Step 1 complete

Here's a few quick pictures of the display and the new black ocellaris. At first he wasn't eating anything and I suspect it was just because the QT tank was a bit overcrowded at first so I had to split some up. Of the four new fish, the Bangaii didn't make it. I believe he has some kind of stomach infection or parasite because he had very thin stringy white stuff come out of him instead of the usual fish waste. It also sorta trailed behind him a while and it looked like it was stomach parasites. I wasn't able to get pictures since I would suck out the white stuff when I saw it so the other fish didn't mess with it. I don't know how that would transfer. The Bangaii passed on shortly after I started noticing it. Maybe a two days tops.

I know I should have QT things longer and even medicated it but I fail because there's corals in the QT tank right now also and honestly the other two fish inside seemed to be eating very well still. Mostly getting these fish ready for new years since that's when guests are over and when my father wanted the fish on display so for his fish I had to give more lenience when I quarantine. With how fast the Bangaii died after noticing things, I don't know how much I could have done. I knew he wasn't eating like the other fish before he showed those signs, but it looked like general acclimation issues when the fish don't eat right away.

Anyways, the Yellow Tang and the Angelfish are the next two fish to go into the display. The angelfish first, then the Tang a few days after that once the Black Ocellaris is settled. Once the Clownfish started eating live brine, he quickly started eating flake and frozen mysis as well. I didn't get it to eat live brine until after I tried feeding frozen plankton which got his appetite working. The other fish are already eating mysis as well.

New fish from Sacramento

Juvenile Blue Angelfish

Bangaii Cardinal (Top), Yellow Coris Wrasse (Bottom Left), and Black Ocellaris Clownfish (Bottom Right).

Picked up four new fish from Exotic Aquarium located in Sacramento, CA. I came up for the holidays to visit my aunt, but it's also a great time to check out the shop since it has a different selection from my local stores and I like them a lot. Overall they have nice selections of fish and coral with good service. Spent about 45minutes with them trying to catch the Blue Angelfish since it was housed in one of the larger coral frag tanks.

The images are when I was acclimating them to the quarantine tank that is actually also my spare zoanthid growing tank now. Funny how tanks become multi-purpose when you have limited space. I had to displace the Maroon Clownfish and Yellow Tail Damsel into my sump of the prop tank so along with the four new fish is an existing Bangaii Cardinal that I hope is the opposite sex of the one I got today but if they aren't, I won't be heart broken. With my luck I'm not expecting a pair until I get like five of them. There are two already in the display tank that my father likes but I might borrow them someday to get a pair, who knows. For now I'm just picking out the large healthy ones from different shops.

The star fish today would be Juvenile Blue Angelfish. Not only was it the most expensive by far, but never really see Blue Angelfish in shops myself, and that one was really nice looking in the store tank. Right now it's a bit faded because it's still asleep from the trip and lights are off. This fish will be going into the display tank once I make sure it's healthy and eating well. The same goes with the Black Ocellaris Clownfish that is destined for the display.

The Yellow Coris will be for my prop tank to replace the 6-Line and hopefully clean out some of the tube snails that are growing all over the place no matter how little I feed the tank. Most seem to be eating off the Tang's excretions as their food source and I can't stop the tang from eating the algae. The Bangaii is going to stay in that tank with the other one until I decide for sure what to do with them. I just couldn't pass up a decent size healthy one that only costs about $12 from the shop. Better price than anywhere in SF so far.

Anyways, that's my new fish. I'll try to get better pictures and post about them as things develop. Probably going to let my friend name them at some point so be warned about that. Oh, and the people from Exotic Aquarium were nice enough to give me a foam wholesale shipping box with bags that seemed to be over-sized compared to the small fish inside because I mentioned I came from SF and I didn't even have to ask for that extra comfort on the way home. It's nice to do business there.

Unfortunate incident

This happened earlier in the week, but I wasn't sure I wanted to write about it because this was a very unusual situation that left me feeling quite sad about a couple of my fishes. My 6-Line Wrasse, Dart, died because of a completely crazy situation between him and my Stripped Mandarin, Deedle.

So here's the story. I just happened to get home from Costco and I walked in to notice that the 6-Line had bit the Mandarin around the eye area. I had moved the Mandarin to the top tank a couple days before and while there was aggression from the 6-Line, the day this happened it seemed far calmer and what would normally be expected once fish get acclimated, especially since the Mandarin went from hiding in a corner to swimming around the other side of the tank near the other fish without problem. So it was a rather shocking sight to see the 6-Line attacked him. I knocked the glass since it usually was enough to scare the 6-Line away. Instead, I saw him take off across the tank, but with the Mandarin in tow.

I sort of panicked at that point and was rather aggressively hitting various spots on the tank to scare him to let go as he darted from spot to spot. I went for the net after a few seconds of this, since the 6-Line still didn't let go. As I was catching them with the net I realized it was probably more than just the 6-Line not wanting to let go, rather he was unable to even as I got both in the net. I moved them to sump and turned the light on to try to figure out what happened. The 6-Line at that time looked like it has the Mandarin's left eye in his mouth and some of the skin was stuck on his teeth. I tried to separate them with a pair of over-sized toothpicks. The kind that are like 6 inches long, but not quite chopstick size. I tried for what seemed like a long 5 minutes before I called in my father outside.

At this point I had my father hold the net while I tried to be more surgical in separating them. Over the next long 15min or so we tried different angles and approaches but it basically all involved the net partially submerged with the two fish inside and me trying to peel the skin off the 6-Line's teeth or unhook him somehow. The Mandarin's skin was twisted in such a way that it looked like the Mandarin's eye was in the 6-Line somewhere. It looked like only a tiny bit of skin was attached in the 6-Line's mouth so we decided to cut them apart rather than pry. Eventually I got the scissors placed between them but I couldn't get enough pressure to split them. Something hard was in the way, be it the Mandarin's eye socket or the wrasse's mouth. My father decided he would do the last cut since it seemed like I didn't have the nerve to apply enough pressure.

What happened next still puzzles me. My dad after listening to me guide him into what to do, made the final cut, but the 6-Line appeared to instantly die. We were both in shock, because it seemed like a clean cut. The Mandarin lost some skin but was able to swim free after I let the net go. The 6-Line on the other hand looked like his mouth area was intact without damage but didn't make it somehow. The only real explanation would be the stress or shock or what happened to it. I won't pretend to really know what happened since I don't know how the 6-Line even got stuck to the Mandarin to start with. He bites but I've never seen teeth that could hook flesh and not be able to cut through it. Either way, I'm sure the wrasse never intended to bite and get stuck when he decided to attack, but that's what happened. That wrasse was very aggressive and it used to live in the display tank outside but it was way too aggressive even for his smaller size and after keeping it in quarantine for a while, I put him in my propagation tank when I first set it up. I was thinking about giving him away because of his aggression but that's too late now.

The Mandarin on the other hand has a good bit of the back of his eye socket area damaged. Looked mostly like skin damage. Once the mandarin was freed, I noticed that his eye slowly appeared again, it looked like it was stretched in a way that the skin was pulled over it during the attack. He was unable to move his left eye for a couple days and had some difficulty aiming for food but lately he's starting to get motion back as the skin on the area is healing and the open white areas of flesh are closing up. I'll see what happens the next few days. The whole ordeal was rather sad and it didn't sit well with me for a while, but I don't know what would happen if I left them in the tank like that.

Some of my propagated coral

Here's a few pictures of some of the corals I propagate:

These pictures are a few months old, but were easy files to pull up. I've changed my setup a little bit since, to try different ideas out. The first picture is of my newest zoanthid I picked up. Think it was called Pink Nebula. It's still healthy looking right now, but hasn't started growing new heads yet. The frag was off a bigger one that is in the display tank, so kind of acts like a coral bank, in case that in the display doesn't do too well.

The second picture I'm not sure what it's called. Was sold to me as SafeCrackers, which they sort of look like, but mine are far brighter orange than the red ones I see online. The camera doesn't do it justice at all, but I haven't been able to find an exact match online. Most of the common names for those zoanthids seem to vary a lot in looks anyways. For now I guess I'll call them Orange Safecrackers.

The third picture is of the Xenia I grow. They grow like weeds, but they basically are the coral version of weeds. These are what I sell the most of to my LFS. Not 100% sure what strain mine were, but they seem to be Pom Pom Xenia and I more or less just cut off the ones that overgrow the display tank. They are great to know if the pH is getting low at night, since they seem to stop pulsing if the pH gets low. I generally have a lot more than that picture, right now probably close to 20 ready frags.

The fourth picture is of the Duncans I have. Another one of those over sized corals from the display that had to be trimmed in half. In hindsight I should have only fragged a quarter of it, and kept a quarter whole to start my own mother colony. They're really healthy and glow green a night. I'm surprised that even the stony stalks have the green glow on it and I wonder how much nutrients it actually gets from the zooxanthella on the stony portions of the Duncan.

I've also got a number of other corals I grow or keep currently. I have a lot of Eagle Eyes but those usually aren't worth posting pictures of since they're so common. Got some Torch and Blue Tubbs with a number of SPS that I'm testing out but having a mixed tank for propagation isn't ideal and I haven't really got the SPS thing down yet. Sort of got side tracked with the fish breeding idea in the meantime.

So yea, that's a quick summary of a few of the corals I try to propagate. They share their space with a Yellow Tang and a 6-Line Wrasse. The same friend that named my Mandarin has also named those two. The Yellow Tang is named Tinky, while the Wrasse is named Dart, both of which were based off how they acted.

Feeder Guppies!

The picture is of a female (larger one) and male feeder guppy I found online, since they are so small, my camera would not get anything near this clear of an image. I was looking around for breeder guppies and most of the places I checked out only had fancy guppies for sale, but today I was lucky and found a place that had them for 10cents each. Most stores seem happy with just carrying feeder goldfish and minnows. Minnows are similar size but only problem is as far as I know they aren't live bearers like guppies are. I picked up about 20 of the cute little guys tonight and placed them into a 10gal that until recently was my live rock curing tank. I cleaned it out and set it up during the day. I left the filter parts in my propagation sump to keep the bacteria going so hopefully it doesn't need to be cycled even though I completely changed out the water. Who knows what leeches out of concrete when it cures.

The main purpose of the guppies will be to see if I can get them to breed and find out first hand if they do make good feed for Banggai Cardinals. The guppy fry that is. May seem a bit cruel but their parents are just as likely to eat the fry as the Banggai are and I'm hoping to sustain a healthy population of guppies that can support a couple pairs of Banggai in the future. For now I need to make sure the brood stock I get are healthy and clean. Hand picked them as silly as that would sound when you're picking feeder fish from a tank of many, but quality is always important.

On another note, Deedle, my Striped Mandarin, is eating frozen enriched brine shrimp without having to sneak in a few live ones to trick him. He eats about a dozen and then stops, so I probably should not dump so much dead shrimp into the tank trying to make sure he sees it and knows it's the food cloud. He lives off the same lights as the sump so when I feed him during his day time, the other tanks are having their night hours. One cube is a lot to use for one mandarin and a couple half awake fish in the QT tank. Wonder in Guppies can handle adult brine shrimp... but anyways the next step is mysis shrimp. Should try to find out where I can get live ones of those around San Francisco at a decent price.

Elos Test Kits

I picked up a few Elos Test Kits for the first time today. Ordered them from Marine Depot. Was mostly getting a Magnesium test kit, since I never had one of those before and settled for trying Elos out. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the magnesium test kit, since I don't have any other one to compare it to, but I have to say I do like it over API test kits so far.

While the instructions was a bit more complicated to use than API kits, I got the hang of it easily after a couple tries. I always disliked how API test tubes seemed to have the 5ml markings vary from each one, making me worry about accuracy. The Elos syringe was definitely more accurate. However I have to say that overall, the API liquid droppers seemed to be more uniform drips. I know there were complaints how the stopper for the Elos test tubes would break the tubes, and I can see how that could easily happen since some of the stoppers were tighter fitting than others. It was fine for me long as I was careful about popping them off, at least so far. A bit expensive, but I'll probably replace my API for Elos when it comes time to replace my kits.

Turns out my Magnesium is around 1200, where it should be at least 1350, so I'll have to pick up a supplement after some research. My KH is also a bit low along with my pH being at 7.8 and a dKH of about 6-7. I was a bit surprised it was this low since I also run cheato and my water is very well aerated because of my sump setup. I don't like using too many supplements because not only is it more work, but riskier than just having a good salt brand. I use Seachem Reef Salt and have been happy with it so far. Well... hopefully my room isn't that high in CO2 since I have the window open. I would much more prefer my pH problem coming from low alkalinity than high CO2. However, I'll try the Kent buffer and see how that goes the next few weeks once I get a chance to pick some up.

On a bright note, I'm slowly gaining success with training Deedle, a striped mandarin dragonet that was named thus so by a friend. He's eating some spirulina enriched frozen brine shrimp, even if it's only when he confuses it with a few live ones I toss in with the mix to try to transition him over. Tonight I'm going to try feeding him only frozen and see if he takes to it.

Marine Aquarium Introduction

The first post always seems the hardest to write. First impressions and all that. Welcome to Aquarium Chronicles, a blog about my aquarium experiences. I'm Derick Hui, a San Francisco bay area aquarist. I deal with Marine Aquariums, mostly Coral Reef tanks. I currently help run a Red Sea Max 130 as a Mixed Reef display tank, but for my own personal projects I have a 40gal breeder connected to a 40g breeder sump that I'm attempting coral propagation with. On top of those two tanks, I also run two quarantine 10g tanks that always seem to be used for something other than quarantine. So after having the display system overgrow with corals during my first year of maintaining one, I became interested in propagating some as a hobby.

Here's a few pictures of the display tank from last year:

Don't really have access to a good camera lately so I haven't been able to take too many pictures. I will still try to get some as I write new posts though. I do have to say that this blog really isn't about that display tank, but it's good to show off some decent pictures if one is to talk about aquariums. What I plan to write here are my future attempts at various aquaculture techniques. I've been working on coral propagation for about a year now, on top of a year of maintaining a normal tank. Trading the aquaculture corals to the local fish store helps support the hobby and sometimes I acquire new brood stock. I've decided that I might venture into fish breeding in the near future, and thought this blog would be a nice way to keep track of my progress.

With that said, I do hope to find a balance between professional writing and writing something that people without aquariums can relate to and enjoy. I have a future goal doing larger scale marine aquaculture with a combination of coral propagation and fish breeding. There's also the chance I might do some aquarium maintenance if the opportunity comes up.