This page contains all the tank events in 2009.
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main fish page.
We bought a new fish today: a Yelloweye Tang, the Indian Ocean form we think. It's still a bit shy, so this is the best photo we could get.
The Long-nose Hawkfish, one of the first fish in this tank, bought all the way back in February 2006, failed to come out to eat today. A pity - it had a really good dog-like pose. Bye bye nosey.
The last 6 months have been pretty stable otherwise apart from the Green Fungia dying back.
Having resolved the flatworm problem, we went to Totally Tropicals today and bought ourselves two more fish. Both are in pyjamas: a Pyjama Cardinal and our fourth try at keeping a Pyjama Wrasse, the latter most interesting because it is supposed to keep down the flatworm population (in case there are any left). Both fish are being cruelly chased by the Long-nose Hawkfish.
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Also, Alice spotted an interesting growth on the clam shell in the back of the tank. Difficult to tell exactly what it is but it looks a little like another Toadstool Coral baby.
Took a trip to Totally Tropicals where Andy recommended we treat the flatworms with eSHa Oodinex. While this doesn't mention flatworms on its target list, Andy has successfully used it on them before. 50 drops on day one and 25 drops on days two and three should apparently do the trick. It turns the tank water a lovely green colour.
We added the first dose at 16:30 and by 20:30 the little brownies were already gone off the Green Fungia and mostly off the Toadstool Coral. Marvellous.
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We decided to look up "brown spots" on Reef Aquarium Guide and found that they are, in fact, flatworms. This explains why we thought we saw them moving around a few days ago. Here are a couple of very fuzzy photographs of a small one taken through the Mesoscope.
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And here's some proof that they move around (a frame every 4 seconds, so speeded up 120 times). Note also the starfish creeping around in the clefts of the rock on the left. Things look quite different at this "speed scale".
And here's a photograph of the Euphyllia "hammers" with the locations of all the flatworms that we could see highlighted.
Need to do something about this quickly...
The brown spots on the Green Fungia seems to be reducing and the attack we had feared on the Mushroom Polyps hasn't come to anything.
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There's also a forest of mysterious new things lurking beneath one of the rocks. They are difficult to photograph but we've had a go.
And finally, with the death of the one Euphyllia, the male clownfish has adopted the other Euphyllia "hammers".
During the week the Euphyllia suddenly began ailing and has now completely died. It leaves quite an impressive coral skeleton in the tank but we're concerned to know what upset it so.
The Green Fungia is showing some small brown spots, which may not be a good sign.
The Toadstool Coral is showing similar problems.
We're not having a good time of it in the tank. Sludge, our Sea Hare has been doing really well keeping the place clean but was spotted this evening with a large wound in its back. We don't know how this could have happened - maybe it fell strangely or was attached. Or possibly this is a consequence of it being attacked after it had died of other causes. A darned shame.
While we were away over Christmas the Virgate Rabbitfish passed away. The Sea Hare though, which we were afraid would be a short-lived novelty, is cheerfully roaming around and keeping the tank very clean.
