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

[Ratvan]

Looks like Lady definitely recognises you as bringer of food, do you get the cute little wiggle from her too?

[Snow_Phoenix]

1 hour ago, Ratvan said:

Looks like Lady definitely recognises you as bringer of food, do you get the cute little wiggle from her too?

Yep! She's quite enthusiastic when I approach. She managed to swallow a whole shrimp this morning:

 

 

But I think it eventually proved to be too large for her because she threw it back up, intact. 😕

 

Looks like I'll need to get her smaller shrimp ASAP, or at least quickly rip off the head of a large one and dump it in her box in hopes she'll eat it somehow. 

 

Since today's feeding was unsuccessful, I'll let her rest another full day before attempting to feed her again. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

I fed the fish a cocktail of frozen food this morning, which was received 50/50 by the denizens of the 60G:

 

 

Also, my poor attempt at trying to fool Cleo the copperband that this clam meat belonged to *this clam shell didn't work: ☹

 

 

The clam meat ended up being brunch for my geriatric nass snail (dude's pushing 4.5 years-old now). I had to eventually dispose the leftovers. 

 

I also picked up several things from the store today!!! 🥰

 

 

A good portion of my haul were zoa and paly frags which went into my nano. But, I acquired 2 (!) special critters for this tank. 

 

Critter #1: Rainbow Cynarina.

 

 

It was extremely retracted when I first added it to the 60G. 2+ hours later and it slowly began popping up:

 

 

It was a decent size at the store. Colors are actually red and green with a mild hint of yellow. Once it acclimates, I think it'll look lovely. 🥰

 

Lady under heavy blues, taken using orange filter lens:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Critter #2: The New Gal. 

 

I actually ended up picking up my reserved lionfish at the store. I *think it's female too, although it does have 1 extra full band and 1 extra jagged band than Lady:

 

 

 

I looked at its dorsal fin and it doesn't even stretch to the caudal peduncle. Her fins are much shorter than Lady's, although I did a lot more reading on sexing dwarf *zebra lions last night, and evidently the fish can develop more bands as they mature. 

 

The only way to accurately discern the amount of bands the fish has and to determine its sex is to wait until the fish hits 4.5". Fuzzy dwarfs are much easier to sex because their bands are darker (?) and more prominent. 

 

Since both of my lions are only ~2.5", I'll have to wait until they both grow out. 

 

I'll be introducing them into the tank simultaneously, so they'll have a chance to grow up together. 👍

 

This means Lady will have to remain in her breeder box for a further 2+ weeks until this new fish finishes hybrid-TTM. 

 

Regarding the hybrid-TTM, the routine this time will be as follows, since the new fish went through a 30 min. peroxide bath today, on the 1st day of QT:

 

 

 

This lionfish has quite a bit of spunk in her. I am tentatively naming her Lily. 🥰

 

She does get spooked a bit more easily than Lady, so I had to be extra careful when handling/transfering her from tank to tank. She was also eating a bit of frozen brine at the store, which I found quite surprising. 

 

That was actually one of the key reasons I purchased her, even though there was a strong chance she wasn't a *he. 

 

I'll keep all of you updated on the progress of both fish. The arctic shrimp (krill) I ordered online is stuck in one of the courier centers, so I'll keep feeding live until the tin arrives. 

 

As for now, I hope Lily makes it through her first night in QT without incident, and Lady will resume eating normally. 👍

[M. Tournesol]

44 minutes ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Yep! She's quite enthusiastic when I approach. She managed to swallow a whole shrimp this morning:

 

 

But I think it eventually proved to be too large for her because she threw it back up, intact. 😕

 

Looks like I'll need to get her smaller shrimp ASAP, or at least quickly rip off the head of a large one and dump it in her box in hopes she'll eat it somehow. 

 

Since today's feeding was unsuccessful, I'll let her rest another full day before attempting to feed her again. 

Did you try to feed your lion fish with frozen shrimps attached to transparent string that you would have moved in front of him (to excite him)?

[Snow_Phoenix]

48 minutes ago, M. Tournesol said:

Did you try to feed your lion fish with frozen shrimps attached to transparent string that you would have moved in front of him (to excite him)?

I tried impaling a dead shrimp on a satay stick and wiggled it in front of her - but that was while she was in QT (during TTM) so she didn't show a strong interest in food. I can try it again the next time. 🙂 

 

Thanks for the suggestion! 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Good news! Lily survived her first night in QT without incident. 😊

 

 

 

She likes to cling on to the filter intake though, because she prefers perching vertically as opposed to horizontally.

 

Lady was reasonably active in her box today. I shall attempt to feed her again later. 👍

 

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

The new cynarina has inflated a bit more this morning. 🥰

 

 

Hawke:

 

 

Cleo on the hunt for pods:

 

 

I'm still struggling a little to feed Cleo properly, but I will keep trying. She remains very active and inquisitive, but I'd love to see her thicken out much, much more. 

 

My LFS ran out of CUC this time, so I was unable to pick up more snails and urchins to help clean up the tank. As of now, I'm mostly scraping the glass & stirring the sandbed to assist with clean up, but most of the rocks remain covered in fuzzy green algae. 

 

My current urchin, Beast, makes slow, but good work on eliminating these algae patches, but the fuzz always returns. 🙄

 

I'm unsurprised. With the amount food and higher number of fish in the DT recently, my nutrients have been elevated significantly. Plus, I have been slacking back on WCs and my sump is in dire need of a clean up. 

 

I'm thinking of tackling this WC & clean up issues once I tackle the issues with my FW tanks. I'm still waiting for a part to arrive before I can set up a new filter system for my FW predator tank, and the discus tank needs a thorough clean up too! 🤔

 

A lot of work needs to be done, but I'll plan it out carefully so that I won't strain myself too much. 👍

[NoOneLikesADryTang]

That cynarina is gorgeous! 
 

I’m really glad to hear your new baby made it through the first night. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Have a bit of a situation. I fed Lady a shrimp (with its head removed) and initially she wasn't interested. Eventually she swallowed it, but the shrimp became stuck in her throat somehow. Her gills are working overtime and she's been trying to throw it back up for over an hour with no success. 

 

I'm not sure how to help her. Even if she wasn't venomous and I had a tiny pair of forceps on hand (which I don't), forceful removal of the stuck shrimp might hurt her even more. 

 

But if I let her be, she might literally choke to death. 

 

I feel awful. She was so happy and healthy this morning. The shrimp I gave her was much smaller too, with the head removed. My guess is that she swallowed it wrongly somehow - perhaps the shrimp's body was swallowed in a C-shape as opposed to a streamlined-shape. 

 

I hope she throws it back up eventually, but I'm not sure if she can. I feel responsible for this mess, and I'm honestly close to tears. Thank God I haven't fed Lily in QT yet. 😔

[Snow_Phoenix]

Good news! She finally swallowed it. Her belly is bulging quite a fair bit, and I've never been this relieved in a while. No more live feeds from *this batch of shrimp. 

 

I'll be tossing all the shrimp to my FW predators, some of which are between 8" to 10" with extremely large jaws. 

 

I'll try to drop by my FW LFS on Monday and pick up a few small mollies/guppies and much, much smaller shrimp *if they are available. 

 

In the meantime, I hope my krill will arrive soon. It's long overdue. 😕

[Snow_Phoenix]

I took these through the orange lens of a pair of coral-viewing glasses, when the lights were darkening for the evening. 

 

New cynarina getting more puffy:

 

 

Kenya tree:

 

 

Lady flaring her pectoral fins:

 

 

She's okay. I checked on her. It will take a while for her to digest today's meal. 

 

Lily is also doing fine in QT, but I haven't fed her yet. 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

The following pics are quite blurry, bit here's Lily in QT today:

 

 

 

 

She was swimming about earlier, then decided to settle on the fake plant. 😅

 

I'm going to try and head down to my FW LFS today, as opposed to Monday. Hopefully I can get some small feeder shrimp & fish. I heard feeder goldfish are the worst possible meal for lions, but they are abundantly available at the store. If push comes to shove, I'll get a small scoop of them - but only for this round. 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Well, the stores were definitely packed with various types of feeders! 

 

 

 

 

My lions are not large enough to eat the seluang and I avoided the goldfish, but I did manage to get some live ghost shrimp (all small size! ), some guppies (both fry and adults mixed together), and a few mollies (the fancy lyretails I picked were not feeders, but bought separately in the fancy fish section - the very tiny juvis were feeders though!). 

[Snow_Phoenix]

So these were the feeders I picked up:

 

 

 

 

I isolated the overly large mollies and combined those with the fancy ones I bought separately, and acclimated them to the 60G:

 

 

After 20 mins. of  acclimation, I released them into the display:

 

 

 

 

They might be too big for Lady and Lily right now, but they won't be one day. As for now, several of them are grazing on the rocks, so I'll just leave them to it. 🤷‍♀️

 

Also, of course, after I have purchased *all these fish-snacks, the courier shows up right at my door with my krill:

 

 

So from no food, we went to 110% food really fast. 🤦‍♀️

 

Can't really complain. I did purchase the shrimp and guppies in excess because I do intend to feed them to my FW predators too. 

 

The fish are surprisingly healthy. I hope they stay that way, because I didn't QT them - I just TTMed them from bucket to bucket several times to acclimate them to the various tanks that I have. 

 

Also, I had to re-set the tidepool tank. Long story short, the heat wave we've been experiencing cooked all the snails. 😔

 

Luckily the crabs were alright, but I threw out everything in the tank (shells, sand, rocks, coral stones, bioblocks etc.) and only kept all the crabs, the ornament and 2 river pebbles aside. I washed the tank thoroughly with soap & vinegar since it reeked of death. 🤢

 

Same goes for the ornament and pebbles, but I poured boiling hot water over those as well. 

 

After I cleaned & dried everything, I rescaped using a new block, more new sand and added two airline tubings which feed directly into the water. The SW I used was taken directly from the DT of the 60G. 

 

I also re-acclimated the crabs then re-added them to the tank. They immediately buried themselves in the sand. Will try to snap more pics of that set up later. 🦀

[Snow_Phoenix]

Throwback pics! 

 

A tiger cowrie and a tomato clown I kept years ago. 🥰

 

 

 

 

[M. Tournesol]

What was the size of the cowrie? it seems to be very big on the photo 😮

[Snow_Phoenix]

2 hours ago, M. Tournesol said:

What was the size of the cowrie? it seems to be very big on the photo 😮

Around 4", I believe. It wasn't reefsafe though. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Dinner is served! 😊

 

 

 

 

 

Two very happy/sated lionfish today. 🥰

 

Lily had 2 small shrimp and 1 adult guppy. Lady had 2 small shrimp and 2 guppy fry. 😊👍

 

The tidepool tank atm:

 

 

 

 

🦀

[debbeach13]

It is great that they both ate!

[Snow_Phoenix]

2 minutes ago, debbeach13 said:

It is great that they both ate!

It is indeed. I find Lily easier to feed so far. She adapted to captivity quite quickly. Lady is more fussy and took her time. Even now, she's quite picky over her meals. But she is bolder, whilst Lily is a bit more shy/defensive. 

 

After adding the mollies today, I feel like I have too much fish in the DT. 😕

 

I think I'll cap it off with a single clown and a blenny, then call it stocked. I was initially planning on getting a cockatoo waspfish as well, but now...I'm not so sure. :\ 

[Tamberav]

If a molly is raised in saltwater... is it a fw feeder or a saltwater feeder? 🤔

[Ratvan]

1 hour ago, Tamberav said:

If a molly is raised in saltwater... is it a fw feeder or a saltwater feeder? 🤔

1st Gen Fry will be SW feeders

[Snow_Phoenix]

8 hours ago, Tamberav said:

If a molly is raised in saltwater... is it a fw feeder or a saltwater feeder? 🤔

I honestly have no idea, but I think Ratvan is right. Eager to see if mine can breed in the tank. I have a sneaky suspicion they're mostly males though. 🤷‍♀️

[Snow_Phoenix]

Please pardon the filthy glass, but...fishies! 🥰