R.I.P Little Girl

Went into the fish shed this morning and noticed my female mandarin Little Girl was half way up a 15mm pipe, dead.  Just SUCKS.

Went to Perrys to see if he had any, and he doesn't.   So have to wait until he gets more, and then have to train her to eat paste.

I am thinking of getting two females, as I do think that it will easy the pressure on the female.  In the wild one male will spawn with a couple of females, so I think just having the one female is added pressure with Big Boy always looking for sex, while Little Girl just wants to sleep!   LOL - sound familiar?   Its the "broom stick in the base of your back every morning" syndrome.

My only concern is of course aggression, but I have a theory that if they are well fed, they wont fight.


I think what I will do is get one female at a time, train her, then get another.

Ciliates in my phyto!

I am trying to culture some live phyto for when I try A.Tonsa again.  The phyto Tetraselmis and is growing well.  I now have 10lts and could split to more. 

I thought I had better have a look under the microscope and see whats what, and this is what I saw:

There looks like a nice selection of sizes in that mix, so I think this will make a perfect "soup" for mandarin babies...

watch this space

Summer is on it way...

Well technically its is.  Today (22 December 2011) is the shortest day, so tomorrow the day gets a bit longer, which in the crazey world of me, means summer is here!

Come ON SUMMER!!

Fishbase should be banned...

Scott was asleep and Ryan was on the wii.  It was all quiet and I had read all the forums.  "hmmm" I think "wonder if there is a list of all known marine fish?  Fishbase should be able to help"

SERIOUSLY BAD idea.  Its like an online shopping list.
My favourite at the moment...

Chrysiptera rex (King demoiselle)



Pseudochromis bitaeniatus (Double Lined Dottyback)



Amblygobius rainfordi (Rainford Goby)



Discordipinna griessingeri (spike fin goby)



Bryaninops natans, Redeye goby




Tiny tiny tiny little darlings

My Berghia arrived yesterday and HOLY CRAP are they tiny.  I dripped them over a couple of hours and then let them crawl out on their own.  I have put them into a container that has a 200um mesh screen so I at least know where they are.

My berghia breeding chamber.  This floats in a little tank that is connected to the main 800 lt brood tank.   It has a think layer of sand at the bottom, just to give the berghia a bit of security.

 Can you see it?


Little tank connected to the main system, which allows good water movement

Very excited to get this breeding project off the ground.  Now I just hope the aiptasia hold out.   I have been stressing them by poking them a couple of times, but think I may squirt frozen RO water over them and completely stress them out even more.  I need them to spread their love!

We had a very eventful day in the fish shed yesterday.  Little girl Mandarin got stuck and I had to free her.  Not the brightest of fish.  She seems ok, but I am not expecting eggs off her for a while.   Also upset the whole tank by catching the reef lobster and cleaner shrimp yesterday and moved them into my free section in the broodstock tank.  Now I only need a female reef lobster and I will give those a go.

I pulled a lovely big ball of eggs from Mr Orchid (day two!) Good sign really as he has normally started to eat them by now.   They are tumbling slowly in a rain gauge, and should by all accounts hatch tomorrow.

My second gramma fish turns out was not a female, and died yesterday by being bullied by the bigger fish, who I am sure is male.   I may try and get the trio off Perry. 


I am still waiting for a mate for my bio colour blenny, who I am sure is male.   The Perc clowns are still eating my hands, but are showing signs of getting ready to spawn.   And I am not expecting much from the Clarkii just yet.


Its all go around mine!

Ohhh the joys

You gotta love fish.  For some reason my mandarin have stopped spawning.  Now it could be down to their tank got a bit cool (20C) or it could be because I added my cleaner shrimp in with them, and the mandarin don't like the cleaner shrimp trying to clean them.

So process of elimination - upped the tank temp to 25C - check
Remove the cleaners - UMMM, where to put them?  I have a 800lt brood stock system and don't know where to put them?   

So here is my morning dilemma.  I have a spare section in the brood stock tanks, I could add a bit of sand and some live rock and put them in there.   BUT I know they will breed, and do I want to do cleaners AS WELL?

Obviously  the answer to that is YES!




I wonder if there is support for this type of addiction?

OMG - I have an article in UltraMarine Magazine - who would have thought?

Certainly not my English Teacher that's for sure.  Still it gives a huge feeling of pride that your ramblings on your favourite subject is getting published in a real honest to goodness magazine.
http://www.ultramarinemagazine.co.uk/sites/default/files/Issue31Contents.pdf
If you haven't already go and get a copy, the rest of the magazine is an awesome read!

I have spent a rather industrious weekend in the fish shed.   I managed to flood the floor at least twice, once while doing a water change, and the other time I forgot which end had a mesh covered hole and turned the bowl the way.  Couldn't understand why my feet were wet :D

I also spent some time with my new love - Aiptasia!  Yes ok, there is no need to call the loony bin.  I am getting some Berghia Nudis soon and have been tending to my aiptasia garden with lots of love and care.  Hatching brine shrimp to feed the only corals I can have with any success.   I have discovered a rather cool way of harvesting the little blitters off live rock...

THEY WILL ALWAYS GO TOWARDS THE LIGHT! 

Sooo if you put a 32mm BLACK pipe over them, they will crawl out.   I find it happens at night and the good thing is you are not stressing them at all so they wont release lots of little gamates.

Put a black pipe over the Aiptasia, and they will crawl out towards the sun

So here we are...

I have often thought I should have a blog, if only to try and get some order into my brain.  So many thing flying around so little time to note them down.   The question I guess will be if I keep up with the entries.

So where to begin...

Well I guess at the beginning.  I have always had a fascination with all things fishy, keeping tropicals as a kid in Zimbabwe.   We did things a bit different back then, you were playing in the big time if you had a heater and a pump in your tank, and as far as I remember tank maintenance was weekly water changes and if you were really serious you had a sponge filter.  AHHH simple times!   Fast forward a couple of years (yes its only a couple - well that's the official line and I am sticking with it) and I have a 800lt brood stock system that has 7 pairs of fish in it all at various stages of breeding.  

My family bless them, need to be given a medal for putting up with my obsession with fish.  My husband Chris is a genius in figuring out what I mean when I say "I want a thingy that does a whatchamacallit over there and it cant be anything other then upright"  He just keeps quiet and gets on with it.   He did put his foot down though, when I kept flooding the lounge floor with salt water, as I either have my arms up to my arm pits in the tank, or I am doing a water change, and for some reason think that I can move faster then the water can come out of the pipe, which results in a love arch of gushing water spraying him, the kids, the tv, the laptop, anything that gets in the way of my mad dash out the door.   We now don't have a tank in the lounge, although to be honest there is one in the pipe work ;)

My sons, have learnt to associate the world fish shop with "if you don't whinge I will give you an ice cream on the way out" and in most cases will only put up a token protest.  Ryan, my eldest is the most vocal about his dislike of going to the fish shop, but I think it more a "lets see what we can get out of mom for dragging me to Perry's".  Both kids have learnt that fish will play a big role in their lives and Scott the youngest is quiet happy to spend time with me in the fish shed.  However he is only 2 and I am sure that will change.  At the moment he likes to catch copepods out of my culture bucket and feed them to the "ishies"  I have a little step ladder in the shed that he likes to climb on and either feed the fish or try and catch them.   Ryan loves his nemo's and we got a pair of Percula Clownfish.  The enthusiasm has died some what as these fish are SAVAGE creatures (I am told that this is only true of my pair - go figure!) and will generally try and strip the flesh off your bones if you stick your hand in to feed them. 

I have also learnt that not everyone likes to talk about fish, and some of my clients have banned me from mentioning fish in their offices, or if I do take the mickey until I shut up.  Mat who runs Lincs Van Hire has become very good at the silent eye roll every time fish come up.   However, the enthusiasm bubbles over when you meet up with a fellow fish keeper and in Mat's case he has a problem when Dave walks in as he also keeps marine and all work will stop while he and I catch up.

I love fish, I love watching them, I love learning about them, and I love been able to say yes I am doing something to save the reefs!