Flashy!

Several days after we bought Spike, we picked up this Flame Angel. Gorgeous! Since a tank can house only one Angelfish, we made sure to get the kind we really wanted. He's lots of fun to watch as he travels around the whole tank, picking algae off the rocks and glass. He'll sometimes hang upside-down to get the good bits from under the rock.

Here are some close-up shots. Sorry they're blurry...can't get the thing to hold still for his debut photos. Take note of the neon blue tips of his fins.

Spike's Back!

Well, a new Spike, anyway. Here he is, our new Foxface. Unlike Spike I, this one doesn't have the black spot on his posterior. He's also taking longer to acclimate. He doesn't often show his brightest yellow.

As you can see, he didn't like the change. We've been seeing this side of him pretty often. Hopefully he'll feel more at home soon. At least he's eating plenty.

We also picked up three blue-green Chromis. There's only three in the tank...the others that you see are just the reflection. These are very hardy fish and very inexpensive. And they like to school, which is why we bought three. They're in the quarantine tank for now, more for Spike's sake than for theirs. The camera flash made them appear more green than the blue-green that they truly are.

Fish Again!

We finally got a couple fish in the tank! It's been a long time since our ich disaster. We waited the full 10 weeks for the parasite to die off, but when our wait was over, the fish store didn't have the kind of fish we wanted. So we wound up waiting another couple weeks. The owners were in Fiji for several weeks, so a new order for fish didn't go in for some time. We stopped in today and learned they had gotten new fish in last Friday, but all the new fish were gone that same night. Seems everyone's been waiting long and were anxious to buy.

So we picked up these two darling Black & White Clownfish that they've had for some time, and that we've had our eye on. The price had come down, so that clinched it for us. We're naming them Rebo and Zootie, in memory of our last two Clownfish. Rebo is the one with the third white stripe at the base of the tail. Zootie has only two stripes.

Aren't they cute? I love their little orange faces. I think they'll lose the orange when they mature, though.

Marine Mayhem

It's been a sad several weeks at our house. We lost all our fish to ich. Apparently a few people in the reefing community had the same thing happen at the same time. Don't know why.

Ich is a parasite that lives on wild-caught fish. Usually the fish have a slime coat that protects them. But if they get stressed, they shed their slime coat, then the ich burrows in. When one fish gets it, the parasite will breed, the eggs will drop off, then the larvae will swim about and look for a host. Eventually all the fish will get it.

When we realized what was happening with the two tangs we had gotten (tangs are notorious for developing ich), we followed the advice given by the experts at the store, but nothing worked. One by one, the fish died off. Spike was the last to go, being the hardiest of the fish that we had. He hung on, suffering, for several days before he succumbed. He died on April 12.

Spike, Rebo, Zootie...farewell. You were our favorites.

The tank has had nothing but invertebrates since then. Just starfish, shrimp, snails, and feather dusters. The shrimp have been entertaining at times, which is nice. With no fish to clean, they eagerly jump on our hands.

We decided to wait the full 10 weeks of the ich life cycle before reintroducing fish to the tank. Some people wait as little as 4 weeks, but since we're not very experienced, we're going the full 10 weeks. Meanwhile, the wait is allowing us to build up a good population of pods for the Mandarin Dragonet that we'll be getting to replace the one we lost (below).

Good-bye, Gollum.

The good news is, we're getting close to the date when we can put fish back in the tank...Father's Day! We've been stopping in at the store regularly and being introduced to some new varieties that are good, hardy species for beginners. We've decided to stay away from tangs from now on!

So now we're excited about starting up again. And we've taken the best precaution against ich...we've set up a quarantine tank (QT). It's just a little 10-gallon used to house newly purchased fish for observation before putting them in the main tank. It will also be used to house fish that develop any illness in the main tank. Not only will that keep the illness from spreading, it will allow us to treat only the sick fish and not the whole tank. Some treatments are lethal for invertebrates, so quarantine is necessary.

We'll definitely be getting another Foxface and naming him Spike II. We'll also be getting clownfish, but we've seen many different varieties at the store and aren't sure which to get. We like them all!

Most importantly, we'll be sticking with species known to be hardy and ich-resistant. No more tangs! (Except...well...the store just got in all these really little blue hippo tangs [Dory from "Finding Nemo"] and they are SO CUTE! Picture the below only 2 inches long.)

No! Stop it! No tangs!