Well it’s been a long time planning it, but today was a big day! I’ve been doing a fishless cycle on a quarantine tank so that I could get two new tangs for the saltwater tank, and it was finally ready this weekend. I have two new tangs! They will be in the quarantine tank for about 6 weeks (at least) before they go into the main tank. Hopefully they will be fully recovered from any parasites they might have right now, and we’ll see who emerges as the dominant tank between these two and Filet. Here are some pictures:
In the picture of both of them, the one on the left is a Blonde Naso tang. He’s clearly the boss of the two of them in the quarantine tank. The other one is an Atlantic Blue Tang. The young ones are more yellow and as they mature, they turn blue. This one is very stressed out, and he might stay that way for a while. If it gets too rough in there, I might have to put a barrier in between the two. I’ll try and update as things to along with more pictures too.
Well, it’s been over two weeks since I moved, so if there was going to be any sort of tank crash or major problems, I would have seen some trace of them by now. I think it’s finally safe to say that the move went successfully with no fish lost! Some of the plants in the freshwater tank are looking a little stressed, but for the most part I’ve been able to get the algae under control and I’ve seen new growth on almost all of the plants.
I’ve made a couple of minor cosmetic and plumbing changes to the saltwater tank, and I’m working on cleaning off some of the old sand and putting it back into the tank, but there’s nothing too interesting to write about. In the next couple of weeks I’ll be getting some more snails, since I only know of one that’s still alive. Also, I hope to get some more tangs too, since Filet seems lonely and needs someone to pick on.
I’ve taken a bunch of pictures of the saltwater fish. Enjoy!
Hello. Not too much new this time, but I did manage to recover the video I was talking about last time. It’s the best footage of the life down in the refugium. These guys are called “pods” because they’re usually some type of copepod or amphipod, or some “pod,” from everything I can tell, though, they are the beneficial type that keeps Manny well-fed.
This update brings good news as far as the fish are concerned in both tanks, so I’ll start with the only bad news, which isn’t really bad for anyone but me.
Over the last week, there have been some pretty intense electrical storms, which resulted in all of the pumps on both tanks failing. Most of the situation has been fixed, so the only thing lost is all the money to replace all of the pumps, but I’m still having more than my fair share of trouble with the main return pump in the saltwater tank. I still need to figure out what the real problem is here, because the battery backup isn’t working right and even a brand new pump isn’t working, so I’m still using the backup pump at this time.
Speaking of the saltwater tank plumbing, I’ve made a minor adjustment. I’ve taken the sponges out of the overflow cups and replaced one of them with some chaeto trimmings from the refugium. I took an updated video and a picture of it, which I’ll link to soon. It took about a week to get the kinks worked out of this setup, mostly because I had a problem with it making a “slurping” noise, but now it’s running pretty well and quietly. In the process, I noticed Sunny had made his way into the overflow cup for the third time, so I put some mesh up there to deter him from that, and with some more tweaking there, that finally keep Sunny out and doesn’t cause any huge issues with the plumbing or noise either. Here’s the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6opIKszNlg
Now for an update on the two recent additions to the saltwater tank: The royal gramma is doing great, he’s finally overcome the initial aggression and is starting to show some personality. The diamond watchman goby took a little longer since he got some (expected) extra harassment from Dusty, but since he’s bigger than Dusty, I figured he would eventually stand his ground. He now has a hole dug out that he defends and is out and visible when the lights are on; it’s pretty easy to tell the areas where he’s been sifting the sand, since they’re starting to become much cleaner. We got a video of the diamond watchman defending his territory against Dusty, though Dusty doesn’t really go near there much anymore.
The cardinal I was worried about before has bounced back pretty well. I’m still trying to figure out what the source of all this aggression was, but he’s hanging out with a different cardinal (the smallest one) and the aggression has toned down. He’s eating again, and is starting to heal; There’s a picture of him along with recent pictures of a lot of fish (including one of Herbert) below.
Finally, some thought on the near future of these tanks. Once I get the plumbing situation figured out, I’ll most likely leave the saltwater tank alone for a while to focus on the freshwater tank. The only changes I plan to make to the saltwater tank anytime soon are the addition of two tangs, which may be a while to get here. I want to add a few more stem plants to the freshwater tank, and hopefully get a lot of good pictures of that tank in the near future.
As you may have noticed, the FLog has been going through a lot of changes this week. I’ve changed blog services and it’s now on the adamhorton.com domain name. This service has a lot more capabilities and is easier for me to use, so I hope I’ll stick with it for a while.
I’ve imported everything from the old fish log, and updated all of the old posts so that the pictures and videos aren’t just links anymore (which took quite a while). I also added a bunch of new functionality, such as the ability to register (link on the right) and automatically get E-mail updates. You can do a bunch of other stuff too if you register, but E-mail subscription is the main thing. Also, I’ve added two pages to the FLog: tank stats and roll call. The links to those are in the upper right, and the pages explain what they’re all about.
An actual fishy-content update will happen once something update-worthy comes up, but until then, enjoy the new FLog format!
