Tank Progress

We have had our ups and downs since my last post about the tank. Since losing Iggy we have lost three more fish (two in QT, one in DT). We purchased a McCosker’s Flasher Wrasse, Lawnmower Blenny, and Royal Gramma at the same time and the Blenny died three weeks into QT for no apparent reason (rather dick move in my opinion) and the Gramma we treated for Flukes with FW dips and Paragard (see link here for our FW dip experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQX_m2UbNxo). She got a secondary infection though and died at around 4 weeks. Our Wrasse, Tom, made it though and made it into the DT (he is super sassy and I totally understand people’s love for Wrasses now).

Two days before the Gramma died, my husband bought another Lawnmower Blenny and our first tang, a Yellow Eyed Kole (3/6). We named them Beast and Belle. Both were moved into the DT around 3/27. We ended their QT time a week early because we could not control the ammonia levels in QT (seriously, owning saltwater tanks is like a constant science experiment) and had to pull them out because Beast was suffering from Ammonia poisoning (breathing heavily, flashing, rubbing on pvc pipes).

Beast recovered but Belle had a hard time. Our Square spot Anthias, Jamie, is the alpha in our tank and all but tore her to shreds. I won’t lie, I cried when I saw what he did to her. We ended up purchasing and placing an acclimation box into the tank, which was a godsend. Jamie refused to go into the fish trap so it provided a safe haven for Belle who swam into it the second Jamie started chasing her. It was originally meant for Jamie to have him cool off while Belle got used to the tank and other fish but we were never able to catch him. We kept the box in the tank for around a week and the two have since worked their differences out. He still chases her every now and again but she is no longer in shreds and has healed beautifully. Sadly, however, Beast died two weeks after being placed into the DT. He went into our overflow, stressed out, and passed away before we found him. We’ve decided to not get another one. It would break my heart to lose a third.

Who knew there could be so much drama? They’re fishes! I wonder if Ariel had so many issues wither her mer-sisters. ;p

*Sigh* Any who, beyond the fish drama, we have purchased more coral. Underwater gardening for the win! We kind of went crazy at a Coral Convention last month and brought home five new corals. Also, before that we bought a beautiful Acan and Rock Flower Anenome  (2/11) that have added beautiful colors to our tank. We did some minor re-scaping of the tank because we needed to move our GSP. It is growing like a weed and was beginning to spread to more rock, which would lead to it overcrowding other corals. Everything is so much better now.

On St. Patrick’s Day we brought home a new Dragonette. Emmy (short for Emerald), is doing fabulous. She is pretty much the tiniest, cutest fish ever. We also purchased three emerald crabs who are hilarious. Our big boy is called Dwayne “the rock” Johnson and they have since taken care of the bubble algae in our tank.

While I was away my husband took it upon himself to go and buy more coral (I wasn’t around to say ‘no’…clever) and bought a beautiful Rainbow Hammer and Purple Torch. The guy he bought it from said it was a green torch…..it certainly doesn’t look like a green torch.

Last thing (promise),we found a gentleman (Joe!!!!) on craigslist who lives in our area who frags out pieces from his tank. We visited him (4/17) and got nine beautiful frags for next to nothing. His tanks were beautiful!!! It is so neat to be able to meet different people who enjoy the hobby and see their own beautiful tanks, the different designs and coral. When we got home, we got an email from our favorite aquarium store saying that they were closing :(. Naturally, we rushed over and bought a ton of things on sale (a doser and two other corals-acan and torch, which very well might be a frogspawn…..our bad). After the money we spent today I am convinced we have a problem. Saltwater Hobbyists Anonymous anyone? Eleven coral in one day…..is. a. lot.

I am SO excited to watch our tank grow! Someday we might be able to frag the coral ourselves and spread the love round to other hobbyists’ tanks. How neat is it to be able to keep coral alive that would otherwise die? Each coral has a story to it and to be able to share it with others puts a meaningful spin on the hobby. I do see how the hobby could be doing some harm to the ocean what with catching wild fish that they have not been able to successfully breed in captivity, as well as pulling coral from the ocean. But I do know that we LOVE our aquarium. We treat our fish and coral like our kids and have SO much respect for them. And there are so many others in the hobby that have mad respect for the ocean. I have learned a ton about fish and coral because of this hobby that I never would have known before. Its a whole education. And maybe someday, because of it, we can give back to the ocean somehow.

As I said before, I love the idea of growing out beautiful coral and fragging it to share with others. One day one of our corals may die, but if we were able to frag it to another persons tank…that coral is still technically alive. It’s almost immortal. Kind of mind blowing to think of it that way.

Here are some pictures of the new pieces in the meantime. I think it is neat to see how small coral begin and then see later what they grew to become. I don’t have pictures of everything. Our new Zoa’s haven’t opened up yet (Rasta’s and Dragon Eye).

 

Frogspawn, Rainbow Hammer,  Hammer

Duncan, Purple Torch, Green Slimer, and Green Torch (in the background)

Acan

Acan

Montipora Setosa

Red Digitata

Purple Digitata

Australian Green Birdsnest

Blue Pocillopora

Purple Millipora

Scrambled Eggs Zoa

Bam Bam ? Zoa

Zoas….pretty (haha)

Acropora Sarmentosa

 

 

Iggy the Dragonet

On New Year’s Eve we purchased a Mandorin Dragonet. These are known to be difficult fish to keep on account of their eating habits. These guys, usually, cannot be trained to eat frozen food. They eat copepods, which need to be alive and plentiful in your tank. Dragonetts will starve within a month if they do not have the proper food source. We introduced copepods into our tank a few months prior to purchasing him so had a healthy stock in the tank already.

Another thing about Dragonets is that they generally do not do well in quarantine. With all the medications that may need to be dosed into a QT, copepods do not survive and therefore the dragonets starve. Therefore, you generally put Dragonets directly into your DT without quarantine.

We purchased ours, called him Iggy, and put him in our DT. It didn’t take long before I realized his tail looked a smidge ratty. But he was swimming around and eating,  seemingly alright. Dragonets don’t move around fast so sometime hermits or cleaning crew can nip at their tails. So we hoped that may be the case for his ratty tail. Boy were we wrong. It didn’t take long before we realized he had tail rot and it was upon first arriving in the tank. We weren’t sure what to do to help him since we knew there wasn’t a chance he would survive quarantine where we could dose him with the medicine he needed.

After consulting with some stores we decided to do medicinal dips. On January 4^th, we put KanaPlex in a 5 gallon bucket with an air stone and transferred Iggy in there. We did it for an hour to make sure it didn’t stress him out too much. He was fine.

We waited a few more days, his rot got worse, and we dipped him again on January 7^th. Afterwards, we put him into the sump with Princess instead of the DT so that there would be less stress on him (especially to catch him if necessary) and no hermits could get to him. There are copepods in our sump so he would still have food if he got his appetite back.

Two days later we decided to do one final treatment because his rot was progressing so severely we figured it was go big or go home. There was no way he would bounce back from it without help. We left him in treatment for a 24-hour period. He survived it without apparent stress and we put him back into the sump area. Sadly, he died a few days later on the 12^th.

When you have a fish with fin or tail rot you should always quarantine them because there is a chance your other fish may get sick. However, we took the chance on account of our water parameters are excellent (healthy water=healthy fish). Also, none of our fish had any open sores or cuts (that we could see), which is how the bacteria spreads.

It was so sad seeing such a beautiful fish die so quickly. Next time we will be sure to be pickier  about the dragonet we purchase. We were told to also look for one with a “beer belly” which shows that he has had a healthy appetite and is not starving (which could make him prone to bacteria).

On a sidenote, Foxface is a quick study and by watching Iggy the first few days realized the little white things moving on the glass are edible. So yes, believe it or not, our Foxface now eats copepods. Suck. I wouldn’t normally care but we don’t want any future dragonet to compete for food. Stupid…smart Foxface.

 

This is the third day after we purchased him

Only a few days later.

After the second dip we placed him into the sump.

 

This was about three or so days before death.

Let’s Talk About Fish

Let’s talk about fish.

My husband and I have a 180 gallon saltwater aquarium. He researched for at least three years before we finally started working on our own. My husband and I (I use the term “I” loosely because he did the lion’s share of the work) built a bar in our basement with our aquarium being the showcase piece for it. He did a beautiful job. And though I started out with a “whatever” attitude about the tank, it was impossible not to get involved.

I assumed he would take care of it while I enjoyed it.

Newsflash: When your husband works graves on a police officer’s schedule (which includes numerous court dates on his supposed weekend),  you have to get involved to ensure the tank is running smoothly and your fish/coral are healthy. So unbeknownst to me and my eye rolling “over it” attitude while my husband gushed on about saltwater aquariums pre-ownership….I was  slowly suckered in. Not only is it super expensive (thus I would like to make sure everything survives and is healthy so we don’t need to spend more money on things) but I actually found pleasure in it.

So, for any another aquairiests out there, as well as for maintaining my own records, I decided to write/record our experience while we built up our fish tank.

We purchased our first sea creatures on 9/25/17 (we cycled the tank for a month prior), which consisted of hermit crabs (including a Halloween Hermit called Jack), snails, turbo snails, and a cleaner shrimp (Fergus). We lost Fergus over night and replaced him a week later when we got two Naked Clownfish (Callie and George) and two Bengai Cardinals (Dale and Brennan).

Having had no fish in the tank and the clowns being captive bred, we were comfortable putting the clowns directly into the tank without quarantine. The cardinals were put into quarantine for observation. They showed no signs of illness so we were comfortable putting them into the DT (display tank) after two weeks.

On 10/25/17 we purchased two Squarespot Anthias (Male-Jamie and Female-Claire) as well as a Foxface Rabbitfish. These three were a cluster. I originally hated the idea of quarantine. It’s a bummer to have new fish but unable to put them into a DT for four weeks. Plus, taking care of two tanks is a pain in the butt. But after these three I am a full supporter of quarantining your fish. I think these three were the reason I started having more interest in fish. I hated the idea of blowing money on fish that die before they even get into the DT, let alone seeing fish suffer.

Introducing Dr. Bell. I became a fish doctor. In-between working on my manuscripts I did some serious studying on fish illnesses and after some time diagnosed our fish correctly. To start, Foxface obviously had worms. Easy fix, feed the fish dewormer. That wasn’t the only thing though. Here are each fish and either their symptoms or actual illness.

Foxface: Worms, lymphocystis, and super skinny

Jamie: Fin/tail rot, fuzzy/torn lips (from fighting with Claire), cloudy eyes, loss of appetite, swimming in place and/or up and down, yawning a lot, a lot of flashing, and head shaking.

Claire: Cloudy eyes, swimming in place, a lot of flashing, yawned a lot.

All of these symptoms happened in the first week of observation. We also had to have a bit of a learning curve when it came to the different medications. We started treating the fish with Paragard and a Copper treatment at the same time, which is a big no no. So we did a water change and began flushing the water out (carbon), deciding to start with a two week copper treatment and then transitioning to Paragard. Before we did these treatments (correctly) however, we decided to treat the fish as if they had flukes.

If you have flukes, the eggs are most likely in the tank and it needs to lie fallow to ensure the eggs die. But we don’t have a third tank to use as QT. So we decided to simply treat the fish to give them relief and then go from there. Treatment for flukes consists of doing a fresh water dip. The concept of this scared the crap out of me. Taking a sick/stressed fish out of its saltwater and placing it in a bucket with an air stone, matching water temperature, but using fresh water (RODI)….yeesh. We did it for 15 minutes for each fish…I believe. 10 or 15. After that, the medication in the tank and copper treatment, all of them recovered. So whether or not they had flukes, it all worked out in the end. On a side note-do not be scared to do a fresh water dip to your fish. If they do not make it, they probably weren’t going to anyhow.

During this six week stretch, we also put KanaPlex in the food for the DT and QT fish. Because of Jamie’s apparent fin/tail rot we thought this was best. Plus, the cardinals had a red tinge to them and Callie a possible red bump that wasn’t there before. So to be safe we gave it to everyone. Three doses over a 10 day period. We dosed their food with the medication, Focus (helps them not taste the medicine), and garlic. KanaPlex is not invertebrate safe so we dosed the food rather than the tank itself.

We ended up putting the QT fish into the DT around the second week of December. Just to be safe we probably should have waited a few more weeks but we were having trouble controlling the nitrates in the QT tank, which in the end can make the fish sick so we felt it best to get them out of there. Jamie’s tail grew back by Christmas and as I write this (January) it is long and more beautiful than ever.

Claire, Jamie, and Foxface. I believe Callie also wanted in on the picture so is tagging along.

A week after putting the big boys into the tank, we noticed that our smaller cardinal (Brennan) was beginning to wither away, have shredded fins, and not eat. After a lot of sneaking in to spy on the tank (fish like to pretend they are nice while people are watching them), I found that the other cardinal (Dale) was being a total jerk. Sadly, they will not be a good pair. We removed the smaller cardinal (now named Princess) and put her into the sump so she would not stress and could get food while she healed. We will wait until our next batch of fish is introduced to try and put her back into the DT. Maybe the hierarchy will change up a bit and she and Dale can cohabit together. Not holding my breath on that one. Also, realized Dale is actually a girl. She started shaking like crazy and chasing our big fish around, shaking against them (not rubbing as if she had ich). This is a sign of a horny, female cardinal. So Dale, without a male cardinal around, is getting hot and bothered trying to shake against our other fish. She’s special.

After moving Princess into the sump we turned our sights on coral after purchasing the correct lighting for them. We purchased two types of Zoa’s, a pulsing Xenia, Duncan, Favia, and Torch coral. They all are still doing well. At the end of the month we brought in some more cleaning crew because the coral lights encourage algae growth, which didn’t take long to begin appearing. We purchased more sifting snails, a brittle starfish (the Kraken), tuxedo urchin (Niffler), and two peppermint shrimp(Cheech and Chong). One of our zoa’s had aiptasia and we were told the peppermint shrimp would be a good solution so long as the aiptasia didn’t get too big yet. Sure enough, overnight, the aiptasia disappeared. Aiptasia spreads quickly and competes for food. You do not want it in your aquarium. If you try to remove it yourself, it can spread easily. So having a shrimp eat it is ideal but there are a few other options that I won’t get into now.

We have a few more new additions to the tank, as well as a sad story about our Mandarin Dragonett. But I think that is for another day.

 

Torch

Duncan

Pulsing Xenia

Zoa

Zoa

Favia