Clam Caution

Don’t let a pull cost you 150 clams.

I noticed  my beautiful 8 inch Crocea had grown next to a leather coral of almost equal length. The Crocea was beginning to have it’s mantle turned away from the light and into the sub straight. Clams are photosynthetic, and if the situation kept up, I knew this would not help the clam as the mantle looked like it was going to go deeper and deeper into the sub straight, thus cutting down on its food source.

To my eye, it looked like the leather had attached itself to the shell of the clam, putting the clam in a precarious position.

Then I made my mistake. Since I thought the coral was attached to the clam, I pulled  at the leather to get it off the clam. This was not the case, as the clam had attached itself to the live rock at the base of the coral. Clams are delicate when being removed from a base, and must be twisted gently. Unfortunately, although I knew this fact, I misread the situation.

Once I realized what the situation was, it was too late. The clam died within two days and became an expensive meal for my hermit crabs.

So if you have a clam you want to move for any reason, take your time and twist gently.

Back Up Your Electricity!

The wind was reaching hurricane speeds outside, then Kaboom! A huge shower of sparks fell from the power lines onto the street right out my back window.  My lights went out for a few seconds, but amazingly came back on and stayed on. My next door neighbor was not so lucky. Fire trucks, police and power workers were around their house for over two days before they were up and running.

Could your tank survive a two day power outage?

You must protect your investment. Your tank is too wonderful to let one interference with power wipe out everything you have built.  We mention this important point in The Reef Aquarium DVD,  A Set Up & Maintenance Guide, a point many other guides miss! The demo tank has electrical battery back ups that will last at least four hours, plus we have a gas generator that can run for as long as we have or can get gas. Am I happy that I was not affected by the fireworks from across the street? You bet! But I also slept well that night as I knew my tank was prepared for almost any power emergency.

Flatworms!

The Reef Aquarium DVD, A Set Up & Maintenance Guide  shows you many beautiful things you want for your tank, but Flatworms is something you don’t want for your tank.

Flatworms are pesty parasites. I have heard that they eat the corals and I have also heard that they cover corals as to take away their light. Either way, your beautiuful corals can wind up dead.

So how did we get rid of ours?

As we recommended in The Reef Aquarium DVD, A Set Up & Maintenance guide, we used Salift’s Flatworm Exit.

Here we had some Flatworms on a few corals in our quarantine tank. So before we put them in our main tank, we treated the whole quarantine tank. Make sure to siphon up as many Flatworms as you can. This does two things. First, it gets rid of them, which is what you want. Secondly, when Flatworms die, they let off toxins into the water. These toxins are harmful to your fish and corals, so you want to get them out of the tank as soon as possible.

After I treated the tank (just add the drops to the water), I quickly did a water change, siphoning up the dead worms from the bottom. After I waited a week, I repeated this process and have not seen a flatworm since.

If you have clams, I like to remove them from the tank before I do this Flatworm treatment, as clams sometimes will not react well to this medication. 

When The Square leaves the Squareback

Squareback Anthias are a beautiful addition to any reef tank.

Squareback Anthias are a good community fish, and should adapt well to a reef or fish only tank.

The males can become a little territorial, but their bark is worse than their bite. We have found them to chase one another around the tank, but mine has never nipped at fins.

Some will jump, but the male Anthias from the demo tank has stayed put for over a year. Although he has not jumped, his square seems to have left him.

Why?

Our demo tank from The Reef Aquarium DVD, A Set Up And Maintenance Guide is bright, and many Squareback Anthias like lower light. Fortunately, he has stayed in view and let us enjoy his beauty instead of always hiding in the rocks. However, this swimming around in bright light has had an adverse effect on his beautiful square. It is gone! Also, his colors have shifted, from orange to a more orange/ yellow. Amazingly enough his colors are still bright and vibrant. Also, the overall health of the male Squareback Anthias is excellent.

So what can I do?

We could lower the light level in the tank, but we are not going to do this, as this will adversely affect the growth of our corals. For now, we will just keep things as they are and enjoy the beautiful Squareback Anthias, without his square on his back.