Today is a day of mixed (but mostly exciting) news!
In addition to being one of the
@noopsyche K7 V3 winners, I'm also going to START THE NEW BUILD today! Big thanks to one of my favorite people for hooking me up with the RSR 250.
Good news! My gimpy chromis that hasn't really moved off the sandbed since I got the replacement 40B up started swimming upward last night, and this morning is swimming against/on a rock ledge. I hope this means he's healing -- whatever physical or emotional trauma has had him down.
Sad news. The CUC I was so stoked on turned out to be $#!tty. The snails were half dead (discovered after following this vendor's specific acclimation instructions and dumping all twelve billion of them in the tank), one emerald crab was DOA, and the other is either injured or deformed, as half of his legs don't work, and he can barely move his arms/claws. He couldn't right himself from being face-first in the sand, and also can't manage to get himself to food. I don't know what to do with him because he'll surely starve to death. I've got him in an isolation tank with a few rocks and have been throwing a few pellets in. I'm hoping he'll Lazarus, because there's no humane way to deal with him right now other than watch and wait.
Also from this vendor, I received a pom pom crab without poms. He said he'll refund me if I MAIL THE CRAB BACK. Why does he want me to send him what will surely be a dead crab by then for a measly $18? Poms have super tiny claws, and the anemones they hold are what they use to catch food in the water column. I'm afraid he, too, will likely perish.
MORE BUMMER NEWS: I think my sand-sifting sea star is dying. It didn't move much yesterday, and at night I thought it was dead so I went to retrieve it, and there is still a tiny amount of life in it. Again, do I have to watch these creatures die? I know these stars can be hard to keep alive, but I thought he'd have plenty to eat in my sand bed.
Exciting news! My version of The
@Eagle_Steve Nem Canon has been set up since about 3pm yesterday. No signs of my fat-bottomed BTA yet, but hopefully it'll come out soon. Whites will be coming on in about 20 minutes, so hopefully that helps. I don't want to have to blast, credit card, or dangle to get it to release its grasp on the rock. My RFA moved in right across from the BTA, so it moved above the sponge last night and should be easy to transfer.
Sad news. My YWG, who I lovingly named Uncle Marv after my grumpy late uncle, is also dying. He came out yesterday for the first time in a bit (maybe day 2 of the replacement 40B being up). His eyes are completely white/translucent, and it almost looks like he has a hole in the side of his face. He was also doing big gasps with his mouth. I was going to transfer him to isolation, but he was between my two nems and I didn't get to him before he hid again.
After I saw Uncle Marv I immediately tested all of my water parameters and they are all the exact same they were when I tested two days ago. Everything has been really stable and consistent. So I don't know if he got accosted by something, is starving to death (I always chuck veggie pellets into his cave), or is sick.
Needless to say, I'll be moving him and the star to the isolation ward with the crippled emerald.
It's a rainy weekend in Utah, which means I might be rinsing my sand in the rain tomorrow. I finally got a dolly for my Brute, and have another coming Monday, so I'll be setting up my water station downstairs (thank GOD). I've been filling up 5-gallon buckets of RODI in my bathroom tub (which saved me from an overflow more than once), waddling them down the stairs, then sloshing them into the Brute. Like a savage. Haha.
I'm procrastinating moving a big-butt piece of furniture so I can actually get building. I'm going to have to wake up my grouchy son to help me, and that has been my least favorite part of the day for about 10 of his 18 years. LOL.
Stay tuned for *shiny new stuff*!
