The summer is finally here, though with the amount of rain we have had this week you would be forgiven for thinking we had missed it!
It’s been a good month for the tank, I have a couple of new corals, a new fish & most importantly, I have FINALLY BEATEN DINOFLAGELLATES!! I can now say my tank is Dino free, and it is all thanks to the lovely little bottle of 3% hydrogen peroxide!
I’m not going to harp on about the Dino’s, they have stolen the spotlight on my tank for long enough now, but I will say this… It feels amazing to finally be free of the damned things!
Whats New?
I have a couple of new bits in my tank. I have a Goniopora (flower pot) coral & a Favia. I also treated myself to another Tang, this time a Sailfin Tang. All the newcomers seem to be settling in well enough, there is minimal Tang aggression & the corals seem to be opening up and eating well.
I will admit now, I am not sure I am ready for the Goniopora, everything I read and watch tells me they are very hard to keep alive and should be left for the more experienced reef keepers, but this was too hard to resist & I was always going to end up with one eventually, so it may as well be now, while everything else is running smoothly with the tank.
My Chalk Goby has decided to move homes this month, he has only moved about 20cm away from his original den, but has decided to make his new one near my Acan, I can’t say my Acan seems too impressed with this. It’s a situation that I am monitoring.
The Orange Shoulder Tang is finally getting his Orange Shoulders, this was very exciting to see. I really can’t wait for him to start changing colours!
Critters in the Tank
I got so caught up in trying to beat Dino’s, that I had totally neglected looking for other life within my tank. Now that I don’t have to worry about the Dino’s, I have really started to notice my tank come to life.
The critters I have found this month include;
- Bristleworms
- Hydroid Jellyfish
- Spirorbid Worms
- Mini Brittle Stars
- Feather Duster Worms
- Pineapple Sponges
- Amphipods & Copepods
- And unfortunately, a Mantis Shrimp
Most of the things I have spotted so far, I am OK with being in the tank. The big one is the Mantis Shrimp. I am 90% sure it is/was in there, I guess I will just have to wait and see to be sure either way (the video explains what I done to get rid of it).
Watching the tank come to life with all these little life-forms has been amazing, it really does seem like every day there is something new to study within the aquarium.
First Time Fish Keeper 
Super cool. Iāve wanted a saltwater tank but I canāt do something like that in my apartment.
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It’s not as bad as you think! There are so many options now with hang on back equipment that you can still do a saltwater tank, but just on a much smaller scale. I don’t regret moving from fresh to salt one bit.
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Iāll have to look into the basics at some point.
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All of a sudden since having a tank since dec 27th I have noticed 3 kritters in last 2 days! I always clean the back painted glass every week on back but decide tolet it go because I have nevr had any algae and I do weekly about 30 percent water changes. Today I saw some sort of almost microscopic worm (i think it is) on back glass and what looks like eggs everywhere! yesterday I noticed some jelly type growths on my love rock. Like a coral beginning to pop up. Then I noticed up under the rock has very tiny grouping of them in several places, some of the have a little head that ;ooks ;ike it wants to pop out. Maybe a feather duster worm but dosnt look like from pics. I may just pluck them all off! I recently bought some live rock from someone that had a nano system and a beautiful cave and arch from caribe sea and it was the a painted rock. I used my old rock that was reef saver type to add to my other rock in my new aquarium. I inspected the rock but didi dip or anything. maybe I should have. She has a professional service that cleans her tanks because he was there the day I came. I also noticed this morning when I turned my new lights on and it went straight to bright that what looked like a red bug crawled away. I dont think that is a good sign! Hopefully none of these are bad! Maybe just a sign my tank is maturing! I pulled an aptasia out of my tank that was ona frag a few weeks back< I sure hope I got it all!
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