Wow... been a while
Wow... been a while
I haven't posted anything (nor been on this website) in nearly a month. Life has caught me up with all of the crazy things it can throw your way. To say the least, it has been a roller coaster ride lately. Anywho.... on to reef stuff.
The tank is doing well now, although it had a major hiccup 3 weeks back. I had to go and visit family for four days... (and I'm sure you already know where this is heading...) and I came back to find the nitrates were through the roof. I had kept them low low low, and come home to them being in the 20-30 ppm range. So some immediate action had to take place, and I did water changes every other day for a week, and got them down under 5 ppm. I realized what had happened was the intake to the protein skimmer got clogged with.... a snail within five minutes of getting home from my 4 days away. :worried2: (I must say, going home for those days was not for any joyous reason, I assure you... so coming home to the tank issues were even worse). I did have roomies watching over my tank... but nothing is a true substitute for my daily dilligence I know. Anyhow... I saved the snail and managed to save everyone except the blue Allens damsel, but he died from something different (something had bitten his belly and tail). I was fairly certain it was the hawkfish (who also had the cleaner shrimp in terror). So now the hawkfish live in the regufium where he grows fat on the copepods and amphipods. I must also say, of all the corals, the frogspawn was definitely hit the hardest by the nitrates... for a while I was worried I would lose it... but I've been SLOWLY nursing him back to good health (at least his coloration is coming back and he is branching out a little more each day).
So... lesson learned.... hawkfish may look cool, but they aren't necessarily nice. This is what I get for straying from the master list (and leaving unattended to see whats happening). Better news though. The corals look awesome, as does the clam. I purchased 9 more pounds of fully cured rock, and re-arranged the tank. I personally love the new look, and it just "seems right" now (as far as structure/balance/etc). Poseidon the emerald crab is a BEAST (albeit a nice one). The b&w clowns are happy, and one has clearly made itself out to be the dominant female. She nibbles at my fingers almost every time I put my hand in the tank.... NONE of the other critters do this. I also find it strange how I have every living thing trained to feed from a syringe. LOL. The emerald crabs, shrimp, fish, hermits.... they will all let me squirt a little food from point blank at 'em. Makes spot feeding so very easy... I must admit. The emerald crabs took the longest to train... but we got there. I do the same for my corals. I coax their feeder tentacles out with a pre-shot of food, wait for them to come out, then feed 'em once they come out. It is a good system for me.
So now I continue to plug along as best I can. Work is hectic right now, as is my personal life. But somehow... the tank is doing well. I will post some pictures tonight or sometime soon (I just took a whole bunch for those of you following my thread) to show that things are going well for my tank.
Also, I am thinking of building a nano tank in the near future due to my relative success with this one. My roomates are slowly getting better at understanding the tank... thus I will have better caretakers in the future. Hehehehe.
