Hair Algae Help

Earlier in the week, I added a Mexican Turbo snail back into the tank. We had a couple turbos in the tank in the past, but a couple died from flipping over and not being able to right themselves. Mexican turbos (as well as Astreas) are not capable of flipping themselves over if they are knocked off of the wall and fall onto their shell unlike the Cerith, Nerites, and Nassarius snails. This lack is thought to be due to their natural environment (shallow surf waters) which have more than enough current to allow the snails to be righted by the water action. If a snail is left on its back for a few hours, it will most of the time die. At any rate, turbos are known to be great at removing hair algae, so I thought it was worth another attempt. Boy was it a good choice! This little bugger has done a bang up job at trimming down the hair algae! Blenny, why are you here?

Since the last water change-out and tank clean-up, there is been very little red slime in the tank. I have been attempting to get that algae under control for months now and it looks like I might finally be making some headway! Yahoo!

The flame scallop has been seen lying at the bank of the tank wedged in between the live rock and the back wall. It is not moving back to a dark space when the lights come on as is normal. I fear that it might be on its way out. We will continue to watch it this week.

On Sunday, May 4th, Ben and I and his grandparents (Grandma & Grandpa Render) went out to some of the local fish stores to look for a fish for Ben. He has been wanting to replace his firefish ever since we decided to return it to the stores. Ben was really looking forward to purchasing a Neon Goby, but we have been unable to locate one for some time now. We stopped in at two different stores on Sunday, Aquatek and Gallery of Pets. We didn't see anything that interested us at Aquatek, so we zoomed up to Gallery of Pets before they closed. They didn't have a Neon Goby, but they did have a small Yellow Watchman Goby that caught Ben's eye. We purchased the watchman and brought it home to acclimate. It acclimated for about 90 minutes and then I released it to the tank. It swam to the bottom of the tank and hide underneath some of our live rock. We will have to see how it does in our little aquarium!

Changes

A lot has happened since my last blog entry. Our 3rd peppermint shrimp died on us, and we decided to forgo any more peppermint shrimp purchases since we are unable to determine why they keep dying off on us! We also added a second emerald crab shortly after the first was re-introduced into the tank. Unfortunately, we haven't seen the new crab since we added it to the tank. The next morning, we found a emerald molt which means that the crab was likely highly stressed when we added it. We fear the worse, but it wouldn't be the first emerald crab to hide for 6+ weeks without our knowledge!

Four additional hermit crabs were added to the tank in an attempt to combat the hair algae that keeps cropping up on our rocks. These new hermits are much more like the originals that we had in the tank. Much more active than the scarlet hermits that we added and in an out of new shells like they were teenagers. They also seemed to have spurred something on in the scarlet hermits which are also more active now (but still not like these new hermits). They are constantly scurrying around and tidying things up.

About 4-5 weeks ago, we added a Lawnmower blenny to the tank to again try to address the hair algae blooms. This blenny apparently didn't read this contract before I purchased it though. It has basically ignored all of the hair algae in the tank! It is staying fat, so it is eating something in the tank...I am just not sure what that is.

Shortly after I added the blenny, the firefish started jumping into the back chambers again. I moved it back into the main tank a couple of times only to have it in the back chambers again by the next day. It was too stressed to stay in the main display. I decided to pull it out and put it into my small 5 gallon hex cube until I could think of something better to do with it. I decided to pull out the bunch of chaeto and toss it in the hex at the same time since it was putting out runners and starting to spread in the main tank. The firefish seemed much more relaxed in the hex tank. It could be seen swimming around the tank and would eat hardily when fed. I decided to leave him there for the time being.

Over the next 3-4 weeks, the small hex cube began to develop an ugly skin on the surface of the water. It was likely protein by-products from the fish waste and food. The small tank didn't have a very efficient export system and the water was slowly building waste. I couldn't keep the firefish in that tank for long. I spoke with Ben about the problem, and explained that I couldn't keep his fish in the small tank for much longer because it would get poisoned by the waste products. We toyed with trying to re-introduce the firefish back into the main display and again rigging up something to keep it from jumping into the back chambers. In the end, we decided that we should return the fish to the fish store to allow it another chance with some other aquarist. It just didn't seem to enjoy what we had to offer it here.

During the same time period that I had the firefish in the small hex tank, our Xenia decided to propagate. It began splitting off into two distinct stalks. Over about a 2 week time period the stalks moved away from each other and a thin ribbon of material stretched out between them into finally they had totally separated themselves! We now had two individual Xenia. We decided that we should sell one of the Xenia back to the fish store since it grows so fast and we know had ~10X the amount of Xenia that we started with.

Yesterday, Ben and I bagged up the firefish, one of the Xenia stalks, and the chaeto and headed out to our favorite fish store (River City Aquatics). They agreed to purchase the items for store credit. Ben and I went back to look for a Neon Goby, which Ben has been excited to purchase for some time now. Unfortunately, they didn't have any in today and neither did Horizon or Gallery of Pets. Ben was bummed. We will keep looking and researching. We might find something else that interests him even more. That will be for next time...

I did a 20% water change-out on the main tank last night. I pulled out as much red slime algae and hair algae as I could. I will measure water parameters in the next day or two and try to stay more on top of the tank. I decided to go ahead and decommission the hex cube last night while I was doing the water change out. The tank didn't seem fit for housing livestock and there wasn't much point in just cycling water through it.

Emerald Crab returns!

Our tank has been steadily growing algae ever since we removed all of our crabs. The two scarlet hermits that we added seem to be...well, slow and lazy. They don't seem to do a whole lot for the algae problem. We have been talking over the last week or so and decided that we probably had judged the crabs too harshly before. The firefish after all, didn't actually get killed off like we thought. And the hair algae was much better when we had the crabs before.

We decided to try to find a small emerald crab to add back into the tank. I had seen some small crabs at Horizon Aquatics a little while back, so we decided to start there. We did find a small crab there and when we brought it home I tried to determine its sex. I found a nice illustrated guide on the web to do this. We now have a little female emerald crab! After about 1.5 hours of acclimation, we added her to the tank. She immediately went to work eating. She has been out in the open so we can see her which is just what we wanted! We didn't care for the reclusiveness of the strawberry or the hitchhiker emerald. We are glad to have an emerald back in the tank!

Dead Cardinal

Allie called me up at work near the end of my day and told me that one of the cardinalfish was not doing well. I decided to pack up a little early and head straight home.

When I got there, the cardinal was stuck to the intake near chamber 1 in the back. It was still breathing, but labored. I netted the fish and brought it up into a plastic bag to float it to see if it might recover some. I noticed that one of its fins was a little bit torn. I thought I had seen the other cardinal picking on it the other day. Maybe it had escalated? The fish could also have simply not survived the shipping process well. Banggai cardinals are notoriously bad shippers. 10-12 days is about the amount of time that a fish will starve over, so it may just not have been eating well since we got it. :(

It continued to decline in the bag, so I called River City Aquatics and asked them for a humane way to kill a dying fish. They said a quick rap against a fence to break its back or severing the spinal column with a razor! Whoa...I wasn't ready for either of those. I did a little quick research on the web for humane deaths for fish and I found this website. Using a 20% solution of vodka sounded much less violent to me than the other approaches! I hopped in the car and head over to the liquor store for some vodka. By the time I got home, the fish was already dead. At least I know what to do next time should something similar happen.

On a positive note, the Xenia is once again doing very well. It is not back to its fully splendor, but we no longer worry it is going to melt away.

The mushroom polyp that floated off the main shelf, disappeared that first night. I guess it either blew off the rock I placed it on, or something came along and decided it was a snack.

Continued decline of Xenia

The Xenia seems to continue to go downhill. It looks gray and decrepit now. I can find out what has changed in the water to cause it to start dying like it is. I guess it might be beyond saving.

One of the mushroom polyps has been acting irritated lately, retracting itself when all of the other polyp were fully opened. I guess tonight it finally decided it had enough. While I was watching, the polyp un-attached itself from the rock and rolled off the shelf! It pinwheeled through the water and landed in the back of the tank. I picked it up with some forceps and placed it on another rock so it could re-attach itself if it wanted. So weird!

The flame scallop also decided today was a good time to relocate. It had been in a nice spot at the front of the tank where we could all see it. Now, it found a little cave at the very back of the rockscape. We have to look through a very small cavity and can only see its tentacles. Bummer! It was beautiful to look at up front, but I guess it wasn't comfortable there.

Xenia dying?

The Xenia is looking very bad today. I think it might have something to do with the fact that I removed the purigen bag from chamber 2 to re-charge it. That was about 36 hours ago. The purigen is just now ready to go back in the chamber. I hope it isn't too late!

The water parameters all look very good, but I am going to go ahead and do an extra water change right now in attempt to help the Xenia recover.

Rounding out of tank inhabitants

We have really loved our new cardinals for the last few days, and thought it would be nice to get either Ben's or my fish right now. We were very close to having a completely stocked tank and we are sort of impatient to complete it. I had been doing research and wanted to get an Ocellaris clownfish (Nemo) for my fish. They are a hardy, peaceful fish that may decide to adopt one of our soft corals (Xenia or sinularia leather) as a stand-in for an anemone. Ben was interested in a Neon goby, a small black fish with a neon blue stipe. The neon goby is a cleaner fish that removes parasites from other fish much like the cleaner shrimp.

Back we went to River City. We got there and were disappointed to find that they had no Neon gobies in right now. They did, however, have Ocellaris clownfish. I found their smallest clown and purchased it. We also pick up a few more nerites. I could only see one nerite in their snail tank. The guy helping me asked if I wanted whatever he could find and I said sure. Well, a few minutes later he came back with 4 nerites. More than I was thinking of buying, but they were all very small and probably wouldn't need a whole lot of algae to sustain them.

When we got home, we were treated to a surprise: Ben's firefish was swimming around in the tank! He had been missing for almost 2 weeks now and was suddenly back! I quickly went to the freezer and pulled out some frozen fish food and fed him. It ate greedily and then swam to the back of the tank and jumped out of the water and into the back chambers! It must have been hiding back there for whole time.

The clown and nerites were added after 2 hours of acclimation. I decided that later on that night, I would do a water change-out and would try to bring the Firefish back in the main aquarium and rig up some way to keep the fish from jumping back into the chambers. I needed to basically extend the back wall up another few inches. Allie had a great idea of using some laminate for this purpose. It took a few tries, but I think I now have a ~4" laminate extension on top of the back aquarium glass that will keep the firefish from jumping into the aquarium backside chambers. Time will tell...

Big Purchase

Now that ALL of the crabs from our tank we out, we felt fairly safe that the predator that was killing things was gone from the tank. We decided to go back to the store to re-stock.

I really wanted to get another peppermint shrimp for the tank, and wanted to add a few more snails (nerites this time) since we were starting to get algae growth on the back glass again. I had also read that many aquarists had great success with scarlet reef hermits for clean-up crew. Even though I had originally been biased against hermit due to the early snail deaths, I was much more comfortable adding them since they are SO easy to remove. They are almost always out in the open and they duck into their shells when they are frightened rather than scurrying under the rocks.

I knew from earlier phone calls, that Horizon was the only one with scarlet reef hermits, so I quickly went up there to pick up 2. We really wanted to shop at River City since we have done much of our shopping there. After I had the scarlet hermits, I met Allie and Ben at River City. I picked out 2 nerite snails, and then wandered over to Allie and Ben. Allie had fallen in love with some Banggai cardinalfish. They are very attractive little fish that sort of hover in the water column. Very cool! Allie really wanted the Banggai to be her fish for the tank, but was sort of interested in getting two. They are known to be a very peaceful fish and have been successfully bred in aquariums. We decided to go ahead and try to get a male and female Banggai for the now fishless tank.

Ben then pulled me back towards the invertebrate section saying he had to show me the coral that he wanted to buy. When we got back there, he showed me a flame scallop. What a cool looking creature. The scallop was very affordable and Ben had been saving up his tokens from his chores to purchase a coral. We decided to go for it. We all left the fishstore very excited about our tank prospects. We carried with us two scarlet reef hermits, two nerite snails, two banggai cardinals, a peppermint shrimp and a flame scallop!

It took about 2-3 hours to properly acclimate everyone. They all seemed to be doing great when they were added to the tank except for one of the nerites. It immediately flipped onto its shell. We had seen this before with a turbo snail. Something was definitely wrong with this snail and it was unlikely to make it. :(

Hyde?

We came back home today to find our beloved emerald crab dead! His body was lying in a pocket of one of our favorite rocks. At first, I thought it was probably just a molt, but when I pulled it out, I didn't see any evidence that it was split open like an old shell should look like. I looked back into the tank again, and saw another, much larger emerald crab moving in our tank!

This new emerald had to have been a hitchhiker that came in with the live rock. That would mean it was alive in the tank and hidden from view for 6-7 weeks! We were shocked and simply could not believe it. We decided this emerald should be called Hyde. In our opinion, it was possible/likely that this hitchhiker crab was responsible for our emerald's death and possibly the fish was well. It had to go.

Allie read about a way to set up a crab trap using a smooth side glass/jar with some smelly treat inside (we used shrimp). The idea is that the crab enters the glass to get the food but cannot climb back out. This sounded much better than having to tear up the rockwork to get him, so we gave it a try. We put the trap in and turned off all of the lights since crabs are more active after dark. We checked periodically using a flashlight. No success! A few of the nassarius snails did enter, grab a bite and then leave. The emerald steered clear though.

I saw the emerald perched up on top of the mushroom coral rock and decided to make an attempt at netting him. After a couple tries, I was able to get him to basically jump off the rock and was able to net him while he floated down. Again, much simpler than I had anticipated.

After this hitchhiker crab was removed from the tank, we did a census in the tank. Our cerith that we presumed dead was back!

Strawberry removed

Tonight I performed my weekly water change-out. I decided that I would use that opportunity to remove the strawberry crab from the tank. All of us thought it had to be the strawberry that killed the fish since it was the largest thing in our tank. Emeralds and strawberries are very difficult to remove since they are observant of movements and hide within the rockwork if you move in to net them. I saw that the strawberry crab was hiding in the top most rock when I was pulling out water, so I simply removed the rock and shook the strawberry into the 5 gallon bucket of old tank water. Much easier than I had hoped for! Hopefully our tank will be a safer place for future fish inhabitants.