeda. Halimeda needs calcium though, so I'll have to watch out for that. I really wish I could get a hold of Dragon's breath here. It's very pretty. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[WV Reefer]

I think the corals look great! 😀 

 

 

Star Lord too has certain items that he will not abide in the tank...... it’s funny that they are like that. 😄

[Snow_Phoenix]

15 minutes ago, WV Reefer said:

I think the corals look great! 😀 

 

 

Star Lord too has certain items that he will not abide in the tank...... it’s funny that they are like that. 😄

Thanks!

 

And I love how each fish has its own set of quirks. Blennies especially, seem to have a ton of personality in general. So glad I managed to keep two in this tank without any issues (so far). I love blennies! 🙂 

[Ratvan]

You know with all of your photographs of the Pipefish I completely forgot that they weren't in the display section of this tank!

 

Sorry to hear about Draco by the way. How are the Wrasses getting on now? They enjoying your fish food selections?

 

My TSB does the same with any suction cup, he keeps taking aim at my heater at the minute....

[Snow_Phoenix]

Not much to update today - but my TSB, Miko, developed this small white patch (possibly an area of missing scales) on the left side of his body. He's been this way (with the patch) for a week now. The patch itself has not grown larger, dropped off or moved, so I guess this is another mystery. 

 

The fish is not affected in any way by this patch. He still eats, swims and behaves normally. 

 

Also managed to snap a pic of Doc - check out the length of his antennas! 😲

 

He's gone through a couple of molts since I purchased him, and is relatively large for a cleaner shrimp.

 

I had to reglue my leopard discosoma quartet to the shroom mountain because it fell off some time last night. Also had to reglue my teal-striped discosoma to the mountain as well - the new coral cutters I bought came in very handy at trimming off the excess, hardened glue at the bottom of the frag. 

 

Quick check-up on the pipes - they're still here and going strong:

 

I'm tentatively planning on picking up my salt from the store this Wednesday, so I *might pick up another 3 pod packs as well. Which should bring up my total pod pack collection to 9 unopened packs, and 1 opened pack. As long as the fish keep eating and maintain a healthy weight, I'll keep feeding them frozen pods/frozen food. I'll also try out other types of small-sized food - finally recovering, so should be able to culture some BBS end of this week/start of next week. 🙂

 

9 minutes ago, Ratvan said:

You know with all of your photographs of the Pipefish I completely forgot that they weren't in the display section of this tank!

 

Sorry to hear about Draco by the way. How are the Wrasses getting on now? They enjoying your fish food selections?

 

My TSB does the same with any suction cup, he keeps taking aim at my heater at the minute....

I keep them isolate in the fuge since it's easier to observe and feed them, and they won't have to compete for food with any other fish. The fish I keep in my DT are very boisterous during feeding sessions - especially the wrasses, my blennies, clowns & chromis. I usually feed extra *extra pellets and stir the surface of the water with a wooden chopstick so that some of the food sinks, and the bottom-feeders (like my gobies) get a chance to eat. Otherwise, it's pure chaos lol.

 

The wrasses seemed to have established some sort of hierarchy. It's a bit difficult to explain - but from what I've observed, my yellow coris is the 'alpha' of the group. The leopard and him postures against each other sometimes, but they don't fight. Just like a sort of, 'Check me out - I'm a bigger badass than you' kind of thing. My Lubbocks falls in the 'middle' and my pink streak is definitely the 'omega'. But only because she's the smallest and most passive. Occasionally, my yellow coris hounds her, but she ignores him and goes about her way, zooming around the rockwork. 🙂

 

Tentatively, all wrasses eat everything & anything I throw into the tank (dry/frozen) except for the leopard. I noticed he has finally (!) discovered some flatworms on my shroom mountain, and was trying to eat them today. It was a relief to watch him eat *something, because I was beginning to get worried.

 

I wonder why blennies hate those suction cups/rubber suckers...? My TSB leaves the thermometer alone (probably because it's too big to bother with) but not my Starry. Nope. My thermometer is still floating on my Jebao. 😂

 

 

[ECLS Reefer]

On 1/5/2020 at 9:24 AM, Snow_Phoenix said:

Thanks!

 

And I love how each fish has its own set of quirks. Blennies especially, seem to have a ton of personality in general. So glad I managed to keep two in this tank without any issues (so far). I love blennies! 🙂 

I love my blennies too! I have Altuve the starry blenny and then Mr Blenny Blen (kids named him) in the sump. They both have so much personality!

[Snow_Phoenix]

Quick updates:

 

Little green yuma baby has grown a bit larger and more defined:

 

Side-by-side comparison between the tiny yuma and the parent yuma:

 

This is apparently how fast a microbrittlestar can move:

 

I saw this particular microbrittlestar today and it was much, much larger than its companions - I wonder what's the cut-off point for them, size-wise? 🤔

 

Pod-snack today:

 

Lady being her adorable, personable-self: 

 

Foraging for food together:

 

Picking up my salt mix tomorrow. Will try to see if there are any other interesting pieces/frags/colonies on sale at the discount rack as well. And before I go, I'm too lazy to fish for my nano-journal-thread on the forum, so here's a pic of my mantis in my 10G macrotank:

 

🙂