got ethical husbandry?

Chromis’s 90g Acropora tank

Yes I’m hoping it works out to get 3 into the display. If Baybridge ends up with 2-3 that get along well, I’ll take the bird in the hand and just put those in the display. If Baybridge ends up with 1-2 I’ll see if they get along with the anthia I have now.
 
First day that I can say the fathead wound might be better because the red dot is smaller. She has more of a scale hangnail today (hangscale?) which might be the damaged scales sloughing off. In any case she has more energy and is starting to dart faster after food, and her color is good.
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I had trouble finding anything on the fathead where she was bitten. I think she’s out of the woods! She’s eating frozen mysis, calanus, and brine shrimp - just not flake yet. One thing I’m considering is using Felcia’s suggestion of putting garlic in the food she will eat as well as the flake, to create a Pavlov effect so will try the flake.
 
Spiked my alk by accident again, as usual due to a typo in my Apex alk dose schedule that resulted in the doser running continuously. I was able to get a glimpse of how much alk my tank uses because I shut the alk dosing off for a day to let things level out. I normally allow alk to swing 0.6dkH but see it would swing 1.9dKH without dosing. It looks like almost zero alk is used between 12a-6a.
 

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Chromis said:
Spiked my alk by accident again, as usual due to a typo in my Apex alk dose schedule that resulted in the doser running continuously. I was able to get a glimpse of how much alk my tank uses because I shut the alk dosing off for a day to let things level out. I normally allow alk to swing 0.6dkH but see it would swing 1.9dKH without dosing. It looks like almost zero alk is used between 12a-6a.
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This lull in alk consumption during dark periods was mentioned in other forums as well. It's one of the reasons I use the dosing program in Apex for more during the day and less at night...
 
First time I’m feeling like my angry birds acro is going to make it and grow into a colony since I bought it from AquaSD in 11/2019. It looked like it was going to die the first year and then looked, well, angry the second year. Maybe someday it will also get the colors back it had when it arrived
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Other acros look good, the echinata colored back up after I clipped the Vivid confetti back but I need to clip it again soon. Pink Lemonade color is en pointe too, I just love that OG acro. But it’s getting stung by the tenuis next to it so gotta clip that one soon too.

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Chromis said:
First time I’m feeling like my angry birds acro is going to make it and grow into a colony since I bought it from AquaSD in 11/2019. It looked like it was going to die the first year and then looked, well, angry the second year. Maybe someday it will also get the colors back it had when it arrived
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Other acros look good, the echinata colored back up after I clipped the Vivid confetti back but I need to clip it again soon. Pink Lemonade color is en pointe too, I just love that OG acro. But it’s getting stung by the tenuis next to it so gotta clip that one soon too.

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Is that urchin sporting some Utter Chaos? Lol
 
Sharky, the alpha black axil chromis, died last night. I felt a little better knowing he spent the final moments in a bunch of acros (at least that’s where I found him) rather than e.g. glued against an overflow.
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He started hiding and eating less a few weeks or a month ago so I gave the tank a couple rounds of medicated fish food in case it was internal uronema, but it didn’t seem to help. If this happened again I would feed them exclusively medicated food again, but feed until the fish is better (maybe 2-3 weeks?) instead of just 4-5 days at a time. I was worried the meds could affect the corals but it didn’t seem to (do anything) so I’d be bolder next time. Also I’d start with the meds earlier since once a fish slows its eating, you can’t get the meds to them through food. I wouldn’t expect a chromis to die of old age after 4 years so I think maybe the way I used the meds was underwhelming. The other fishes didn’t seem affected but their energy levels did seem to pick up after the treatment, but maybe that happens anytime you do something to assist their immune systems or switch to mostly frozen food instead of flake.

I’m going to have to post on humblefish and send a note to Seachem to understand if I’m using the fish medication correctly. For example, it’s not clear if you mix the meds with the binder and then add it to the frozen food, or just throw everything in together.

Finally, sorry to post another fish snuff photo but…
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Coral reefer said:
What kind of life span is expected for them?
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8-15 years, according to Live Aquaria. I can’t find any more scientific source of info on their lifespan though. And I am curious to hear stories from reefers on how long their chromises lived. What’s the longest you know of one living in an aquarium?
 
Do we assume the ones we see at stores are less than 2 years old? I’m not sure how long I’ve seen them last in a tank. Hard to keep track sometimes. I’ve seen them get pretty big tho.
 
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Updated tank shots. Couple issues I’m having are the small patch of GHA on the top of one rock - it’s been a perpetual problem for years because my yellow tang won’t go that high in the water column. Every few months I scrub the 4” hair algae patch off with a tooth brush, but lately it’s been threatening to kill the acro frag in the middle of it (which also blocks urchins from squeezing in to the space) and since there really isn’t room for another acro colony up there anymore, I’m going to try moving the acro frag somewhere else, leaving the patch open for urchins to graze in, and see if that gets rid of the algae. And, I’m going to add fluconazole. Because if it does anything to weaken GHA it will help in the fight.

The other issue is two acros growing on the back wall tend to catch wads of algae in their branches. Again, my yellow tang won’t venture up there and urchins can’t reach/crabs can’t seem to scrabble up the smooth side of the tank to get into those colonies to remove the algae. I neglected to clear the algae long enough that the acro tissue underneath died and now the algae is anchored to the skeleton and not going anywhere. One of the drawbacks of acros on the back wall I guess.
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In other updates, bubblebath unicorn has grown all the way under its perch and over many vermatid snails but still won’t sprout a single branch. On the other hand, Angry Birds is suddenly growing after hibernating for two years:

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It still looks just blue and green though, so still not where I’d like it to be.
 
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