Tank Make Over

During the Wrasse Saga, husband and I came up with several ideas as to why the wrasse was aggressive and how to limit that aggression.  As you can see, so far we've done isolation and re-introduction.  We also redid the tank.

The Sixline Wrasse is a really cool fish.  They are super active and predatory which is probably where a lot of the natural aggression comes from.  Predators are not know for being nice.  Aside from those basic traits, the six line also makes a cocoon when it sleeps at night for protection.  It goes into a coma like state when sleeping and because of that, prefers rocky holes where it can sleep for the night.

Just for fun, here's a brief comparison of the sleeping habits of my tank inhabitants:
Coral- suck up when the lights turn out. The xenia and zoas go to bed first. The GSP usually stays up the longest
Clowns- they sleep whenever in the bottom of the tank, belly touching the sand.  the female likes to sleep "upside down" on her head.  Freaked me out the first time.
Wrasse-  Instantly hides when the lights turn off.  He then makes a cocoon and stays there until morning.

So one hypothesis we came up with was a lack of suitable hidey holes.  We figured our aquascape was not very good for corals and now it may be sub par for fish as well.  We took this as an opportunity to thoroughly clean and rearrange the tank including the refugium.

Goals
Before getting started, we outlined our goals for this three hour project.  Our goals were:

• Rearrange the rock work for easier coral placement and happier fishies
• Aim for a minimalist scape without taking out rocks
• Inspect each rock for Aipstasia
• Kill Aipstasia if found
• Clean and rearrange refugium
• remove old carbon, replace with new carbon
• put in filter sponge
• add new refugium light, JBJ NanoGlo
• get rid of liverock rubble and replace with SeaChem Matrix
• Not kill any fish or coral

With those things in mind, it began!

Step 1: remove "valuable" lifeforms (fish, coral, one hermit crab. Snails are on their own)

We knew we'd be kicking up a lot of sand a detritus and didn't want to kill anything.  So everything had to come out.

Clownfish in the ReefGently

Coral and hermit in Coral Bucket

Step 2: INSPECT!

We did find Aipstasia on one rock.  We swiftly dealt with it by taking a syringe and needle and injecting it with lemon juice.

The little bubbles is where the exterminated Aipstasia is.

The weapon.

Step 3: Rearrange and wait for sand to settle.

Sandy tank and the tank guardian.

Step 4: After rearranging, clean refugium, do water change

Step 5: After three hours worth of work, re-release the inhabitants. Except for the wrasse so the clowns can set up shop.

Pretty post-pox zoas.

BEFORE:

Holy crap, look how white our rocks were when we first set up!

AFTER:

Much better scape.  Corals are happier too.  I'll post better pics later.

From the pics, the layout looks "less interesting".  however, it's way more fun.  I'll post a video detailing its new levels of funness.  PS  Hopefully I never have to do this again.  

And everyone is getting along much better.

The Wrasse Saga, part 2: ReefGently Acclimate Reviewed

The ReefGently Acclimate Review.  We are thrilled with it! :-)

The Wrasse Saga

The Saga

I originally intended this to be a good news post.  Unfortunately, I know how wrasse got their name.  Someone couldn’t properly say “ass” and it just caught on.  

Saturday hubby and I went  to ReefCulture to have a looksy.  We hadn’t been in a couple months and were thinking about getting a sixline to combat the worm problem in the tank.  Turns out, we didn’t get all the worms.  I am not a fan of them, I want them gone.

I ended up buying a sixline that day.  We decided not to quarantine since I trust ReefCulture’s stock and it’s where we got the clowns from. Trust me, if we got him anywhere else, he would be in QT right now.  ReefCulture is impeccable and their QT is top notch.  Most stores don’t even QT but those awesome guys do.  

Temperature acclimating

I digress.  After acclimating, we released him into the tank.  We were so happy with our purchase.  He was zipping around exploring, eating pods, and just being heaps more fun to watch than the clowns.
 
All was well for the first 24.

Sleeping for the night.  can you see him?

Around 9 pm on Monday, he was harassing the clowns really, really, bad.  The female was getting pieces of her fins ripped so we did an emergency black-out in the house.  The wrasse, we had learned, instantly goes to sleep when its dark.  So to stop him, we shut off the lights and he zoomed right behind the pump and started cocooning for the night.

This at least gave hubby and I time to go to Wally World and buy a fish net as well as fill up the QT tank.  We very stealthily caught the wrasse and put him in the QT tank before he was even fully awake.

Now we were faced with the dilemma of what to do with him.  The next morning I called ReefCulture who said they could only refund me a third of his purchase price since he has to go into QT all over again.  While not happy, I would rather lose that money and know I was getting responsibly sold fish than having a full refund and shady practices.

Since we only spent $24, I would probably spend more in gas on the 40 minute drive than I would be refunded.

As always, when in doubt go to Nano-Reef.com and someone will save you.  I posted my dilemma and received a response that reintroduction and in tank isolation might solve the problem.  If it doesn’t, he is going on Craigslist for $10 or a trade for coral.

What is in tank isolation?
In tank isolation is when you can separate an organism from the rest of the tank without physically removing it.  This usually conducted by way of a specimen tank.

Bad fish in the time out tank.

Back to the Story
Well, Hubby and I do not have a specimen tank.  However, we had looked a ReefGently’s Acclimate Pro which is also a specimen tank, transport tank, medicine tank and trap as well as acclimation chamber.  While pricey and we could definitely have bought a plain tank at PetCo for $6.99, we like gadgets and would probably use it in all of its functions.  So we forked the money and it will hopefully be here soon.  I will post on the ReefGently and all of its awesomeness once we get it.  

Keep your fingers crossed!

Catch Up Post 5: Are we there yet?

I think this is the last catch up post for all of the events in the last month.  Essentially this is just a fun post.  So, we thought the fish were healthy and then on night the larger fish was nose down.  I though “Oh no, I’ve killed it” and then it started swimming normally again.  After some googling, my fish was sleeping.  Now please enjoy this video as they dream their fishy dreams.

Catch Up Post Number 1: The Tail of Two Fish and a Suicidal Shrimp

Fwah… Have I gotten behind!  So we will do this in a series of catch-up posts.

The weekend before Halloween, hubby and I were looking for something to do and had the idea to go up to Reef Culture just to look at stuff.  Luckily, or unfortunately, they were having a 20% off all black and orange livestock sale for Halloween.  And can you guess what black and orange fish is a great beginner fish?

Clownfish!

While also investigating, my husband being the deal hunter* he is, decided we should get a fire shrimp since he would be 18% off.  

After spending an amount I’d rather mention, we set off home with our precious cargo.  An hour later, we were in the process of drip acclimating our first interesting inhabitants that did not live in a shell.  We acclimated the fish for about forty-five minutes at a rate of one drip per second, the shrimp we acclimated for one hour also at one drip per second.

All of our animals were well behaved and doing well for the first two weeks.  Then we noticed something odd.  First, the shrimp’s whisker was shorter.  Then, his claw went missing.  Next, his other whisker was shorter.  

On closer observation, we realized he was getting well acquainted with our circulation pumps.  I posted my concerns on Nano-Reef and someone suggested putting panty hose around the pump.  We tried that and all was well for a few days until it looked the panty hose was disintegrating in the tank.  I assumed that was probably not healthy.  So we did some rearranging, took the pantyhose off, and closely monitored the shrimp for the following days.  All seemed well.  He molted and all of his missing appendages came back.  

Poor deceased Shrimp.

 On November 5^th, my mother in law went by the house to drop off some chairs while we were at work.  She said our shrimp looked nice.  She thought it was normal behavior for the shrimp to hug the pump… The shrimp got to friendly with it, and apparently the pump did not reciprocate the feeling.  So now we have no shrimp.  We are brainstorming anti-shrimp eating pump tactics for any future purchases.

*= I say deal hunter because I frequently feel we never would have bought what we buy if there was no sale.  Therefore, we would have saved money on an item we didn't need if it wasn't on sale. lol