When I came back from the mountains (16 hours journey back and forth, 4 hours work, 1 hour hanging around), I realized I’d been gone long enough to come home to a couple of surprises. One was Sam’s longtime buddy, family friend, brother DeMolay and Maia’s godfather was at the house for a visit. The other surprise was our friend Jimmy from the marine fish exporter had been to the house with more denizens for our tanks. There are no pictures of our kumpare, although he did show us such lovely photos of his new daughter Fatima. There are however, as you may expect, pictures of the new fish.

Sam had put the new fish into the quarantine tank, where they will stay between 2-4 weeks before being transferred to the main tank, after making sure they weren’t sick or too stressed out from the move.

This is the quarantine tank, where you can see (from top left: a Golden Coris Wrasse, a Racoon Butterfly, just below the butterfly is a black Longnose Tang. Under the shell-shaped rock on the left is a very shy Regal Angel, to the right is a Flagfin Butterfly Angel, further to the right is a smaller Regal Angel, and a huge and very flighty Harlequin Tusk Wrasse. (See full post for closeups, and photos of the main tank.)

Harlequin Tusk Wrasse

Flagfin Butterfly Angel

Black Longnose Tang

Half Black Angel and Longnose Tang

Main Tank Pics

Nudibranch checking out a Featherduster

Rusty Angel & Racoon Butterfly peeking over Featherduster with Choco Chip Starfish

And here is a shot of the most camera-shy fish we have, the Yellowtail Damsel, who darts away the minute he sees something shiny approaching the tank. I had to put the camera on camouflage, wrapping it in a dark shirt with just the retracting lens exposed, which is how I managed to take these two shots. Some people might mistake the Yellowtail Damsel for the Hippo Tang (Dory from Finding Nemo), but that’s understandable because they both have blue bodies and yellow tails. A closer look of course will tell you they are two different kinds of fish.

This morning I got down to the monthly business of cleaning out the tank surroundings (which is separate from cleaning the inside of the tank, a time-consuming task Sam has taken upon himself), washing off the salt deposits and algae growth from the glass covers. For those of you who may think taking care of a saltwater tank (let alone two!) is a pain, we would like to tell you that it’s not. It won’t take more than three hours total out of your time in a week, especially if you do external tank cleaning (10-15 minutes tops) at least every other day.

And the rewards of course, are immeasurable.

(Note: Two of the best sources for fish availability and information are The Marine Center and Marine Depot Live. Check out this quick visual guide to fish compatibility. While we no longer buy our fish from any store in Cartimar or online, we find these two websites a great help for this rare chance we have been given to care for these creatures.)

Updated March 11 - even more fish!

Striped Dogface Puffer - Arothron manilensis

Dwarf Zebra Lionfish - Dendrochirus zebra

Similar stories

• Our New Housemates (0)
• New Photo Blog! (0)
• The Lion’s Den (2)