Donya's 55-Gallon

[GAB99]

Donya if your sun coral isn't that big have you tried the coke top method?

Basically just taking a big bottle of coke and cutting off the roundy top part, unscrew and place over coral and insert food. Works well for corals that are a little slow or too much current around them.

Also, that picture of your new shelf and your crab, if I knew how to edit pictures, I'd have captioned that so fast XD
SOON Hahaha

 

[Donya]

Pop bottle method wouldn't help in this case as my sun coral is in a refugium for precisely the flow reason. When stuff doesn't stick it's not because it gets blown off, but rather it just kind of slowly rolls off.

Chili coral fell AGAIN. It just got too long I think and was getting bopped by the crab walking past it. I give up. It's out of this tank and into another one. I'm worried I may run into the same issue with the sun coral unless I put it right smack on top of a platform, so it may end up getting moved to the same tank. Soft things like the chili can take a bit of a tumble and be ok but I don't really want to have an LPS take a tumble and land on rocks if I botch the glue again.

Oh, and that thing I thought was some sclerites that fell off the chili the first time it took a tumble? Turns out was most definitely not sclerites held together with shed tissue as I thought. There are some attached, but not held together with what I thought. How about a parasitic sponge! It's off growing my itself now. Wouldn't have noticed it if it hadn't been peeled off by the fall.

 

[lljdma06]

Pop bottle method wouldn't help in this case as my sun coral is in a refugium for precisely the flow reason. When stuff doesn't stick it's not because it gets blown off, but rather it just kind of slowly rolls off.

Chili coral fell AGAIN. It just got too long I think and was getting bopped by the crab walking past it. I give up. It's out of this tank and into another one. I'm worried I may run into the same issue with the sun coral unless I put it right smack on top of a platform, so it may end up getting moved to the same tank. Soft things like the chili can take a bit of a tumble and be ok but I don't really want to have an LPS take a tumble and land on rocks if I botch the glue again.

Oh, and that thing I thought was some sclerites that fell off the chili the first time it took a tumble? Turns out was most definitely not sclerites held together with shed tissue as I thought. There are some attached, but not held together with what I thought. How about a parasitic sponge! It's off growing my itself now. Wouldn't have noticed it if it hadn't been peeled off by the fall.

Yeah, I just think it needs time to adjust. It's like a puppy that has never played fetch. You throw a ball and it just looks at you funny..

That chili keeps falling because it wants to come be with me, Donya.

 

[Donya]

I feel I need to confess something: I have been dosing a bunch of stuff with this tank, some of which I can't test for. Why? Short answer: because math. The longer answer...

Theorem: doing regular, partial water changes with water that is the same as was initially present in the tank (the very first water into the tank, that is) replenishes and maintains the amount of awesomesauce in an aquarium.

Proof by contradiction:

1. Let's say we start with concentration x of awesomesauce in the tank, which happens to be the average amount of awesomesauce present in natural sea water and what our salt mix produces.

2. Let's say some awesomesauce gets used up by organisms and we only have y concentration left after time t. Clearly y<x.

3. Let's say we replace z percentage of the tank water with new water that has concentration x of awesomesauce. The concentration of awesomesauce in the tank is now (1-z)y + zx.

4. If we have replenished the awesomesauce by this method, then the following must be true:
(1-z)y + zx = x
y - zy + zx = x
y - zy + x - zx
(1-z)y = (1-z)x
y = x

Except that we know y<x, so clearly we have lost awesomesauce overall in the system. If some amount of awesomesauce is depleted from the water between each water change, the amount of awesomesauce present when measured at intervals of time t will continue to drop. Our theorem is false.

End proof.


So, there are three options if we can't measure awesomesauce but want to maintain its original level:
1. Dose awesomesauce.
2. Assume that enough awesomesauce is finding its way into the tank through tank feedings.
3. Periodically do a 100% water change with water we know has the right amount of awesomesauce.

Interestingly, way back when I was just starting to mess with marine tanks, I recall someone giving me advice to do item 3 in that list. I had no idea why at the time. Now I know why! However, I have not implemented that with this tank though because it's too darned big. I am left with options 1 or 2...and I don't like 2 because I can clearly see when various organisms' growth stagnates, which tells me there is not enough awesomesauce in the water. That leaves option 1. More on this later.

It's like a puppy that has never played fetch. You throw a ball and it just looks at you funny..

So it's like me trying to play catch.

That chili keeps falling because it wants to come be with me, Donya.

I don't think you want it right now. When it fell off the last time, it apparently decided to roll in pest anemones and track them into the new tank it's been moved to like a mud-covered puppy that can't catch either. The nems aren't inhibiting it feeding or anything, but what a PITA all the same. I'm having to pick them off at a rate of one or two per day.

And I forgot to buy more rotifers today for the blasted thing...I walked past them and out the door with a fish and a pump. RAAAAAAGGGEEEE.

 

[Donya]

BAD DAY. Very bad day. What I have learned: thorny oysters pose a very serious risk to incredibly dumb and obsessive fish.

You know how when someone is worried whether a large bivalves like these oysters and Tridacnid clams pose a risk to fish, people always brush it off and say no, of course there's nothing to worry about? WRONG. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. I just watched my female maroon clown get her head smashed by my thorny oyster. Now, it's true that she was being idiotic at the time and this is probably unlikely (but not impossible) under other, more normal circumstances. This fish has a somewhat abnormal obsession with nabbing poo from animals that propel their waste with some speed. She was like this with the Tunicates and has done the same with the oyster from time to time. Well, tonight she decided to dart in and be a poo-theif at the very instant the oyster started to expell it. It expells waste with a very rapid contraction of the shell...you can probably tell where this went. Head in, shell closed, smashed head, fish body spazzing out, and then no movement from either for a while. The oyster let go and the female clown drifted out. I thought she was dead, but then started swimming again with a very much dented head and one mangled eye. After about 5min, her head went back to being normal-shaped and her eye swelled horribly. Another 10min and the eye swelling went down. She is in a breeder net by herself with the only outwardly visible signs of the event being missing scales on the sides of the head, a big scratch on her eye, and a mangled cheek spine. If I hadn't seen it, I would know something smashed her head but I wouldn't know what did it or how badly she really had been smashed. Despite her head somehow going back to the right shape, I am not very optimistic about this and am expecting to wake up tomorrow morning to a dead fish in a basket due to internal bleeding, nervous damage, or some other injury-related complication from the sheer force the oyster exerted.

 

[lljdma06]

Whoa!

Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!

I read it again to see if I read it right & I did. The clown SURVIVED?!?!?

Whoa!

 

[Donya]

Not only survived having a squashed and visibly deformed skull that somehow sprang back into shape, but still going this morning. I'm not seeing any more external signs of injury. I was waiting for discoloration, additional swelling, etc. but none of that has happened. When the female clown can't see me, she alternates between resting on the bottom and acting normal, trying to find ways out of the net. She ate a few bites of flake food late last night but hasn't seemed interested in any since. Vision seems ok on both sides and she responds to seeing me by coming over to my face and doing begging behaviors (which probably means "let me out," since she is quite familiar with being put in the net). I'm still not going to get my hopes up just yet though; the sluggish behavior worries me since I haven't seen it before.

It's been in the back of my mind that the very strange, obsessive behaviors that the female has developed over time could be because of not having an anemone to occupy her time with more normal, obsessive behaviors like cleaning and feeding the anemone. For the brief time that she tried to host the Heteractis aurora, all of the other obnoxious behaviors got put on hold, so perhaps having a hosting relationship would have prevented this situation from occurring in the first place.

 

[lljdma06]

Not only survived having a squashed and visibly deformed skull that somehow sprang back into shape, but still going this morning. I'm not seeing any more external signs of injury. I was waiting for discoloration, additional swelling, etc. but none of that has happened. When the female clown can't see me, she alternates between resting on the bottom and acting normal, trying to find ways out of the net. She ate a few bites of flake food late last night but hasn't seemed interested in any since. Vision seems ok on both sides and she responds to seeing me by coming over to my face and doing begging behaviors (which probably means "let me out," since she is quite familiar with being put in the net). I'm still not going to get my hopes up just yet though; the sluggish behavior worries me since I haven't seen it before.

It's been in the back of my mind that the very strange, obsessive behaviors that the female has developed over time could be because of not having an anemone to occupy her time with more normal, obsessive behaviors like cleaning and feeding the anemone. For the brief time that she tried to host the Heteractis aurora, all of the other obnoxious behaviors got put on hold, so perhaps having a hosting relationship would have prevented this situation from occurring in the first place.

Ok this is just fascinating. Obsessive behavior in fish. Almost a neurosis. Hoping she pulls through, but I'm still waiting for her to show the neurological signs of such a severe injury. Perhaps, the squishing was a mere dislocation of the joints in the head and they were some how able to spring back? Yikes! Wow! Still wrapping skull returning back to normal around my own head.

L

 

[Donya]

Well, the female stopped the sluggish behavior and started eating again so I let her out of the net. The male was flying around the tank in a rage by that point (and he hates me now). Letting the female out calmed that down. Everything seems ok for now...all normal behavior with just a couple funky-looking scales on the sides of the head. Even the cheek spine has flattened out again.

I'm still waiting for her to show the neurological signs of such a severe injury.

Me too, but nothing so far. Unless wanting to eat out of my hand counts.

Perhaps, the squishing was a mere dislocation of the joints in the head and they were some how able to spring back?

Could be. I've been looking at skull diagrams trying to figure out how it could have happened and it's still a bit boggling. The actual brain case is quite small on fish, and there are a lot of moving parts, but...the eye was mashed too and even that rebounded...

 

[GAB99]

That's like worst case scenario come true!
Thank goodness that she's ok, otherwise the male would have flipped out haha

I'm always worried I'd have a dumb fish impaled themselves on the urchins haha

 

[Donya]

Was down at a LFS for a BTA today since the stupid clown is eyeing the darned oyster again. I think she has some memory that is stopping her going in it again, but I don't know how long it will take for that to wear off. Apparently my clown wanting to go in a bivalve may not be an anomaly; I was told of a large Tridacnid clam that had clowns living fully inside it. I have read that some Tridacnids can't close their shells completely as they grow, which I would imagine is a far safer situation.

I'm always worried I'd have a dumb fish impaled themselves on the urchins haha

Not an unwarranted concern! I read about this case on WWM some time ago and you've just reminded me of it: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/GobioidPIX/Gobiodon/spike.jpg

 

[lljdma06]

You mean to say that she's eyeing the thing again?

What?! Did she not learn?

 

[Donya]

You mean to say that she's eyeing the thing again?

Yep....

What?! Did she not learn?

Nope... She's not getting as close to it, but the same behaviors are already coming back.

I think the only other fish I've had that bordered on this degree of overt stupidity were the result of a molly+guppy cross. They were all a bit demented. On the subject of obsessive fish, those rotten little beasts would try to eat the same spot of limescale on the outside of the glass for hours on end, day after day. They would also periodically fixate on other fish unfortunately, trying to pick the black spots off of dalmatian mollies and such.

The good news is that the BTA I came home with has the female clown's attention to some extent even though she can't get to it. I would give it to her straight away except that I don't want it to get clowned to death straight away. I've kept the breeder net in for the purpose of letting the nem settle in for a while in peace (probably a couple days) before letting crazy fish flop all over it. I'm guessing from what I'm seeing right now that there will be no more oyster obsession once I drop the net down a bit to allow fishy access.

 

[lljdma06]

Give the poor girl the nem...

Wow, what a dumb fish. Except for the freak guppy/molly hybrids. They are dumber, but only because they are freaks. What's Mrs. Clown's excuse?

I'm sorry, that's just weirdness. Still wrapping it around my head that she actually survived.

L

 

[Donya]

Give the poor girl the nem...

Saw your post earlier today while I was at my office and thought yeah, I probably should, shouldn't I lol. I gave the nem some munchies when I got home and then dropped the basket down to allow fish access...but they couldn't figure out how to get in and just swam around the bottom of it hopelessly.

So, I shooed the female into the very much open basket with a net and she went "oh hey, there's an anemone in here" and settled in. I thought surely the male would follow her in. Nope! He swam around the rest of the tank going "OMG you monster you took my woman again!" until I shooed him in too and he went "oh hey, there she is." The hosting was immediate, but then, a couple hours later, the female went too high up and got blown gently over the edge of the basket by the power head. Now she can't find her way back in again. The male is going "OMG now you've trapped me AND you took away my woman!" but they're just going to have to sort that out themselves this time. There's a good 3-4" between the top of the basket and the top of the water; it's not exactly a tight fit or a complicated path. Moronic fish.

One of the reasons I'm not just taking the nem and putting it in the clowns' original territory is that I'm already doing a very taboo thing by having a go at a mixed anemone tank. Of course, the tank was already mixed anemone due to two species of Aiptasiids (one of which is not a typical little species; think of an Aiptasia big enough to host a small clown) and the Heteractis aurora, but it never hurts to be cautious. I would rather the anemone stay in a sheltered environment so it stays attached to the rock it was on for a few days before I run the risk of the current upsetting it and causing it to wander. Thus, I need to wait until I'm home for a longer period of time to move the anemone and its rock (preferably I would like to do it on the weekend when I should be home the whole day).

In case anyone should read this and want to lecture me about mixed anemones: this was not done without forethought and there is much carbon being run on this tank. I've actually been researching mixed anemone environments for quite a few months now.