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

[Ratvan]

Yay Lionfish! Glad you managed to find one, cute little lady?

[Snow_Phoenix]

36 minutes ago, Ratvan said:

Yay Lionfish! Glad you managed to find one, cute little lady?

Oh, is it a lady? I had a hard time telling! How do you sex these guys properly anyway? 😅

 

(Was planning to name the lion Freddy, but looks like I'll have to keep another name in mind! 😅)

[Ratvan]

1 minute ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Oh, is it a lady? I had a hard time telling! How do you sex these guys properly anyway? 😅

 

(Was planning to name the lion Freddy, but looks like I'll have to keep another name in mind! 😅)

I've heard it from a few different people now that with Dwarf Fuzzies (only seems to be these not the Zebras or any other Lions) that you count the rings on the pectoral fins. Males have 6 or more bands, females have 4 to 6, but that is fully grown so unless you have another to compare head sizes with its a guess at this stage. Also the males pectoral fins are longer and extend back to the middle of their caudal peduncle. Females fins only reach the base of the peduncle. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

1 hour ago, Ratvan said:

I've heard it from a few different people now that with Dwarf Fuzzies (only seems to be these not the Zebras or any other Lions) that you count the rings on the pectoral fins. Males have 6 or more bands, females have 4 to 6, but that is fully grown so unless you have another to compare head sizes with its a guess at this stage. Also the males pectoral fins are longer and extend back to the middle of their caudal peduncle. Females fins only reach the base of the peduncle. 

That's very informative. Thank you so much for sharing this with me! 😊👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

3 hours ago, Ratvan said:

I've heard it from a few different people now that with Dwarf Fuzzies (only seems to be these not the Zebras or any other Lions) that you count the rings on the pectoral fins. Males have 6 or more bands, females have 4 to 6, but that is fully grown so unless you have another to compare head sizes with its a guess at this stage. Also the males pectoral fins are longer and extend back to the middle of their caudal peduncle. Females fins only reach the base of the peduncle. 

I need to look closer at my fish when I can - I have a sudden gut feeling it's a dwarf zebra instead of a dwarf fuzzy. They look so similar, but I'm going through multiple pics online, and based on the short time that I have observed my fish, it looks more like a zebra than a fuzzy. 🤔

They both stay small though, and temperament is pretty much the same. Patterns are very similar too, so it's easy to get them mixed up. I think I'll have to wait for it to grow out a little more, and for the patterns to be more visible before I can truly tell. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Curious Foxy. 🥰

 

 

 

I spotted this tiny rainbow cynarina at the store yesterday:

 

 

It reminded me a lot of a cynarina that I once had, so I reserved it via phone today. Price is quite reasonable for the size and multi-colors. 

 

I think...I might collect a few more cynarinas of different colors (eg. red, green etc.) and slowly put them next to each other on my sandbed. Thinking of 4 to 5 corals in total. 🤔

 

Simply put, they're reasonably easy to maintain and are not too expensive, quite tolerant of high nitrates & phosphates, come in various colors and most importantly - Foxy doesn't nip them. 😅

 

I notice zoas and palys don't grow too well in this tank, but I expected as much since I rarely WC this tank. 

 

The two new snails I purchased to help munch on the algae coating the rocks are actually a pair of slackers. 

 

Looks like I'll have to get another urchin to do the job. Beast & Mr. Prickles will need backup. 

 

Also, there was another coral I eyed on yesterday - a small, simple red brain:

 

 

Looks really nice and vivid. Might/might not cave in to getting one eventually. We'll see. 

 

The new fish made it through their first night in QT without incident. I tried feeding all of them a mix of frozen brine, pods & mysis today. Both the hawk & damsel were eating readily. The copperband was 50/50. The lion is still fasting, evidently. 😕

 

My mum actually purchased some very tiny prawns (with full shells) and de-shelled clams at the supermarket today especially for the new guys! Was quite thankful for her help lol. I'm not sure if the lion or copperband will go after the tiny frozen prawns, but I hope so. My regular FW LFS is closed today (every Tuesday is their weekly day off), so I can't get any live shrimp yet. 

 

As for the clams, this might sound silly, but since it has been deshelled, I'm worried the copperband won't recognize it as food and go for it. So...I *think I'll try to rubberband a small piece to an empty clam shell (have several of those in the cupboard outdoors - I used to collect them for fun 😅) and see if the fish would go for it. 

 

If it is not interested after several tries, I guess I can always chop up the clams and feed them to my other fish in my FW predator tank. 😊👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Took a peek at the fish in QT. Spotted the hawk & damsel peeking out of either end of the PVC pipe:

 

 

And all 4 of them appear to be tentatively fine. 😊

 

 

I noticed there was a small gap between the lids and the bin's lip, so I piled 3 cricket tins on that corner to weigh the lids down and minimize the gap:

 

 

Also shifted the clams properly into a tupperware and tossed it back into the freezer:

 

 

And I went through my collection of clam shells/seashells:

 

 

 

There are some pretty big ones in the pile, so it should be easy to strap the clam meat to one them and drop it in the tank tomorrow. 

 

I noticed all the frozen food at the bottom of the breeder box is gone. Either the lion ended up eating after I was gone, or the mysis/brine pieces slipped through the cracks of the box and was sucked up by the filter. 🤔

 

I will quickly re-study my hybrid-TTM notes tonight. It's only been ~27.5 hours since I added the fish to this QT bin, but I'm still nervous. Most of the fish appeared reasonably healthy at the store this round, but I'm not taking any chances. 

 

I don't *think any of them have velvet, but ich and worms are very, very high possibilities. 

 

I'll do my best. Truly hope all 4 of them make. The hawk is slowly showing some personality, and it gets along well with the talbot, surprisingly. 👀

[debbeach13]

Great news about the new fish. I hope they do well.

[Snow_Phoenix]

Hi everyone - I'll be following the hybrid-TTM schedule that I have outlined in the past in my notebook:

 

 

I did a quick check on Humblefish's forum. So far, copperband butterflies & talbot damsels have no issue with the peroxide baths. Various types of hawks have also successfully gone through the bath without trouble, but a lyretail isn't listed among them (I think no one has tried it with a lyretail *yet, so mine would be the first ). 

 

Same goes for my dwarf zebra lion. I only see 2 success cases involving a volitan and radiata, but no mention of dwarfs -fuzzy, zebra or fu manchu - anywhere. 😕

 

I'm a little nervous, even though the bath will only be prepared day after tomorrow. The lion will be in a separate bath-tank, while the remaining 3 fish will be in a second bath-tank of their own. 

 

I'm having slight trouble locating the extra breeder box among the pile of equipment in my cupboard. I found the smaller ones used to QT tiny fish, but it's too small for my lion. 😕

 

If I can't find the large spare breeder box, I'll quickly order a new one online, but it'll most likely arrive after the second TTM round. So I'll have to either make do with the small box, or a makeshift container of some sort. 🤔

 

I'll be mostly focusing on WCing my nano tomorrow though. Once that's out of the way, I'll divert my attention back to the QT. 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Prepared the clam & tiny prawn for the fish today:

 

 

 

The lion was not interested in the prawn, no matter how many times I wiggled the stick in its direction. 😕

 

Surprisingly, my hawk had a very strong reaction and kept trying to get to the prawn even though he was outside the breeder box. Eventually I gave it to him and he took a few bites (the 60G is definitely *not going to host any shrimp in the future 😅) but he had a fair bit of trouble because he's still small, and this *tiny prawn is still too big for him. 

 

I think I'll definitely chop up the prawns in the future so that the hawk can enjoy them better. I added several squirts of mysis in the bin, and both the hawk & damsel went for it. The lion no, the copperband a bit. 

 

The copperband was very curious over the clam though. Watched her circle it a few times, but I didn't stay long enough to actually see her go for it. 😅

 

I'll try feeding all of them a mix of frozen & a pinch of pellets tomorrow. I'll be removing any excess, uneaten food from the tank this evening, including the clam. It's difficult to witness any natural feeding behavior in a QT tank. I think the fish will be more settled once they are added to their respective displays. 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Had a hard time siphoning out the excess food. There were a lot of small particles that I still couldn't remove, so hopefully the filter will suck it up overnight.

 

Definitely need to moderate the amount of frozen mysis given daily from here on out. 🤔

 

Managed to get a few shots of the fish. The bin is opaque, so the pics are not clear - sorry! 

 

Cleo the copperband:

 

 

Hawke the lyretail hawkfish:

 

 

Speedy the Talbot damsel (TBA in the nano; staying well-hidden behind the plant) :

 

 

Freddy the dwarf zebra lionfish:

 

 

Estimated fish sizes:-

 

Hawk: ~2+" (including lyretail)

Damsel: ~0.75"

Lion: ~2.5+"

Copperband: ~<4" (including snout)

 

These are all very rough estimates - I'll only know for sure when they're in a glass tank. I misjudged the copperband's size initially. She's actually larger than she looks. 🤔

 

Also tossed out the clam. Will try it again day after tomorrow. Before the TTM tomorrow, I'll try to squeeze in a small feeding session. 

 

If I have some extra time in the morning, I'll drop by my FW LFS and pick up some live shrimp and/or live fish fry. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

CUC out on patrol! 🥰

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Already preparing the equipment for the peroxide bath and TTM: 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Preparing the peroxide bath now. 👍

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

The hybrid-TTM & peroxide bath went smoothly for all 4 fish. 😊

 

Fish pre-entry into bath tanks:

 

 

 

 

Fish in their respective bath tanks:

 

 

 

 

Also, since the fish weren't very active in the bath and the tanks were small enough, I had the unique opportunity to measure their size properly by using a ruler pressed up against the side of the tanks. 

 

So here are the *actual sizes of the fish:

 

Damsel: 0.5" (apparently this lil' guy was smaller than estimated! )

 

Lionfish: 2.5" (roughly ~0.5" was the tail fin section; this fish is tiny!)

 

Copperband: 3"

 

Hawkfish: 2.25" (lyretail contributed to most of its length; since the fish had its tail angled up a little, I wouldn't be surprised if the full length of tail + body makes it closer to 2.5")

 

They're all much smaller than I had anticipated. And most of the time, it's the extensive finnage that contributed to size more than anything. 

 

I dropped a few pellets prior to the hybrid-TTM, and the hawk was  eating readily. The damsel followed suit shortly after. The copperband was mostly suspicious - caught her eyeballing the pellets as they were blown about the flow. 

 

The lion, understandably, ignored the pellets (just tried my luck 🤷‍♀️).  

[Snow_Phoenix]

These were my notes and calculations for today:

 

 

The new QT bin is double the size of the older one. The fish have more room to swim in it, and the triple lids fit perfectly at the top:

 

 

 

The lion is in my small spare breeder box for today. I ordered an XL-sized one online and it should arrive either late evening today or some time tomorrow. 

 

The fish are now resting. They were all fine during the bath, although the hawk's breathing was faster than usual. I checked on them just now, and all 4 fish are okay. 😊👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Just arrived in the nick of time! Will be shifting my lion into this today evening. She should be more comfortable in this. 👍

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Much happier in the new breeder box already! 🥰

 

 

Also, a quick throwback pic of Mr. Prickles in 2015:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Ghost shrimp prices have doubled. Still managed to grab a whole bunch of them for both the lion and my FW predator tank:

 

 

Will try feeding the lion today evening. Hoping she'd be hungry enough to slurp one down! 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Me: Happily prepares live shrimp snack; also gets that one fish that befriends its food instead of eating it. 🤦‍♀️

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Just pulled out a dead, uneaten shrimp from the breeder box. The other 2 are still surprisingly alive. One's still in the breeder box with the lion, the second is hanging around the fake plant. I caught the damsel dive-bombing that one several times, but because the damsel is so friggin' tiny, it was hilarious more than anything. 

 

My hawk took a few nips too - but mostly to chase the shrimp away from the PVC pipe. Even my copperband is ignoring the shrimp - she's actually swimming away every time the shrimp wanders too close.

I find this very unusual. It's like all 4 of these dudes have never seen a shrimp before in their lives or something. So weird. 🤷‍♀️

[Snow_Phoenix]

First round of Prazi dosed! 

 

 

Need to purchase a new bottle of liquid Prazi since my current one is almost finished. I do have a powdered version which I can use as back up in the meantime. 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Apologies for the grainy background, but here's Beast the white halloween urchin, busy busting some algae on the rocks:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Sigh. It's one of *those* days, guys. The horrible, terrible, awful, goddammit, no-good ones. 😔

 

I dropped the brand *new breeder box I had just purchased after washing it and it broke in 2 areas and cracked in another 2. 😭

 

 

 

 

 

The cracks can be ignored, but the broken areas need to be patched up. I'm not even sure if I can fix it properly because one of the pieces used to 'clip' on the upper & lower sections of the box is missing (broke off) and I couldn't find it. 😔

 

It looks like I'll have to eventually save up and get a new box. 😕

 

Also, the cricket bin is back - because mum used my second large spare bin to store potting soil, and dad used my *third large spare bin to store unused plastic bags in the cupboard under the sink. 🤦‍♀️

 

 

I wasn't even aware I was lacking my usual spares until it was time to TTM today. And I was panicking a little, so I had use the tiny bin again! 😕

 

I do have a super large bin outdoors which is around 20G, but that can't *fit in the space in front of the permanent QT-observation tank (the 10G sumped AIO), so I didn't have much of a choice. Good news is, the lion was reasonably active in the breeder box after the TTM, and so was the copperband:

 

 

However, the little lion has thinned out quite a fair bit - I only noticed how bad she was when I placed her in a holding bucket prior to moving her to the new bin:

 

 

Also, my hawk jumped while I was transferring him over from his bucket to the bin. He was quite stunned and breathing hard afterwards, but I checked on him just now, and he appears to be a bit better. Hopefully there's no lasting damage and he'll pull through the night just fine. 😕

 

We have another full week of QT to go before the fish can be moved into the DT (the lion *might need to stay in the Observation tank for a bit to make sure she eats first). The next session will involve another peroxide bath. 

 

It'll be quite stressful on me, but I'll do my best to go through it with my chin up. 👍

 

I *might try feeding a molly or platy to the lion if nothing else works. I saw some feeder mollies for sale at my FW LFS, and they also had very tiny goldfish too. Only issue is that some of their mollies are too large for my lion to eat. When they scoop the fish up, you'll just get a random mix fish, so it's kinda your luck if you wind up with large or little ones. 🤷‍♀️

 

Also, if my mollies/platys actively start breeding again in my discus tank, I could always *try to net some fry to feed the lion. It might be an impossible task though, given how many hiding spaces there are in my FW tank + high chance of the fry being eaten first by the other FW fish. 🤔

 

Looks like I'll have to find a way regardless. 🤔

 

I fed all the fish before the TTM today. Only the hawk ate a pinch. I'm not surprised - prazi can be a strong appetite deterrant. Also, when I was cleaning out the water from the older bin, I noticed a lot of whitish, lumpy poop at the bottom - so it looks like one (or all) of the fish *might have had some worms. 

 

I suspect the Copperband. They're quite notorious for having diseases, when freshly wild-caught. Another future round of Prazi, 6 to 7 days from now, should help treat the fish. 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Well, desperate times call for desperate measures. 😕

 

 

I picked out 3 of my smallest ghost shrimp in the bunch, and also fished out a tiny new fancy platy I purchased recently. 😕

 

Good news, my lion managed to stuff a small shrimp in her mouth (!!!) 

 

 

(Sorry for the blurry pic, but I was shaking with excitement) 😅

 

I immediately pulled my platy out - and yes, I stuck my hand into the box with a hungry lionfish in it and grabbed my small fish. 

 

The platy was in the breeder box for no more than 10 seconds. I returned him quickly to my FW DT. 👍

 

 

Lil' dude must have thought he had the wildest acid trip ever. 😅

 

I'm just mostly glad my lion ate. I left the other 2 shrimp in her box, but I think she's full. So it looks like she can & will eat live shrimp, provided they are small enough to fit her mouth. 😊👍