From: pprior@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Paul A Prior)
Subject: Selling Reef Continued...
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 00:49:11 GMT

Several people have questioned why I am getting rid of my "baby."
 
Well, the answer is a complicated one.  The decision, which is still
not 100% final in my mind, was set into motion when I had a tradgedy
this week.  I had bought a large ritteri anemone for my two clownfish
who had been ignoring a bubble tip for about 6-7 months.  The good
news was that the clowns loved it and immediately bonded with it.  The
bad news was that the damn anemone climbed down underneath the egg
crate I have suspending my live rock.  It then proceded to rot and
die.  When I went to bed it had only a little bit of tissue loose and
I decided not to take it out given that it was a nice specimen and
also that I didn't really want to take out all the live rock to get to
it!  Well, by the next day it =really= looked bad.  I decided to take
it out and proceded to take the live rock out.  By the time I got down
to the anemone I had stirred up quite a bit of tissue.  I now know I
made a big mistake by not removing all the animals (fish) before I
did this, but I didn't know how bad it would be.  Basically by the
time I finished removing the anemone within five minutes all the fish
(except the clowns) were floating and breathing labored.  I tried to
remove the fish as quickly as possible but the darn things kept
exerting what little energy they had to evade my net and lodge
themselves under the remaining live rock.  After MUCH swearing I
managed to get about 1/2 of the fish out.  I sent a friend rushing to
a pet store to get some Amquel (which I would recommend EVERYONE to
have on hand now!) which I dumped into the tank but by that time it
was too late.  I was really taken aback by how quickly the tank could
go from very healthy to death.  Although I tried my best to keep the
fish alive, I lost all the fish in the tank with the exception of the
two clowns (kind of ironic...they insisted on eating the anemone flesh
the whole time I was chasing the other fish. They never seemed to be
phased by the whole ordeal...).  I was especially stressed by all of
this because i had kept only hearty species in this tank with the goal
of minimal losses (and had been very successful till this
happened).
 
None of the inverts seemed to be affected.  I only have a few in
there, however, and since I keep only hearty animals (no hard
corals...) I suppose I'm lucky.  The tridacna has never looked better,
same goes for the leather coral and the other anemone.
 
Anyway, basically my budget does not currently allow for repopulating
the tank and I was scraping my budget just to assemble the tank as it
was (all of this was done by eating macaroni and cheese to save money
from my financial aid)...thus my thoughts to allow someone else to
take it over.
 
I haven't decided on a price yet.  I know I put a lot of money into it
and if I only get low-ball offers I'll just hang on to it (two small
clownfish in a 150 gallon tank is kind of a unique tank!).  For those
of you who asked about prices I am only interested in selling the tank
as a whole.  IF you are still interested, email me back and we'll
chat.
 
BTW, one thing that was positive out of all this was seeing my protein
skimmer in full action.  It produced some =seriously= nasty stuff even
though I had the ozone cranked all of the way up.  It normally pulls
only a minimal amount of effluent out of the water, which has always
had me wondering whether or not it was working.  I keep a very clean
tank, though, so at least I learned that the darn thing can kick into
gear.
 
I know there are several people in the Ohio area that are avid
fishkeepers and I would VERY much like to get this to someone on the
net before I advertise it in the local paper.  I don't invision myself
selling it to someone who has no clue about saltwater tanks and
doesn't want to learn.
 
Thanks,
 
Paul

-- 
--------pprior@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu----(614) 621-8240----------------
Paul A. Prior    Ban anchors, not reef tanks   "With friends like this,   
3rd year medical student		          who needs anemones?"
The Ohio State U. College of Medicine   Tobacco Kills- Please don't smoke!
Newsgroups: rec.aquaria