Candi's 8g biocube adventure

[Candi]

No huge updates, water is nice and clear, fuge seems to be working well. I added some zoas and rics to the tank from my other tanks and am picking up four different types of zoas from Rob in about 1/2 an hour Still need to either just suck it up and pay shipping and order a barnacle online or find the time to find one at a LFS around here... maybe this coming week, at which point I'm going to pull all the rock and try to get the jawfish into her tunnel tube and then rescape hopefully in less of a pile look LOL

I'm also giving very strong consideration to adding a yasha haze, I never did see the one in my aquapod again and really love the fish... it'll be a high bioload for this size tank but my only coral plans are rics & zoas... figure with a big enough water change a week it'll work... could always move one or both of the tiny gobies to my 24g as they grow if needed.

Have a Happy Holiday everyone! Off to ice some cookies!

 

[Candi]

AAARRGGHHHHH :::screams every swear word she knows:::

Decided to pull the rock to get the jawfish (who keeps digging and knocking everything down) into the tunnel. So I drain out a gallon into a container, start pulling the rock... get almost all out and the two gobies (who I saw a min ago) are missing... quick search of the rear shows me one is in the 1st chamber, takes me about 1/2 an hour to get the damn thing out (which was pointless since I knew it could just swim back into the grate but oh well) then I start looking for the tiny green banded... oh sure, he's in the 3rd chamber... now I can't put the pump back on as he'd become fish sushi... so I pull the cheato, LR rubble, and pump/heater from 2 & 3. I get my smallest net, lets just fast forward about 3 hours... darn fish found a 1/8 gap where the plastic meets the glass for the water level thingy where he fits inside, I can't get him. He'll come out, I'll try to get a net in and he'll jump back in between the glass & plastic wall. So the heater & pump are in the main part of the tank. No idea where the other goby is, green banded is in chamber 3. Oh and I had placed the longer pipe on the top of the pvc tunnel so the jawfish wouldn't be tempted to come out while I was working on things... placed very carefully so I could pull it back out, guess what won't come back off the tunnel. Yup. Only way I'll remove it is to yank all the rocks out again and use both hands to separate the pieces.

Who would have thought 8g would be such a PIA? Darn oceanic with the stupid water level window!

 

[Hawkeye]

ouch - sorry to hear. I think I can readily say that besides being a proud member (ok not so proud) of the Flood club - I can readily attest to being a part of the "Pull all the LR out" and redecorate club.

Maybe it's time for an upgrade?

 

[Candi]

LOL @ "upgrade" this is my last little tank for awhile, 70g & 24g are downstairs and this is my little upstairs tank.

So I went up after posting to see if he hopped out of the secret hiding place only to find him hopping around the display, cursed little critter got himself free (still not sure how.. guess he scaled the wall between section 2 & 1 and went back through the grill. So I decide one last time to try to pull the extra part out of the pvc tunnel (why do we always decide to try something like this?) and of course I knock a bunch of stuff over, still can't get it, start cursing and again pull out most of the rocks (since I already know now the gobies can free themselves).

Pull the stupid pvc tunnel 3/4 out of the water (being sure to keep it partly submerged since the jawfish is in there) and after about 5 mins of tugging with all my might I get the piece off. Press the rest back into the sand, rearrange the rocks (remember why I'm so glad I used zipties on the rocks in my 70g) and get the whole cloudy mess running again.

Just checked and the gobies are hopping around happily, jawfish presumed hiding in tunnel.

I did notice when I got her into it today that her eye is still bad, from her overflow adventures in my 70g she had a messed up looking eye, it's still cloudy... should it resolve itself with good water quality and diet or should I add some melafix (which others might not like but I've always had great luck with, including in the reef tanks with corals) pulling her into another hospital tank is out since my only extra equipment is currently holding the fresh LR I got for this tank.

 

[Hawkeye]

if the meds work for you- go for it. Me personally if you aren't already adding some kind of booster to the food - perhaps try that first.

 

[Candi]

Time for a very long awaited update... it's been almost 2 months (opps :-X )

Sadly my beautiful yellowheaded jawfish didn't make it. She had been doing better, gaining confidence and hanging outside of her tunnel doorway, eating well etc... then I realized I hadn't seen her for 24+ hours. Ended up having to pull the tank apart to remove the pvc tunnel and sure enough she had died. I decided against putting the tunnel back since a jawfish was really to big for this tank anyways (of course the barnacle I bought online arrived a day or two after ::sighs:: :-[ ) I decided I'd wait for a yasha haze goby to be the "star" of the tank and continued on as normal.

Green banded goby (Bert) has grown very fast and is now bigger then the banded goby (Bob) and both are clowns and always out and about.

I had moved some corals from my other tanks and also purchased a few zoa frags, another bump in the road when I realized my zoas had zoa pox, thankfully I found furan 2 locally and did 3 days of dips, I only ended up losing a couple polyps and everything else pulled through perfectly (I will never go without that stuff again and will dip all new zoas) I hope to have this be a ric and zoa tank, so I'll be looking for more small frags to buy soon. I have an orange ric arriving tomorrow and might pull a couple others from my 24g.

I ended up being pretty happy with the aquascaping from just using the rock from my 70's sump leaving the 7+lbs I had purchased direct from FL specifically for this tank still sitting in a 5g nano "holding tank" which now looks like it'll just become a boring nano for my little girl with a single damsel in it... expensive lesson on making sure you don't already have what you need before you order more : I'll have to get some side shots, hard to see depth 3D of the rocks.

Time for a couple photos right?

My "Star" has settled into the tank and was swimming around all yesterday evening, I hope she remains this outgoing and visible. Isn't she pretty, check out that fin!

couple FTS's (my other two little gobies are hiding in the shots too)

 

[REEFLECTIONS]

very nice... great use of only 8 gallons.... glad to see life in the tank

 

[JRWOHLER]

Very nice Candi....it is always amazing to see how a couple little corals look huge in an eight gallon tank.

 

[Candi]

Thanks guys! I'm really enjoying this tank now, I really like my first two gobies but having the yasha out and swimming around all the time really brings color/movement/life to the tank. Will have to sell some fish stuff from the garage and get some more corals for the tank to add more color.