The Disappearing Fish...

So, I bought three more blue chromies last week to go along with the two I already have. But over the next 24 hours two of the fish died due to toxic waters. Then, overnight another fish disappeared and the next morning he was no where to be found. Now, all we can think of is that the spiny starfish must have come out of his rock overnight and seized the poor little chromie up with his vicious tentacles....Or...Pete somehow opened the lid and had himself a little midnight snack when no one was looking...both are plausible ideas but we may never know what happened to the poor little chromie!!!

Our New Additions...

Last week we added our first fish to the environment. We started with two light blue chromies which are very hardy fish that are ideal for noobs like Kari and I to have in our tank. So far these two have lived very sufficiently by themselves without any problems. I have noticed that they are very bashful and hid under the rocks at night. In the morning, the lights have to be on in the tank for a few minutes before they will come out.

Yesterday, we added our first clownfish named Bozo to the tank. He has adjusted very well so far without any problems. We also added three more chromies but two have since died. My first failures in this experiment. I hypothesize that the reason for their demise might be due to the fact that we added four fish so quickly to the environment. It is recommended to add 1-2 fish at a time. One other possibility could be that the scallops we placed in the tank for the sea stars to eat could have spiked the nitrate levels resulting in toxic shock syndrome to the fishes. So far the others are still alive but I have been adjusting the parameters with additions of Prime nitrate remover solution and I have added some pH solution to help stabilize the tank. We also have removed the scallops. Only time will tell what will happen next!!!!!

It's ALIVE!!!

The Live Rock has truly come ALIVE with the following creatures...

This is a long worm-like creature with many legs that has been making itself known in and out of the live rocks for the past few days. It was out from the rock this morning when I turned on the light. It then plowed into the sand but we were able to capture a shot of it first. Its interesting to note that we had the live rock out of the water for almost 10 hours the day we bought it but somehow creatures such as this worm lived outside of the water.

And also....

We have also had mysterious legs poke out of the rock for the past week. We never could have imagined what happened today when we laid out a scallop....The entire organism exposed itself out of the rock and whatever could it be...........................A SEA STAR.........two of them actually. One came completely out of the rock and went straight for the scallop and nudibranch. I however quickly came to the rescue and moved the nudibranch out of harms way. We think the sea stars might have killed the other nudibranch that we had which disappeared last week. The sea stars are nocturnal and so that's why we don't see them during the day much. It so weird that they survived out of water in the rock for that long when we first introduced the rock.

The sea star is really amazing to look at.. We did some research and found that it is most likely a spiny sea star which has a central disk body with stripped red and tan legs. It also squirts out a whitish discharge from its central body that could be venomous or maybe it is just doing its business!!! I dunno....The other star has not come out and both retreated back into their lairs after their feeding on the scallops.

The Clean-up Crew has arrived!

The package came in the mail like this... Everything arrived on time as expected. My first LIVE Fedex package!!! All of the specimens were alive except for one dead peppermint shrimp which we had refunded back to our account. We went ahead and placed the dead shrimp in the tank so it could be eaten by the other survivors.

The directions for placing the crew in the tank was super hard and complicated with really explicit step by step instructions, so I deferred to Kari to handle the details.

The directions said to do the following:

1. Turn off aquarium lights.

2. Dim the lights in the room where your specimen bags will be opened. (severe stress or trauma may result from sudden exposure to bright light.

3. Float the sealed bag in your aquarium for 15 min. This allows the water in the specimen bag to adjust slowly to the temperature in the aquarium.

4. After 15 min. cut open the bag just under its closure and roll the top edge of the bag down one inch to create an air pocket within the lip of the bag. This will enable the bag to float on the surface of the water.

5. Add 1/2 c. of aquarium water to the bag.

6. Repeat step 5 every four min. until the bag is full.

7. Lift the bag from the aquarium and discard half the water from the bag.

8. Float the bag in the aquarium again and proceed to add 1/2 c. of aquarium water to the bag every four min. until the bag is full.

9. Net aquatic life from the bag and release into the aquarium.

10. Remove the filled bag from the aquarium and discard the water. Never release enclosed water directly in to the aquarium.

This came with full on illustrations (!!!) and another more complicated method called the drip method. We did the above.

The Skeleton Crew is on it's way!

We just placed an online order for the "skeleton crew" which will arrive on Saturday. The crew is comprised of the following: 4 Bumble Bee Snails, 3 Peppermint Shrimp, 2 Green Lettuce Nudibranches, 7 Nassarius Snails, 3 Dwarf Blue Leg Hermit Crabs, and 3 Dwarf Red Tip Hermit Crabs! These invertebrates will be cleaning up the detrius and algae in my new aquarium.

GO CREW!!!

(If you want to look any of them up to see what they look like go here: https://www.liveaquaria.com/ ).

FYI: I named my order the "skeleton crew" because they are mostly invertebrates with exoskeletons....I crack myself up..LOL

Live Rock Additions...

Now, I have added some cool live rock. I originally bought two pieces of live rock at Petco last Saturday that was from Fiji. It is actually the cheaper type of rock, although it would have been really expensive if I traveled there myself to get it!!!! Anyways, later on in the day we then migrated over to a saltwater specialty store called Bay Area Aquariums where I got a great deal on lots of live rock from a girl with "Clubbing Hair" who looked like she just got back from the club the night before, x's on the hands and everything. She gave us a great deal on some more live rock because we think she was a little inebriated still and couldn't add correctly. Nevertheless, we decided we will only buy from her on Sundays from now on.




We also talked to the store owner named Jimbo, who gave us some great advice on how to setup a reef or fish only tank and I added a heater for my tropical fishes so they can feel right at home like in Fiji!!

Stirring up the sand....

Ok, so Kari and I thought we needed to mix up the sand and sea shells we bought and in the process we created a cloud storm in the tank. It will take probably about 24 hours to settle. We have been shopping around in the area for places that specialize in the hobby and found a really cool place called Bay Area Aquariums right off the highway. I bought some more live rock that is already cured and now we will just wait around until all of the levels in the water cycle out. I also bought a power head pump that will circulate the water over 180 gallons an hour and provide a strong current so that my fishes can get their exercise just like in the real ocean.
Kari cleaned up and rearranged the live rock today, and checked all of the water levels. She amuses me because I did not think at first that she would be really interested in this. However, she has taken over the duties of checking the water levels and seems antsy like me to start adding some fish. I think if all goes well, we will add the cleanup crew later this next week. I will probably purchase them online. The cleanup crew comprises mainly bottom feeders including snails, crabs, shrimp, sea cucumbers and other invertebrates. There is this one really cool bumble bee snail which I want to buy. It's shell is black and yellow. Stay tuned for more!!!