Ant Hill

This morning I noticed I have something that looks like an ant hill in my tank. It is about 1/4 inch tall. All of the sand in the hill is white and algae-free. It's obviously fresh sand dredged up by a criter of some sort. Picnic anyone?

The Flame is In and the Fire is Out

Yesterday the firefish started swimming around the tank in full view away from their bolt hole. They didn't stay out for hours at a time but they were out nonetheless. One of the fish ventured completely to the opposite side of the tank. So, it ended up taking about a week and a half for them to get comfortable. The yellow tang doesn't bother them anymore either.

I also added a Flame angelfish yesterday. It is such a beautiful fish I had to try it. It was still hiding behind the live rock this morning. I did get a glimpse of it. Some people say they are absolutely reef safe other say they are not. I'll see how it does in mine. Hopefully, it doesn't pick at my corals.

Many would say I am overpopulating my tank at this point. Perhaps I am. I am planning on setting up another tank this year that will be centered around a Picasso Trigger. My Blue or Yellow tang can eventually move into that tank. I tested nitrates last weekend and they were at 5ppm. Still nice and low.

There are two more fish I want to add to this tank. A Scooter Blenny and a Six Line Wrasse. I will wait several weeks before adding anything else and keep an eye on the nitrates in the process.

Somebody Stop Me

I went to my LFS to buy some food and have my water tested. I noticed that they had fire shrimp on sale for $29.99. I've seen these before for $55. Although I have always wanted one I didn't want one that badly. At $30 I wasn't leaving without one.

Symbiotic Relationships

One of the things in this hobby that fascinates me the most is the amount of symbiotic relationships that can be observed in the tank.

The example above is the cleaner shrimp and pretty much any fish. The fish allows the cleaner shrimp to eat parasites off of it. The shrimp gets a tasty meal.

Then there is the clown fish and anemone relationship. The clown fish gets protection from the anemone and the clown fish feeds the anemone food scraps. This isn't occurring in my tank but maybe it will some day.

Then, of course, there is the relationships between corals and the zooxanthellae algae that lives inside of them. The algae gets a place to live and the coral feeds off of the photosynthetic byproducts of the algae.

Probably the most basic relationship is between the denitrifying bacteria in the tank and the animals. The animals produce ammonia as waste which is then broken down to nitrite and later nitrate by bacteria in the tank. The bacteria get to thrive and in tern the animals get cleaned water and also thrive.

How Much is the Dory Fish?

My 5 gallon bucket of Instant Ocean salt is running low so I decided to do some price shopping. I went to Petsmart and they had it for $48.99. I then went to Petco just down the street and had it for $62.99. What a rip off on salt. However, Petco does have a limited selection of saltwater fish so I decided to look around. Their fish are always much cheaper than the fish at the independent fish stores. I've always worried about the quality. Indeed, one of their yellow tangs looked absolutely awful.

They did have a small blue tang that looked remarkably healthy and was a very rich deep blue. For some reason these fish usually look absolutely terrible in the local fish stores. They are usually very pale with a white cast over the blue. For this reason I always told my kids we can't get one because they never look good. Rumor is these tend to be frequently caught using cyanide. I decided this one may be good enough to bring home. The only problem was the price wasn't marked anywhere. In fact they had lots of fish that didn't have prices. When I asked for assistance from the girl with no less than 8 piercings on her lips and nose she had to go get her boss. Her boss then came over and yelled to someone else and asked "How much is the Dory Fish?" It doesn't bother me when kids refer to species of fish as Dory and Nemo. It doesn't bother me when adults use these as the species names when talking to their kids. However, I draw the line at adult employees using these names when speaking to other adult employees at a pet store. They should know better. Call it a Blue Tang, call it a Regal Tang, call it a Blue Surgeonfish or Paracanthurus hepatus. But whatever you do, don't call it Dory. OK, my rant is over.

Whatever you want to call it I bought it for $34.99 and it's in my tank getting along with all of its tank mates. It's interesting to note that my yellow tang ignores it. Usually similar species will fight but the yellow tang isn't interested in the blue tang. He's much rather harass the fire fish which aren't tangs at all. Go figure.

So you may be thinking what did your kids say when they saw your new Blue Tang? You know the answer. "Dad you bought a Dory! Yeah."

More pictures

I'm posting these to help justify the purchase of our macro lens.

Cleaner Shrimp

Red Legged Hermit Crab

Yellow Tang



Fire Fish

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Yesterday I spotted what I think is a tiny starfish crawling across a rock. It is no bigger than the diameter of a pencil eraser. It is white with orange in the center. I took the best picture I could. It is in the center of the picture below. The starfish was partially obscured by a piece of rock in front of it.