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It's not a surprise to me that flaming prawns are expensive. I'm surprised anyone can find them in the wild to catch them. Hoping someone will figure out how to breed them, but I'm guessing there's not much demand for such a tiny, elusive fish. Though I've wondered if keeping 5 or so would make them more confident- maybe they're social. 

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cheesesteak
On 6/23/2020 at 11:08 PM, Snow_Phoenix said:

Well, you can't have too much of a good thing, I guess. Woke up this morning to this:

 

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IMG_20200624_105946_442.thumb.jpg.29e79d720cb8613f891a7d4fa29375ff.jpg

 

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A half-eaten, possibly dead duster worm being wrenched out of its tube by Kraken (previously known as Captain Fuzzypants), my brittlestarfish, and being nibbled on by amphipods. 

 

I'm unsure why it died - but it could be possible that the tank was simply too clean, and it wasn't filtering enough food from the water column. 

 

Will have to yank it out of the pico and dispose it quickly before it fouls the water. And maybe do a quick parameter check, just in case. 🤔

 

I think I'm going to have nightmares from this. :eek:

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Snow_Phoenix
3 hours ago, Tired said:

It's not a surprise to me that flaming prawns are expensive. I'm surprised anyone can find them in the wild to catch them. Hoping someone will figure out how to breed them, but I'm guessing there's not much demand for such a tiny, elusive fish. Though I've wondered if keeping 5 or so would make them more confident- maybe they're social. 

I think there used to be someone on this site that kept a pair, but he barely saw them. Not sure if they'll form a social group - might as well get a group of GBGs, in that case. 

2 hours ago, cheesesteak said:

I think I'm going to have nightmares from this. :eek:

They're not that bad actually. But most of the large brittlestars are scavengers to a certain extent. 👍

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Snow_Phoenix

The pesky xenia:

 

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This thing looks like it needs a haircut:

 

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Acans gaining green and white stripes: 🤗

 

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Sunflowers: 😊

 

IMG_20200626_181415_104.thumb.jpg.3e441f3e02f521a8d6f5d4b48d52ebda.jpg

 

Multimix frag doing well: 👍

 

IMG_20200626_181453_028.thumb.jpg.736ca05868e6efee74a98cb87a05fb48.jpg

 

Harvey out and about:

 

 

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Snow_Phoenix

My LFS finally brought in the BCGs today. They looked perfectly fine at the store, and honestly, since they're both black and the lights were very blue, it was hard to tell if anything was wrong with them or not:

 

I wasn't exactly sure if either one would make it in my system - clown gobies can be tricky, especially in the beginning, when you need to wean them onto prepared. So I took a chance and brought both of them home:

 

When I put them in the acclimation bucket, it was still very difficult to see the body of the fish - but when I zoomed in with my pics, I noticed that they *might have flukes. No biggie - I have Prazi on hand, and I could easily dose the pico (I've dosed reeftanks with prazi before - some of the corals might be moody for a couple of days, but I haven't lost anything before). And when I put them in the tank, where I could finally (!) view them up close, ta-da! It turned out not to be flukes, but lympho. 😣

 

This is Midnight:

 

And this is Nox (who looks really lumpy with lympho atm):

 

Sigh. Honestly, it was a toss up today between either a pair of BCGs for the Pico, or a healthy, fat male ruby dragonet for the 60G today. I really, really wanted to get a fish in this little reef so soon, that I totally jumped the gun on this one. My bad. 😞

 

But (!), on hindsight, these two are extremely adorable and small, so I don't truly regret getting them. 

 

I'm already dealing with a CB Angel in QT, which probably has lympho too, so right now I'll concentrate on trying to help all 3 fish recover. I think Nox *might be permanently lumpy, but I'm not sure. 

 

Tbh, I've seen lympho in my other systems too. Once in the 10G nano, few years ago, and several times in the 60G. The fish in the nano are relatively new and haven't showed any signs of the disease. As for the 60G, Goblin the GCG occasionally has *flare ups of lumps/bumps on his skin every once in a while, but they vanish on their own. The fish in the 60G are all active and eating too, and appear relatively healthy, so I *think their immune system is strong enough to battle against the virus ( <---although I'm not sure - have to check up with Humblefish over this part). 

 

But these BCGs are still relatively new and wild-caught, so it's fairly normal for them to have something. 

 

I was debating QTing them at first, but since they were going to be the only fish in the pico, I figured any treatment could be done there. Honestly, it's quite hard to see anything on their scales because of the dark coloring. Right now, my goal is to keep up with WCs, get the fish feeding ASAP, then focus on boosting their immune system. (And yes, I will still Prazi the Pico - since I no longer have a duster worm in there, I can use it directly on the reef). 

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Snow_Phoenix

Update #1:

 

My rainbow lobo has actually grown and expands to the point that it gets squashed up against the glass. I have a feeling I might have to upgrade it to the 60G soon: 🤔

 

IMG_20200627_180500_200.thumb.jpg.13c904e631689b38ce4f2dace7ebd5f3.jpg

 

The Jack-O-Lantern leptoseris is growing, but the growth pattern is weird - it seems to be 'plating' out and curving down at the edges. Hmm: 🤔

 

IMG_20200627_181039_385.thumb.jpg.130e0880713aed1e978150ec685cc1e3.jpg

 

The meteor shower cyphastrea finally has a stronger hint of blue at the top. It has also grown a fair bit and encrusted more over the frag plug: 

 

IMG_20200627_181132_148.thumb.jpg.8f5dac6a4b2874f91bf8d09a4dadae7c.jpg

 

The montihat is getting greener by the day: 🤗

 

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Here's Harvey, foraging the rocks for microalgae: 

 

IMG_20200627_180605_347.thumb.jpg.9e67cf93d41127a70f14e7a1ae90abe6.jpg

 

And this is Nox - still looking patchy and discolored. I sent a feedback about the condition of both fish to the LFS and they got in touch with me. I don't blame them or anything, because as a customer, I feel I should have checked on the condition of the animals more thoroughly before buying them (and my LFS manager admitted that he too, had a hard time spotting anything amiss because the fish were too dark, and had just arrived to the store this morning a little bit stressed) :

 

IMG_20200627_180650_736.thumb.jpg.1c77a862fc8fd0553b54388c6864ae69.jpg

 

I haven't seen them eat anything yet, but I'll try to actively feed them tomorrow, after I perform the routine weekly WC. They're perching all over the place though. 

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Snow_Phoenix

Update #2:

 

I took a few topview shots today evening - will take a proper one and a FTS tom./next week: 

 

IMG_20200627_180858_105.thumb.jpg.d91e5685d9d2a59c56395339fa602930.jpg

 

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A little bit concerned over the John Deere leptastrea. Either it has dulled out a little, or the the glass is dirty, because from a sideview standpoint, it looks like it has dulled a *little. 

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cheesesteak

Sorry to hear about the gobies. They fit in well though perched on top of everything! Hopefully they make a quick recovery, it sounds like you have experience with it. 

 

Everything else looks amazing! I love the top down shot. 

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Snow_Phoenix
9 minutes ago, cheesesteak said:

Sorry to hear about the gobies. They fit in well though perched on top of everything! Hopefully they make a quick recovery, it sounds like you have experience with it. 

 

Everything else looks amazing! I love the top down shot. 

Thanks! I love the topview as well. 😊

 

And I truly hope they recover. Good diet and clean water should help somewhat. 👍

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Snow_Phoenix
12 minutes ago, debbeach13 said:

Those fish are so cute. I hope they eat and recover for you. Otherwise the tank looks great.

Thanks, Debbeach. I hope they recover too. They're actually surprisingly active - constantly shifting from one spot to another to perch. I enjoy watching them. 😊

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Snow_Phoenix
6 minutes ago, Ratvan said:

£10 for the pair? Wow

 

Well I guess they are locally collected

I'm not sure where these came from, tbh. But if I had to hazard a guess, it's either Philippines or Indo. 🤔

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Snow_Phoenix

I remember a couple weeks back, there was a general thread asking about what were the coolest things we found in our tank. I recalled spotting a bright green amphipod in my tank once, and well, guess who showed up today? 🤗 :

 

IMG_20200628_091625_536.thumb.jpg.77f98b61eb836203dd4abbf1c21d37c0.jpg

 

^Please excuse the dirty glass. 😅

 

Also spotted Harvey chillin' upside down in one of the back corners of the tank:

 

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Found Midnight trying to disguise himself amidst a clump of fern caulerpa: 😅

 

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This was one of my most recent rescue cases - a very tiny red devil baby shroom: 

 

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Woke up to find 3 new polyps popping up in the purple death paly frag today! 😊 :

 

IMG_20200628_092029_971.thumb.jpg.53abbddb3288bd38bd453644acb17ce0.jpg

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Snow_Phoenix

I just performed a WC with the fish in the tank. Usually I'd drain the tank down to almost nil water and quick fill it back up again with fresh SW. Today, I did something a little bit different. I drained the tank down to almost ~0.5" of water above the sandbed, quickly re-filled it back up to 50% capacity, then re-drained it down to ~1" above the sandbed (to siphon out any extra loose debri/detritus from the water column), then re-filled it all the way back up. So technically, it's a dual-WC - I wanted to make sure that the animals - especially the fish, had a bit of water in the tank as I was WCing.

 

The new SW I put in the tank was also medicated/mixed with Prazi beforehand. I removed all the carbon from the HOB, so that the medicine will have some effect. The Prazi is mostly to treat for flukes and internal parasites - I haven't seen these guys poop yet, but most newly shipped fish in the store comes with flukes. 

 

I had a small issue during the WC though - after I filled back up the tank, I noticed my merletti frag was missing from Coralline Ledge - found it wedged at the back of the tank, under the rocks, so I had to remove a few large coral-encrusted rock pieces to get to it, then put everything back together again and re-glue the merletti to the Ledge. Right now, some of the corals are pissed over being moved about too much - I'm hoping they'll settle after a day and open up again.

 

Also, one of the green zoa frags on the sandbed appears to have zoa pox. 🤔

 

Some of the polyps are open midway, others are not. And I can see the ugly with blotches all over them. Currently looking up for a safe way to treat them - I remember reading that coral dips don't have much effect on zoa pox. 

 

Desperately hoping this won't spread around though - but I think some of my red PEs have it too. 😞

 

I've already collected quite a number of zoas to build a garden of sorts - would suck to lose any/all of it. 

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Snow_Phoenix

Update #1:

 

I took several topview shots today: 🤗

 

The montihat from above:

 

IMG_20200628_155218_229.thumb.jpg.88169d92b23fdb23d2c42edd2527f3c4.jpg

 

Coralline Ledge:

 

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Other sections of the tank:

 

IMG_20200628_154843_533.thumb.jpg.d87633c0fdb8caddfe72f558d0694c5e.jpg

 

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Next update coming! 😊👍

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