13.5 gallon macro softie nano

[Common Blevil]

Bet, he would eat a zoa and kill himself

Sometimes i get a particle of filter floss in the tank and this idiot tries to devour it with more passion he eats normal food. He will either die from a blockage or somehow jump out through the cover plexiglass...

 

[Common Blevil]

Blenny had a tumor a few months, in the last week he got 2 more and has an eye infection. He is impossible to get out of the tank, still active but feeds less. It will be sad to lose him... Other fish and inverts are ok and in good health, so it is totally not food/water params. Can be either a parasite or a bodily disorder. I do not quarantine fish because i have no place to and I'm a broke student. Also i will sell my clown goby to larger system and will get larger fish. Probably instead of tailspot and goby i will get bicolor and chrysiptera damsel/clownfish. I had enough of nano fish bullcrap... I want something that will eat anything and poop for my algae. If i will feel that fish fill cramped i will remove them, but i think 1 clown, 1 bicolor and 1 wheeleri is ok for ≈15 gallon tank.

Thought about waiting for segmented blenny(salarias fasciatus) but considering that they are more active than bicolor, come 1 inch long scrawnies with bellies that look like U instead of O , do not eat and half of them probably dies im the lfs on the first week, i don't want them. On the other hand, a lot of other salarias blennies survive, and ecsenius like bicolor and midas are unkillable and live months or even years in the shop. One of such residents is a cute fat bicolor that lives in the shop for about half a year. I may buy him, because he is cute, greets me every time, and i had great success buying surviver fish from the lfs (my wheelers red banded goby is big and fat, eats everything) I will maybe create a thread and ask people what they think about my thoughts on new fish.

 

[keepingfishwithnoidea]

I think the solution is ok i guess, try getting a little more colour and NORMAL true peculiers cause they stay small, enough that u can get a anemone in that tank and get the to breed

 

[Common Blevil]

I think the solution is ok i guess, try getting a little more colour and NORMAL true peculiers cause they stay small, enough that u can get a anemone in that tank and get the to breed

I probably won't get a pair, because 15 gallons is a small enough volume for them to start killing everything that moves in "their" territory. I like my blennies and gobies more then every damselfish, including clowns, and clown get big. Though, i might try breeding clowns in the future, but not in this tank.

 

[Common Blevil]

Tank update:

1.1 I've gone full psycho and done a rescape. Mainly moved all rocks closer to the back glass, made more arches and crevises for fish to feel secure. And WOW, now my spotlight actually lights the whole tank, because rocks and coral do not shadow anything! Who would've thought that having rocks closer to the front will be a bad idea. So now my cheap chinese LED was moved behind the tank, to give it more volume and give illusion of illumination from sunlight, when true sun has already set. Also I've swapped some xenia for a sarc frag, which has fallen from the rock at night and was found fully extended by me in the morning.

1.2 Goby seems to enjoy his new cave with additional free of charge grotto. Also i found a place in which my pom pom lives. He also genocided a few aptasias because his original anemones died.


2. My tailspot got better, but he is still not in his best shape. I rehomed him in 300 l tank, for very cheap, i hope he will either get well, or at least die in a bigger tank. I think tailspots in the wild do not swim further away from their crevice that a 300 l tank (80 g) can provide, so he will get "wild but better" experience . Not that i tortured him, but he will have "reef of a lifetime". Tomorrow i will rehome my clown goby to a fellow hobbyist whom i know for some time. Also +- 300 l tank with lots of softies and half dead acropora.



3. Today i got my bicolor blenny, and he is such a cutie! Already examines the whole tank, eats algae and hides in his shell! Also he ate dry foods in the shop. I already like him more than my 2 tailspots. God i don't know if I'll ever get one again... One jumped out through the fricking plexiglass cover, another decided that he is a laboratory rat bred to have tumours. They are very cute and have this derpy "unhappy scientist" faces, but I'm literally traumatized because of my luck, or might i say, lack of luck with them. Back to the bicolor, he seems to have an interesting behaviour, much more like that of a typical blenny, rather than of something constantly swimming(midas/ tailspot/fang blennies). Reminds me of the good times when i was studying online and making a black sea biotope tank with incognito blennies...

3.1 My tip for acclimating blennies and adding them to the tank is to use some kind of hiding spot for them to hide in during the process, and then put them in the new tank while they are inside the object. Gives them a base they feel comfortable to be in, so they become much more bold and outgoing. I think it will go with quarantining as well, just give them a shell or amphora and put it in the tank while transferring. Less stress - more fun for you and the fish.

4. I'm planning to add a cleaner shrimp to the tank. Not sure about torturing a clown. I don't like them that much. On the other hand, if i had a really small starry/segmented lawnmower, I'd keep it before it grows out. These fish seem much more similar to the typical blennies in their behaviour and looks. But from what i see, bicolor may be ideal. And to think i thought they were boring and interesting, because lacked color/patterns/facial ornaments...



5. TRY NUMBER 93747383 OF ADDING A WAVEMAKER TO HAVE A LOT OF FLOW. I have this weird fetish of trying to recreate what i saw while snorkeling and catching blennies in black sea, and that's the reason i have sunlight in my tank and my constant attempts to add flow. Xenia should not mind but I'll see. Also i changed temperature to 27 degrees Celsius (80.5 Fahrenheit), because it will get to that in the summer or in the winter. Dino did not seem to like it. Cyano is proliferating, but keeps from coral and algae(mostly). Maybe flow and warm water will spell doom for it.

 

[Common Blevil]

Got a cleaner shrimp today, really cute and outgoing. Already went to clean my finger after 2 hours of being in the tank.

 

[Common Blevil]

The tank probably looks beter then ever. Cyano is cringe but I don't mind it until it grows on something alive, and it doesn't.
Fish uses all the crevises and caves i made.

 

[Common Blevil]

Tank update

 

[zerozero]

Your tank is so fresh and beautiful!

Glad to see you're beating the cyano.

 

[Common Blevil]

Update:
Rescape(I don't know when i will stop but maybe this will be the last one in this tank), added a lot more hidey holes for a blenny, made the skape more fish friendly so my animals feel even more safe. + It look more like something you see in the wild. It cost me accidental split of sarcophyton(it broke in half because I wasn't careful and put too much pressure on the rubber band) and complete rearrangement of anthelia colony(it still almost fully opened today). Still have a bit of cyano but don't care much.

Also found out that my anemones are not majano(my aquarium friends were telling me this), but in fact a Cribrinopsis crassa(i found a large species only tank of this anemone and asked what it was). I think it explains why it did not spread like wildfire and does not sting corals. Cool anemone, like a mix between a bubbletip and majano, can go from bubble tips to long tentacles depending on the flow and lighting

My goby is no longer afraid of me, eats from pipette and a cool guy overall

 

[Common Blevil]

I'm also thinking about moving my tank into 35 gallon system, but it will be in a few months from now. Maybe it will not happen and maybe i will need to sell this tank and pause my hobby, we'll see.
In 35 gallon i will probably swap bicolor with starry, but am not sure about this wild boar feeling comfortable in such small tank, so bicolor maybe will stay and not be changed to something. I would like to cohabitate different blennies, but i think it is unethical in a nano. Afterall, these are not parablennius genus blennies, they are not social.
And both midas and starry will be too big(maybe), and cohabitation of ecsenius and salarias is really controversial, because one person says that bicolor and starry will hug eachother to sleep, and another will say that the tank will turn into a bloodbath if you add even something remotely similar to a fish to a tank with an established blenny.

I want to stick to the notion "no more then 3 inches / 10 cm of fish in a nano", but starry grows to almost 6 inches/15 cm. I never seen them grow to such size, only 10-12 max, but who knows. Still i would like to have bigger salarias blenny in there, they are really cool, but i don't want to have oversized fish that will feel as comfortable in 35 gallon, as a blue tang will in 70.

Also maybe will add a few free swimming fish - damsels(chrysiptera/amphiprion/pomacentrus) or dottybacks/basslets(pseudochromis/gramma). If going for damsels i will stick to a group/pair, the same for small pseudochromis. I know that big blenny will demolish them if they even try to do something bad to it, but i don't know if they will kick goby's butt.

So we'll wait half a year and see what will happen...

 

[Common Blevil]

Also my tank now still does not have enough nutrients, so i need to literally feed my blenny untill it looks like a puffer 2 times a day and it is still not enough. But when i moved sand while doing a waterchange i think i added nutrients to a tank because macroalgaes loved it.

 

[Common Blevil]

I'm also thinking about moving my tank into 35 gallon system, but it will be in a few months from now. Maybe it will not happen and maybe i will need to sell this tank and pause my hobby, we'll see.
In 35 gallon i will probably swap bicolor with starry, but am not sure about this wild boar feeling comfortable in such small tank, so bicolor maybe will stay and not be changed to something. I would like to cohabitate different blennies, but i think it is unethical in a nano. Afterall, these are not parablennius genus blennies, they are not social.
And both midas and starry will be too big(maybe), and cohabitation of ecsenius and salarias is really controversial, because one person says that bicolor and starry will hug eachother to sleep, and another will say that the tank will turn into a bloodbath if you add even something remotely similar to a fish to a tank with an established blenny.

I want to stick to the notion "no more then 3 inches / 10 cm of fish in a nano", but starry grows to almost 6 inches/15 cm. I never seen them grow to such size, only 10-12 max, but who knows. Still i would like to have bigger salarias blenny in there, they are really cool, but i don't want to have oversized fish that will feel as comfortable in 35 gallon, as a blue tang will in 70.

Also maybe will add a few free swimming fish - damsels(chrysiptera/amphiprion/pomacentrus) or dottybacks/basslets(pseudochromis/gramma). If going for damsels i will stick to a group/pair, the same for small pseudochromis. I know that big blenny will demolish them if they even try to do something bad to it, but i don't know if they will kick goby's butt.

So we'll wait half a year and see what will happen...

Nah, probably will go with clown goby pair(see who doesn't learn his mistakes), cleaner shrimp pair, peppermint shrimp pair(will buy them more for the looks, and i plan to make a lot of caves that will be viewable from the side), maybe will try to add smaller shrimp goby (i read it's doable if i add smaller goby to an established one, they will most likely pair up, + i will have a lot of sand if smaller goby will go into hiding aka it will not starve) and maaaaybe 2 clowns/cardinals/something swimming not near rocks/sand. Bicolor blenny stays, he is too cute to be changed for a cringe diamond/starry lawnmower that is too large for the tank anyway, or some red spot blenniella that will not eat and die from cringe. I would love to have a pair of blenbies, but unfortunately these reef blenbies are tErRiToRiAl. If i could, I'd rather have a harem of incognito blenners but i am not near a sea right now.

(PS i love calling blennies blenbies or blenners)

 

[Common Blevil]

I don't have any good photos, but i bought a second cleaner shrimp today (which was smaller than my first one, i thought mine was the smallest they get ). They chased eachother a bit, but then befriended one another and just sit out of sight.

 

[Common Blevil]

(which was smaller than my first one, i thought mine was the smallest they get )

And this person knows that oceanic shrimp have planktonic stages and also seen another species of shrimp in the wild, that can range from a centimeter (0.4 inch) in the early summer right after metamorphosis to 5-7 cm (2-2.5") fully grown...

 

[Common Blevil]

Shrimps paired successfully!

 

[keepingfishwithnoidea]

yay

 

[Common Blevil]

At last i had the time to make this video, because i only had a few photos and videos and a funny story to tell

 

[Common Blevil]

Also i went to the shop to buy some food, but went out with them... Not every day you find two fat green clown gobies that eat frozen and look like they are different sexes



Blenny WAS NOT happy to see them, but got a mouthful of poisonous slime, got sad and went to his hiding tube

 

[Common Blevil]

Also old friends - cyano and dinos are coming back... And tank apparently CONSUMES 0.15 ppm of phosphate per day... I just can't, it is so stressful and exhausting, as if i didn't have enough stress without the tank... But anyways I'll break through... Just venting, I'm so tired of this tank's shenanigans but still love it's inhabitants.)

Also when removing cyano from the sand make sure to stir it a few times in a small container with freshwater, because i was getting a good 1-3 spoons of sand from apparently "almost sandless" patches.