Kait’s Kiddo Lagoon

[billygoat]

Sounds like danger, both for you and for the system! Fingers crossed that all parties emerge from this okay. 🤞 I'll send you some positive reefing vibes. 😊

[WV Reefer]

12 hours ago, NaturallyKait said:

So I’m in the hospital since yesterday, will be for a few more days at least. Which means my spouse is taking care of the tank and the QT the other clownfish is still in. 
 

Oh boy. He is not fond of the tank. I’m sure he’s over feeding. I was already a little overdue for a water change because I’ve been feeling under the weather. Oh and I don’t have an ATO, I top off manually. Which I have demonstrated to him before. But he apparently didn’t watch carefully like he said he did. Tonight he messages me. “The water seems low in the back, but I topped up” 🤔. So we FaceTime. He’s been topping up incorrectly. I don’t know how the pump didn’t burn out or the heater didn’t break. 
 

Oh and the timer my lights are on decided to stop working. 
 

If I still have a tank by the time I get out of here it’ll be a miracle. 

Hope you feel better. 😊

[NaturallyKait]

7 hours ago, billygoat said:

Sounds like danger, both for you and for the system! Fingers crossed that all parties emerge from this okay. 🤞 I'll send you some positive reefing vibes. 😊

 

7 hours ago, WV Reefer said:

Hope you feel better. 😊

Thanks guys. Apparently my heart doesn’t like me this week. Really hoping that I get home to a tank in one piece. 

[NaturallyKait]

I got discharged yesterday, but I’m still too sick to do too much with the tank. Something funky is going on with the chambers, the first chamber is filling really high while the others are really low (usually they fill evenly). If I try to top up into a low chamber it just keeps flowing back into the first. I have no idea what’s happening and I’m still on modified bed rest basically, ugh. 
 

Poor tank needs a good clean too, and my emerald crab either molted or died, I haven’t had the energy to investigate yet. I’m assuming just a molt. Hopefully I’ll get some stamina back soon to work on the tank, but “minor” heart failure is no joke. 
 

[NaturallyKait]

Got a quick chance to peek at the tank today. So much cyano, it’s a cyano paradise in there. Fished out the emerald crab, it is indeed dead and not a molt. So I bet my nitrates are sky high. Who knows how long she was dead for in there. Cleaned the glass a little and blew the rock off but that’s about all I could do for now before I had to go lay down again. Next step is try to figure out why the back chambers are acting wonky and test parameters I guess. 

[kimdawg]

Glad you are feeling a little better, just take it easy and get the rest you need.  Maybe some one can do a small water change for you or you could add some prime or something to artificially bring down the nitrates for a while.

[NaturallyKait]

5 minutes ago, kimdawg said:

Glad you are feeling a little better, just take it easy and get the rest you need.  Maybe some one can do a small water change for you or you could add some prime or something to artificially bring down the nitrates for a while.

Yeah I’m going to have to try to talk my partner through a water change, it’s just awkward because he finds it overwhelming and barely agreed to get the tank. He really doesn’t want to do it, but he will. 

[NaturallyKait]

Alright, time to get this tank back on track. 
 

After another brief health scare I finally got to get to a water change last night. When I finally got to test nitrates they were somewhere between 40 and 80 (I’m still using up my API test kit and it’s hard to read IMO), yikes. Did a decent sized water change and planning another in a couple of days. Cleaned out a ton of cyano, finally confirmed that seemingly the only casualty in this was the emerald crab (I had a hermit MIA and a nassarius snail who was hiding pretty well too but they finally came out), and cleaned up a bunch of GHA. There’s still a fair amount of cyano that’s back this morning but I think that’ll take a bit to kill off bit by bit. 
 

Got a chance to pop into the LFS too. Confirmed they’ll take our clown who still hasn’t found a new home, and of course they got a bunch of new coral in and some of it is lovely. I don’t want to introduce anything new to the tank until I get it back to baseline so hopefully there’s still something good left when we’re back on track 🤞🏻

[Tired]

If you want to make your tank a bit more resilient against accidental neglect, add some macroalgae. They'll suck up extra nitrates and help prevent algae outbreaks, plus they provide pod habitat. Chaeto is the classic, but gracilaria looks a bit nicer, and both are very fast-growing. 

[NaturallyKait]

2 minutes ago, Tired said:

If you want to make your tank a bit more resilient against accidental neglect, add some macroalgae. They'll suck up extra nitrates and help prevent algae outbreaks, plus they provide pod habitat. Chaeto is the classic, but gracilaria looks a bit nicer, and both are very fast-growing. 

I’ve considered it, but usually I’m fighting to keep my nitrates from being too low and macro would just make that harder on a day to day basis. Next time I’ll be more prepared, now that my partner knows how to do a water change and is better equipped to handle things. 

[Scotty Amen]

Take care of yourself Kait! 

[NaturallyKait]

1 hour ago, Scotty Amen said:

Take care of yourself Kait! 

Thank you! Thankfully I’m feeling much better so now I have a lot more energy to dedicate to cleaning this up. 

[NaturallyKait]

Making some progress to get back to normal. 

 

 

I’m siphoning cyano off the sand daily, and blasting it off the rocks. Done a few water changes. Have to change my floss daily too because it gets clogged with cyano every 24-48 hours or so that’s been kicked up from me cleaning. I think we’ll be back to normal pretty soon. 

[NaturallyKait]

The tank is doing so much better. One more water change I think and we’ll be back to normal. 
 

In a few days we have a day trip to a city with a great LFS. I’m thinking we may drop in and see if they have a fish we like to replace the clown who went back to the LFS. As much as I love our LFS they just don’t get a lot of nano fish in. I’m eyeing up maybe a purple firefish they have in stock over there, that could be a good pop of colour. We may grab a cleaner shrimp too, and maybe look at their frag tanks to see if they have anything fun. Basically, I might go broke. 
 

Also the LFS here got a pretty BTA in that I’m trying really hard to resist...

[NaturallyKait]

I’m officially calling the tank back to baseline. The cyano is gone, Nitrates are back in range, and while I still have a little more GHA than I’d like to see is under control. Did a 4 gallon water change tonight in preparation for our trip tomorrow where we’ll pick up our new fishy friend and possibly a cleaner shrimp depending on what they have in stock. I can’t wait to see the tiny reefer’s face in a LFS that’s more than twice the size our tiny little one. 

[billygoat]

8 minutes ago, NaturallyKait said:

I’m officially calling the tank back to baseline. The cyano is gone, Nitrates are back in range, and while I still have a little more GHA than I’d like to see is under control. Did a 4 gallon water change tonight in preparation for our trip tomorrow where we’ll pick up our new fishy friend and possibly a cleaner shrimp depending on what they have in stock. I can’t wait to see the tiny reefer’s face in a LFS that’s more than twice the size our tiny little one. 

Great to hear things are getting back to normal. I know it's tough to watch your tank languish, but your health certainly comes first so I think you did all you could during this difficult time. I'm sure that things will be brighter by the day from here on out, and I look forward to following along as the tank begins to flourish and grow. 😊

 

Have a great time at the fancy FTS, and keep us posted on what you get! 😉

[NaturallyKait]

What a day. 
 

Yesterday’s trip was a hot mess. We had to leave at like 4am, and this was a trip for medical appointments for the kids and of course every appointment was late and ran long so we were hours behind. Barely caught the LFS so we didn’t have a ton of time to look around. The tiny reefer fell absolutely in love with their freshwater stingray tank though. Sorry dude, can’t do that. 
 

They didn’t have any shrimp in stock which was disappointing, but we did manage to get the fish we were hoping for. A little royal gramma. There was so much coral I was so disappointed that I didn’t get to take much of a look. We were just in such a hurry. 
 

It took about 5 hours to drive home. Here’s where the biggest headache comes in. We get home, I bring in the fish and sit him in QT to temperature acclimate. Get the kids into bed and finally go to handle getting the fish out of the bag. Only to realise that wait, the QT tank’s filter isn’t actually running, and the heater isn’t either. I have no idea what happened while I was gone, but my spare heater and my AC70 are both dead. Power surge? No idea. By this point of the night it’s too late to get anything else, I have a cold QT tank with no filter and a fish who needs to get out of the bag. I had no choice but to just put him straight in the tank, as much as I didn’t want to. I didn’t QT the other fish and was finally going to do it right this time. Oh well. I’m not thrilled but it’s better than a dead fish. Only managed to snap one quick photo before he darted into the rocks to hide. 
 

 

I watched for 15 mins just to make sure he was going to be ok and then finally went to bed. I’ve seen him poke his head out a few times this morning but for the most part he’s keeping to himself in his little cave, I imagine he’s a little stressed from the long drive. Hopefully I can grab some new photos soon. 
 

My zoas are still pissed off from the mishap while I was in the hospital. I’m hoping they pull through. You can see them in the background there on the left. They open intermittently but not like they used to. 

[Wonderboy]

Definitely a long day, wow - hope things slow down and start working with you a little more soon  :]    Nice addition!

[NaturallyKait]

10 minutes ago, Wonderboy said:

Definitely a long day, wow - hope things slow down and start working with you a little more soon  :]    Nice addition!

Everything should be fine after today. Long trips with 3 kids are just destined to be hectic 😂. Now I just hope this little fishy is healthy 🤞🏻
 

I’m really loving the new little guy. He’s shy and still hiding a lot but I’ve had a bunch of quick peeks at him this morning as he darts in and out of hiding spots and he’s very pretty. Looks healthy from the outside and he’s such a nice pop of colour for the tank. It’s been a long debate of what fish to get that would 1: make the Tiny Reefer happy (little Finding Nemo obsessed 4 year old lol) 2: that I like too and most importantly 3: would work for this tank. He of course always wants Dory which is just not going to happen any time in the foreseeable future (I like nano tanks and have every intention of sticking to them!) and I wanted something that would give a different colour addition compared to the orange clownfish and the yellow clown goby. A lot of warm colours, I wanted something in the cooler range. The royal gramma is perfect, checks all the boxes. I hope he works out 😄

[Tired]

Royal grammas are beautiful, but can be a little aggressive. They generally pick out one hole that they're going to defend as theirs, and will try to fight anything that gets into their house, but tend to leave anything outside their homes alone. Let him find his cave, and you should be fine.

 

A possible future fish, if you get an upgrade: yellowtail blue damsels. Not really any more aggressive than a clownfish, usually, and patterned kind of like Dory. Bright blue body, bright yellow tail. Tell your kid it's Dory's second cousin. 

[NaturallyKait]

19 minutes ago, Tired said:

Royal grammas are beautiful, but can be a little aggressive. They generally pick out one hole that they're going to defend as theirs, and will try to fight anything that gets into their house, but tend to leave anything outside their homes alone. Let him find his cave, and you should be fine.

 

A possible future fish, if you get an upgrade: yellowtail blue damsels. Not really any more aggressive than a clownfish, usually, and patterned kind of like Dory. Bright blue body, bright yellow tail. Tell your kid it's Dory's second cousin. 

Yeah I’ve read about some aggressive royal grammas. Hoping this guy settles in nicely. He does seem to be enjoying choosing his little home to have. I think he’ll be ok, the clownfish can’t fit in his holes and the clown goby I’m doubtful will try to bug him. 

 

Our LFS did actually have some yellow tail damsels but I was too worried about aggression from them. They were fighting everything in the tank there. I’m eyeing up an upgrade now and may look into one later if I could find one that wasn’t already acting like a jerk at the store. 

[Tired]

They'll be sparring in the store because they're all stressed and don't have any territory. They pick out a cave and defend it, like grammas. Mine had a conch shell he lived in. 

 

You'd probably also want to pick up a mate for your clownfish. Ideally they're kept in pairs.

[NaturallyKait]

4 minutes ago, Tired said:

They'll be sparring in the store because they're all stressed and don't have any territory. They pick out a cave and defend it, like grammas. Mine had a conch shell he lived in. 

 

You'd probably also want to pick up a mate for your clownfish. Ideally they're kept in pairs.

Yeah we started with a pair of clowns. Then they decided they were going to battle to the death and we had to separate them. We were debating trying another clownfish but I’m just not ready to risk it yet. It broke my little guy’s heart to have to bring the other clown back to the LFS. 

[Scotty Amen]

Glad to see that you and the tank are both on the mend.

I think the zoas will come back fine, they are hardy.

[Ratvan]

That is a lovely looking Gramma, how is it settling in?