Jazz jumps

I've not written in a while as everything has been swimming along merrily, which was nice. I think that is a sign that the tanks are mature and settled.
We lost Darty a while back, I think he was an old boy when we got him as he just faded away.
Today I got home from work to find a fish on the glass roof of the tank - our dwarf angel Jazz.
Not much I could do as she had obviously been there a while and there was no going back for her.
It is a strange thing to think that she jumped out the small open corner of the glass sliding cover. The gap is only about the size of 3 or 4 sugar lumps and is only there to let the cable for the powerhead down into the tank. Poor wee fishy :-(
So, now we are down to 3 fish (and a digging monster - not sure what that is!!) in the big tank.

Might just be the time to mention our new addition to the family - Vegas the cat ;-)
He is very fond of the chromis in the tank in the kitchen and guards them whilst we are out at work by sleeping on the roof of the tank. Fortunately this tank is sealed so fish and cat are both safe from harm!

Tanks

Now that the big tank is all clear of greeny algae (by doing tonnes of water changes!) I thought it would be a good time to take some photos.

Here are our two tanks as now.

In the Nano: Darty and the Little Chromis (x3)
In the Main Tank: Goldie, Harvey, Jazmine and Meteor.

Clownfish Variations

We were up at Heritage Aquatics yesterday, after a trip to Ikea. We had popped in hoping they might have a wee Clownfish which we could match-make with Meteor.
They only had tank bred Clowns, which wouldn't be a suitable match. These tank bred Clowns look quite different to our wild caught Clowns. They have an incomplete white band around their middle (teardrop shape) and are more yellow in colour. I don't think they are as striking and much prefer the wild colouration.
They also had two other Clownfish (in seperate tanks) which were gold stripe marroon Clownfish. They were very pretty and quite unique. They grow bigger than other Clowns, up to 6 inches. They are maroon in colour and have white bands for one year which slowly turn golden, starting at the head. They are meant to be very hardy fish but must be kept singly and not with any other variety of Clownfish as they can be aggressive.
I found some pictures so you can see the three different Clownfish and see which you prefer!
From left to right: Wild caught, Tank bred, and Gold striped Maroon.

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.