vickreyreef
New member
Hello all,
I have a 90G reef tank, 20k MH and it is running over a year and a half now...About 12 months ago we added a GBTA and a maroon clownfish....and the clownfish hosted immediately...he is a rough one though and would never allow the GBTA to have food...everything was good for about 6 months and then my pregnancy got rough and I was put on strict bedrest and to be honest the tank became non-existent...we didn't do water changes and had a huge clam die etc and did nothing about it really as it wasn't the priority at the time...we also had a yellow tang die in it as well....the shrimp managed to eat both items fairly quickly and we didn't think much of it.(we KNOW we should have taken both out immediately but didn't)...well, the GBTA disappeared behind rocks and we could see he was shrinking and he ended up splitting...the original GBTA melted away and disappeared...again..because our focus was the pregnancy we just observed it and didnt do anything about it or think much of it...(selfish I know but its reality and I am being honest..I was in a situation that either I or the baby could die or be severly impacted so that certainly takes precedence over a tank! lol :hmm3: )
well flash forward to a happy and healthy baby girl and mommy and a renewed obsession with the tank...we always noticed that although we couldn't see the cloned GBTA the clown fish still stayed for the most part under the live rock and we suspected that the nem might still be alive under there after all this time...well we brought a water sample to the LFS about 2 months ago and horror above horrors all of our levels were horrendous and no one could believe all of our corals were still alive as well as the fish etc....we really hadn't lost anything but our nitrates were off the chart as well as the PH and everything else....it all should have been dead essentially. We started doing huge water changes every 4 days as advised by the LFS using their RO water....slowly we got everything back to normal after a massive dedication and investment in time and money and are very happy again as is our tank all of our levels are now almost perfect....about 1 month after we started doing the water changes lo and behold the GBTA shows up at the bottom of the tank and it is the size of a quarter-possibly smaller!!!(we only even really noticed what it was because the clown was swishing all the sand around it and making a mess which caught our eye)
We just couldn't believe it...and the maroon clown was still by its side after all this time....how this nem survived is completely beyond me....it never should have....well, now it is about the size of a half dollar and getting bigger it seems each day and its color is great and it opens up wide. It moved itself to the other side of the tank that is close to the window and when the sunlight comes in each morning it stretches out to it before the lights come on...it really isn't in a place I can feed it (it used to love shrimp when I could get it to it- the clown was very selfish and always stole its food) but I do use brine shrimp plus cubes and cyclopeeze in the tank...is it getting enough from both of those to start to grow again?? What should I be doing to insure it continues to do as well as it is?? I will try to take a picture of it and post later...
All advice is appreciated......
THANKS!
I have a 90G reef tank, 20k MH and it is running over a year and a half now...About 12 months ago we added a GBTA and a maroon clownfish....and the clownfish hosted immediately...he is a rough one though and would never allow the GBTA to have food...everything was good for about 6 months and then my pregnancy got rough and I was put on strict bedrest and to be honest the tank became non-existent...we didn't do water changes and had a huge clam die etc and did nothing about it really as it wasn't the priority at the time...we also had a yellow tang die in it as well....the shrimp managed to eat both items fairly quickly and we didn't think much of it.(we KNOW we should have taken both out immediately but didn't)...well, the GBTA disappeared behind rocks and we could see he was shrinking and he ended up splitting...the original GBTA melted away and disappeared...again..because our focus was the pregnancy we just observed it and didnt do anything about it or think much of it...(selfish I know but its reality and I am being honest..I was in a situation that either I or the baby could die or be severly impacted so that certainly takes precedence over a tank! lol :hmm3: )
well flash forward to a happy and healthy baby girl and mommy and a renewed obsession with the tank...we always noticed that although we couldn't see the cloned GBTA the clown fish still stayed for the most part under the live rock and we suspected that the nem might still be alive under there after all this time...well we brought a water sample to the LFS about 2 months ago and horror above horrors all of our levels were horrendous and no one could believe all of our corals were still alive as well as the fish etc....we really hadn't lost anything but our nitrates were off the chart as well as the PH and everything else....it all should have been dead essentially. We started doing huge water changes every 4 days as advised by the LFS using their RO water....slowly we got everything back to normal after a massive dedication and investment in time and money and are very happy again as is our tank all of our levels are now almost perfect....about 1 month after we started doing the water changes lo and behold the GBTA shows up at the bottom of the tank and it is the size of a quarter-possibly smaller!!!(we only even really noticed what it was because the clown was swishing all the sand around it and making a mess which caught our eye)
We just couldn't believe it...and the maroon clown was still by its side after all this time....how this nem survived is completely beyond me....it never should have....well, now it is about the size of a half dollar and getting bigger it seems each day and its color is great and it opens up wide. It moved itself to the other side of the tank that is close to the window and when the sunlight comes in each morning it stretches out to it before the lights come on...it really isn't in a place I can feed it (it used to love shrimp when I could get it to it- the clown was very selfish and always stole its food) but I do use brine shrimp plus cubes and cyclopeeze in the tank...is it getting enough from both of those to start to grow again?? What should I be doing to insure it continues to do as well as it is?? I will try to take a picture of it and post later...All advice is appreciated......
THANKS!
