:lol: They are always model citizens until...they aren't! It's not like they go on murder rampages - they just slowly take out a snail here and there over time.

The serial killers of the tank ;)

Update time

The tank is starting to age nicely, algae is now starting to grow, although copepod populations are increasing too. I keep the front and sides of the tank clean but let the back panel grow its algae, ceriths cruise around there, and are back to their egg laying ways, guess they are happy :)
Hubby also got me a kessil for my birthday.

http://i1148.photobucket.com/albums/...r/IMG_4569.jpg

Latest addition is a Variegated rose bubble tip from Canada Corals

http://i1148.photobucket.com/albums/...r/IMG_4573.jpg

Very impressed with them and will most likely get the rest of my corals from them.
Although when I picked it up from the group buy host I was wow, this is a large? It was in a tiny bag and was pretty small, I was thinking I would hate to see the size of a small then. lol. Once it was placed in the tank it doubled in size and moved around 5cm till it found a gap between 3 rocks and has happily stayed there since. It has since expanded even more and is looking great.

On a sad note the last remaining chromis did not make it :(

Some lessons I have learned so far

Lesson 1:
Brand names mean nothing really, so far 2 heaters have died within 3 months of adding them, not buying jaeger again, wireless temperature probe died in 3 days-I'll stick to a glass thermometer for now.

Lesson 2:
Don't ever buy fish from private 'importers'

"On a sad note the last remaining chromis did not make it :(

Some lessons I have learned so far

Lesson 1:
Brand names mean nothing really, so far 2 heaters have died within 3 months of adding them, not buying jaeger again, wireless temperature probe died in 3 days-I'll stick to a glass thermometer for now.

Lesson 2:
Don't ever buy fish from private 'importers'[/quote]"


Sorry to hear about the fish. I just bought 6 chromis a few weeks back and within a week all were dead. Seems odd that such a hearty fish dies while all the others I bought are fine.

Tank is looking good! Better luck with the fish next time.

Well time for an update I imagine.

This was the tank a few weeks back ( phone camera seems to pic up a bluer tone than my actual camera )

http://i1148.photobucket.com/albums/...514_231055.jpg

So far its been one roller-coaster ride, I go from being pleased to frustrated to irritated all the time lol.
Since the photo I've pruned the red grape kelp and found to huge feather dusters near the base-bonus :)

The RBTA decided it wanted to split so magically one morning I came down to find 2, they hid out in caves for a week and then slowly made their way back up to the top and I have 1 on one side and another the other side of that back tower. They are feeding again but seem still a little shyer than the original, any time I need to work in the tank they retract into their caves

The coral banded shrimp ( CB for short) has grown a bit and is quite the anemone bully, specially when they were lower down

I've also added a mushroom, a ric of some sort I think, I did glue it down, but do not underestimate the persistence of the electric blue banded hermits, came in to find it a week later off its rock and face down in the sand. So I just flipped it right side up and left it on the sand for now. First few nights it was reflipped face down but I think they tired of the game and its been left alone ( fingers crossed )

Got a fragbox order, got 5 zoas/palys : Ring of fire, green crack, space monster, candy apple red and a wysiwyg snow white cluster.
Space monster hasn't opened so not sure if its going to make it, snow white cluster is half open and of course it wouldn't be my tank if there wasn't some weird hitchhiker, a vermetid snail in the snow whites, I glued the hole closed but might have gotten glue on one of the polyps too :neutral::redface:

Of course every hermit in the tank made a beeline for them, they have some super radar that knows when something new is in the tank, the small hermits are a minor annoyance, the electrics make me want to smack them, they just pull the whole frag plug out of the sand where I planted them, proceed to nibble on any imaginary algae and then dump the zoa face down *sigh*

I sort of have a love/hate relationship with them ( but they were the hubby's pick )
I can say for sure I have 1 female blue leg hermit, happened to catch her trying out a new shell and saw the mass of eggs she was carrying-pretty cool.

On the fish front, well still nothing in the tank, but this weekend the bicolour and mandarin come out of QT, yay! The mandarin will be in heaven I think as there are copepods everywhere, on the glass, sandbed, rocks, they even drift around the tank for fun, they run around on the hermits shells. Its literally a copepod paradise, although once the mandarin goes in I'll hear their screams of horror.

I'll do an update once the fish go in and try to get pictures.

1 year update

Well its now a year since I started her up, still a long way to go but getting there slow and steady.

Current fish:

1 Bicolour blenny
1 Mandarin
3 Bangaii cardinals ( 2 have paired off and the third hangs out alone)
4 Zebra dartfish ( tons of personality and eat like pigs )
2 clowns ( 1 wyoming white, 1 snowflake currently in QT )

Corals:

4 types of zoas, most have added new polyps since I got them.
There were 5, but my space monster got beamed up somewhere along the line as it came off its plug and vanished.

Red macroalgae has taken over a portion of my rocks, but adds a really nice deep red to the tank, hopefully a future tang will keep it managed.

here is a pic of the tank

http://i1148.photobucket.com/albums/...912_160256.jpg