asfullax
03/11/2007, 12:50 AM
Hey all,
Well, for those of you that did not know, here is my story thus far with my current 129 gallon reef tank.
Our first creature when we started over 5 years ago was a very cute, small eel. Please keep in mind that at that point, we figured we would be keeping a semi-aggressive fish only system. SO we picked up an eel and a yellow tank. They lived for about a year in our 29 gallon tank which was then upgraded to a 75 gallon standard tank. It was at this point a friend of mine decided to get out of the fish hobby and passed on a maroon clown and another friend had a anemone sucked into a power head and gave that to me as well. Up to this point everybody was getting along perfectly fine.
we decided to get a few more fish such as a mandrin goby, farytail wrasse, and a few others. For a few months they were fine, in fact, te eel and the manderin slept together and the eel was very protective over the new tank mates. This did not last long.
We woke up to a missing blenny one day, and the eel was not hungry for a few days, then the wrasse went missing, and then snails started vanishing at an alarming rate. we first believed the tank was crashing until we caught the eel attacking a fish.
This was right before we started the 129 gallon, and for the life of me, I don't know why we kept him other then the responsibility of taking care of every animal we bring into our home, but we did and when we moved from the 75 to the 129, he went in the new tank.
It has been over a year since we have tried to add a new fish, but a few months ago, the eel decided that he wanted to start snaking on his current tank mates (some as long as 4 years) as well as myself. and after a copperband butterfly was added last week and was beaten and abused we decided to remove the eel, and a domino damsel that was supposed to be food for the eel over a year ago, but managed to survive.
Below are the pictures of my efforts, which entailed completely dismantling the tank. I started by removing the fragile / small corals and placing them in a pre-drained water bucket with non murky water from the tank. Then I placed the larger corals in another bucket, again filled with pre-murky water and finally a bucket that held the rest of the live rock.
Let me preface the pictures and inform you that I believe this ranks up in the top 10 of the scariest tasks I have ever performed, this beats racing my motorcycle racing hands down. Unfortunately, the domino passed away soon after I extracted him a little over 4 hours of chasing him (with breaks every 30 minutes or so) once we moved him to the container, he started swimming sideways and finally, even after water changes, he passed away. My guess is stress related suffocation. :( This was absolutely not my intention and he will be missed. The eel on the other hand made it fine, and is now for sale at SWRC. Anybody interested, he seems to be fine with aggressive fish, and do not let his size fool you. :D
Without further comments, here is my nightmare:
http://www.jeep-pics.com/holy/1.jpg
http://www.jeep-pics.com/holy/2.jpg
http://www.jeep-pics.com/holy/3.jpg
http://www.jeep-pics.com/holy/4.jpg
http://www.jeep-pics.com/holy/5.jpg
Well, for those of you that did not know, here is my story thus far with my current 129 gallon reef tank.
Our first creature when we started over 5 years ago was a very cute, small eel. Please keep in mind that at that point, we figured we would be keeping a semi-aggressive fish only system. SO we picked up an eel and a yellow tank. They lived for about a year in our 29 gallon tank which was then upgraded to a 75 gallon standard tank. It was at this point a friend of mine decided to get out of the fish hobby and passed on a maroon clown and another friend had a anemone sucked into a power head and gave that to me as well. Up to this point everybody was getting along perfectly fine.
we decided to get a few more fish such as a mandrin goby, farytail wrasse, and a few others. For a few months they were fine, in fact, te eel and the manderin slept together and the eel was very protective over the new tank mates. This did not last long.
We woke up to a missing blenny one day, and the eel was not hungry for a few days, then the wrasse went missing, and then snails started vanishing at an alarming rate. we first believed the tank was crashing until we caught the eel attacking a fish.
This was right before we started the 129 gallon, and for the life of me, I don't know why we kept him other then the responsibility of taking care of every animal we bring into our home, but we did and when we moved from the 75 to the 129, he went in the new tank.
It has been over a year since we have tried to add a new fish, but a few months ago, the eel decided that he wanted to start snaking on his current tank mates (some as long as 4 years) as well as myself. and after a copperband butterfly was added last week and was beaten and abused we decided to remove the eel, and a domino damsel that was supposed to be food for the eel over a year ago, but managed to survive.
Below are the pictures of my efforts, which entailed completely dismantling the tank. I started by removing the fragile / small corals and placing them in a pre-drained water bucket with non murky water from the tank. Then I placed the larger corals in another bucket, again filled with pre-murky water and finally a bucket that held the rest of the live rock.
Let me preface the pictures and inform you that I believe this ranks up in the top 10 of the scariest tasks I have ever performed, this beats racing my motorcycle racing hands down. Unfortunately, the domino passed away soon after I extracted him a little over 4 hours of chasing him (with breaks every 30 minutes or so) once we moved him to the container, he started swimming sideways and finally, even after water changes, he passed away. My guess is stress related suffocation. :( This was absolutely not my intention and he will be missed. The eel on the other hand made it fine, and is now for sale at SWRC. Anybody interested, he seems to be fine with aggressive fish, and do not let his size fool you. :D
Without further comments, here is my nightmare:
http://www.jeep-pics.com/holy/1.jpg
http://www.jeep-pics.com/holy/2.jpg
http://www.jeep-pics.com/holy/3.jpg
http://www.jeep-pics.com/holy/4.jpg
http://www.jeep-pics.com/holy/5.jpg