Fallow to March 26, 2017

[Valkyrie]

Yes, but at least it looks like you enjoyed Sea Life Aquarium.

I did! Immensely. I didn't know how much I loved the different rays. They hypnotized me with there beauty, grace, and comedic personalities.

What disappointed me was that not a single display had any real coral and the only anemones were in the handling pool.

I am anxious to have fish in my aquariums again.

 

[Valkyrie]

39 days to go.

I am really stuck with what I should do about getting Belly a friend, now that Maleficent is gone. In some ways I think maybe I should just let him be his own fish. I can't use the other 20g to QT one before the fallow time is done, so that I can intro both clowns into the 29g at the same time, because I need it for the lightning clowns when they arrive. I don't know *exactly* when they're coming, so I can't risk them needing the tank and not having it.
If I leave him as a loner clown, then maybe it'll be ok if I get a watchman goby instead. They're so darn cute. I don't think I can get a pistol shrimp to go with it, since I already have a peppermint shrimp living in it. I think I read somewhere that you can't have both, but I'll recheck that, I'm so tired right now that my brain might be stupid.

Belly and Tecumseh seem to be doing just fine. Tecumseh has adjusted to eating dried algae pellet food. I have to watch him so that he doesn't hog it all and leave Belly with nothing. He's friggin' fast!

If I get the watchman goby and a blue hippo tang, is it 30 days that I need to watch them in QT?
I'm never going to get to break down those QTs at this rate. LOL
The lightning pair and a pearl jawfish in one, the goby, tang and a hawkfish in the other. Bah! That's not even getting my naso & kole tangs and my husband's blue dot jawfish & clarkii pair for the 55g yet. Sounds like that's not going to happen until May or June! The tangs will eventually go into the 180g when we get that set up next year.

I'm jibbering again. Time to go sleep.

 

[Humblefish]

I would QT any new fish for a minimum of 30 days, longer is always better.

And be sure to QT them at least 10 feet away from your other fish (and the DT.) You also want to be mindful of cross contamination when dealing with two separate QT systems. It's so easy to forget and put your hands in one after working in the other, or use the same feeding apparatus for both, etc. etc.

 

[Valkyrie]

27 days left.

 

[Valkyrie]

Time keeps on ticking, ticking, ticking....

So there's been a a few interesting side effects to this fallow time.

One is that I think about what is going into the tanks with care and I'm in no hurry to "fill'er up" any longer. Smart choices. Think first. I have my lists in One Note for each of the 3 tanks and aside from trying to figure out what I can put in the 20g for CUC, I think I have a pretty good plan for them.

My husband is pushing me to budget the spending. He has a point, I did go a little crazy. There are other things I need to take care of, such as getting the floor in my studio done and my kiln wired in so that I can produce enough pottery to sell so I can buy more coral and a bigger aquariums!!! *evil, maniacal laugh* Oh yea, I guess I should plan for the vegetable garden this year, too. hehe. But he's got his piggy bank that he's been socking away a dollar here and dollar there so he can buy his blue dot jawfish in April. While I crazily look at everything and yell "I want this and I want that...ooooh, and this shiny right here!" LOL

Oddly, with a little more than 3 weeks before the fallow is over, my 29g appears to be sporting cyanobacteria. Why??? What did I do? Sure, I have to feed the nassarius snail (never did name it, weird, so unlike me), Scuttlebutt and Sandy Claws, but I honestly keep it to the bare minimum, a tiny amount for each of them. When I feed the two anemones I only give them a tiny bit of shrimp or clam once, maybe twice, a week and I make sure that *everyone* eats every bit of food. I can always tell when it's time to feed the tanks because in the 29g the Sandy Claws, the peppermint shrimp, comes out and is stalking around looking for food and in the 55g the bristleworms come out and appear to be looking for something to eat. I only feed enough for the nassarius in the 55g though. The cyano is ebbing away in that aquarium. Very little compared to what it was a month ago.

Speaking of the anemones. I think I have a problem. My sweet little lavender condylactis, Delores, may have to go. She has grown so much that she's making it difficult to have anything else in the tank with her. I've moved the Rasta zoas away from her and the other two zoas. I'm pretty sure she killed my bird's nest and now she's moved down to threaten my leathers. If she touches my green mushrooms I'll be super peeved. I don't care if she zaps the palys, but on the side of their rock I have some zoas that mysteriously popped up that I'd like to keep. I hate to see her go, but this is ridiculous. In the last 3 months she's quadrupled in size. Can I get my green/purple BTA in the 55g to grow, heck no. But the condy and pink BTA in the 29g are going bananas.

About the time that the fallow ends, the corals that are in quarantine will also be ready. Actually they'll be ready in a little more than 2 weeks, but an extra week isn't going to hurt. I have to decide if I'm going to get a new light set up for the 55g though. I have a full set of halides that came with the aquarium when I bought it, but I replaced it with LEDs. Trouble is I'm not sure if I made a mistake and got the wrong LEDs, I cannot find my order on Amazon so that I can check and the invoice has also disappeared. So if the corals start looking poorly I'll set up the halides while I find an affordable strip of LEDs.

My 20g is going through the ugly brown stage. Ugh. I need to take a picture when the day lights are on so that I can post it to my "build thread".

Is it wrong that I can't hardly wait until I just have the 3 aquariums going instead of the 3 plus 3 QTs? Ok, the 10g coral QT will probably never be dry, but hey, it still won't be like it is now. I'm so tired. I work my 12 hours and then spend an hour observing each tank for at least 10 minutes, feeding whoever's turn it is to be fed, checking water levels and topping off if needed. Weekends are all 6 water changes, clean out skimmers and check filters.

BTW, I got an idea for alteration on my sump. But I'm too tired to go into it right now.

Goodnight R2R.
Just keep swimming.

 

[CarrieB]

I think you can pair your other clown later by getting a juvenile (smaller than the one you have). Chances are good that they will pair up.

 

[Valkyrie]

I think you can pair your other clown later by getting a juvenile (smaller than the one you have). Chances are good that they will pair up.

Chances would be much better if it wasn't a maroon clown!

 

[Valkyrie]

One more week, two if you count that I won't be able to move anyone until the following weekend.

I've been doing the water changes on the 29g using the special wand I adopted from my husband's beer making supplies. Being able to target the ugly brown flat worms and the cyano, without a huge amount of water taken at the same time as made all the difference. It's really helped. I've cut back drastically on the feeding to help reduce the phosphates until I can order the Hanna checker and some Phosphate Rx. The only one that seems to be unhappy with the reduction is the peppermint shrimp, LOL. Nevertheless, the bugger is getting huge, so I highly doubt he's starving.

I've stocked the sump for the 55g with some Marine Pure spheres. I think I'm going to invest in some bricks of that stuff. I like the results I'm getting. I dropped a few in my 20g that I'll be putting the lightning clowns in eventually, too.

Overall, this has been one heck of a learning experience, one I hope to not repeat any time soon. LOL

 

[Valkyrie]

Last update.

Less than 12 hours after moving from quarantine to the DT.

 

[leahfiish]

Yay! Congratulations!

 

[Humblefish]

Good luck!