My tank is exactly a year old today! Wow, where has the time flown to? I've been a bit lax with the updates recently so there's lots to catch up on.
First lets get the bad news out of the way. I'm afraid that I've lost the lovely Tridacna maxima clam, it simply never thrived in my tank. Before adding it I carefully checked the shell looking for any nasty hitchhikers but I never found any. I must have missed some (or their eggs at least) as I started to notice some pyramid snails feeding on my precious Trochus and Turbo snails. Nooo! I checked the clam regularly at night with a flash light but never found any of the little devils feasting on it. After two and a half months it finally it became clear that the clam was doomed so I decided to remove it before pollution became an issue. I checked it over again when it was out of the tank and still couldn't find any pyramid snails on it. These guys are so small and clearly hide really well! Later on three teeny tiny ones did emerge from inside of the clam, it's hard to imagine that just three could have any impact on an animal so much larger than they but clearly over time they do. Unless of course the maxima was suffering from something else too? At this point there's not much I can do about the pyramid snails, I am removing any that I see every day and I've become quite adept at spotting them now. On average I remove about 10 per day. The wrasse are sadly not eating them, come on guys I could really do with a helping hand here, sheesh earn your keep why don't you!! At least I haven't lost any of the snails yet and my original Tridacna crocea clam seems to be doing fine, it's laying down new shell so I take that to be a good sign for now.
The other blip on my reefing horizon is the Balanophyllia. It just doesn't look as good as it once did and I can't work out why. Am I feeding it too much or not feeding it enough? I had been offering it a piece of food once per day (at night), generally PE mysis, clam, Krill or lancefish, perhaps that wasn't enough to sustain it? So I decided to up the feedings to multiple times per day (anywhere between three up to a maximum of five a day) but this seemed to make no difference at all (in fact the coral looked a little worse) so now I'm trying less food. It's really frustrating because the sun coral is looking fantastic on a single feed per day.
Apart from the above everything else seems to be doing OK. The fish are all good, Rei the Yellow wrasse eats like a horse and is noticeably bigger. The best news is that my Tomiyamichthys nudus gobies have finally paired up with the Red Spotted pistol shrimp so I get to see them all much more now. The male goby still goes MIA every now and again but always resurfaces at some point. The gobies and pistol shrimp do not naturally associate together in the wild but I suspect they have done so in my tank because there are simply no other alternatives.
The corals are getting bigger and some are starting to get close to each other already, war is on the horizon I expect.
The zoanthids are spreading nicely especially the Utter Chaos, these are reproducing at a phenomenal rate and unfortunately over taking some of the original slower growing morphs. Whatever was afflicting the Red Tuxedo zoanthids seems to have subsided and I've not lost any more recently, I hope that's the end of that.
After a bit of a slow start the algae in the refugium has really got going now and the amount of life in there is incredible. It's amphipod, mysis shrimp and brittlestar heaven! Charlie the hitchhiking crab is alive and kicking and still growing. She was such a tiny thing when I first noticed her in the DT hanging out in the Seriatopora, now she's huge in comparison.
Life in the refugium.
Whenever I harvest any algae, I spend the following 30 minutes rescuing brittlestars from amongst the fronds. Well I can't just throw them out can I? It's easy to see how they are reproducing by division.
My first canister of ATI Carbo EX came to the end of its life in September, it lasted just over 3 months which I don't think is too bad. I have decided to continue with the CO2 scrubbing and have replaced it with a fresh cartridge.
Last week to celebrate the fact that the tank was approaching its first birthday I decided that some new additions were required. There was a gap (left by the T. maxima clam) that was just crying out to be filled. OK it didn't really need to be filled but what can I say, any excuse to shop for new corals.
I decided another encrusting Montipora sp. would do nicely and since it was likely to be the last addition (never say never tho) I wanted something special. I decided the Beach Bum (what a name!!) Montipora would contrast nicely with the three that I currently have. Since I was mail ordering from a fellow reefer I found I couldn't just buy the one coral so I ended up with frags of Hawkins Echinata (Acropora echinata) and a Sunrise Goniopora too. My name is Lisa and I'm a coral addict, lol! Here they are on the sand awaiting fixing (squeezing!) in place.
Phew that was a marathon (are you still with me?) before I sign off I'll add a few more updated photos. After all who doesn't love a bit of eye candy?!
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Firstly, time to update the fish list. Sadly the Red Spot cardinalfish are no more, thanks in part to the tiny but rather mean Red Spotted goby. There were no more jumpers but the three that remained never really settled no matter how much I tried to feed them. They vanished one by one until there were none left, the last disappearing on the 4th August. I have to say that the tank looks empty without them but I will not be replacing them as I feel they are simply too sensitive for this sized tank especially with its current fishy occupants. In addition to the loss of the cardinals, one of the Red Spotted gobies also vanished. The smaller of the two and not, I might add, the mean one. Sigh! Perhaps he had got bullied too? At that point the fish list consisted of Candy the Red Striped goby, Hop & Skip the Nudus gobies (although I hardly ever see them any more), Edna the Possum wrasse, Kylie the Pink Streaked wrasse and Rocket the remaining Red Spotted goby. It was time for something new and this time I decided I wanted a bold and above all easy to keep fish. As I'm rather fond of wrasses I'm afraid to say I bent my rule of staying with small fish only. I opted to add a juvenile Yellow wrasse, Halichoeres chrysus. What a ray of sunshine this fish is, certainly not one to blend in with the rockwork. He was introduced on the 21st August at 4pm and as expected, immediately dived into the sand. He was up and about just after 9am the following morning. After 30 minutes of orientation he began picking tidbits off the rockwork/sand and when it came to feeding time there was no hesitation or fussiness. He ate everything offered without a second thought. Hmm this fish is going to grow fast I think (oh dear, what did I say about never upgrading tanks ever again...). Ray, as he is now known, is a lovely fish. He's settled into a routine of getting up around 8.30am and going to bed at just before 7pm, he sleeps in the same area of sand every night. During the day he's constantly on the hunt for pods/worms/whatever else takes his fancy and if I approach the tank he comes up to say hello rather than hiding in a cave, now that's a refreshing change! Fortunately, he's not tried to eat Crystal the Bruun's cleaner shrimp yet and I hope he never does (always a risk with these fish). So far the easiest trouble free introduction ever. As for the corals, growth is steady and colouration improving. I have managed to resist the temptation to add anything new although I do keep looking, lol. I am a little concerned for the Red Tuxedo zoanthids, I fear that they are suffering from the bacterial infection known as zoa pox. If I am correct I know this could spell disaster for my entire zoanthid collection but as they have encrusted onto the rockwork directly I am a bit stuck. To dip them would mean a complete strip down of the right-hand rock pile which is something I'm not prepared to do at this point (or ever if I'm entirely honest). I am simply watching and waiting and hoping it doesn't spread.
I am working on updating all the coral photos and am almost there bar a few. |
AuthorHi, my name is Lisa and I live in Derby, UK. I am a self-confessed reefaholic! Archives
July 2022
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