In Quarantine

All new arrivals are quarantined for 4 weeks. Since implementing the use of quarantine, I have not any parasite outbreaks or wipeouts in display tanks. I am lucky to also have a local fish store that quarantines the fish before putting them out for sale, so my new fish actually are in captivity for 6 weeks before they go to the big house.

I have been looking for pyramid butterflies (hemitaurichthys polylepsis) since October, 2004. LiveAquaria.com finally had some and I was lucky enough to stumble acrross them hours before the automatic email notification of their availability was broadcast.  They were ordered on 7/25/05 and arrived on 7/26.  They are still in quarantine on 9/10 because they came down with a case of the ich. They are being treated with hyposalinity and will likely be there until mid-October.

In the tank

An apparently mated pair of percula clowns provide endless entertainment.  I can not for the life of me get them both in a decent picture at the same time.

10/8/04 - he color of this fairy wrasse has changed considerably over the past few months.  I am pretty sure that this is a Lubbock’s Fairy Wrasse. Difficult to photograph because he moves so fast.

A group of six spinecheek cardinals (apongen leptacanthus) hangs in a pretty tight school, at least shortly after the move to the display tank.

A juvenile hippo tang was moved into the display tank on 10/27/04. We’ll see how the macroalgae population fares.

11/9/04 - Has a taste for hair algae.

A Tiger Sleeper goby (valenciennea wardii), purchased on 12/15/04. Only rated a 2-3 in Marine Fishes because they are sand sifters and often starve in captivity, but this one is feeding aggressively on mysis, clams, and trigger formula.  It digs incessently in the sand, even under the rocks, and is stirring up all sorts of detritus. This should be good for the tank in the long run, but is creating duststorms right now.

An orchid dottyback, pseudochromis fridmani, was added to the tank on 4/16/05.