Reeftastic!
3.19.2006
Trouble in Paradise
It's been a while since I've written, but I'll go back and fill in the blanks later. Right now the tank includes 2 Percula Clowns, 2 cleaner shrimp, and all the hermits, crabs, and pods from before. Everything had been going fairly well, except a bacterial infection or fungus of some sort on the boy fish, Keith. The cleaner shrimp eventually took care of him, but now The Girl has it. She apparently visited the cleaners last night, because half her fungus is now gone.
There is trouble in the tank though, and I'm in fix-it mode. I was out of town for a few weekends straight, and didn't get to my weekly scrubdown and water change. Lawrence fed the tank in my absence, and was a little zealous (we hadn't spoken very clearly about how much food was required), so the tank was overfed for a few weeks. This let to high nitrates and a booming bristle worm population. The hair algae was very happy, as well as the bubble algae and aiptasia.
I got to cleaning a week or two ago, and took care of the aiptasia with Joe's Juice, but now some babies have shown themselves. I changed 10 gallons of water a week ago, and this week I'm changing 20. Nitrates are around 5ppm, so not terrible, but I prefer much lower.
I think that may be why the pipe organ coral (Tubifero Musica) is half-retracted. I read that these corals are very sensitive to water quality changes, and boy has it changed. I'm going to keep up with my water changes and scrubdowns, and hope it comes back. Of course, it could just be that the coral was cleaved off a mother colony, and like cut flowers will die off in time. If it does, at least it made it 6 months and the skeleton will provide a great red color to the tank.
The big news of the day, though, is that yesterday the shrimp weren't interested in flake or pellet food at feeding time. I wondered if the water change had upset them, so stuck my face down where I could see what they were up to, under their ledge. Lo and behold, one was absolutely stuffing himself with bristle worm! I thought that perhaps the worm had expired on its own, and the shrimp was just being opportunistic. Nope; this afternoon I saw the shrimp far away from their home on the other side of the tank, and one was reaching into a hole repeatedly and twitching back every few seconds. I went to investigate, and when I got close, I saw the twitching had stopped, and the shrimp was again feasting on a section of bristle worm! Ewww! But yay! We have been using the standard green plastic trap to control the worms, and had caught maybe half a dozen large (4" longish) worms. Looks like we no longer need the trap! But eew! ¶ 3:32 PM 0 comments
There is trouble in the tank though, and I'm in fix-it mode. I was out of town for a few weekends straight, and didn't get to my weekly scrubdown and water change. Lawrence fed the tank in my absence, and was a little zealous (we hadn't spoken very clearly about how much food was required), so the tank was overfed for a few weeks. This let to high nitrates and a booming bristle worm population. The hair algae was very happy, as well as the bubble algae and aiptasia.
I got to cleaning a week or two ago, and took care of the aiptasia with Joe's Juice, but now some babies have shown themselves. I changed 10 gallons of water a week ago, and this week I'm changing 20. Nitrates are around 5ppm, so not terrible, but I prefer much lower.
I think that may be why the pipe organ coral (Tubifero Musica) is half-retracted. I read that these corals are very sensitive to water quality changes, and boy has it changed. I'm going to keep up with my water changes and scrubdowns, and hope it comes back. Of course, it could just be that the coral was cleaved off a mother colony, and like cut flowers will die off in time. If it does, at least it made it 6 months and the skeleton will provide a great red color to the tank.
The big news of the day, though, is that yesterday the shrimp weren't interested in flake or pellet food at feeding time. I wondered if the water change had upset them, so stuck my face down where I could see what they were up to, under their ledge. Lo and behold, one was absolutely stuffing himself with bristle worm! I thought that perhaps the worm had expired on its own, and the shrimp was just being opportunistic. Nope; this afternoon I saw the shrimp far away from their home on the other side of the tank, and one was reaching into a hole repeatedly and twitching back every few seconds. I went to investigate, and when I got close, I saw the twitching had stopped, and the shrimp was again feasting on a section of bristle worm! Ewww! But yay! We have been using the standard green plastic trap to control the worms, and had caught maybe half a dozen large (4" longish) worms. Looks like we no longer need the trap! But eew! ¶ 3:32 PM 0 comments
