Its been a couple of months now and I'm happy to report that all of the fish are back in the 90 and 30 gallon tanks, along with their coral counterparts.
We only had 1 coral that didn't make it because it seems it was infected with green boring algae and was on its way out. We tried to frag a couple of small pieces that didn't have the green skeleton yet, but it was not successful.
Other than that one piece, we have now had a few months success with:
1. The Australian Moseleya (by far my favorite)
2. The Hammer, and its frags that we placed in the 90gal
3. The "Cup Coral", and the frag that we took off of it - Seriously, what are you?
4. The Pavona
5. The Rhodactis Mushroom, including the one that hurt its foot and recovered
6. The Montipora (I think)
7. The unknown and strange coral that I think is another toadstool
8. The golden lepto and its frag
9. The GSP, which isn't 'spreading' yet, but is definitely getting very looong.
I'm also very excited to report that the Lemonpeel angel, who was placed in the tank AFTER the corals, has not bothered any of them at all yet. He only has the Hammer, Mushroom, Toadstool, GSP and the Cup Coral in that tank, but so far, our plan seems to have worked. I imagine he would love to get ahold of the Moseleya and Montipora, but those are in the nano tank.
The hybrid blue tang we have is beginning to grow into his a**hole persona. It is soon time to provide him a bigger home, or give him to somebody who can give him a happy place.
The Crocea clam we purchased did not survive, and we are not entirely sure why. It may have been the lighting, but whenever I tried to increase the light for it, he seemed to do worse. Being more brown than blue, it appeared from all research that this variety would not want such strong lighting, so it made a bit of sense.
I'm also very upset about a Harlequin Tusk that we ordered from Divers Den. He was healthy, strong and absolutely amazing... quickly becoming one of my favorites. (Watching him eat was astonishing!) One day when we were not home, it seems he jumped out of the tank and was dead on the floor when we got home. Though we can't prove it, my bet is that the Tang chased him and he ended up leaping out. There had been a bit of animosity from the Tang in the first day or two when he was introduced, but they had seemed to mellow out and were getting along. A very occasional chasing would ensue but was quickly diverted after that. The Tusk did have a strange habit though of sticking his head up out of the water, seemingly to look around. He did it quite often, and would sometimes spit water or cruise across the top of the water with his fins out like a shark. He was a top dweller, to be certain. I just never imagined a fish of his size... over 4 inches... would leap out of the tank. We've considered putting a lid on it before, but I honestly dont know how I feel about it. They seem to just be in the way every time you want to scrape the glass, feed the tank, clean or rearrange something, etc. It hurts though to know that we could have prevented his death if one had been in place.
Now that everyone is back in the main tanks, I'm undecided about what to do with the 55. I know we're going to need a place to quarantine CUC replacements and for certain, there will be some coral or fish that will come home at some point"¦ but the question is WHERE to put it? Do we leave it in the living room? It's a bit crowded in there now. Do we put it in the garage where the environment is not so stable? That would mean not parking in the garage anymore, and doing more to make it a usable space probably"¦ which we do plan to do, but maybe not right now. Honestly I'm very tired of moving things around with these tanks so the easiest thing is to leave it where it is, even though I don't want it there long term.
There is something masochistic about this hobby, I think. I'm not sure what draws me to it. There are so many things that can and do go wrong. After the Tusk died, I wanted to smash the tanks with a baseball bat, I swear. Three days later, I was making sure the 55 gal. was at the proper salinity for the next purchase. What is wrong with us? :hmm4:
