Troubles Multiply

4/12/04
Saturday we were to go on a trip, but I woke up to find the new coral beauty fish covered in white spots. You freshwater aquarium fans will know right away, as I did, that this was marine ich, caused by a parasite that afflicts stressed fish. So I chastized myself for not putting the fish in a quarantine tank and hastily began assembling one--not so easy with saltwater--remember, you gotta have the salty part, and you aren’t supposed to put a fish in freshly mixed salt....so I solved that by taking water from the main tank, and topping it off with fresh water, which had the advantage of lowering the specific gravity of the main tank, which is supposed to be a good thing to do when fish are sick. Pretty clever, I thought, and just 1/2 hr before we were to leave, I was ready to catch the fish. Didn’t take long to realize how futile THAT was. There are 5 or 10 cavities in the live rock that composes the reef, all with multiple entrances/exits, and that fish was pretty adept at exiting whatever hole I hadn’t blocked. We declared it hopeless after only 5 minutes of trying, and decided when we got home, we’d take the reef apart to catch the fish. (All of which is why you aren’t supposed to put fish into a tank right away, you are supposed to quarantine them. Only reason I didn’t was that the tank had no fish, so I figured the newcomers wouldn’t make anyone else sick. I didn’t think of the catching problem.....)

Anyway, I called the dealer after I got home. She didn’t seem nearly as worried as I was (in freshwater fish, this disease can kill in a few days). When I told her the fish seemed to have fewer spots now than it had this morning, she said the cleaner shrimp had probably been working on it, and to wait and see, that the fish might recover of his own accord with the help of the shrimp. (Cleaner shrimp--the fire engine red guy I took a picture of-- are pretty cool. The fish that wants parasites taken off goes and parks next to them, and the shrimp work them over, having a meal of whatever they pull off the fish.)

Meanwhile, my soft-tubed featherduster worm (on the right in the picture) has met a sad end. He crawled out of his tube, apparently not liking where I had put him. Got caught on the rocks in the current, which damaged his body, and by morning, he was a gonner. First casualty. One of the things I obsess about is the level of current. When I see how strong it is that the worm could hardly keep his head up, I worried it was too strong. Kept moving the worm to try to find a calmer spot, and eventually even turned the pump down, but then I read in a book how important strong current is, and worried the other way and turned it back up. Being inexperienced is no picnic, let me tell you, expecially for a compulsive worrier! My dealer says my “caring qualities” are admirable but may be contributing to my worry/stress levels. Gee, do ya think? Never mind, this hobby is very fun, and someday I’ll have the algae gone and all the inhabitants healthy and happy. Stay tuned.

Fishes at last

4/9/04

Had a setback yesterday when one of the blue mushrooms departed from its rock. Couldn’t find it anywhere, eventually spotted it on the sand in the back of the tank. According to the dealer, I can leave it there and wait and see if it moves again to a better spot, or reaffix it to rock with, would you believe, superglue. I elected to leave it there, but more on that later.

Went to the dealer and bought my first fishes today! Came home with a lawnmower blenny (really ugly, but good at munching on algae), a pearly jawfish (they dig a hole in the sand for their home), a chalk basslet (pretty small fish with blue stripes, supposed to be outgoing, a coral beauty (awesome orange striping with dark blue trim), and a watchman goby (pictured) with its alpheid shrimp . The latter have a mutually beneficial relationship in which the shrimp burrows a hole that the two share as a home, with the goby keeping watch to warn the shrimp when it is time to hide from danger.

Upon releasing all these new inhabitants, the lawnmower blenny was seen to eat some algae about an hour after taking up residence. The pearly jawfish dug a very large hole in one corner of the tank, completely burying the unattached mushroom that had the misfortune to be in its way. I dug the mushroom up and had second thoughts about plan A. The jawfish peaked at me from the rim of his hole and I thought all was well. When I came home from yoga, however, he had abandoned the original hole (without filling it back up, mind you) and he, too, disappeared into spots unknown. By evening, the only one I could still find was the coral beauty, which could be seen swimming between the various caves in the rock (although he never came out in the open).

First Citizens

04/02/04
I brought a bunch of citizens home today to place in the emerald city. My water finally tested 0 nitrites, which is the key to beginning a population of something other than algae. Today we added lots of workers to eat all that algae --2 dozen snails, 4 shrimp (very pretty -- one bright red pair, one peppermint-stripped pair), 1 dwarf abalone, 2 emerald crabs, 2 cucumbers (they eat algae-coated sand and it comes out the other end clean). For aesthetic effect, we bought 2 tube worms (very pretty feather dusters come out one end), and some blue mushrooms and a pink soft coral. This sounds like a lot but all the citizens immediately disappeared, poking their heads out of holes in the rock from time to time to check out the accommodations. One of the sea cucumbers high-tailed it up the side of the glass to the top (hey, there is no sand up there, my friend). The pretty coral and worm flowers look lost but promising among the sea of brown diatom algae.

Curing the Rock

3/10/04
The smell is way better, and I’m much better at getting the salt level to stay more or less stable. I have a new overflow box coming, that will hopefully reduce the noise (actually, it already arrived, but I didn’t notice you had to order the hose separately, so I had to return to the web site and order that....sometimes doing things in person would be way easier). The rocks look like things may be growing on it, but it is at that stage where you look hard and ask yourself, “was that there yesterday?” and you think it wasn’t, but you aren’t sure. Nothing amazing has happened yet, in other words. More rock is due tomorrow, which will probably reintroduce the smell problem, make the ammonia climb again, etc. But it turns out 90 lbs of rock was not enough, so I ordered 22 lbs more. On the whole it is running smoothly and I no longer feel like it is a disaster waiting to happen. The ammonia is dropping, nitrite is climbing, as expected. Diatom algae has appeared as a brown coating on the glass, which is entirely normal at this stage.

Live Rock

3/5/04
The fetid smell of rotting “live rock” fills my nostrils. I put the Fiji live rock in the tank 3 days ago, and the odor has gotten worse everyday. The theory is that in a few months, the spores and residues of living things that somehow survived the trip from Fiji will blossom and make a healthy marine ecosystem. Meanwhile, I worry about the rock placement: was it sufficiently supported, will it stay in place when creatures start burrowing beneath it. I fret about the small stuff—the ph is low, the alkalinity is low, the ammonia is high—I wish I had taken chemistry after all.

First Flood

3/3/04
This morning I woke up too early, as I’m prone to do, and realized the pump wasn’t running; it was too quiet. I came downstairs and the entire setup was dark. Thinking it might be the circuit breaker, I went to the basement to reset it, and found dripping water from the ceiling where the tank sits. Further investigation revealed it was wet all around the floor of the cabinet and the rug in front. What killed the power was the water, tripping the ground fault protector (nice to know those work!). I woke up my husbandl to assist, and all told I think the tank leaked about 3-4 gallons. Took awhile to figure out how. One source was the skimmer. It was sputtering water out the air hole for the venturi. We hadn’t hooked up an air tube to that (the instruction left a lot to be desired). The other was water dripping off the input to the sump, wrapping around the bottom a little and missing the sump, even though the vast majority of the water was flowing in just fine. I had to scramble a little to get replacement salt water as I didn’t have any ready, but we were back in business within about an hour. An interesting adventure! I wonder if the wet rug will develop a salt ring? Probably smart reefers avoid carpet!

Plumbing

2/20/04
Finally ready to start plumbing the new tank—quite a complex process. I’ve spent many hours in research and believe I’ve come up with a reasonable approach.

2/28/04
My hands are sore this morning—actually, everything is sore—from the labor of setting up the tank yesterday. There was a huge quantity of sand to wash, each a 50 lb bag. So much hauling heavy things is never easy on this arthritic body! Anyway, we finished and turned the water on, but discovered we couldn’t get the overflow to come back fast enough for the capacity of the pump, so had to turn that down by half. If we ever lost power (when, actually, not if), the overflow also would return more water than the sump can hold—need a bigger sump, and there isn’t room for that, so need to make our own to match the dimensions we have. The picture inside the tank cabinet shows our crude plumbing attempts.

In short, lots more work to do. But I’ve ordered the live rock so the plan is in motion, regardless. Today I have to figure out how much salt is needed to create 80 gallons from fresh. The container had no directions, and putting it in a little at a time—then measuring salinity, then adding more—is pretty tedious when you don’t know if you need one cup or 80. I posted the question on the internet, and it turns out a cup of salt makes about 2 gallons of salt water, more or less.

Beginnings

1/30/04
For three years I've enjoyed freshwater planted fish tanks, but always considered marine tanks far too much work--both in research beforehand and in maintenance afterward. But I began reading about them, and after about a year of reading finally moved from keeping my distance to planning to own one, and finally to jumping in. The "jump in" happened largely because I found a knowledgeable local store owner who was willing to spend time with me and talk me through my worries.

We purchased a 75 gallon aquarium this afternoon. Curiously, a few hours earlier I had been ready to say “forget it” and give up my dreams of a saltwater tank. I couldn’t figure out where to put it without totally messing up the layout of our somewhat small house. Then we thought of moving the couch and chairs to put their backs to the window. The focal point now becomes the aquarium, not the picture window. Scary. Can I create a living window into a fake world that will be as worthy of our attention as the window looking at the real world?