Had a mate over today to take pics just waiting for him to drop them off to me to upload. In the mean time ill do a text update.
Im happy to say Ive found my passion again for the hobby primarily due to having no dramas for many months, its funny that. Mind you I did loose my Moorish Idol to a bacteria disease which was devastating especially after having him for so many years but thats life and we have to move on. My fish taste has changed ever so slightly which means ive gotten some extra fish that werent on my original want list and gotten rid of some others that I fell out of love with ie. Sohal Tang (not as nice as I thought they would look in person), Blue Ring Angel (when he started eating my clams)
I have some new additions now which brings my current stock list to the following:
ANGELFISH
1 x Flame Angelfish (Centropyge loricula)
1 x Emperor Angelfish (Pomacanthus imperator)
BATFISHES
1 x Pinnate Batfish (Platax pinnatus)
BLENNIES
1 x Seaweed Blenny (Parablennius marmoreus)
BUTTERFLY FISHES
1 x Copperband Butterflyfish (Chelmon rostratus)
CARDINALS
2 x Bangaii Cardinals (Pterapogon kauderni) - My Bangaii Cardinals have spawned two lots of babies now and the babies seem to manage surviving in the display by going in groups of 5 near the 3 Anemones I have. I then attempt to catch most of them and put them in my frag tank. I then feed them with frozen baby brine and now have quite a few sub-adults (not sure what im going to do with them yet but still cool)
COWFISH
1 x Longhorn Cowfish (Lactoria cornuta) - sitting in QT, needs to grow a lot more before I stick him in the DT. They still think he's food
DAMSEL FISHES
1 x Ocellaris Clownfish (Amphiprion ocellaris) paired with 1 x Black & White Ocellaris Clownfish (Amphiprion ocellaris var) regularly spawning
2 x Tomato Clownfish (Amphiprion frenatus) - regularly spawning
DRAGONETTES
2 x Male/Female Pair of Green Mandarinfish (Pterosynchiropus/Synchiropus splendidus)
EELS
1 x Zebra Moray Eel (Gymnomuraena zebra)
GOBIES
4 x Yellow Clown Goby (Gobiodon citrinus) - 2 of which have paired up
GRAMMAS
2 x Royal Gramma (Gramma loreto)
TANGS
1 x Yellow Tang (Zebrasoma flavescens)
1 x Purple Tang (Zebrasoma xanthurum)
1 x Blue Tang (Paracanthurus hepatus)
1 x Achillies Tang (Acanthurus achilles) - (only eating nori and flake at the moment but survived the bashing for the first few days he got from all the other fish and is still taking food happily and now is left alone to explore the tank)
1 x Blonde Naso Tang (Naso lituratus)
1 x Kole Tang (Ctenochaetus strigosus) - Hawaiian Species
WRASSE
1 x Six-line Wrasse (Pseudocheilinus hexataenia)
2 x Canary Wrasse (Halichoeres Chrysus) - paired up straight away
SHRIMP
20 x Peppermint Shrimp (Lysmata wurdemanni) - 10 in DT, 10 in SUMP\REFUGIUM
2 x Coral Banded Shrimp (Stenopus hispidus) - (Mated pair, Yellow bellied\Blue legged variant)
4 x Red Line Cleaner Shrimp (Lysmata amboinensis)
4 x Blood Shrimp (Lysmata debelius)
WANT LIST: (Awaiting these to appear of peoples stock lists)
2 x Potter's Angelfish (Centropyge potteri)
1 x Regal Angelfish (Pygoplites diacanthus) - Must be the yellow bellied variant
2 x Blackcap Basslet (Gramma melcara)
1 x Pinnate Batfish (Platax pinnatus)
2 x Bi-Colour Blenny (Ecsenius bicolor)
2 x Midas Belnny (Ecsenius midas)
2 x Yellow Watchman Goby (Cryptocentrus cinctus)
2 x Flame Hawkfish (Neocirrhites armatus)
4 x Orchid Dottyback (Pseudochromis fridmani)
1 x Harlequin Tusk (Lienardella fasciata)
1 x Moorish Idol (Zanclus cornutus - canescens)
1 x Japanese Pygmy Angelfish (Centropyge interruptus)
1 x Clarion Angel (Holacanthus clarionensis)
Im pretty happy with my Corals now and will only get smaller, extra special stuff.
Other than the FISH im on the hunt for a Purple Carpet Anemone (any type) and a few extra nice clams.
Actually its funny I said i havent had dramas and I just remembered that I copped a plague of flat worms but rather than freak out I decided to buy the Wrasses and Dragonettes which have eaten about 95% so now I hope they can breed enough that they keep my fish happy
My only other minor drama was making the mistake of replacing my Phoenix 14K 250w DE Globes with BLV 250W DE 14K what an absolute rubbish globe. I went from having a lovely balance of light blue light to a washed out yellow. What a shame you cannot try before you buy and now im stuck with them for 12 months. Ive decided to change over the Coral Vues new 15K globes when they come out as they sound like they are still developing\improving on MH lighting when most companies are on the LED band wagon. eg RIP IceCap.
Being the overfeeder that I am and encouraging my Angels not to eat my reef ive has slightly increasing phosphate problems. This was kept in check by using 1000ml of Rowaphos every 2 weeks but as you can imagine spending $400 every two months wasnt very appealing so Ive now gotten onto 'Tones' method of dealing with Phosphate which is dosing 5ml per day of Lanthanum Chloride into my skimmer which has a filter sock on the skimmer outlet. I clean this sock on a gentle cycle in the washing machine with no washing powder every week and it has shown amazing results. I went from 0.20 down to 0.16 in one dose. Very impressive. There are risks of doing it this way but as im a tinkerer it suits me fine and is saving me a heap of $$$. For $15 I got 1L of HY-CLOR Phosphate Remover (Lanthanun Chloride).
Thats it for now still waiting for the pics off my mate. Ill put them up as soon as I get em. Feel free to ask me any questions.
