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

[debbeach13]

I hope you feel better tomorrow.

[Snow_Phoenix]

16 minutes ago, debbeach13 said:

I hope you feel better tomorrow.

Thanks, Deb. Not sure why, but been having an excessive amount of fatigue lately. Almost didn't wake up 2 days ago. Body pretty much crashed on me - and I was having nausea and an upset tummy on and off. Still need some time to recuperate, even though this has been going on for ~1 week. 

 

I did manage to take a short walk outside though, and my folks and I went out for a dinner at a restaurant near our home for a change. It was a nice break of sorts, but now I'm drained again. Will probably turn in early for the night. 

 

If I can't manage to drive to the store tomorrow either, I'll try baiting the lions with some frozen shrimp, and hopefully they'll be hungry enough to go for that. It's actually a lot easier (and less stressful/expensive) if they'd accept prepared, but they're quite a stubborn pair. Dwarf fuzzies seem to adapt better to captivity as compared to dwarf zebras, I think. 

[debbeach13]

I am happy you got out. Fresh air and a change of scenery does the body and soul good. Turning in early is always a good idea when not feeling well.

Good night, sleep tight.

[Snow_Phoenix]

10 minutes ago, debbeach13 said:

I am happy you got out. Fresh air and a change of scenery does the body and soul good. Turning in early is always a good idea when not feeling well.

Good night, sleep tight.

Take care, Deb. Have a good day too. 🌺

[Snow_Phoenix]

Took a couple of FTSes today. 🥰

 

 

 

 

Lady and Lily make a good team. 🥰

 

 

Perking up. 👍

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

My lions are still doing alright. 👍

 

Lily. 🥰

 

 

 

 

Lady. 🥰

 

 

 

 

 

Lovin' Aquilla's dorsal stripe - she photobombed this shot. 😅

 

 

I spent a lot of time scraping the glass this afternoon, then rinsed the lids and wiped the dust off the lights. The green film algae on the glass is notoriously tough to get rid off, even with a good scrape. I had to exert a lot of force and re-scrape certain areas of the tank to get rid of the worst of it. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

I took various pics today from different angles, including the top. 

 

Here's the neon green polyp toadstool:

 

 

 

 

 

The neon green kenya tree:

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Pink kenya tree:

 

 

 

Brown toadstool:

 

 

 

Green long polyped toadstool:

 

 

Red pineapple tree coral:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Green weeping willow toadstool:

 

 

 

 

Orange cloves:

 

 

Leather gathering:

 

 

John Deere leptastrea and forest fire montipora digitata:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

I also took several FTSes. 🥰

 

Topview:

 

 

Frontview:

 

 

 

 

I need to WC both the sump and DT, but I'm holding back until I get better. 👍

[debbeach13]

There is always something to do isn't there!

[Snow_Phoenix]

1 hour ago, debbeach13 said:

There is always something to do isn't there!

Always! 😅

[Snow_Phoenix]

Took all these pics without yellow lens filter. 👍

 

Aquilla the pink skunk clown. 

 

 

 

Hawke the lyretail hawkfish:

 

 

 

Red pineapple tree coral:

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Throwback time! 😊

 

A leather 'frag' I picked up for my 8G nano back in 2014. 

 

 

 

I miss the generous frag sizes back then. If I'm not mistaken, this cost around ~RM 30 too at that time. Now you'll be lucky to get a single 'finger' of this 'frag' for the same price. 😕

 

This hobby has certainly become very expensive over the years. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

R.I.P. Hawke. 😔

 

 

Unsure what transpired last night. My only guess is that he must have gotten spooked somehow and hit the glass or rocks, and died upon impact. 😔

 

Woke up to a healthy, thick and clear-eyed, but very much dead fish today. 😔

 

I'm still quite ill, so tank is on auto-pilot mode. Did a quick wellness check on the others - all fish are okay, although the lions have thinned out a fair bit again. Will attempt to bait them with more frozen shrimp in a short while. 

[debbeach13]

That really is sad. I am sorry to hear your not feeling better. Take care.

[Snow_Phoenix]

My girls. 💦

 

 

Lily on the left, Lady on the right. 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Finally managed to acquire some shrimp from a nearby FW LFS, thanks to my mum. 👍

 

 

Some sated lions:

 

 

 

 

 

I still have excess live shrimp, so I set up a small holding tank downstairs with 2 small airstones. Will be feeding the lions a small batch of shrimp every 2 to 3 days. They should regain all their lost weight in the upcoming weeks. 

 

If my estimation is correct, they didn't touch any frozen offerings for nearly ~4.5 weeks. Live shrimp availability + bad health on my part has been a persistent issue, hence me not venturing too far away from home to get anything. 

 

I've been ordering dry pet supplies online, but there are no house deliveries for live feeders, unfortunately. 😕

 

I think my current supply should be enough to pacify the fish for the next 2 to 3 weeks though. 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

The toadstool I moved over from the nano has perked up very well - finally:

 

 

 

Other corals are bouncing back quickly too:

 

 

 

 

Color has returned in most pieces. 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Just wanted to let you guys know that Lily died. She was struggling to digest all the shrimp she ate 2+ days ago, tried to cough it up today, and finally died just now. 😔

 

 

After losing Hawke recently, and now Lily, I'm starting to wonder if I even did the right thing by attempting a predatory SW setup. 😔

 

Lady keeps looking for Lily after I removed her body. I'm feeling quite depressed too. Not sure why I suck at reefing in large setups. 

 

My nano is currently going through a lot of trouble too, but I've always found it easier to pull that tank back on track. This one has always been an uphill struggle for me. 😔

 

Not sure what to do atm - I only have 1 predator left. That's hardly a predator tank anymore, is it? 😕

[debbeach13]

So sorry about Lily. 

2 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Not sure why I suck at reefing in large setups. 

I don't think this is true. You care for all your critters wet and dry as well as anyone could. There are so many factors that affect our tanks and everything in them. We all try to do the best we can. Most of the time you are aware of what is going on in your tanks more than I would be. Hang in there.

[Snow_Phoenix]

Not sure how to explain this, but Lady keeps going to the crevice I pulled Lily's body from yesterday. She has been staying close to that rock since yesterday. Her eyes keep 'moving' to that empty spot. 😔

 

I know fish allegedly don't have feelings, but my pair were bonded even though they were both females. To a certain extent, I think one is aware of the loss of the other in the pairing. 😕

 

I hope Lady's health doesn't deteriorate from this. She's been quite inactive since yesterday. Her belly is not bloated, luckily. I will modulate feedings more strictly from now. 

 

Lionfish choking on prey and developing intestinal blockage which leads to death has occured before, according to the experiences of other reefers online. I've encountered this issue in the past with FW predator fish (a squeaker cat choked to death on a kuhli loach, and an endlicheri bichir swallowing another bichir of the same size), but never did I imagine the same would happen to SW predators too. 😕

 

I'll be monitoring Lady's behavior more closely over the next week or so. Hoping she'd be back to her old self, but my gut tells me she won't. 😔

[debbeach13]

Hopefully Lady will grieve for a short time and be back to normal soon.

[Snow_Phoenix]

3 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Hopefully Lady will grieve for a short time and be back to normal soon.

I hope so too. She's not very active today. I'll have to feed her again, but I think I'll release the shrimp in 2s and 3s so that she doesn't gulp them all at once. Once she has swallowed 3, I'll stop. Foxy (the foxface) and Aquilla (the clown) both hunt and eat live shrimp as well, but they seem to know their limits.

 

Predatory fish that 'gulp' prey down don't, though. We call these type of predatory fish 'pelahap' here, which roughly translates to 'swallower-ers/gulpers'. Fish like these, both in FW and SW, do have a tendency of over-eating or swallowing prey as big as their own bodies.

 

I'll definitely be more careful over feedings.

 

I have very few marine fish left; excluding the 3 feeder mollies, I'm down to 1 foxface, 1 PJ cardinal, 1 pink skunk clown and 1 dwarf lion. Tank is quite...empty. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

My female molly released a lot of babies in the water yesterday. They were very tiny and silverish in color - almost impossible to get a proper look at them, let alone a good pic of them.

 

My cardinal and lion hunted all of them down though. My father suggested saving the fry somehow, but they were too small and scattered towards the rocks as soon as they were released. Plus, it was late at night and the lights were out - I doubt I could have netted anything out, even if I tried.

 

Quite surprised my mollies managed to breed in this tank.

 

I *might be transferring my bicolor blenny over from my nano to this tank in the future. If I do, I'll be putting the fish through 2+ weeks of hybrid-TTM first. I'm still considering it, because my body is still very weak and I'll have a lot of trouble keeping up with the rigid demands of the QT process.