Corals and Clownfish

On Saturday we took a wee trip to Heritage fish shop in Croydon. We wanted to get a Clownfish friend for Comet and needed to get a good match to have the best chance of them getting on.
Comet is a wild caught false percula (ocellaris) clownfish. Luckily the shop had quite a few clowns - some tank bread and some wild. We picked the smallest best looking fish of the lot and have called him Meteor.
He is a good little fish and has settled into the Nano tank well and made friends with the Chromis. He is not a baby clownfish but I think he is still smaller than Comet. I can hardly wait for 6 weeks to pass so we can introduce them to each other.

We also bought some new corals to liven up the tanks: some polyp mushrooms (maybe Ricordea florida) for the Nano and a leather tree style coral (maybe a Cauliflower coral) for the main tank.
They are easy to look after and mainly photosynthesis, but we did buy some coral food as supplement to their diet. I even saw the mushroom coral devour a big flake of fish food and took a photo of it so you can see it folding inwards to eat it.

Sad Sad News

Our most beautiful and photogenic clownfish, Boomerang, very sadly jumped out the tiny gap in the corner of the glass cover of the main tank on Tuesday night and was found on the floor in the morning.
Unfortunately, it was too late to save her.
Her partner, Comet, seems to be missing her and also Ian, the Blenny, seems upset as he spent all day in his cave yesterday. (I can see him looking at me from inside)
We are very sad about Boomerang and concerned about the water and tank.
I did all the water tests yesterday and everything is normal so not sure if there was any reason for her jumping.
We do sometimes hear clicking from inside the tank at lights out and wonder if whatever it is scared her.
I've covered up the hole so that we don't get anymore fatalities.

I think we will need to try get a new partner for Comet...

Shiny Shiny

At the start of April (05/04/09) we popped down to the fish shop on our weekly ritual to get RO water and saw they had a load of tiny blue green Chromis.
I've always fancied a shoal of fish and these are ment to be hardy little shoaling fish so on a bit of an impulse buy we bought 6 for the Nano tank.
They settled quickly and Darty was pleased of the company.
Unfortunately to date we have lost 2 of them, the two smallest ones. However, they are a greedy and competitive bunch and come up and nip at your fingers to get the food!
Stu likes to get them in order and shoaling properly by waving at them! They seem to get the hint!

All together now

Since the last post, Killer passed away and Jazmine spent an extra few weeks in the Nano before we transferred her into the main tank.

We have tried out the holiday regime with success on two occasions now. We used a timer to dispense the dry flaked food everyday, and had a lovely neighbour who popped in every second day or so to feed a frozen food cube.  The fish have been well behaved on both occasions and our neighbour has enjoyed watching them all swimming about happily!

Jazmine is a bit of a bully to be honest! She is very beautiful, no doubt, but is a very bossy fish! Supposedly we should have got the other type of Flame-backed Angelfish – the Brazilian Flame-back, who would have been much less aggressive. I like her tho, she has balls! And keeps the other fish on their toes. When we first put her into the main tank the other fish quite quickly established their place and status in the tank, that is all except Darty. Jazmine chased him hard and fast about the tank and seemed to enjoy chasing him. She also invaded his space as she went into and behind the rocks, where Darty has always lived alone. So Darty has been hiding out in the rocks for a good month or so.

Since we have been back from holidays we have seen him out at night time. He have also been out during the day and Jazmine seems to have got bored chasing him. Darty seems to have realised that he can ‘dart’ about much better than Jazmine, and not be caught or nipped. He is in surprisingly good condition, good colour and eating well.

It’s nice to see all seven fish out and swimming about at last! The colours in the tank are so amazing.

Popeye?

There's something up with Killer the wrasse. He was definitely fine yesterday, but today when we got back from work we noticed he has puffy, cloudy eyes. He seems quite distressed with it as he is darting about and it looks like he can't see very well. He has been a vary calm and nosy fish up to now and never seemed bothered by us looking at him. By having a wee look online we have found a few things it could be; gas behind the eyes, popeye, or a bacterial infection.

Whatever it is, we have a problem. Ian was moved into the main tank a week or so ago as he was getting chased by Jazmine and was choosing to hide up at the top of the tank rather than in the rocks or sand. We thought he would be happier in the main tank and it seems he is. However, we now have sickly Killer in the same tank as Jazmine. Jazmine can't go in the main tank incase she has any infections etc but now she is at risk of catching the same infection/ problem as Killer. All we can do it wait and hope Killer will get over it, and then keep our fingers crossed that Jazmine is tough enough not to be affected.

I will keep you posted....

The Coral Muncher

Our green star polyp has been unhappy for almost a week, not opening fully and on some days not opening at all. We read that it is quite common for it to do this for one or two days. In an attempt to cheer it up we moved it to the front of the tank and closer to the light. The following day we spotted the culprit of the upset; a coral munching sea-slug! He is from the Tritoniidae Nudibranch family and is very pretty, but also a little monster! We've fished him out and now he is in the sump. Since moving him to the sump the coral has perked up and is fully open today. If you can give him a new home we would be very grateful. Follow this link.

Jazzing it up

On Sunday we bought three new fish. Here's a quick introduction, and I promise to fill you in on all the technical details soon (just not tonight!).

From left to right, here is Ian, the Orangespotted Shrimp Goby EDIT - Actually he is a Blenny! It look us a good month or so to correct this as the fish shop told us he was a Goby... tut!, Jazmine, the African Flameback Angelfish, and Killer, the Sixline Wrasse.