My New Addition... Torpedo Wrasse

I picked up this torpedo wrasse from NY Aquatic last Friday. It is such a rare and beautiful fish. So far, it doesn't do much other than bury itself in the sand. But, it is still alove and I am hoping it becomes social soon!

Clownfish at 4 weeks

All clownfish are doing well. I have not lost any since just after metamorphosis.

Here are some fairly recent pics, but I think they are even bigger than this now!

All Clownfish ALIVE!

Unbelievably, all of the clownfish survived the trauma of the severe temp drop. My wife called and went to the basement to check if any of the babies had made it. She says, "There are like 50 fish swimming around. What died?" There were no fish on the bottom and they were all orange again and swimming. She gave them a little extra food and they were eating like crazy!!!

Incidentally, I have switched form live baby brine shrimp to the Ocean Nutrition Instant Baby Brine Shrimp. It is a small jar of baby brine in a fluid. The babies love it and they are really starting to grow!

I am also crushing the New Life Spectrum Grow food and putting it in there. Some of them eat it, but they are not fans. I have to start weaning them off the brine.

Woo hoo!!!!! Disaster Averted!!!!

Bad News on my baby clownfish

Bad news.

I think I may have lost all 50 of my remaining babies (which were approaching 1 month old). My heater died last night and when I went to feed them this morning most were immobile on the bottom of the tank. 2 or 3 were swimming barely. And their color went from bright orange to a pale pink. Tank temp was around 70.

I got a new heater in there and fed them, but I think all is lost on this batch.

Will post an update tonight when I get home and check on them....

Lost a lot of baby clowns last night

Well, I hit a wall with my baby clowns last night. Two factors led to the downturn.

1. Both of my brine shrimp cultures crashed the other night, so I was not able to feed them baby brine shrimp at all since Monday morning. I fed them rotifers and crushed flake food Monday night, and twice yesterday.
2. The salinity was rather high in the tank so as part of my almost daily water change I added a lot of fresh RO/DI water. I wonder if the salinity change was too much for them.

Regardless, I lost about 10 babies. The brine shrimp were ready this morning so I fed them a lot to help them catch up. Their color was not good.The bright orange was now pale. I am hoping I still have some babies when I return home this evening.

In addition, the new batch of fry should be born this evening, but I am not prepared for them and so I will let them go.

And finally, it is entirely possible that my bangaii cardinal fish are also breeding. More on that later

Some updated pictures of the reef tank

I managed to snap a few decent pictures of the tank last night.  I really like the way the tank is progressing, considering I almost lost everything 8 weeks ago!

These are all taken after the metal hailde lights were off, so its just actinics (8x39w T5 - 420/460 nm from UVL Lighting)

 

 

You can see the rest here:

My Reef Tank

Another batch of eggs!

Just wanted to post a quick update. First, mommy and daddy clownfish have laid andother clutch. I thought they were on a 20 day schedule. That was the time between the first and second batch. But, apparently not. Because on Thursday I noticed another clutch already there and they were not orange. So they may have been there for a few days.... Arghhh, I had there schedule all laid out in an Excel file and now its ruined.... LOL

And, the baby clowns have almost all passed metamorphosis stage! I lost one in meta. They are looking very cute now and I will try to get pictures tonight.

My 125g 2 year Anniversary in Pictures

Since my "big" tank is now officially 2 years old, I thought I would give a quick recap of how I acquired the tank (for those who are new to the blog) and also show some pictures of how the tanks has changed over time.

History
For Christmas, 2006, my wife bought me a 14 gallon Biocube. (I always wanted a fish tank.) After doing some research and talking to some folks we decided that we could do a saltwater tank. And, thus was the start of my Obsessive Compulsive Reef Disorder, a term coined by my wife to describe by addiction to my reef tank!

Here is a pic of the original 14g Biocube:



Jump forward to the summer of 2007 and my wife and I make a deal, if I quit smoking I can get a bigger tank! So, my quest begins. I looked at all different tanks but had settled on a 180 or 220 gallon reef ready tank. So, I quit smoking and started my search. One night browsing eBay, I found a tank (running) for $1500 located about 90 minutes away. I made a half-hearted offer of $1000 thinking that was way low. The guy accepted. So, off to Mechanicsburg, PA we went, my brother-in-law, his buddy, and one of my reef club friends, to pack up this tank and its inhabitants. What a strange trip that was.

TODAY
Flashing forward to today, my tank has survived a mini-crash, my clownfish are breeding and my fish room has gone through a major renovation. Slightly off-topic, my eternally frustrating and pathetic battle with cigarettes continues.

So, here is the journey of my reef over the last 2 years in pictures...

This is what the tank looked like when I picked it up:



Yes, that is right... full of hair algae and rock, front to back, top to bottom. Barely room for a fish to swim!

And here is the tank, just a week later. Eventually, the tank had all new rock, and all new equipment. The only remnants of that set-up are the tank and stand and a coral beauty!


And after 1 month:


And from April, 2009:







And today:

COMING SOON!  I realized that I have not taken a decent FTS (full tank shot) in a long time.


My next post will show some of my coral growth over the last 2 years.

Day 11 of baby clownfish with pictures

My baby clowns are now on Day 11.  I have lost no clowns in the last 3-4 days and they are now starting to really grow!  Currently, I am feeding them rotifers, baby brine shrimp and some ground up flake food.

At this stage, most of the clownfish have pink/orange bellies, a sign that they are eating brine shrimp.  But a  few still have silver bellies so I continue with the rotifers.  And I am not positive, but I think some are getting used to the flake food.

Metamorphosis is hard to see happen with ocellaris because it happens over a couple of days, but I think we are in the middle of it.

In the meantime, mommy is preparing to lay another clutch of eggs (tomorrow evening I believe). 

So, on to the pics.  Some are better than others.  Without a really good macro lens, my abilities are limited.