TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS

   No matter how much you ask questions or read and research you are still going to have trials and setbacks, but we all hope that in the end our triumphs out-weigh the trials. Everyone has heard that experience is the best teacher, but who says that it can't be someone else's experiences that we learn from. I would first like to say that the success of our first salt tank is a triumph within itself, but as you will soon learn we have had our share of setbacks as well.

Trial It is with deepest sorry that we have to post the passing of one of our most beloved tank inhabitants. A fish we called friend. A fish without a name but with the genuine personality that makes a most treasured memory. Our precious coral beauty... our tank is empty without you. We hope that we will meet again at that rainbow bridge and find you swimming in that big fish tank in the sky. We will always remember you, and we miss you. Summer of '98 to Feb. 2000

Trial I mentioned in the introduction about waiting on damsels until last, well here is why. We had gotten two green chromis damsels before the cherubfish. When we introduced the cherubfish, (which is similar in size and shape as the damsels), the damsels instantly saw it as a threat and ganged up on it. Besides being out numbered, the cherub is totally docile, and was completely overwelmed by the attack, along with being in new surroundings. There was no way that I was going to let a $10.00 pair of fish kill my WIFE'S $30.00 cherubfish. I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning tearing my precisely built aquarium apart in order to net the damsels and then rebuild it as close as I could to the way it was. We were, at first, worried how the coral beauty was going to except the cherubfish, because it is well known that an angel doesn't like other angels in it's domain. With all the disruption caused by the damsels and myself, the coral beauty never had a chance to notice the new arrival. When I rebuilt the rock structure it was changed enough to disrupt the coral beauty's normal hangouts, although I did have to make some holes just big enough for the cherub to dart into which stopped the coral beauty from being able to give chase. As a result we have had very minimal conflict, if any occures at all it is primarily at feeding time.

Trial Our next incident started with the coral beauty having white spots on one of it's fins, which appeared to be "fin rot". After asking our local fish store about it, they suggested getting a cleaner wrasse. The wrasse was very neat to watch as it cleaned all the parasites off of the coral beauty, as well as any other fish that would stop long enough to let it do it's thing. The coral beauty's fin was back to normal in no time. Great, right? WRONG. What the fish store didn't tell us was that cleaner wrasses ONLY eat parasites and when there are no more parasites, the wrasse slowly starves to death. Of course, we didn't find this out until after the fact. Now, I should mention that I have heard of a case where the cleaner wrasse did start eating flake food and as far as I know is still living. In our case, we tried five differant types of food including flakes, but still the wrasse died.

Trial Here is the latest setback in our quest for a bit of aquatic Heaven in the comfort of our living room. I purchased the HUGE red-legged crab(Dardanus megistos) for the sole purpose of killing the rock anemones that I no longer wanted in my tank. I had read in a magazine that this type of crab feasts on said anemones and thought it worth a try. I knew that it's size would be a problem from the start, but if it eradicated the pests, then rebuilding a few rocks would be a small price to pay. My hopes where quickly shattered. Not only did it knock over rocks and completely rearrange my tank to it's liking, it also broke pieces of rock off which I could hear snap when sitting in front of my tank. I was still trying to be patient, thinking that it would soon decide to munch on some soft anemones. But it got worse. After about two weeks of waiting and rebuilding and hoping, it finds that feather dusters make a nice afternoon snack. So now I no longer have a feather duster and I still have the rock anemones. Needless to say I no longer have a giant hermit crab in my tank.

Triumph! I never removed the remenants of the shredded feather duster's tube and I had propped up a rock over it. A couple of days ago we noticed a couple tenical things poking out around the rock so I removed the rock and there IT was, my feather duster is ALIVE! and regrowing it's feathers and tube. I really can't say how HAPPY I am that there is a happy ending after all!

Trial I've been trying a couple of ways to rid my tank of rock anemones and one way that has worked, although it is not the easiest way, is to shoot them with boiling water. After hitting them a few times with water I then used a turkey baster to suck the remaines of them out. The only problem I'm having is that some of the anemones are tucked in so well that they are out of my reach,but I've been able to get all but two of them. I've got a couple other plans up my sleeve and one of them is bound to work.

Triumph I successfully setup and plumbed a 10gal. sump under the 30gal. main tank. This is my first salt water aquarium, and so I have never had the need to have a sump and had never even given it much thought. After I reallized that it would be a good thing to have, I started looking into how to go about plumbing a sump. I'm happy to report that it all went without a hitch. See the equipment page for a full description and diagram of the sump and it's plumbing


I will add to this page as things happen; and, of course, I hope to have plenty more triumphs to add.