we're bringing sexy back

Our little sexy anemone shrimp (a.k.a. Thor amboinensis, or just plain 'sexy' for short) seems to have taken to liking a new symbiont. Last week I added a single frogspawn coral (Euphyllia divisia) polyp. Since that time, sexy has moved all the way across the tank and only hangs out with the new frogspawn.
I also added a few other frags this week.
I'll post about all the new life soon... right now I'm busy carefully monitoring everyone & the tank water to make sure everything is going well.
I'll have words and pictures next week.

the case of the shrinking anemone (before N after)

nearly a week after the move, my prize anemone (Entacmaea quadricolor) decided to act 'funny'.
I'm not talking like comedy central ha-ha funny... i'm talking like scaring me into thinking he was in trouble funny.

I would hate to lose anything in my tank... but I would have been super sad if I lost the home for one of my two clown fish.

Anyway, the poor bugger was just looking all small and contracted-like. At first I though he was maybe splitting. But alas, he was small again the next day too and no second anemone floating around the tank anywhere.
So then I watched him shrink & shrivel some more as I tested the water. Perfect. everything was super low and salinity was right on the mark. Temperature was a bit hight, but nothing that would immediately put any tropical reef inhabitant into shock, and certainly no higher than what they would be experiencing in late summer in the tropical ocean.

So I decided the only thing left to do was feed it and hope for the best.
I dethawed a small piece of frozen formula one and inserted it into the center of the shrunken polyp & viola! 2 hours later & for all of the next day (that would be today) he re-expanded to normal size (about 3x the diameter of the shrunkeness exhibited in today's photo).

I'm gonna keep my eye on him, but I must say seeing him back to 'normal' puts my mind at ease.

I can see clearly now...

Well, two days after the move and the fish and motile inverts all seem to be behaving normally.
everyone is eating & no one is acting shy or behaving abnormally. The tank water has cleared (see photo above - sorry about the lousy photo quality, the normal tank picture set up is still packed in boxes) & most of the sessile inverts also seem to be adjusting. My BTA anemone is the only one who hasn't yet completely perked back up to "normal", though considering all of the sedimentation stress it recieved over the weekend, I can understand why. I'm actually surprised everyone is doing so well.
The water is testing normally as well, but I still need to be careful about monitoring it this week.
I'm also likely going to do a water change soon...
So far so good, after the move - but I'm not out of the woods yet.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the next two weeks.

Its always cloudy on moving day

so today was the big day. I had a plan, I had the supplies, and cleared my schedule.
Although I originally thought it would take 2 hrs, it took 3 to get everything moved and set up.
- Taking the tank down was no problem... and I tried my best to minimize stress to the animals.
- Physically moving the tank went off fairly well... thought the short drive was a bit scary just cause I was driving super slow and trying to avoid shaking, rolling, sliding, and bumping of hardware & creatures.
- Setting the tank back up proved a bit more challenging than I had budgeted for. I was striving to keep as much original tank water as possible so as to minimize stress and prevent the need for re-cycling the tank. I also wanted to eliminate or minimize the live rocks exposure to air. Both of these things proved mildly complicated. I stirred up way more sediment than I hoped to (see photo above - taken immediately after move was finished)
The final complication was that re-building the reef to the exact design prior to disassembling proved to be frustratingly impossible. Although with the help of some photos posted on this blog, i managed to come very close... the present configuration is slightly different than the old one. Overall this may be a good thing, because I think the reef has much more stability, however it will take me ( & likely the critters) a while to get used to the new look.
Now its just a week of careful water quality monitoring, and hopefully I can report back with good news at a later date.

Moving the Tank

So, much to my dismay (and completely unforseen) I am forced to move the tank to a new location. I was hoping for stability and to keep the tank in the same place for as long as possible...
funny how some things don't go as planned. Fortunately I have been reading up on how to move a tank & have developed a strategy for moving. The big day is set for Saturday 12 August. I'm using the rest of the week to plan and buy the appropriate supplies.
Wish me luck.