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Morning, NR. 😊

 

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Woke up to find my rescued monticap STNing at the edges. I can trim off the dead bits, but I have a sense I might ultimately lose this piece: 😔

 

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Luckily I still have a healthy red cap in this tank that's growing rather well. 👍

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I took some topview close-ups of some of the zoas & palys, but the shots came out quite blurry. I'll still share them here: 

 

From left to right: Pink hippo (new second tiny polyp coming up), Nuclear death palys (now tricolored), Blue Agave (new polyp at the side) :

 

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Rainbow yodas (shrunk in size for some reason, but increased in numbers) & Incinerator (color still returning from Zoa Pox episode last Dec.) :

 

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Purple Monsters (completely smothered and grew over the red hornets) :

 

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Blondies:

 

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Butt Munchers (many new tiny polyps) :

 

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Growth overall is good, but a bit slow. Some of the polyps haven't opened up fully because I just turned the lights on. 

 

I'm impressed by the Incredible Hulks though. They made a complete comeback & have doubled in size. Surprised me the most. 👍

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Corals were still *waking up as I took this: 

 

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I like the splotches of coralline that have started to appear on my rocks, wavemaker & filter intake: 😊

 

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The montihat is still struggling and partially covered in algae: 😕

 

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The cynarina isn't in great shape either: 😔

 

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Besides these two, everything else tentatively looks okay. My Jack-O-Lantern lepto was knocked off its ledge though:

 

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So I had to re-glue it to the rocks. Harvey the saron molted last night as well. 👍

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I misplaced my red PE zoa frag few weeks ago, and haven't been able to find it. 😔

 

So today, I picked up a new red PE frag and a new unknown red-skirted-beige zoa frag from the LFS:

 

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I still can't drive, but my family helped me get to the store to pick out a few things. 

 

I also spotted 4 skinny blue mandys isolated in floating tupperwares each. And well, after Qin's loss, I decided I might as well give this another try:

 

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It's a very shy, thin male with lateral lines showing. No official name yet, but I'm calling him Hunter for now:

 

If I had multiple tanks with the finances, space & setups to back it up, I'd have brought all four of the dragonets home today. But the reality is - I can't walk into a store and buy all the animals in it, thinking that I can 'save' all of them. That's not possible/feasible, plus the store will simply order in more fish again, and the cycle repeats itself. 

 

Out of the 4 dragonets in the store today, one was an extremely large male which was active, but had a sunken belly and some odd growths on one side. I wasn't sure how to treat it (or if his disease was even treatable), or if he would survive. The other three were all smaller males with sunken bellies and lateral lines showing. 

 

Out of the 3, 2 looked very weak and inactive. One was reasonable active, and heck, I decided to just grab him because he really couldn't move much in his tupperware. 😕

 

Hunter's not like Qin. He has not had the time to adapt to captivity like Qin has, and he's already at an unhealthy body weight. Allowing the fish to 'adjust' to the tank will take time, but getting it to eat - even live food, will be a challenge. 

 

Also, he has just been added to the tank and has not made it through his first night yet. So far he's sticking to a secluded area of the tank, and mostly taking in his surroundings by simply moving his eyes. That's not really a good sign - active, healthy dragonets are continuously exploring and stopping every few seconds to snick a pod. 

 

So I just shut the lights off a little bit early to help him settle in - if he makes it through his first night, I'll start training him, like all my previous dragonets. If he's one of those rare, pellet-accepting mandys, that'd be gold. But since he's fresh from the wild, I think that'll be a *bit difficult to achieve (I'll try though!). 

 

Will keep all of you updated. 👍

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2 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Nice that you got out of the house and a trip to the LFS is always fun. Good luck with hunter. Let's hope he lives up to his temporary name and hunts down some pod's.

Thanks, Deb. It was indeed nice to be out for a bit. Still wish I could access my primary LFS though, but it's too far away and the road to it is blocked (inter-district travel is still barred, unless you need to crossover for work, medical reasons etc.). 

 

I just checked up on Hunter - he's on my main ledge and faded out (asleep). Hope he pulls through the night okay. 

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Hunter is doing better today. He has started to explore the tank:

 

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His body form is still poor though:

 

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Trying to map out a suitable diet plan for him to make him gain weight. Each individual dragonet that I have had/currently have started off with similar, but not same diet plans. I alter the ratio of live/wet/dry food accordingly because each fish arrives in different health conditions (emaciated/skinny/thin/medium/fat) and each fish is picky about the food they encounter in a different way. 

 

It's going to be a tough road to recovery, and I *hope I'm successful with him, but I'm also open to the possibility of failure. Will try my best though. 👍

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A quick update - Hunter has started to eat live pods this evening. His dorsal view:

 

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That's a small step in his progress, and I'm happy he's eating. 😊

 

Also, here are my new zoas which I picked up yesterday:

 

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Not all of the polyps are open yet, but I really do like the new red ones. Under the store's lights, the center was beige-ish, but under my tank's lights, there are both beige & purple colors. I think it can color up in time. 🤔

 

Also, my whiplash merlettis are really holding my John Deere leptastrea from taking over the rock:

 

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I'm due for a WC actually, but I think I'll do it tomorrow or the day after. I have 2 face-to-face hospital and 1 online clinical appointment one after the other from Mon. to Wed., so I won't have much time to spend cleaning any of the tanks, but I'll try to see if I'm strong enough to WC the nano during one of the evenings. 

 

If not, I'll just up my dosing regiment and wait until next weekend to WC. By the very most, I'll have nasty algae on the rocks, sand & glass, but it's nothing a few WCs, basic maintenance and time won't fix. 👍

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1 minute ago, debbeach13 said:

Hunter has beautiful color. Sounds like some progress already! He has a much  better shot of getting fat with you than just about any where else. Good luck with the new zoanthid additions.

Thanks, Deb! And I truly hope he gets chunky like Poseidon. He has the build for it now (based on the size of his head & gill plates), just not the weight or shape for it at the moment. 👍

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Live food is still on the menu for Hunter today:

 

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You can see his lateral line in the 3rd pic. His belly isn't pinched, but it's not rounded out either. I think I'll have to increase feedings to 3x a day to make sure his belly doesn't look pinched. 🤔

 

He is a very curious fish, however:

 

He's busy exploring, which is good. I need him to be mobile and alert so that he can hunt pods on his own without issue. 

 

The nano's glass walls are very dirty though - might just cave in and scrape the glass tomorrow morning. 

 

Otherwise, everything is okay. Montihat still has patches of algae on it, so I'm just leaving it as it is. The red monticap I rescued from the 60G isn't doing too well, but the red monticap in the nano is growing without issues. Not all of the polyps of my zoas have fully opened up. Might take a few more days or weeks for them to adjust to my tank. 👍

 

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1 hour ago, Sharbuckle said:

Looks like hunter found himself a great home. Nice to see a Mandarin in your tank again 

Thanks, Sharbuckle. Going to be challenge to fatten him up, but I'll try my best. Wild mandys are so finnicky when it comes to prepared food though! I had to chase Hunter around with pipettes full of frozen rotifers and copepods each to make sure he eats some of it. Then manually switch the wavemaker on and off every few mins. for nearly an hour to let the food swirl around and give the illusion that it's still alive. 😅

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Hunter was making friends with Harvey the shrimp: 😊

 

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My zoas are stretching a bit - just realized I accidently dimmed my lights too much for the last few days. I'll ramp it back up tomorrow. 👍

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Neon green tenuis & lepto:

 

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Also have some very bad news. I found Minx dead among my shrooms today: 😭

 

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Was desperately hoping it was a molt, but she was firm and stinky when I pulled her out of the water in the morning. 😔

 

I'm not sure why she died, but I'm worried. So I'll push myself a bit to get a 4G WC done after this. And check up on everyone else to make sure they're okay. 

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  • Snow_Phoenix changed the title to Snow's 10G Critters of Chaos (TOTM)

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