About a month ago our car broke down, which cut off my access to salt water. I've been quite nervous with this tank and only bought water monthly from my LFS as the salt-mixing process intimidated me. During this time of no water changes for 2 months (I had been due to get water right before the car broke down), 2 of my pipe fish died
They just disappeared, the cleanup crew is doing a great job. I immediately ordered a big bucket of salt, and as soon as the car was back last week we got loads of RO and I did a big waterchange this weekend. The whole tank just feels much better now, and I've realised it's actually really easy to mix saltwater! I have been doing 20% water changes every month, I think I'm gonna do that every two weeks from now on. It's also much cheaper, about 1/4 of the price of LFS water. I know quite a few macroalgae-tank keepers who almost never change their water, but it definitely makes a difference, even if you're dosing to replace.
I've also lost some other fish recently for different reasons, I thought I'd document that too to show the reality of keeping this tank.
The fish first death happened in January due to a peppermint shrimp, who ate the tentacles of my rock flower anemone. The RFA looked bad, and I spent a few hours catching the two peppermints with various methods to return to the LFS. I left 1/3 of my lid off the tank for 3 hours to fit in a plastic bottle trap, and during that time my lovely yellow midas blenny jumped
I returned the peppermints, and then the rock flower anemone died from it's shrimp-injuries several days later. Peppermints are really useful for eating aiptasia, I missed that they'll eat your decorative anemones too.
Peppermint shrimp left, midas blenny right
The second death was in late Feb. I bought a stunning pair of red scooter dragonettes at my LFS which were ordered in for me for my birthday. I did think the male looked a bit thin, but at the LFS they showed them eating frozen well in the tank and said they'd be fine. Well, the male disppeared a week later, I'm pretty sure from starvation cos he was too far gone. The female is doing well and has put on lots of weight. I'm not sure if I will buy a new male, if I do it'll have to be a really fat one that's been in a shop for a good while, and I won't order in fish again. I don't like the pressure to buy it no matter the condition.
The surviving female red scooter dragonet and I suspect disappeared sailfin blenny
The third was also recently. In Feb I also got a second sailfin blenny, which in the shop had a small fin and was pale grey, indicating a female. I know two other people who keep trios of these sailfin blennies, and I wanted to try that for more interesting behaviour. I got it home and immediately he turned black, and within a month the fin was the same size as my original male. They displayed to eachother and intimidated each other a lot, then lived either side of the tank for a while, and within the past two weeks I only seem to have one now. I think it's the newer one which likes to hide in holes, which the original didn't. I suspect that he jumped out, but haven't found anything yet. I think if I wanted to do this agian, I'd be much more picky about working out what's a female, and I'd put them all in a new tank together.
Invert-wise, I've lost three things - a crinoid squat lobster, and two glass shrimp. I ordered the crinoid squat lobster online last Autumn. It arrived alive, but the weather had been unexpectedly cold (this was in Autumn). Never order your creatures when it's cold, even with heat packs you never know - way better to get only from the LFS during Autumn, Winter and early Spring. Since then I've bought 2 more crinoid squat lobsters from my LFS, and even though they are much smaller they've survived and are doing well. I have kept 3 glass shrimp so far, and two have jumped out!! The first the same day as the midas blenny, and the second with the lid ON somehow. No idea why, but they seem to be particularly jumpy, even though they are stunning I wouldn't buy them again. I've also lost a few feather duster worms, the ones I lost didn't have a rock or solid anchor to hold them in place, they seem to need stability to thrive.
