Last Saturday, the DFWMAS Frag Swap took place. I spent a few hours there selling various products from Melev's Reef since I'm a club sponsor. And to my left was another club member, who had this adorable puffer for sale. All day long, everyone gazed into the bucket and stared into its irridecent eyes, but when the event concluded, this Porcupine Puffer came home with me.
While I was talking to a friend on the phone today, I was gazing at my aquarium and when I spotted this surprising activity, I had to quickly change topics to share my excitement. The Anemone Cube has been running for 3.5 years, and it was my hope that my clownfish would start laying eggs. However, after a while one perished and I was left with only one, a bright orange ocellaris. It grew larger but was lonely. About 18 months ago, I added 16 more clownfish from a local breeder, so that family of tiny clowns were hopefully going to be accepted by 'her' and all would be well.
I got this paired up team at our club's last meeting. And they have stayed under the Acan colony in the 60g Anemone Cube. I took a few macro shots...
The shrimp is nearly blind, so the goby plays lookout. His tailfin touches the shrimp at all time, and with a single flick the shrimp retreats instantly, the fish quick to join in. It's a symbiotic relationship.
This is a Hi Fin Red Banded Goby.
In December, huge news was shared about how the Oceanic Institute at Hawaii Pacific University announced that they were finally able to state they had successfully bred Yellow Tangs from eggs. This hurdle was seemingly insurmountable, as captive bred tangs have been attempted and failed many times.
Last Wednesday night I bought two fish at our club meeting (Dallas North Aquarium was the venue). Once I got them home, they were acclimated to my reef's salinity which took all night. Salinity of the store water was 1.021sg while my reef is 1.026sg.
After 21 days, the tank finally measured 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and 5 ppm nitrate. Good enough for me, and the Red Spot Glass Cardinalfish. I filmed their introduction for an upcoming video, but here's a picture of them in the tank. They are eating well, which is perfect. They were ordered from Live Aquaria's Divers Den, and arrived in a well packed box. Pictured above.
The next thing that it needs is lights. I had to install a shelf to hang the lights from, and that's done now.
I just got my first order from Zoanuts.com, and thought I'd share my experience. So I created a quick page on my website with pictures and details.
Ordering online from Zoanuts.com
My trip to Cleveland was great, and I got to meet a number of enthusiastic members of the C-SEA club. Yet another page I need to do at some point soon.
A close call...
When I got back in town, I found the Golden Eel in my son's tank on the wrong side of the tank's partitian, over by the clownfish where I don't want it. I moved the partitian over, so it would swim back to its side and all was well.
Tonight I was feeding my son's tank, and the Golden Eel came up to look for food. So I got him some thawed squid. However, he seemed more interested in my fingers than the meaty food! Looks like I'll be able to hand feed this interesting creature provided I get some silversides instead. I really do like all of my fingers where they are!
Tucker looks like he's going to be just fine. He was eating tonight, and swimming in the tank like normal. :)
I woke up just in time today. My first job was to check the 280g and make sure the fish were swimming right side up. Current pH is 7.8 (but that could be 7.89 because the pH Controller doesn't show the number in hundredths). Then as I was heading back toward my room, something blue caught my eye. My little Hippo Tang was lying on the carpet!
I picked up Tucker, and he was still soft but dry. I quickly immersed him in the 55g's sump and held him as he started breathing again. I didn't know if he'd pull through, especially since I didn't know how long he was out of the water.
