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


Snow_Phoenix

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Everything is looking fantastic! Great additions! Hopefully your urchin agrees with their placement, haha.

 

Wanted to share - I saw that trochus shell in the photo underneath the shrimp, and I kinda jumped and then settled down laughing and telling myself that it is probably not a cyborg snail with some type of modified mechanical claw as an arm, just some rubble. Got excited though, darn little red spot.

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I found an interesting resource about various types of CBS:

 

https://reefbuilders.com/2015/04/15/photographic-identification-guide-stenopus-shrimp/

 

I was mainly looking at contemporaries for my own GCBS. Found S. Zanzibaricus on the list - that is what my shrimp, Zani, actually is. 

 

(Credits to reefbuilders):

 

Screenshot_20190930-100322_Dolphin.thumb.jpg.7b398f12d8822bca144fc2eb4a1e175c.jpg

 

Screenshot_20190930-100337_Dolphin.thumb.jpg.02ba74b15a2beabf285e701bb10baa8a.jpg

 

So exciting to see all the different variants from different parts of the world. 😊

 

Also, took a few shots today morning:

 

Caught Gary having a tan: 🤣

 

IMG_20190930_105256_892.thumb.jpg.dca0429e1ec7e99971680908a54728b3.jpg

 

New shrimp has already settled in and is still maintaining his cleaning station under one of the arches:

 

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Casper was up and about:

 

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My two types of GSP - metallic vs. neon:

 

IMG_20190930_105538_578.thumb.jpg.f804a6e725b9b7a5d68af12fc1a05d4c.jpg

 

🤗👍

 

 

 

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Everything looks so beautiful! Your aquarium is home to such a variety of unique fish and invertebrates. I'm super impressed by everything you've got going on in here. Gary is an amazingly gorgeous creature. 😍

 

I've been peeking in here from time to time over the past few months, but I definitely need to keep better track of this thread so I can check in on updates more regularly. I'll be following along! 😊

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11 hours ago, Wonderboy said:

Everything is looking fantastic! Great additions! Hopefully your urchin agrees with their placement, haha.

 

Wanted to share - I saw that trochus shell in the photo underneath the shrimp, and I kinda jumped and then settled down laughing and telling myself that it is probably not a cyborg snail with some type of modified mechanical claw as an arm, just some rubble. Got excited though, darn little red spot.

I hid it from him - hopefully he doesn't find it! :ninja:

 

He has already ripped off part of my GSP and few of my red zoas. Right now he's toting around a dead sponge piece as a hat.  :lol:

 

I had to scroll back to see which pic you were talking about - and yeah! At a passing glance it did look like a cyborg-snail LOL. The pinkish-red bit is actually some sort of sponge that has been popping up in the back of the tank. I'm not even sure how or where it came from, but since it looks unique and appears to be harmless, I let it grow. 

28 minutes ago, billygoat said:

Everything looks so beautiful! Your aquarium is home to such a variety of unique fish and invertebrates. I'm super impressed by everything you've got going on in here. Gary is an amazingly gorgeous creature. 😍

 

I've been peeking in here from time to time over the past few months, but I definitely need to keep better track of this thread so I can check in on updates more regularly. I'll be following along! 😊

Thanks! And yeah, Gary is quite unique-looking. 🙂

 

He moves all over my tank, and eats the fuzzy greenish-grayish growth that pops up on the rocks at the back. I presume the growth is epilithic (?), which is what he naturally consumes in the wild. 

 

 

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Hey everyone! Guess what? The reef turns 5-months-old today! :lol:

 

I know I still have a long way to go before this tank becomes properly established, but I can't believe I've progressed this far. (Most of all, I can't believe how many coral pieces I already have in it lol). So I'll be updating with a few pics and vids I took today - I went wild with my phone and just took as many snapshots as I could. I'll split the update into two parts, so that it doesn't stress the comment box too much. :wink:

UPDATE #1:

 

1. I discovered a lot of cool critters lurking in my macro. I have these cute beige microbrittles and tiny striped snails, and sponges - a *lot of sponges. I can't believe the hitchikers survived because when the macro was bagged up, it was packed with minimal water and the journey back home from the store took me 45 mins. Add on to the fact that I didn't open the bags immediately - had lunch and a shower first, I wager the critters spent easily 1++ hour in almost nil water. So glad some of them survived:

 

2, Miko on my bleached lobo:

 

3. Thanos next to my blastos:

 

4. Nero and Sushi doing the twitchy-dance to pair up:

 

 

5. Helios loves swimming with the clowns:

 

 

6. Golden Clove Polyps are popping up new heads every week. I'm hoping they'll cover half the rock piece in a year or two. :happy:

 

7. I love, love this chalice! Originally, when I first purchased it, it was just plain green with a few odd blue stripes. Once I transferred it into the 60G, it begin encrusting on the rock and started developing bright yellow 'eyes'. The original green also became bright green, and it's currently competing with my Emerald Mummy Eye's chalice in terms of growth.

 

8. My pom pom xenia is still alive and pulsing! Just don't tell the urchin where it is. :ninja:

 

9. Topshot and sideshot of mushroom mountain - I think I'll definitely get the leopard discosoma. It's pricey, but it looked beautiful at the store, and would be a perfect addition to my growing collection:

 

10. Here are my monticaps - which fused at the base on their own. I'm not sure if the colors will 'blend' into each other, but we'll see. For now, I'm hoping they'll plate nicely. They're growing, but slowly because my nitrates are higher than what a SPS usually prefers.

 

11. This is my ultra green torch frag that I recently acquired. I was having trouble positioning it, and it was a bit unhappy yesterday, but today it's wide open and swaying in the flow:

 

12. My green frogspawn colony is doing quite well. The wall separated into 'two' large heads, although this is only visible when the lights are off and the coral shrinks back for the night. I am considering purchasing an orange frogspawn colony and placing it next to this one. Only problem is the colony is quite expensive, and after my latest shopping spree, I'm a little bit short on cash. I *might put down a deposit for the colony at the store, but until then, I'll give it a lot of thought first.

 

13. And my purple-tipped neon green elegance seems to be doing okay too. I notice it's 'fluffier' when my nitrates are higher. I only target-feed it frozen crab eggs and shrimp juice once a week.

 

My apologies if some of the shots are blurry. I had to zoom in to take pics of certain coral pieces like the chalice and cloves, because they cannot be filmed from the front otherwise. 

 

Anyhow, on to the next update! 🙂 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Alright, so here's UPDATE #2! :biggrin:

 

1. This is my Mushroom and Zoa garden - a work in progress. We have a variety of rhodactis, discosomas and yumas in my shroom garden, and a various mix of Zoas and Palys in my Zoa garden. There are also blastos and chalices thrown into the mix. I admit I am a *bit concerned over the emerald mummy eye's chalice because it's fanning out rather quickly. I can move it to a different area in the tank though, if it becomes too aggressive. 

 

2. This is the main centerpiece rock in my reef. Featuring a mix of corals - Softies, LPS and SPS. I even have a blue hairy shroom hidden at the back. 

 

 

3. This is the official topshot view of the tank today on 30/9/2019 (scroll further on Insta to see topshots of individual rock pieces in the reef):

 

4. This is the official FTS on 30/9/2019, during heavy whites:

 

(Lower whites, slightly higher blues):

 

5. Overview of the tank from the top:

 

 

6. Official full tank view today:

 

 

Guess that's it for now. 🙂 

 

 

 

 

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I keep forgetting exactly how much coral is in this system, wow haha, love the mushroom dogpile and the giant euphyllia. Can't wait until mine fill out a bit. The wrasse and clownfish wiggle-parties seem pretty cute.

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1 hour ago, Amphrites said:

I keep forgetting exactly how much coral is in this system, wow haha, love the mushroom dogpile and the giant euphyllia. Can't wait until mine fill out a bit. The wrasse and clownfish wiggle-parties seem pretty cute.

If you're curious about exactly how many varieties I have, I've updated the first post of the journal thread and listed it down somewhat. I'm thinking of trying out a green or purple staghorn in this next year, when the tank is much more older. Not sure yet. 🤔

 

And those three jokers always hang out together lol. Glad they're getting along though - my wrasse can be a bit dominant sometimes. 

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Snow_Phoenix

Just took out 3 aiptasia with a syringe of concentrated vinegar. Phew. 

 

(I also realized I used about 12ml of vinegar to do this - desperately hoping this won't affect my tank in the morning. :unsure:)

 

I noticed a part of my LA Lakers zoas was covered in a thin layer of grayish fungus/sponge. Since there was a tiny aiptasia between the polyps, I think I might have melted a few zoas with my vinegar. Hopefully the frag will make a full comeback - it was extremely difficult to acquire this frag (and pricey too). 

 

On a sidenote, Doc molted today and my cynarina tried eating the molt. 😮

 

IMG_20191001_134935_135.thumb.jpg.d589fbf1db47097c15f406847ef62ecb.jpg

 

Also caught Gary nibbling on the rock beneath a fallen softie frag. It's been 12 hours and he still has the munchies.

 

IMG_20191001_135140_556.thumb.jpg.a382c76b544d28426ddc5255fbb48657.jpg

 

I am currently having issues feeding my new cardinal in QT. He hides all the time and doesn't make any attempts to come out of the plastic cave to eat. This is a bit worrisome. 😓

 

Tomorrow, I *might head down to my primary LFS to pick up the wrasse. The tiger watchman is still on the back of my mind, but I don't know if I should splurge RM 100 on a fish. Which is slightly hypocritical of me, because both my pink streaked wrasse and circus barred goby cost me RM 100 each also. Not sure if another risk would pay off. 

 

Still thinking hard. Two coral frags for the same amount of money sounds awfully tempting. 🤔

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IIRC cardinals can be really hesitant to eat by themselves, past that I don't have much advice maybe some live baby brine shrimp which have been enriched might be irresistible if you pipe it into the daft-buggers forehead? Frozen mysis on some fishing-line wiggled about in front of it might work too? Most of the tricks I know of are better-suited to large, pouty, freshwater fish lol...
@seabass might have some better advice since he just finished dealing with picky-eaters himself with their baby banggai's.

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Banggai Cardinalfish can be very finicky.  And to top it off, they can be very skittish.  Whenever I remove the top of my tank, my adult cardinals hide.  Plus, they seem to only eat frozen mysis.  If your fish was captive bred, I would guess that it should take frozen mysis shrimp.  Although a wild caught fish might not be so easy.

 

Yeah, live brine shrimp might trigger a feeding response.  However, it might not help it transition to frozen food; but it should provide some needed food.  Freshly hatched baby brine shimp would provide better nutrition, but they are probably too small.  Adult brine shrimp really need to be gut loaded with phyto prior to feeding (otherwise they offer no nutritional value).

 

I'd try feeding frozen mysis shrimp.  Mine reject most other foods (even other frozen foods).  When raising the babies (when I was unsuccessful in transitioning them from baby brine shrimp), they would reject food to the point of starving to death.  It can be very frustrating.

 

Good luck! *fingerscrossed*

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Snow_Phoenix
25 minutes ago, seabass said:

Banggai Cardinalfish can be very finicky.  And to top it off, they can be very skittish.  Whenever I remove the top of my tank, my adult cardinals hide.  Plus, they seem to only eat frozen mysis.  If your fish was captive bred, I would guess that it should take frozen mysis shrimp.  Although a wild caught fish might not be so easy.

 

Yeah, live brine shrimp might trigger a feeding response.  However, it might not help it transition to frozen food; but it should provide some needed food.  Freshly hatched baby brine shimp would provide better nutrition, but they are probably too small.  Adult brine shrimp really need to be gut loaded with phyto prior to feeding (otherwise they offer no nutritional value).

 

I'd try feeding frozen mysis shrimp.  Mine reject most other foods (even other frozen foods).  When raising the babies (when I was unsuccessful in transitioning them from baby brine shrimp), they would reject food to the point of starving to death.  It can be very frustrating.

 

Good luck! *fingerscrossed*

Thank you so much for your insight, Seabass. I didn't know cardinals could be so finicky. I'll try both live and frozen, and see how it goes. Hopefully over time, it can be weaned onto pellets. Mine is wild-caught, if I'm not mistaken - it's a red stop light cardinal. But definitely quite skittish, and looks like this translates to most cardinals. Will figure out a feeding regiment somehow. Thanks once again! :wink:👍

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13 minutes ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

it's a red stop light cardinal

That's good.  You'll probably have better luck with it than with a wild Banggai cardinal.  Still I'd try frozen mysis to get it to start feeding, then incrementally transition it to other prepared foods.

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Snow_Phoenix

Just wanted to share something interesting about Gary - I managed to get a few close-up shots of him 'feeding' today:

 

20191002_192228.thumb.jpg.6d5404caa331dd91bbccfc831cfcf583.jpg

 

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IMG_20191002_110402_015.thumb.jpg.80e44f6f78bc9eec4c0df3fad85b8d3f.jpg

 

Since there is very limited info about double tile seastars in reeftanks, I figured I might as well document him as much as possible. I doubt he'll get any larger than this because his central area is almost 4" - which is supposedly the max. size of this species.

 

I'll definitely keep a tight watch on him though. He's doing okay in my reef, but a few months of starfishkeeping is hardly a measure of success. 

 

On another note, I picked up a green yuma frag today from my LFS:

 

20191002_184006.thumb.jpg.bd8a4877a9223da729ea8552b84a297d.jpg

 

And I put down a deposit for three other shrooms - 1 spotted discosoma, 1 leopard discosoma & 1 tricolored yuma. I *might also pick up an orange frogspawn colony next month, if it is still at the store.

 

The tiger watchman goby has already been sold, but I picked up a large male rubyhead which was eating very heartily at the LFS. 3 hours after adding him to my QT, and he has already begun eating both NLS and Hikari pellets. He is missing a few scales on one side of the body though. 

 

Not keeping my hopes up, but it if this male survives 2x Prazi and shows no signs of illness or parasites after a week - I will transfer him to the 60G. 

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Snow_Phoenix

@seabass, I consulted my LFS about what/how they feed their cardinals - they had a new shipment of juvi banggais come in, but they told me that they're having trouble too.

 

My worker-friend told me she usually tried feeding them live pods when they arrive, but the store is out of pods so they're stuck. 

 

My cardinal isn't doing well - you can see in the pic that its belly is sunken and it's not very active. I haven't even added any meds to the water - I'll be honest. I don't think it'll make it. 

 

But can I try frozen crab eggs just in hopes it'll eat? My wrasse (which is sharing the same QT) can eat any leftover eggs. Currently evaluating all options. 😓🤔

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I saw the pic. :sad:

 

I wish I could offer something encouraging.  Where I am, live food just isn't available at any LFS.  And TBH, I'm not sure it would even eat live food at this point.

 

It could be a disease, stress, and/or just finicky to the end.  I always hate it when a fish gets that way.  Do you let it live and waste away, or euthanize it?  I guess see if it takes the crab eggs; if not then... well.

 

16 minutes ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

they had a new shipment of juvi banggais come in, but they told me that they're having trouble too.

I wonder how old they are and what they were eating.  I'm almost thinking they were raised on enriched (gut loaded with phyto) brine shrimp.  They may not recognize frozen food as an option.  I might try to shave very thin sheets of frozen mysis (resulting in smaller pieces), and feed that.  Getting them to feed on prepared food has been my biggest challenge with them.  Although I currently have a group of juveniles that go nuts for mysis shrimp.

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Snow_Phoenix
4 hours ago, seabass said:

Do you let it live and waste away, or euthanize it? 

Not sure if this question was rhetorical, but I usually try my best to let it live - euthanize only as a last resort. I hate deliberately 'killing' things, if that makes sense. 

 

4 hours ago, seabass said:

I wonder how old they are and what they were eating.  I'm almost thinking they were raised on enriched (gut loaded with phyto) brine shrimp.  They may not recognize frozen food as an option.  I might try to shave very thin sheets of frozen mysis (resulting in smaller pieces), and feed that.  Getting them to feed on prepared food has been my biggest challenge with them.  Although I currently have a group of juveniles that go nuts for mysis shrimp.

I'm not sure. They were <1" each, so quite small. My LFS only began selling pods and phyto this year, but it's a monthly-sort-of-thing. Once the stock is finished for the month, the new order only comes in next month and so on. 

 

I just added Prazi to the QT though - I think my wrasse *might have flukes, but I'm not sure. The cardinal was in a really bad way - 'sleeping' next to the filter intake, which is usually where a weak fish would go. I feel bad. 😞

 

But I'm not sure what else I can do if the fish refuses to eat. 

 

Sometimes I wonder how the fish are collected from the wild. DOA is actually roughly 70% according to my LFS manager. So what we see in stores here is the remaining 30% that survived the collection and shipment process, and out of that lot, most of them are riddled with disease or parasites. The only reasonably healthy fish I've seen are the aquacultured clowns. They arrive super tiny (as small as 1cm) but they're very hardy. 

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DOA is actually roughly 70% according to my LFS manager. So what we see in stores here is the remaining 30% that survived the collection and shipment process, and out of that lot, most of them are riddled with disease or parasites.


Smells like cyanide-collection.

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5 minutes ago, Ratvan said:

Mmmmmmm Bitter Almond

I actually love bitter-almond, but with 70% casualty-rates I'd be mighty suspicious their supplier is taking advantage of lax-regulations and mass-stunning/killing scores of fish with cyanide for bulk-collection.
My advice would be for them to find a new source, even if it means only selling locally-bred fish, that won't happen because something-something bottom-line "look-the-other-wayism", but hey "my advice".

Sorry about the poor little animal... I hope it turns the corner and your wrasse is fluke-free... do people still PH-match freshwater and dip some fish for flukes? Wrasse are probably too delicate even if folks do still hypo/freshwater-dip some fish...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanide_fishing

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Just now, Amphrites said:

I actually love bitter-almond, but with 70% casualty-rates I'd be mighty suspicious their supplier is taking advantage of lax-regulations and mass-stunning/killing scores of fish with cyanide for bulk-collection.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanide_fishing

I deal with Cyanide on a daily basis, it is used a lot in chemical manufacturing plants near me. So when I need to go and inspect the sewers and holding tanks adjacent to the factory I am very very wary of the scent of bitter almonds, if the smell gets too strong I tend to go into Full Breathing Apparatus then crack on with my work. Also deal with Arsenic and Strychnine maybe 3-4 times a week

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Ratvan said:

I deal with Cyanide on a daily basis, it is used a lot in chemical manufacturing plants near me. So when I need to go and inspect the sewers and holding tanks adjacent to the factory I am very very wary of the scent of bitter almonds, if the smell gets too strong I tend to go into Full Breathing Apparatus then crack on with my work. Also deal with Arsenic and Strychnine maybe 3-4 times a week

 

 

You've got a good nose to be able to detect it like that, I ended up saddled with hyperosmia from all the nonsense goin' on with my system, being able to detect trace-amounts of various irritants and chemicals by odor is not as cool as most might think.

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Snow_Phoenix

I suspected cyanide also, but I don't think I can influence the way the fish are collected or shipped. As for the source - as in who they (the LFS) deal business with, I genuinely have no say in it. 😓

 

By the very most, we (customer + LFS) work together on finding new methods to treat any sick fish, ID unknown fish together or discuss what's best to feed a certain type of fish. 🤔

 

Reefing in general has its own set of challenges. A lot of things that we get here, for example, are from the wild. Very few things are aquacultured. And the hobby is getting more expensive by the year, so a lot of budget reefers and newbies are being isolated - we have more people quitting than joining. The ones who stay either are very rich or budget like crazy and make do with the limitations according to each person's wallet. 

 

I wish we had proper online stores though like LA or DD here. But I can see that shipping would be extremely difficult because our weather is tropical and very, very hot. 

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

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