New Additions

Finally added some new life into ye'ole tank. First is Jaq, the peppermint shrimp. He's been hiding in rock caves eating.




Then there's Sleeping Beauty (yup, I only have girls)... she's a green chromis. Right now she's kind of pale because she's stressed but her color should come back in full soon. It was cute though, I checked on them last night and she and butterfly were sleeping side by side.




All of my featherdusters are back!! I also have 6 hair worms now.

Doing great!

Things are going great since the water change! I have all of my rock-dwelling featherdusters back... still no sign of copepods but I may need to buy a new Live Rock to get those back. My sump is almost done and the test run yesterday went really well, I just have a few minor tweaks for it.


Here's my Hawaiian Featherduster... he's doing so well he put out a 2nd set of plumes! Now he has a set inside of a set and he's getting bigger.




My test snail is doing good too, he's all over the tank.



Butterfly is the only creature that doesn't seem to have been affected by whatever happened during the tank crash. She is one beautiful fish though, such a vibrant blue. After 100's of pictures I finally got one of her being still!



My hair worms are all back! I now have 5 or 6 of them.



Coralline is coming back also, right now it's the neon green but hope to have purple soon! I know.. patience... anyone that knows me though knows that's not my strong point.

Sump Beginnings

Time to add a sump...

I bought a 20 gallon fish tank from a store going out of business and got a killer deal! So off to Lowes to gather all of the stuff




I mark where I want the baffles (only to find out later it didn't work heh... I'm SO not sure what I'm doing!)



Then I siliconed it together with a difuser panel to keep the critters in the fuge.

It's Aliiiiiiveeeee

Things came to life after the water change!!! I've had 3 hair worms surface, my mysterious mouth (aka/possible bivalve) opened last night, I was so excited! I also have one tiny, sad looking featherduster alive in one of my rocks. It's not a full plume, just a few tentacles but hey, at least it survived!

I lost my last percula though yesterday and hurried and put everything back into the main tank from the smaller 10 gallon. I couldn't acclimate them... Butterfly was twitching and slamming herself into the bottom of the tank so I figured it wouldn't hurt to toss her back into the big tank... within a few minutes she was fine!

Sooo... what's left over from all of this?

Butterfly
6 crabs
3 hair worms
1 featherduster /rock
1 hawaiian featherduster

Not much eh... least it's a start and the water must be good, I bought a new snail yesterday and dropped him in and he lived! He's very active and sliming around so the water must all be fixed.

Take 2

Time to redo the tank.. I moved the remaining hermit crab and Butterfly into the Quarantine Tank with the one remaining Percula and then began the process...

Draining time... I rearranged a few rocks too while I was at it.




And more...


Almost done...



That was fast.. now time to fill it and add the salt...





Stay tuned!

CTF

"Catastrophic Tank Failure"

2 hours after a routine water change everything in my tank is dead except for Butterfly. Seems all inverts, including my beautiful coral, are all gone.

I'll decide what to do later.

*****

Ok, after talking with friends I've decided to try and revive the tank with tiny water changes. In a few days I'll drop in a snail and if he doesn't belly-up I'll try a tiny clean-up crew. Then a while after that I'll try another coral.

Lost Count...

Ok, not going to count days anymore... it's been about 6 weeks though.

Been on vacation and lots has changed.

Butterfly is the same... hiding a lot though.





My 4th polyp opened up on the coral and there's a new polyp growing! Since I moved them they have stretched up and opened up fully.






My bi-valve moved forward a tad and a new black featherduster worm came in from where he was.






I have a new patch of purple coralline algae on one of my rocks, yay!




The ugly brown stuff is gone and on this rock was replaced by a bright green algae, hoping it turns to purple soon but TRYING to be patient about it.





Tank shot...





Here are some new additions! They are tiny aquacultured percula clowns. Kyna named hers Shrek and Anneke named hers Baby. They are in quarantine for a few weeks.




I also bought a Hawaiian Featherduster and it's SO pretty!




Per the local fish store I'm going for a 20% water change tomorrow, should be interesting. I also got in the first piece of my new sump (thanks Chuck!) and hope to start putting it together next week.