A Friend Lost, But Otherwise, Success!
September 21st, 2007 | by Thomas Belknap |I haven’t posted anything here in a while, so I wanted to pop my head in and say how we’re doing with our tank. Things are coming along nicely, as a rule, though we are mourning the loss of a particularly entertaining Ocelaris Clown by the name of Monty. Unfortunately, Monty was succumbing to the affects of what we believe to have been some sort of infection in his gills. He’d all but stopped eating in the last week and a half, and we finally decided that nothing further could be done, so the task fell on me to take him out of the tank and give him a proper burial in the garden.
Poor little guy, he barely moved when I grabbed him out of the tank.
But the tank itself is doing beautifully. It seems that, once a certain level of stability is reached, careful attention to detail is all that is required to maintain the tank. The wild swings in water chemistry seem to have stopped for now, and weekly water changes seem to suffice to keep things balanced. We’ve currently got a Black Ocelaris, a Red Ocelaris, a Scooter Blenny, a Diamond Goby and a Cleaner Shrimp in the tank, along with our selection of hermit crabs and snails, so feeding is regular and safe. There’s more than enough life in the tank to sustain the feed we put in.
We’ve also switched from a frozen-only diet to a mix of frozen veggie/meat mix, live brine shrimp and copipods. The live food is great because it doesn’t sit at the bottom of the tank and rot, plus it has the extra bonus of being what my wife the former zoo keeper refers to as “enrichment,” basically stuff to do, for the fish. It also makes for a more enjoyable experience watching the fish chase after the live food!
So, that’s what’s going on in our little Marine Land. Oh! And we also got a swingin’ deal from eBay on a refractometer, since our hydrometer was woefully inadequate to the task of accurately measuring salinity. Hydrometers are nice to have around for quick checks, but you should always compare the results to a reliable refractometer and adjust your measurements accordingly.
