| 06/09/04 Day 35 Clown got some kind of disease My clown has had some kind of disease clinging to one of his pectoral fins for about 5 days now. It appears to be slimy, about 1 mm in size, and not spreading to other parts of the his body. Today is the third day that my Percula clown has been in a plastic ten quart hospital bucket that I had set up because I don't have a hospital tank.. In the bucket is a Ebo Jagger 50 watt heater set to 79 degrees Fahrenheit and a Maxi-Jet 600, used to aerate the water. So far my hospital bucket has been doing well with no problem keeping the a one inch clown fish alive. I am doing a gallon water change everyday untill i see that the clown is healed, then he goes back to the nano cube tank. I was afraid that the clown might not make it alive over night of the first day, but he survived. I used some powder medication called Neomycin which comes in capsule pills. Because the capsule is made for medicating a ten gallon tank, I simply twisted one capsule open to dump alittle bit of the powder into the bucket. I just hope that this Hospictal bucket setup with the medication will take care of my clown's disease. Now it is just a matter a waiting. Get well soon my clown! |
 |
| Turbo snail upside down Also today I have found that my Turbo snail had fliped itself over somehow, and was laying on its back in the sand trying to flip over. Of course he could not flip himself over by himself, so I had to reach in the tank with a knife I had on the side of the tank and fliped him over. After I fliped him over, he was off eatting algae again, probably really hungry by now. IMO I have found that one turbo snail in my tank by Day 20 or so helped kept my tank free of most algae. Some algae growing in the tank is okay as it is actually good for the tank water quality. |
| 06/12/04 Day 38 Update on the clowns disease I have been observing the clown very close today and I can see clearly that two nodles had formed from the one slime ball on his fin from before. Indeed this was a symptom discribed for the virus Lymphocystis. Lymphocystis is a virus that infects fish usually at the edges of their tail, fins, gills, or mouth. The cause of infection is due to fish leaving their immune systems guard down by stressing out to much. The treatments are to treat the secondary bacterial infections that might have occured by quarantining the fish and using bacteria infection medication. As for Lymphocystis, the virus is uncurable, and should be left alone, letting the virus takes it course. Eventually the fish should heal on it's own. Currently the clown is doing okay, he probably dosn't even notice he has any virus infection on his fin. My clown is one boring fish, unlike my first clown which I traded in for another clown which died from my damsels vicious attacks. That Damsel went back to the LFS. My third and current clown is the boring one. He does not swim throught the caves, and does not hosts the anenome. Bi-Color Blenny uses a toilet A couple of days before I was watching my tank to check to see if everything is okay with the inhabitants and tank condition. I have learned that my Blenny liked to swim up to the upper intake and get sucked to the intake grill. He does this often when I come and see him. He has become conditioned to swim up to look for food at the surface of the water every time someone opens the canopy lid regardless If we feed him or not. Today I have found that the Blenny had learned that he can dispose of his waste on the upper intake. So every so often when he needs to excrete waste, he will swim to the intake and drop it off where the intake breaks the waist down over time and sucks it into the sump. Besides eatting 1/2 inch long green hair algae, here and there he can also dispose of his waste from his living space by taking the waste into his mouth and dicarding it at the intake. Click here to see the video of my blenny burping the waste out onto the intake for a limited time. If the file does not load in The media player, it is due to my bandwidth being maxed out, so try again later until I can find some kind of solution to increase bandwidth. Maybe a web hardrive? Shy Cleaner shrimp not so shy My cleaner shrimp has been shy for a while now, and has been hiding in the caves for a long time, coming out to grab some food morsels when it floats on by. But a day or two ago, I have seen him walking about the sand and rocks, swimming around the tank looking for food, and trying to clean the Blenny. The shrimp has become mighty active, cleaning up the rocks as well. The shrimp has even discovered that there was brown diatoms inside the diffuser, so he swims up there and grabs on to the diffuser while sticking his tiny claws in there to get some food. I was surprised that he had found food there, and now the diffuser is clean on the inside and out! |
| Continued from Day 38 Turbo Snail My Snail has eatten almost all the green and brown algae that has covered some rocks, and has finally decided to clean the glass. I had to leave the glass dirty just so the snail had something to eat! 06/18/04 Day 44 D Day for Clown fish Oh no my clown has died from the Lymphosystis virus spreading to yet another part of the clowns fish. It was very sad to see that my clown could not survive, even though I had tried to keep him alive. I did feel bad about what I didn't do right to keep him alive, so I gave him a proper burial. A burial in which I placed the fish in a zip lock bag, sealed it tight, and then buried him 6 inch under. Becasue of my clowns death I have learned a vauluable lesson, and that would be to acclimation for percula clowns should be 3 hours or more to adjust the clowns lfs tank water to your own tank water. Also another important thing to know is that when fish stores recieve new fishes, they have to acclimate them to their tank water, and if you buy the fish on that same day, it may stress the fish further If you buy them that same day, and acclimate the fish yet again for your own tank. An important tip I highly recommend is to care for your nwewly bought fish, preventing any more stress on the fish will give it much more chance for the fish to survive. An interesting fact that I have read from one article on CNN web page is teh statistics for fish surviivablility after they leave the fish store. About 65 percent of marine fishes sold from the fish stores actually die from in the first few days due to lack of knowledge of marine fish care taking. Movies such as "Finding Nemo," has caused a great boom in profits for marine fish stores, as people have much demands for a small Nemo theme saltwater aquarium. These demands do not go hand in hand with the proper care of taking of a small nano tank with two fishes. -The End by me |
| New Clown! 06/19/04 Day 45 I got a bright orange Percula clown at Tongs pets & Fish two days ago, and he has hosted the rose anenome within one hour. To ensure that this clown will definately survive healthly, I acclimated the lfs water with the clown in it with 70ml of my tank water every ten minutes for 4 hours. The results payed off when I saw that the clown has rclown taking some frozen krill to the anenome, then seeing the cleaner shrimp come up and steal it from the anenome. I am also glad to see that the clown has used the anenome at night to sleep in. Ocasionally the shrimp will climb up the rocks up to the anenome the clown is in and try to clean him. Picture of clown in Anenome will be put up soon. |
| The 5.5 AGA hermit crab and snail tank 06/19/04 Day 45 My 5.5 tank has been coming out quite well, and has finally cycled, and now that it has, I have decided to use the tank as a hermit crab and snail tank. I really enjoyed watching the hermit crabs climbing all over each other, running on the sands, and fighting each other. I will post a picture up soon of the hermit/snail tank so that all can see! No more updates on this tank. This tank is now a zooanthid tank. |
|
|
 |
 |
| Build a Nano Reef Day 35-45 |