Now for the fun part... the new fish!
I'd mentioned before that I got a Blue Jaw Trigger last week (Tuesday)... he'd been hiding in his PVC pipe for the remainder of the week (although eating very well). Here's his favorite PVC pipe...
So I figured I would stop by and get him some friends, maybe enticing him to come out more (which actually worked- he comes out consistently for feeding time and some other times throughout the day).
First I found a Blue Flasher Wrasse... actually a very pretty (and cheap) flasher and not the typical orange coloration you usually find with most of the flashers. It has a nice purple/magenta look with some reds. Here's some crappy QT pics...
Also got a Bangaii Cardinalfish... always loved their unique look and figured it would be a cool fish to have (never had one before).
The last fish I got was
almost a no brainer... I've ALWAYS loved this fish, but knew how difficult they can be. I have to be honest, my success (although short-term so far) with my Potter's Angel boosted my confidence a little, and the fact that I've done so much research on these fish and have observed them while diving with them dozens of times, boosts my confidence just a little more (although I am by no means confident at this point, I'm just
slightly optimistic I have a better chance than some). So I decided that if I found a fairly small to medium one that was eating, I would pick it up
immediately... as luck would have it, I stopped by Tongs in Fountain Valley (where I got all of the other fish in QT except the Bangaii) and saw two in one of their larger tanks. Both of them looked really good, one slightly larger than the other, and apparently they had just got them in earlier that week (since I didn't see them when I picked up the Blue Jaw Trigger earlier that same week).
So they passed the eye-test, now was the time to see if they were actually eating... in went the frozen food and
BOTH of them were eating. So I decided to take the plunge and get the smaller of the two (probably about 4-inches in length).
Here is my new Moorish Idol within an hour of putting it in the QT...
Immediately after taking that photo, I wanted to see if any of the fish would eat, and, to my surprise, the only one that did was the Moorish Idol! Although it would only eat the frozen brine shrimp I had put in (I also put in some Mysis), it seemed like it was making up for lost time because it was eating pretty good.
On Sunday, I wanted to see if it would eat anything else, so I put a clip of Nori (soaked in garlic) and a slice of scallop (also soaked in garlic) rubberbanded to a rock, and it seemed to pick at both, although it was difficult to see if it actually ingested anything. Although once the Nori pieces were floating in the water column, I did notice it eating those pieces, so I'm kind of assuming that it is ingesting at least some of the Nori.
Here are some shots I got of it cruising the QT over the weekend...
And my favorite pic so far...
I know the success rate with these guys are not great, but I hope that by getting one that is eating, and quarantining in a relatively larger tank (60 gallons) with some live rock from my prior set-up will help with any success.
My plan is to continue feeding 3 to 4 times a day (once in the morning before work, then 2-3 times after I get home from work), while also clipping some Nori and rubberbanding a small scallop piece to a rock every morning (removing them when I get home and do a small waterchange to pick up any pieces floating around or sitting on the bottom). Once I can get it to eat more than just Brine (although vitamin-enriched, still not ideal) on a regular basis, I'll begin treatment with Cupramine but very slowly and probably at the lowest recommended effective dosage (around .40 instead of .50).
Wish me luck and thanks for looking,
Chad
