Aquarium Madness

Well, it’s probably not so much a “Brigade”. My clownfish brigade consists of 2 very hardy clownfish. These guys (maybe guy/girl, not really sure), are hardy as hell. They’ve lived through the worst in my tank experiences, and are still healthy.

Just recently, over the last few days, one of my 2 clownfish started to look like it was probably going to die of old age.

There was really nothing wrong with it, other than the fact that it had a hard time swimming and was starting to just sink and lay on the rocks. This particular clownfish looked like it was on it’s last leg. I mentally prepared myself for it’s death.

I have some mixed feelings about these 2 particular clownfish that I own

I adopted them from a Petco, meaning somebody else had brought them in. I got them for free.

Speaking of Petco, I’m not necessarily fond of getting fish from Petco. That’s one of the few places where you can go and look at the showcase of poor quality fish and I always hear horror stories about buying fish from Petco.

But, I digress. Back to my mixed feelings about these two clownfish. I like them, but they are aggressive and have been responsible for some chaos in my 75 gallon saltwater tank.

I saw the Clownfish both attack and kill a cleaner shrimp

They chase my firefish and keep it from venturing too far from it’s cave. They made a foxface jump out of the tank because they stressed it out and chased it around often. I’m also pretty sure they attacked and killed my Angelfish, when I found it dead it looked like it had been attacked and tore up a bit. Pretty hardcore.

They don’t go after the blue tang, the tang fights back and has their respect.

Now that the chaos has settled, the tank seems balanced

But after all that, I though the cause of the chaos was going to suddenly die of natural causes, leaving me to wonder whether putting up with all the chaos was worth it. But, the clownfish didn’t die. The clownfish that looked like it was on it’s deathbed is now once again swimming around in the tank looking all healthy. These two clownfish will probably last forever, they are the most resilient fish I have ever owned.

Now I have to figure out what to do about getting the 2 clownfish into a different tank environment. I think they need to pretty much have a tank to themselves, the territorial little bastards that they are. Fun stuff.

Not too long of a story.

The 75 gallon saltwater aquarium that I have right now was originally owned by a business. I was a part owner of the business. When I left the business part of the buyout agreement was that I got to keep the aquarium. Sweet deal.

I continued to operate out of the same office for a while longer, I didn’t have to move the aquarium yet. I just had to feed the inhabitants and do the regular maintenance stuff. It was easy to do since I was at the office much of the time anyways.

After I moved out of that particular office I was forced to move the aquarium to a different location. Moving a 75 gallon aquarium is not fun. I moved it to my apartment.

A short few months later I had to move out of my apartment (long story). I had just moved this 75 gallon beast and now had to do it again. So I did.

It’s now been in my home studio/office for almost a year. A 75 gallon saltwater aquarium is a nice feature to have in a room that is only the size of a bedroom. It fits the room very nicely. I like having the aquarium in that room. No natural light is permitted in that room either, so it is easy to control light levels on the tank.

Yep. That’s the story.