On the move… and maintenance time
The anemone has made its move.
Yesterday it had moved about 3″ from where it spent Sunday, and pressed itself into the corner of the tank with its foot partially on the display wall and partially on the back wall. This morning it was in the middle of the tank, where the fuzzy acro should be. Hard to say if the anemone knocked it over or if it was the work of the conch, which was also conspicuously nearby. I’m curious where we’ll find the RBTA this evening after work.
Looks like I may have missed my opportunity to grab macro photos of the tentacles and foot with my jewelers loupe, which needs to be within an inch of the subject. Oh well, guess I’ll have to get a nice Canon macro-lense. ;)
Evening update:
Same spot this evening! It’s a good spot, for a few reasons. Visible from any side of the tank; good flow; tremendous lighting. We’ll see where the RBTA winds up in the morning. I spot fed it a small piece of shrimp, maybe that will convince it that it’s in a happy home. It must have acclimated pretty well, as soon as the shrimp hit its tentacles it closed up fast, back open again a few minutes later and no sign of the shrimp.
Did some maintenance tonight as well. 5-gallon water change, cleaned the skimmer, blew out the LR with a turkey baster.
Spot fed the clowns a bit. I’ve been using the turkey baster to pour some food in to their area slowly. They get most of it but some spills past and feeds the other fish. All in all it seems to be a good way to get them fed. Alvy is able to grab enough food to fatten up a bit. I also fed some pellets, I saw Alvy take at least 3. Of course, that method is around 40% effective rate, too many go through the overflow or get stuck on the live rock for me to really like it. I wish Alvy was (1) less timid and able to just grab a pellet as it floats by, and (2) able to eat the pellet without gnawing on it for 2 minutes.
But hey, he’s eating and growing. I know that in a short time I’ll be amazed at how large the clowns are.
Today I dosed 0.7ml VSV in the morning, 0.5ml when I came home, and 0.4ml after the water change. Tomorrow I will aim for 0.7ml in the morning and 0.6ml in the evening.
New Anemone!
Traded some (~100) atomic green zoas for a small rose-colored bubble tip anemone this morning. It is currently on the back wall of the tank, near the bubble coral, and hasn’t moved around too much. We’ll see where it winds up! Hopefully not where it is right now…
Some cleaning, a new inhabitant, and pregnant again
The male pajama cardinal was carrying eggs again this morning. Hope the guy ate well yesterday! I feel sorry for that poor fish.
We were hanging out in Old Town this afternoon so decided to stop by Old Town Aquarium to do some fun window shopping. Before going in we made a friendly bet on how much the most expensive fish we’d see was. I said $600, P said $350. We were way off! $2999 for some type of gold puffer. WOW, you’d think it was made of real gold for that price. P had fun teasing a yellow tang and another puffer with her engagement ring, getting them to follow her hand left and right. She then officially joined me in the fight on algae, by surprising me with the purchase of a small tuxedo urchin! Way cool of her.
Got home, acclimated the urchin, and started pulling out caulerpa near the bubble coral. We’re trading some zoas for a small RBTA tomorrow and wanted to clear the rock free of algae.
Male pajama spit
The male pajama cardinal spit out the eggs overnight. He looked very happy to be eating today!
Coral warfare, sightings, routine maintenance, no more Interceptor
It’s been a standard couple days, so I figured no point in updating the blog with boring info. For maintenance, I’ve been spot feeding with a feeding tube twice a day. I’ve been adding 0.6ml VSV in the morning and 0.4ml in the evening.
Aloysius is NOT afraid of me anymore. On the one hand I think that’s awesome. He has been timid since the day we got him. On the other hand, now he’s not afraid to get in the clown’s face during feeding. They’re not aggressive enough yet to fight him off…
I’m going to need to move around some corals I think. The brain coral and the hammer coral both had sweeper tentacles out last night. Not cool. The brain coral has signs of being stung. I think I’m going to move it to a corner of the tank near the hairy mushrooms.
Saw some cool stuff in the sand bed. Used a jeweler’s loupe to take a closer look, and saw some crazy looking inverts digging their way through the shallow sand bed. Less than a half inch of sand and these things are tunneling around. I couldn’t get a good look, I saw claws that looked like they belonged to shrimp. Very cool. It kept freaking me out until I remembered I was watching them at ~15x magnification!!
I should have done the final Interceptor treatment yesterday. I didn’t. I have been watching the acro’s and there are no signs of the redbugs anymore after the initial two treatments… I guess this was laziness on my part, but I also don’t believe it is necessary. If I was wrong, I will be doing three treatments and admitting that I wasted two doses of the medicine.
Monday – Water Change
Did a 5-gallon water change. I am liking the Tropic Marin Reef Pro salt, it’s clean (no rings or staining in the mixing bucket), mixes quickly.
Spot fed the clownfish with a feeding tube tonight. Aloysius is not scared of it at all, even when I intentionally bumped him with it to try to get him to clear out. Not phased in the least.
