A quick sequel to the road to the rebuild. Just wanted to give an update before I would leave it alone for a weekend (not at home, so no idea how things will evolve in that time). Also tell a bit what I expect for each creature in the new environment.
For the support in the new version I had bought a reefrack and some PVC tubes. I already cut one of the tables out of the reefrack, but have some trouble resizing the tubes because the saw I have…sucks. More on that some other time when I have more to show, but here is one small glimpse of what I have so far.


The Fish

Still no sign of the angelfish. If he really is dead I think I will look for a new one some day. His bright colour was really something worth looking at.

The oldest fish in the aquarium, the Salarias will hopefully like the new way everything will be set up. Hopefully the algae will grow more after putting in some fresh bacteria and he will have more food.


The foxface will hopefully have his own hiding place after the rebuild. He now either hides with the clownfish or in/under the toadstool mushroom. With more larger caves I hope he will feel more comfortable.


For the Blue Tang I expect that he will be more visible when everything is done. There should be a lot of caves, but they will be more open, so you can spot fishes easier. At least, that is what I hope.


And I hope the clownfish will have a cave for their own again. And the plan is to buy a new anemone, so hopefully they live in symbioses with that one. Still have the hope that we have baby clownfish some day, but I think that is a bit wishful thinking :p


The firefish will still have enough hiding spaces, just hope he shows more often. He did yesterday for a picture luckily


The Corals

The buttons and polyps will have a nice location at the very top, where I hope they will build a sort of a bridge. They will have a lot of light there, and not too much water flow. So the idea is to have a bridge between rock pillars filled with polyps. All three polyp types will be located at the top is the idea. The button and colony polyps are already located high, but also the star polyps will be put there…if they manage to stay open for another week.


I don’t think I will be moving the toadstool mushroom a lot. He is doing so well where he is now, just want to try and move him away from the glass a little, so I can clean the glass easier.
If I find the small fragment again I will give him a place on one of the sides towards the polyps. And maybe, just maybe, if I don’t find the fragment I will create a new one.


If it makes it I want to give it a spot on the side of the wall towards the polyps. If it doesn’t make it I want to get some new to put there. But like I said earlier, it depends on how it looks if I will put it back in or not.


The mushrooms will also keep their location as much as possible. The idea is to put it on the ground level between the two tables. I want to put some more loose mushrooms around it so that the whole separation of the two tables will consist of mushrooms in all sorts of colours. It looks nice in my mind, hopefully I can make it come true


The Kenya tree will move up a little bit. I want to put it on one of the tables to make sure it has a little bit more light. I think it will do good.

Invertebrates

No sign of the peppermint shrimps, just like a lot of the inverts. If I don’t find them I don’t think I will buy new ones, maybe if the sea anemones keep popping up, but if not then no new peppermint shrimps.

The sand shifting sea star on the other hand is one I will replace if he turns out to be gone. Then I hope that this one lives longer. Also will put a new heart sea urchin in to support the sea star.

The blue sea star I’m not sure about. If I will replace it when it turns out he is gone, I liked the bright blue colour, but he died so quickly and easy…if he died of course.

Then the big scare I had yesterday, the tube worm. Came home finding his crowns separated from the tube, just lying there. Fully stressed out I started internet and googled anything about the tube worm, seems it can separate his crown and replace it with a new one within a few weeks. I hope it’s that, and not that something attacked it or something.


Like I said yesterday, I’m very happy with my little dwarf red tip hermit. Yesterday he was walking over the rocks, so I got a shot of him. But he does great work cleaning, so one or two more will be a good possibility.


The fan worms are hard to preserve, they are everywhere, my hope is that they will reappear after the rebuilding and show better then they did before.

The Bulb anemone is still gone. If he has died I will replace him with a new one, maybe one more, a different kind. But let’s just hope he didn’t die and is just hiding somewhere.

The cleaner shrimp shed his skin again this morning, he is doing it just a little to often in my opinion. Hopefully in the new situation it won’t happen as often, because I don’t want him to die also. Couldn’t get a picture of him again, but I think he will have a nice place in the new environment, with more and bigger caves.

The new sea anemones are not welcome in the new environment. The rock will get a good treatment before putting it back in the aquarium. So I hope this is the last picture ever seen of the sea anemones.


Plants (Algae)

The Halimeda will be removed from one of the rocks, but will stay on other rocks…if it survives the rebuilding it can regain a bit. I like it, it looks nice, as long as it doesn’t grow into a plague.


The grape algae will be cut down a big part, but I will not remove it entirely. Maybe I will return both algae species between the two big rock pillars, so they can cover the inside where coral will probably not grow.


Still trying to find out what the balloon shaped algae is, but I think I will remove it before I put the rocks back after the rebuild. I don’t want that which I don’t know what it is or does.

Next time more about how it will look in theory. I also hope to make some movies to show some more how it looked before the aquarium was rebuild.