The story of "I Miss Hawaii" — an Innovative Marine EXT 75 mixed reef in Vancouver, Canada, inspired by Maui, Hawaii.
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I Miss Hawaii — So I Started a Reef Tank →Showing newest first
Ugh, still not over Tamago's passing. I've had a few fish die before, but his death really hit me hard. I'm building a fish app for myself now, so I added a virtual fish tank in it with all my current fish, including Tamago. They swim around and I can feed them too. I guess this is how software devs mourn. 🙂 Also, my Biota YT has been growing fast! He was such a tiny baby just 3 months ago...
Thank you. I really thought I had everything figured out and my lid was 100% secure, especially since it survived Sushi's jumping attempts for more than half a year now. Tamago always stayed near the bottom, so I never thought he would freak out like that. It hurts so much because they were both getting along so well too. I've been rewatching the footage and I'm honestly reconsidering keeping bigger shrimp in the future, at least skunks. This is not the first time they scared my fish at night. I've seen them startle Sushi before and make him shoot off like that too. My blood red fire shrimp usually stays in a cave where it sets up a cleaning station, so the fish can come to them. But my two skunks seem much more active, crawl all over the tank and actually try to jump at my fish to clean them. My tilefish don't really sleep, they swim/hover around the bottom, so I think they can panic when the shrimp suddenly touch them in almost complete darkness, ugh.
I found Tamago on top of my lid today. I tried to revive him for a good 30 minutes, but he was unfortunately gone. This is so heartbreaking. I really thought I had my lid 100% secure. After watching the footage, it looks like one of my shrimp's antennas touched him while he was hovering at the bottom of the tank. It scared him and he went completely crazy, eventually lifting the light mount insert in the lid and somehow jumping through it. After that, the insert fell back into place, so he had no way to get back into the tank. I uploaded footage showing him freaking out, then jumping out in slow motion, and then how the insert looks at the end of the video. Maybe it will help someone else too. RIP Tamago.
Update on our two tilefish bonding process! Tamago's quarantine is now officially over, and he was moved to an acclimation box on Saturday. Little did I know that Sushi would just swim right inside with him! After that, Tamago freed himself from the acclimation box overnight, so I found him swimming with the rest of the fish in the morning lol. I quickly added more rockwork and a whole new cave as neutral territory. Since then I've already seen both tilefish sharing the new cave several times. Tamago also uses Sushi's tunnels and burrows, and Sushi doesn't seem to mind. I'm honestly so in love with these two :)
Quick tank update! We have two new additions! First is a captive bred multibanded pipefish. After about two weeks in observation, I moved it to the display tank. Luckily it's already used to eating frozen, which is a huge win. Second is a yellow tilefish! My fiancé gave me a gift card for Christmas, and of course my LFS got a shipment of gorgeous yellow tilefish. I named him Tamago. He's been in QT for about 10 days now — started with Prazi since I noticed some light flashing, now starting copper. I'm really hoping Sushi and Tamago will pair up and swim together. I also added a sand sifting starfish. Phosphates and nitrates have been a bit higher than I want lately — around 0.3 ppm phos and 30 ppm nitrates — so I've been doing more water changes. I think this is from trying all the new dry foods. Since I'm going on vacation in March, I'm testing different options. Sushi has been the pickiest by far — I now own like 20 different dry foods, lol.
Update time! The Borbonius anthias turned out to be an absolutely fantastic fish — super attentive, always out in the open, and eating like a pig. Unfortunately, it also turned into quite a little bully and was stressing my tilefish out way too much. Sushi just cannot handle drama, lol. The anthias has been rehomed. My new longfin clownfish is in the tank now too. As a single clown, he's honestly been lovely — cruises all over the tank, super curious about everything, and so far hasn't bothered anyone. I've also got two new fish in QT, both captive bred: Link's goby — great little sand sifter, not nearly as crazy as a diamond goby, doesn't build sand dunes or bury my corals. And a baby yellow tang — my LFS had the tiniest, cutest ones and I couldn't resist. I also grabbed a few more corals, and my Plank feeder arrived today! I'm also still on the hunt for another tilefish to pair with Sushi. I haven't seen a single purple one for sale yet.
Update time! Our fallow period officially ended almost a month ago, and all the remaining fish were transferred back into the DT. The starry blenny was successfully rehomed, as it turned out to be super mean to all my other fish (including killing my diamond goby). Unfortunately, the tamarin wrasse didn't make it. I found it dead one morning, and after watching the footage, I suspect Sushi had something to do with it — he accidentally scared it at night while hunting the sand. I definitely mourned that one, it was so beautiful and had finally started feeding. Absolutely no signs of ich and it's been almost a month, so I think we're in the clear! I've decided going forward to quarantine everything wet. I also got two new wrasses — a yellow and purple wrasse, and a Terelabrus wrasse (sold as 'Deep Water Hogfish'). The Terelabrus is honestly such a great curious fish, very similar in personality to Sushi. I ordered a beautiful borbonius anthias and a diamond goby, but unfortunately FedEx overnight shipping turned into 2-day shipping. The diamond goby was DOA, and the anthias was barely alive. Luckily the anthias perked up within 24h and is now eating like a pig. I also grabbed a beautiful longfin clownfish at my LFS. As a single clown, he's honestly been lovely — cruises all over the tank, super curious about everything.
Time for another update — if anyone's still keeping up! So unfortunately, I discovered ich in my tank. I have no idea how it got there since I QTed all my fish, maybe cross contamination from my QT tank, or it hitchhiked on a coral I got from a local reefer's display tank? Now I had to catch all my fish to treat them. My tilefish was super easy to transfer — he's too curious and immediately swam into the trap. But my starry blenny and blue assessor hid in the rocks all day, so I had to take apart my whole scape to catch them. What a nightmare. I also bought another tank because I was worried about having five fish in a single 15g. The tanks are multiplying, and my partner definitely wasn't entertained lol. The display tank has been fallow for a week, so we've still got at least five more weeks left. I'm following the 45 days at 82 degrees method. Unfortunately, while my starry blenny was housed with my new diamond goby in the same QT, the blenny ended up viciously attacking and killing her on day 1. I've decided to rehome the blenny once its QT period is over. On day 2, my tilefish had a huge freakout in the quarantine tank. He started breathing hard and gasping at the surface. I was freaking out and had no idea what was wrong. I did a 60% water change, then a freshwater bath — nothing helped. Exhausted at 3am, I shut off all the ambient light and went to bed expecting to find him gone in the morning... Well, I wake up and he's totally fine! Just chilling in his PVC pipe. Thanks Sushi, for giving me such heart attacks. On the bright side, my new tamarin wrasse has formed a bond with Sushi! It follows him around like a puppy, and it started eating everything after watching Sushi eat. Such great buds. Definitely a silver lining to all this madness!
Time for another big update! The pyramid butterfly in my QT unfortunately didn't make it. It was diagnosed with ich and most likely an untreatable internal fungal disease. The tilefish, Sushi, that was in the same QT developed flukes on top of the ich I was already treating with copper. I decided to proceed with General Cure while it was in copper. Well… let me tell you, never again! Luckily, Sushi made it through! After another 1.5 weeks, I decided to move Sushi into the DT. The QT wasn't good for it; it got very nervous at night, frantically swimming at the surface. I had to rehome my purple firefish. It and my blue assessor never got along, even though they were QT'd together and placed into the DT at the same time. Once I moved my tilefish into the DT, the assessor completely changed its behavior and started chasing the firefish relentlessly. Anyway, the firefish went into a huge 180-gal tank from a local reefer and has been doing great there. I got two more fish in my QT: a diamond goby — great character and eating since day one, and a yellowtail tamarin wrasse. The wrasse is still very small, and I've had a hard time getting it to eat enough. Pithos crabs! I ordered two of these cool little fellas, and they're already munching lots of algae in my tank. I also got some new corals — mostly zoas and hammers, and my first two torches! My tilefish Sushi really gave me a heart attack the other day! I heard a splash, couldn't find it in the tank, and eventually noticed its tail sticking out of my light mount bracket. It somehow jumped in and got completely jammed out of the water. I was very lucky to hear the splash, and I've since 3D printed inserts for the gap. I'm actually looking for a second tilefish now, most likely a purple one. Also, Sushi is SO hungry — I feed 4–5 times a day, and it always looks starving!
Thought it was time to update this again! What happened since: 1. Got a new banded star. It shares its den with one of my strawberry crabs now. I target feed them both every other day or so, with some reef frenzy and mysis. 2. I failed to quarantine my new leopard wrasse. It arrived in poor condition and, unfortunately, died within 24 hours. 3. I now have two new fish in my quarantine tank: a skunk tilefish and a pyramid butterfly. I really need to talk more about my new tilefish. It's only been a few days since I got him, but I already love him so much. He's like a puppy — he follows my finger, is super curious about everything, and is always looking to jump out of the tank, lol. I get super nervous during feedings since he always pokes his head out of the water. 4. I got a few more corals and started dosing AFR (10ml/day to start), as my parameters were getting uncomfortably low (Alk 6.5, Ca 385, Mg 1200). 5. My new lid from Top Lids finally arrived. Not too happy about it, as the light cutouts were not tight enough for a fish to not jump out. I could put my whole finger through the gap, and had to 3D print a replacement.
Haven't updated this in a while! After my first starry blenny didn't make it, I ordered a quarantined one this time, so it went straight to my display tank. What a night and day difference! It started eating immediately and quickly learned to nibble seaweed off a clip. It's always cruising around, picking algae off rocks and anything else it can find. Such a little fattie. Unfortunately, my two new hermits had to go! They were pretty big, around an inch, and even though I provided lots of different shells (they changed like three times!) and fed them pellets, they bullied my snails and I'm pretty sure I caught one munching on my GSP. I donated them to another reefer. I also got two cleaner shrimps. They're so adorable and always climb onto my hand to try to clean me. The starry blenny gets their services regularly, too. One of the shrimps molted less than a week after I got it. My purple firefish and blue assessor just finished QT and are moving into the display tank tomorrow. They did really well through the entire treatment (copper first, then GC), never stopped eating, and I kept plenty of surface agitation plus an extra bubbler just in case. I bought a PAR meter and dialed my lights to about 100 PAR on the sand bed and 200–250 on the highest rock. I'm slowly ramping up now. I picked up a hammer, GSP, candy cane, duncan, and some zoas, but I'm keeping it low and letting the tank mature a bit more. I really want to cover everything with hammers, torches, and frogspawns — I love how they move! I've been battling diatoms for the past week. The dirty sand is driving me a bit crazy. I've been dosing pods since I started the tank and also phyto. Planning to get more snails and a conch for my CUC this weekend. Even my other half and my rabbit often come to my room and check out what's up :) All in all, this has been an extremely confusing but rewarding experience so far!
Got my first batch of clean up crew yesterday, and this ridiculously adorable pair of strawberry crabs!
Sad update: I lost my first fish. Unfortunately, the Starry Blenny didn't make it, and died 3 days after I received it. I saw it active and eating some during feedings, but it looks like it was already starving for a while before I got it. The other two fish are doing great, and I've started them on copper (1ppm now, slowly increasing). I also got some new non porous decorations, so they have even more hideouts now. Not a huge fan of just PVC pipes!
Starry Blenny and Blue Assessor arrived yesterday from Candy Corals. Beautiful fish! Yesterday, I couldn't find the Blue Assessor and turned everything upside down, double checked all the decorations, overflow, around the tank, etc. Even crawled on the floor for 2 hours to check if it jumped out. Well.. it just casually came out to eat today, like nothing happened! Only a month into this journey and it's already giving me mini heart attacks lol.
My first fish, Purple Firefish is in the QT now. Picked it up at my LFS today. Very curious little guy, immediately ate some frozen Mysis shrimp and then found its little hidey spot right behind the plastic elbow.
Hey everyone! I've had a few FW tanks before, but this one is my first SW one. I'm in Canada, and over the years I've fallen in love with Hawaii — it's always so hard to say goodbye after a trip! My last visit to Maui in March finally gave me the push to start a reef tank. The tank was cycled with dry rock and live sand, doing a fishless cycle with Fritz TurboStart and Dr.Tim's Ammonium Chloride in 10 days.
The journey continues… follow along on the live stream or Reef2Reef.