My aquarium is was all set up, the lights are on and everything seems to be running pretty well. The initial build post can be here: Waterbox 100.3 build
The only big tweak I have to made in the last weeks is that my Nyos skimmer was not adjusting very well and was sending the bubbles up too high. Some of this was just the skimmer needed the normal break in period. However the skimmer was still acting up on me even after a few days of continuous running. The big adjustment I made was raising the skimmer up one inch t match the manufacturer recommendation. I did this with a little eggcrate stand I found on amazon. It raised the skimmer exactly one inch and the skimmer is now really working well.
I had been patiently waiting to finally get some fish! I made a trip to my local fish store with the intent to get 2 bonded clown fish as the first inhabitants. The store had a few bonded pairs, but I kept coming back to a pair of Longfin Mocha Clown fish. These are captive bred designer clown fish that originated from Sea and Reef Aquaculture and the fishstore had a beautiful pair.
This was information from the Sea and Reef site on the creation of this Longfin Mocha clownfish.
The creation of our Longfin Mocha Clownfish
The mutation that created our longfin clownfish came from a single fish. In December 2013 our Hatchery Manager Brandon Weik was looking into a tank of several thousand Black and White Ocellaris (also called Darwin Ocellaris). He spotted a fish that looked very different than his brothers (all clownfish are born male). It had long flowing fins and was getting beaten up, probably because of its different look. The fish was isolated and later paired up. A story was published about our findings in Reef Builders in April 2014. You can read the article by clicking here.
Our Black and White longfin clownfish was paired up and shortly after the pair started to produce offspring. Unfortunately, less than 1% of the offspring produced displayed the longfin trait. For the last five years the Sea & Reef team has been working tirelessly on increasing the yield of longfin clownfish offspring and producing different variations. While the yield has increased, we are still not able to produce longfin clownfish in very large quantities so expect the release to be somewhat limited.
I brought these two home and started acclimating them to my tank's water.
I'll give these two some time in the tank before seeing what I add next.
