XeniaGirl's blog

[XeniaGirl]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Not so good lately... lots has happened but here's the basics...
I got 2 false perculas who were diseased, one died and I took the other back for store credit. I ended up getting two smaller false perculas from a different batch who were AWESOME. It was apparent almost immediately who would be the female (larger), they were eating, life was great.
But then...
Mr. B, my bicolor blenny, got a huge gash by his left eye and two days later he died. He had changed colors to that "Oh I just woke up" white and his breathing was incredibly fast. I cried my eyes out since I knew he was suffering and was probably terrified and yet I couldn't bring myself to just flush him while he was still alive... I guess that I had hope he'd come through.
About the same time, my huge purple-tip anemone was doing lots better - he had finally attached, was nice and fat, etc. He got a gash in the side of him or something, and he basically turned himself inside out and died. That was a nasty mess to clean up... and STINKY. So that sucked - but I learned around the same time, that he's a condy anemone, so he probably would have never hosted my clownies anyway. Bummer.
After Mr. B died, the tank was ok for a few days *meanwhile all this time, all the inverts and all corals are doing AWESOME, water specs are fine* ...The female clown had gotten in a love affair with one of our fighting conches and was literally following it everywhere. But then one morning I woke up and the male (smaller) clownfish was being eaten by inverts, he had died in the night. I snatched his body up to look it over - no gashes, no disease, just like... "ok he's dead but I have no idea why." Here's the really trippy part - the female clown was nowhere to be found. I even looked on the ground to see if she had managed to jump... no luck. No body, no pieces, no nothing.
NOW my sandsifting starfish is looking awful - 4 or his 5 arms are chewed off about 50% and he just looks like he's in a lot of pain. I feel really bad- I topped off with some fresh RO water about an hour ago, hoping that it's just the salinity (I NEED TO GET A REFRACTOMETER).
So... since my last post here I've lost all 3 of my fish and I may lose my starfish. I feel like such a murderer! I don't know what killed the fish still, but I sat up for about an hour late last night with a flashlight hoping to see a mantis shrimp (so that then I would at least KNOW what it was). I SWEAR I saw one, but only once. So who knows.
We'll be moving either in April or May so I'm probably not going to add anything between now and then. Still having to frag the xenia since it's growing like crazy. Everything else in the tank is fine - mushrooms are exploding, yellow polyps look LOTS better, button polyps are opening more but still retarded, and we're seeing lots of little things everywhere - from baby featherdusters to copepods out the ***. So that's good.
I just can't get over the losses of my fish.

[XeniaGirl]

I wanted to update with a few more goings-on as well as a grocery list of what and who is currently in my tank, so I can keep track of frags, etc.

I bought a new, better hydrometer yesterday (on store credit from my xenia frags so it was free, yay!) which has been tested with a refractometer and is very accurate. I did a few tests this morning and this is what I have:
-Temp: high 70s (cold front last night) but will go up to 80 or 81
-salinity: 1.0235, perfect!
-pH: between 7.8 and 8.0... I think 8.0 but not quite sure


I'm trying to figure out how to raise the pH a bit, and after feeding them here in a minute I'll test ammonia/nitrate/nitrite later tonight.

Here's what I got:
-2 fighting conches
-1 emerald crab
-1 peppermint shrimp, who's a useless bum
-1 sandsifter starfish (but not for long, I fear)
-somewhere between 5-10 reef hermits
-3 snails
-small bubble anemone

CORALS:
-xenia
-yellow polyps
-mushrooms (3 red, 1 green)
-button polyps
-what looks to be the start of either clove polyp or something similar
-various baby featherdusters
-star polyps (we had frags a month ago or so but they fell off and I'm assuming are in the cave)

[XeniaGirl]

Well we're moved into the house! yay!
Yesterday the LFS, Dallas North Aquarium, had a 50% off all livestock sale. Isaac and I went there for our anniversary and we got a tiny 1" scooter blenny ("Skeeter") and a GORGEOUS 3" maroon clown ("Bachi"). We dripped them for about 35 minutes last night and I just fed them some mysis a minute ago. Everything looks good!
We've re-arranged the rocks since we moved a week ago - looks like our red mushrooms are reproducing, we found about 3 small ones that we didn't know we had!
The move SUCKED - we took out as much water as possible and bagged up most of the rocks. We kept the peppermint shrimp and a few crabs in the tank too, and set it up with new water as soon as we got to the house. Everything was unplugged/bagged for just over an hour.
Throughout the process, we lost one of our two fighting conches which sucks, they're the best sandsifters EVER. I think we also lost a hermit or two but it's hard to tell, since I honestly don't know how many we had when we moved the tank. Other than that, we did GREAT! All the corals are doing fine and are growing - yippee!
My plans in the next few months are to set up a "frag" tank - just a basic 10 gallon tank to put frags in, with small pieces of rock for them to attach to. This tank will also serve as a back-up if a fish needs to be quarantined due to illness, bullying, etc.
Hopefully everything will keep thriving like it is now!

[XeniaGirl]

aaah! So much has happened lately! School's out for the year, Isaac and I are engaged, and life is as busy as ever.
On May 27, we took in $15 worth of xenia (which is gradually becoming my NOT favorite) and got the following for our nano:

-1 banded goby sandsifter
-6 tiny reef hermits
-2 astrea snails
-1 baby emerald crab

We also got 5 gallons each of topoff/RO, and salt water.
We had our water tested that day too - everything was good except the pH was a little low so we bought some buffer. I've had issues lately with the pH being unsteady - a week ago it was too high! Hopefully this will even it all out.
For the last month or so, my corals/polyps have looked burned - they're not opening at all, especially the yellow polyps and the zoas. The last few days they look better - we did a big water change about a week ago and will do another one tomorrow, probably. We also rinsed out the sponges in the filter - I HAVE to get better about remembering to do that. But the polyps already look better, esp the zoas - they're opening up so I can see their pretty faces. Our yellow polyps have always been finicky so hopefully they'll look better soon too.
The maroon clown and the scooter blenny are both doing beautifully. One of our red mushrooms has split off - that was interesting to watch, and both of them look fine.
We're starting to get some red/brown algae all over the place. It looks somewhat like hairy algae because it's kind of stringy, but it's not slimy and it doesn't stink. If the pH buffer doesn't help I may have to do something about that.
We also still have Gimpy the Pink Emerald Crab and Jacques the Peppermint Shrimp. One of our fighting conches is alive but we lost one a while back, I think during the move to the house but I can't remember.
I WILL get better about updating on this thing!

[XeniaGirl]

Just wanted to post on here before I forget...

Everything is doing fine in the tank... our bubble anemone is visible but not by much, and the yellow polyps still look rather pissed, but the fish and invertebrates are doing great! The mushrooms are all splitting and reproducing too which is neat.
Today I went at the tank with a razor blade, a bowl, a few towels, and a turkey baster. I scraped a lot of the crylline (or whatever you call it... the purple) algae on the glass and sucked out a lot of the xenia frags that have been collecting everywhere. I also took out all the empty snail-or-crab shells that I could find and boiled them. In removing some of the water with the xenia, Isaac checked the salinity and added a bit of salt water.
I will do a water change in the next few days but everything is looking good!

[XeniaGirl]

Here's an update of what's been going on...

All the tank specs are great, I did a water change 2 days ago and it looks beautiful! I've had a bit of a green algae cycle going on but it looks like it's ending, thank God.
Both of my fighting conches have died I also haven't seen one of my emerald crabs in a while and I've lost my peppermint shrimp. The maroon clown and the scooter blenny are doing great though!
I went to DNA today to get more salt water and I also took in a rock full of xenia as well as some other xenia frags. I got 2 reef hermits, a small sand sifter starfish, and a tiny tiny twin spot blenny. The starfish and the blenny should help keep the sand clean since the fighting conches aren't around anymore.
We also re-did the rock formation, making it more all together in the center of the tank. This will let the strafish be able to manuever around better. In the process we removed 4 rocks (including the one we took in with xenia) that didn't have any life growing on them, just to make more room.
On a sad note, all of the yellow polyps are pretty much dead. I don't really know what happened and it wasn't sudden, but no matter how great the tank specs were they never sprang back. All well.

[XeniaGirl]

Updates on the tank as of yesterday...
We are still having an issue with that nasty red slimy algae in our tank... while everything else as a whole is doing fine that stuff will NOT go away. We went to DNA yesterday to get our phosphates tested (and to drop off some xenia) and it was a little high. We were told to start using liquid calcium with our pH buffer so we got some, and a phosphate test kit.
I also got a small rock that was COVERED in coraline algae and my beautiful star polyps! They're currently front-and-center in my tank and are all open and doing great!
We lost our scooter blenny... literally. He was acting slow and lethargic about a week ago so I'm sure the crabs have eaten him by now since we didn't find a body. However my clown and the other little guy are doing fine.
WE FOUND OUR FIGHTING CONCH... I can't believe it! I was cleaning the sand last week w/ a turkey baster to try and remove that stupid algae, and I found him! And he's ALIVE! Needless to say, I'm thrilled... he's such a great sand sifter!
Hopefully the liquid calcium (of which we're adding about one squirt/day) will help to kill that stupid algae... more later!

[XeniaGirl]

Lurch the Urchin died this morning He had been slow-moving for a while now but was still making it... we found a reef hermit eating him inside-out this morning so out he went... RIP.
We started doing liquid calcium daily on 8/31/07 but even today we're still having issues with red algae, it's EVERYWHERE AND I HATE IT!!!!! It's making me insane... but the star polyps are doing beautifully as is everything else in the tank, so I guess that's good.
We changed out the Purigen bag today too so maybe that'll make a difference?... we washed out both filter sponges and did a water change, salinity looks fine but we're waiting for the water to clear up before we do any other tests.

[XeniaGirl]

While I'm sitting here in San Antonio on spring break, I thought that I would update my thread on here about my 12g nano.
It's doing SPLENDIDLY, if I do say so myself. About a week or so ago, I got a flower crab (or so it was called at the store but I'm starting to doubt its accuracy) and a baby 6-line wrasse to go along with my maroon clown and my royal gramma. So far everyone is happy!
The crab I just got is not a shelled crab like a hermit, and it's also not the same shape as an emerald or sally lightfoot. It's whitish with bright yellow patches on its legs and it's a scuttler crab who sits in the sand most of the time. He swims around, though, when he smells food. He's really cool to watch - Isaac and I play with him and we've named him Pinchy - but I want to know what the hell he is!
Other than that, things in the tank are still going swimmingly. My star polyps are spreading which I'm super excited about, and the xenia and red and green mushrooms are also spreading a lot. In fact, once a month or so we frag them and take them in to our new aquarium store, the Pet Boutique in Garland.
Our hermits are still doing fine, as are our fighting conch (yes he's STILL alive) and our narcissus snails. I SWEAR we only bought two of those guys and yet we have three!
I hope in the next year or so (maybe when we get back from our honeymoon?) we can get a bigger tank and really start playing around with corals and fish. I want a dragon wrasse and some angels!

[XeniaGirl]

I know I just posted, but I've been doing lots of online research and I think that Mr. Pinchy is a moon crab.
I found these pics on www.wetwebmedia.com but of course there isn't any detailed information on their specs, etc. I have found out that he'll eat worms and the like, but presumably is reef safe.
Off I go to find more information!

[XeniaGirl]

The tank is going swimmingly, all the corals are growing and all three fish are doing fine. However I think that Mr. Pinchy died in the night, and I don't know why. It's very sad.

[XeniaGirl]

Our moon crab Pinchy and our royal gramma are no longer with us.
I think that they were just old since they were already full grown when we got them - the tank specs are fine and so are all of the other inhabitants.
I'm just sad.

[XeniaGirl]

We went to the Pet Boutique today after doing a water change and re-arranging some stuff. We took in a ton of xenia and a few mushrooms that had been suffocating my ever-growing star polyps.
Water was also tested - pH was a little low so we'll add some buffer but other than that, everything looks great!
We were at the store for a looong time - probably over an hour - lots of stuff to choose from, but of course I need a bigger tank, more money, blah blah... we settled on an all-color clown goby (body and face like an angler but he's green and pale pink and really cute) and a badass-looking purple lobster. No good pics of him yet but I'll get some! He's about 4 inches long and looks like he's wearing purple-and-neon-orange animal print pajamas or something. He's awesome! I can't wait to see how he fits in with everyone else.
I still miss Pinchy and my gramma though.

[XeniaGirl]

Our lobster died a few days ago - we had him less than 48 hours, I think. I have no idea what happened... really made me mad.
And now I can't find our clown goby. What in the hell is going on!?!?!

[XeniaGirl]

Hmmm well i haven't been on here in a long time but I've been meaning to put a few things up here so here goes nothing...

11/20/2008
We bought new hermit crabs and a baby maroon clown since our original Clownie disappeared (which I think means that he died and was eaten, but all well). We had him for a long time and he was full grown when we got him but it was still sad.
Our Clownie Jr. is doing great - he's so cute even though he is still rather small.

We lost one of our narcissus snails - I see the empty shell on the sand - but the fighting conch is STILL alive, which I think is amazing and disgusting at the same time. The 6-bar wrasse hasn't grown too much but he's nice and fat. Clownie Jr. likes to sleep and play in the mushrooms which I think is so sweet!

Our corals are doing beautifully- we've moved our button polyps to front-and-center in the tank and I think they like the position better - more light? better circulation? who knows... everything else is awesome!

Water quality continues to be great. We put in some dKh buffer in around the end of December after a water test at the Pet Boutique but they always are very complimentary of our stuff.

Now I just need a bigger tank!...