Mini Clowns in Saitama Prefecture continued.

EDIT: The pictures aren't being rotated correctly on my computer. I'll fix this ASAP.

Pictures attached, as well as some notes about what I found this morning.

My main tank (a 60 litre) is a freshwater tank for anyone who remembers.

It's doing beautifully. Looks like everything has set in, the new filter is active, the plants are loving it, and the fish play a wonderful game of hiding in the foliage, which isn't actually thick enough to hide them entirely.


The ADA CO2 injector, while still working great, and still on the original CO2 canister no less, gets clogged with debris about once a week, to the point where the CO2 bubbles actually get big enough to reach the surface. Other than that, my only maintenance at this point is trimming back the overgrowth of some of my plants, if I overfeed, scraping alge off the glass (not ordinarily a problem) and rinsing the pads in the filter about once a month. (no carbon or other depletables anywhere in the system)


My reef tank is growing slowly, but has actually survived. The original tank is a 40 litre all in one unit, light, filter, lid and tank are all integrated.

Here's what's happened so far:
+ The original tank came with a fiberous filter element and a foam element, plus a drip plate to make sure the water didn't just go through one part, but instead spread across the entire thing. This filter has been retired in favor of a Seaclone skimmer.
- In order to make room for the seaclone skimmer, I trimmed the plastic in several places. I did keep the original filter, and my modifications to it, and so I also cut the plastic in a way that wouldn't completely bork the original filter unit if I decided to use it again.
- The lid impacts the skimmer when its opened, so I filed the hinge attachment on the tank, so the lid can be easily lifted off the hinges, instead of snapping off if you apply 2000 kilos of force.

+ I had originally purchased crushed coral as a substrate. I found this was getting dirty, and that I couldn't purchase Gobys because of this. I have since changed to white sand, and my (now) three Gobys are happily munching it.

Since I wasn't using the under-gravel type filter anymore, I simply took out the gravel plate, riser tube, etc, and replaced it with the skimmer. These happened simultaneously.
+ Unfortunately, I fouled the water badly when trimming the plastic, so I had to do a fairly complete water change. While that was happening, I also scrubbed down the tank, since all the live rock was in a bucket while it was being moved, and nothing else (except the fish of course) was going to make it to the new tank.
+ Purchased some blue and yellow fish. Damn me and not remembering names, but it's just worse when the names are loanwords in japanese. Body is blue, tails only are yellow, they turn a ghastly white at night, and go almost black when hiding - very cool fish. ;D
----------------- Fast forward another two weeks and the tank is OK
+ Purchased a small anemone. Not sure what the english name is, will post pictures of him tomorrow. :
+ Purchased two small Gobys, one spotted, one yellow. They ultimately seemed to be too small to munch the sand well. :-[
+ Purchased a horned sea star. He's kept in a plastic tank that floats inside the main tank. I'm afraid he'll eat the Anemone, so I'm keeping him seperate from the main tank - he seems to like squid, which we eat not too irregularly, so he gets fed the same fare we get. ;D
----------------- Fast forward one more week (to today)
+ Discovered the spotted goby dead under a rock. It seems like I may have crushed him while cleaning.
+ Purchased two more spotted gobys... this time a little bigger. They immediately took to munching the sand in the tank. ;D
+ Added a sleve around the heater to avoid even the possibility of a dead anemone due to heat. :-X

Of my two original Clowns, one is still alive, and he has something white on one of his fins... I'm rather worried about it, and while I have medicine for "White Spots" (I'm litterally not sure whether this is Ick or what in Engish, the Japanese Characters are litterally "White spot sickness") but it doesn't seem to be removing this. It's also been suggested to me that I should turn the heater up to 30 degrees to fix this, but I'm worried about stres and die off. :-/

Anyone have a clue on this, or do you need to see pictures?


On another note, the local shop, Tiarra, has two really incredible reef tanks. Every time i go there, they've got something new and different in the tank. Right now they're selling smallish 6cm or so clams for $20-30 depending on the quality. The $30 are actually smaller, but the colors visably less intense in the larger, $20 clams.

I keep forgetting to bring my camera with me... these tanks are easily 2000 litres apiece, and just awesome.

 

This morning's discovery and more pictures

What I found this morning, after adding the sleeve to the heater last night... scared me to say the least.



All I can say is that I'm extremely relieved he's alive...

My Sea Star is doing OK so far... he eats squid primarily ATM. Trying to keep conditions good for him, but not sure how well I'm doing so far, especially considering he's in isolation to keep him away from the anemone.


Speaking of the anemone, here he is:


And my fishies:

 

Wow that was a close call Sh0ckbyte!

Do you have any pics of the whole tank setup?

 

I had a few... but the uploading to the forum seems to have broken some of them. (I had edited my original post to add 5 pictures as well):-[

I'll get my camera back from work tomorrow, take better pictures (the ones from yesterday were done with my cel) and put them on my own site, so I can link to them more easily.

I've told everyone at this point that nothing else gets put into that tank until things stabilize... my wife is pushing for one more clown as a mate for the one we have... I'm pushing for waiting at least a month to see how everything goes with the new sand, skimmer, feeding schedule, etc.

The freshie tank is doing great though. ;D I just purchased a more powerful light for it, and the plants already seem to be taking notice and shifting direction a bit. To boot, the entire tank just looks better with the double 20w light bar, (The green spectrum is much better) and we can use the tanks to light up that side of the room at night, for an interesting atmosphere. (62 watts of florescent lamps between the two tanks)

Anyway, the freshie tank is basically done for a while. I'm letting the plants grow a bit before I rearrange again into what will likely be its final configuration, (I'll let you all know, and take lots of pictures when I get there... it will be very pretty) and the salt water tank... well, it gets to rest for a bit, and anyone who says differently I'm telling them to let me do what I know is best. Things have been going WAY TOO FAST, and the dead fish we've had are a testament to that... I'd rather not loose the Anemone, even though he shouldn't be in there yet.

Oh, putting the temperature to 30 degrees for half a day killed whatever the white spot sickness was. ;D Our clown is looking MUCH happier. For anyone who wants to see what I've been reading/dealing with, or can identify this illness, this is translated from Japanese, on a page that describes White Spot Illness (Those are litterally the characters used) It's some form of parasite. Dosing the tank several times with a chemical to kill this thing wasn't nearly as effective as simply raising the temperature... all hail the adjustable heater!
White Spot Illness Translation

 

You have the right idea for sure going slow.

Check out the FAQ for uploading pics. If you still have trouble let me know in a PM.

Interesting link, I need to come back to that one when I am not at work.

Look forward to seeing more.