Home again. I've been traveling in Europe for the first time. Lovely trip, and it's nice to get home. I was gone for a little over two weeks.
I was expecting an occasional feeding by some friends we thought were going to house sit, but it appears they never came. At first look, I see no pike blennies. Everyone else looks good. The display needs a little tidying as expected, with chaeto popping up and a pair of aiptasias. It looks like new plant growth was limited, without daily dosing. Same with the sponges and sea squirts. I went ahead and dosed silicate for them, but nothing else yet for the plants until after I tidy.
I'll have to double check the date, but I expect the new blennies to be ready for display introduction. As preparation for that, I'm fashioning a new plastic bottle fish trap for some of the mollies. I want to reduce their numbers before adding the newbies-probably down to one male and four females or so. We'll see how it goes. Another idea would be to keep only males in the display, to control population. Maybe keep only females in the QT, to keep it's bio-capacity ready for new residents.
The QT will need to be cleaned up too.
I'm toying around with the idea of adding more light to the display. I've got another spider light reflector and a compact fluorescent bulb that fits, so I could give that a try. This would likely trigger my needing to bring my chiller online which I haven't used since my reef days, years ago. This could be tricky, with limited hidden space. The idea with adding a light would be to see if I can get better growth from the seagrasses. I would still plan to keep the right end of the tank unlit, as it gives me a nice, gradient of lighting there and, in a weightless environment, simulates depth. I'm thinking I may set up the second fixture mirroring the halide setup, with it tilted as well. I am able to slide the fixtures independently left and right, so I'll have some flexibility. Here's a quick and dirty sketch:
So this would be to supplement the light, but not to expand its coverage. I think it's a worthy experiment. With a 400 watt halide going into a 30 inch deep tank with no mechanical filtration, It would seem there's room for more light.
Thoughts anyone?
. I liked the gramma harem a lot, they're one of my favorite fish, maybe the Cuban gramma will be more widely captive bred or available with the opening of Cuba's borders when/if you decide to do another group of them.
I'm looking forward to seeing how your lighting changes work out. Any sign of the pike blennies?
