Hey Guys....sorry for kinda ignoring this thread....Couple of things...
Things got pretty busy for awhile and my tank started having troubles en masse....sigh...not single spies, but in battalions...of course you guys know this, but I was quite happy just watching you guys go thru issues and not actually really having any to speak of...
Okay, so to update fully...the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The pinched mantle thing with the clams was annoying to say the least. The gorgeous Teardrop Crocea did not make it, but the blue on did.
I'd been having some off and on RTN issues....
I really think it was a pH issue, cause I started dosing Kalk, and actually managed to stop an RTN'ing coral midway through....it doesnt look pretty or particularily happy right now, but at least its still alive.
I got red bugs. Yay for my side.......
I've done one treatment of Interceptor and will do the other tomorrow, (approximately 96 hours after the first). I have my two blood shrimp, most of my hermits, (missed one somehow...found him yesterday...didnt make it.) and my two acro crabs in a 10 gallon tank. Getting the smaller acro crab out of the Chesterfieldensis, (peach tipped acro tentative ID) was amazingly difficult. Took the better part of 15 minutes and he lost one claw and a leg I think. Getting the larger one out of the Hyacinth table (brown table tentative ID) was really easy by comparison..took about three minutes and it actually hopped out of the coral into my hand....okay so I was poking him with a knife blade to get him out of the center of the coral, but still....
The first interceptor treatment went well, and I dont see any RedBugs anywhere in the tank, but I'm going to do a second one just in case. I need to buy another bucket of IO, cause I dont have enough to do a 20% water change that is reccomended after a treatment....
Once I do the second one, everyones going back in the tank.
My RBTA's split again...this time into 3...so I now have 4 smaller anemones instead one bigger one. I'll be keeping three, one decided to go wandering, so I tucked him into a tupperware container I drilled lots of holes into for water flow. He will go to a friend of mine here in St Louis.
The Cleaner Wrasse dissappeared one day, never to be found. The tank is coverd with egg crate and Poly Cloth which is a plastic screen zip tied to the egg crate. The fish couldnt have jumped out. I checked the overflow repeatedly and never saw him hanging out there...and just for sake of elimination, checked the floor behind/near/around the tank and did not see anything resembling a dried out cleaner wrasse. Which only means one of three things:
1...I havent found him yet.
2...He didnt jump out
3...He jumped out and one of the dogs ate him.
Finally and most upsetting...the Bellus angel didnt make it. She started having swim bladder problems right around the time the rest of this was going on in the tank, and wasnt able to eat nearly as much as she had been. I think that between the Swim bladder issues, (not able to swim well at all and wedging herself under rocks to keep from floating around the tank) she wasnt able to get enough nutrition. I fed her specifically and she still didnt make it....
So the tanks fish population is currently the Tomini Tang, a Royal Gramma, and the Chalk Bass. A pair of Clowns for the many anemones is going in the tank next, (might be a few months though....wedding is coming up and finances are getting stretched) and I'm debating whether or not to try a pair of Neon Gobies. I want some blue in the tank, they are attractive, act as cleaners, dont add significantly to the bio load, and are blue...which this tank kinda needs. But I'm worried about the Gramma eating them, and wondering if feeding them will be difficult due to the way the other fish "mob" the turkey baster during feeding time.
The tank is now stable and corals are showing increased growth and polyp extension. I'd like to put a few frags in the tank, and then just let everything grow out for a few years till I can afford to set up that 120 glass tank, and rectify all the things I dont like about this set up. ( Dont ya hate that??? Ya spend months planning, and deciding exactly how you want the tank laid out so that its perfect, and then in the course of a few months, you find 3-4 things that are annoying that you'd change if you could?)
Anyway...thats it in a nutshell guys.
Eventually, I'll be starting another thread, (a link to it will be posted here) with the pics on a more secure/stable site that doesnt randomly move the images thus destroying any thread I have started here on RC....
Nick
