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).