Hmmm, 27 days since last post - must update more often!
Well, I'm certainly not going to win any competitions for best-maintainted tank journal
All is well in the tank - zero ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate, pH and alkalinity stable. The tank now features a good number of deliberately-added organisms (in addition to the millions sitting on the LR, that is).
This is where I'm at with the
fish:
2 common clowns (amphiprion ocellaris) - captive bred
4 green chromis (chromis viridis)
2 pyjama cardinals (sphaeramia nematoptera) - one larger than the other, it occasionally harrasses the smaller one
2 neon gobies (elacatinus evelynae) - white-stripe variant bred at TMC
1 copperband butterfly (chelmon rostratus) - reasonably mature specimen
1 yellow tang (zebrasoma flavescens) - somewhat younger and smaller than the CB
The three groupings refer to the order and grouping of stocking, 1-month intervals between additions. All highly active and getting along well so far, though the pyjamas are a bit timid and quite a lot less mobile than the others.
I guess the copperband might be considered a risky addition, but he's a smashing specimen and eats anything - frozen mysis, brine & marine mix snapped up eagerly, but even flake and pellet work. He browses the live rock constantly for food, occasionally nipping at my feather duster but otherwise just looking for the usual microfauna. He also has an almost constant companion in the yellow tang, they came from the same tank at the LFS and were added together - don't know if this has any bearing? Anyway, the yellow tang follows the CB most of the day, never hassles him but browses the next-door patch of rock to wherever his friend is looking...
Mobile inverts:
1 blood shrimp (lysmata debelius) - has herself (could be a male, but am sticking with my wife's assertion that she's a female!) a nice big cave and only comes out at feeding time.
2 cleaner shrimp (lysmata amboinensis) - always active and roaming the tank, often to the annoyance of the bigger leather (?) corals which retract all their wavy bits after they've been run over...
2 peppermint shrimp (lysmata wurdemanni) - not very active, each has a cave and is rarely seen outside it.
1 sand-sifting starfish (astropecten polycanthus) - occasionally reveals complete lack of awareness of his common name and climbs the aquarium glass. This is not a good idea for him, as the copperband butterfly nips at him incessantly while he does so. He typically falls off the glass eventually - and always lands upside down, but then does some cool gymanstics to get the right way up, then digs himself into the sand.
Assorted snails & hermits as clean-up crew - despite lengthy drip acclimation procedures I do seem to have a little trouble with keeping the snails alive. In some cases the hermits haven't helped...
Sessile inverts:
Assorted soft corals... gonna post pics of these as I'd appreciate some help with identification! Oh, and I've a feather duster worm thing, as mentioned above
That's all for now, pics to follow when I can get hold of the wife's camera!
Paul.
Think I need to see about borrowing the wife's camera.
