40 years is a great accomplishment Paul, congratulations. It must be amazing to have a tank with such diverse life in it. Thank you for sharing this with everyone!
Well it seems that the flatworms are leaving. I am not sure where they are going but most of them are gone as I knew they would be. I didn'y need any flatworm exit, six line wrasses or grenades and the tank is not crashing. They are just geting bored I guess.
There is no need to go into a panic and buy all the products on the market for these events. I am going to miss them, The ones that are left are very thin, I guess they are starving. I don't know but I assume something else will appear. I hope so, as that is the beauty of this hobby.
Maybe I will get an infestation of manta rays
To update my tank seems to be doing wery well. The only thing I notice is that my 4 SPS corals are growing very fast as my LPS seem to be shrinking a little. This happens when you mix the two types of corals and I may start to introduce more SPS but I know what will happen to the LPS which I kind of prefer. At one time, years ago the tank was all SPS. I get bored and need to change it around every so many years.
The tank looks no where near what it looked like a couple of years ago before I lost most of the corals to a make up water problem but it looks pretty good, not as good as many tanks on here but it is the way I like it.
I forgot about this thread. This month the tank made it to 42 years and is doing well. Most of the fish are spawning including the 19 year old fireclowns, the threadfin cardinals and the mandarins. The clown gobies look like they will spawn soon but I am not sure. I have a pair of shrimp gobies with one commensual shrimp but the female is tiny so she needs some time to grow. The SPS and LPS are growing nicely and the acropora have sprouted up in many places as did the montis. Gorgonians are still large and when a piece breaks off it usually grows on a rock someplace. The copperband is doing nicely and I have another smaller one that I bought real cheap with ich, but she is cured now and I will add her in a couple of days.
There is a school of threadfin cardinals that do nicely. I still feed every day live blackworms, clams, mysis and new born brine.
Spawning mandarins
Shrimp with gobi
Short video
And of course I got a new Grandaughter 8 months ago.
Lets hope not. I would like it to go another 8 years until it is 50. Then I may be old enough to give it away because if I live that long I will be really old and my wife and I will be doing more traveling either on our boat or a cruise ship but either way, I won't be able to keep the tank. We also may move to a smaller place.
Are you ready for the flounder season?I hope you guys get to see everywhere you want to go,I think i been more places on the water than land.I always enjoy watching the cruise ships passing me by in ambrose you can see the people looking at us fishing I always wonder where they are going.
I am ready for flounders, but I usually go down and spear them. Now with the new laws it really doesn't pay any more so I don't dive for them much. But I used to get loads of them that way.
My boat is getting ready, I painted the outdrives and soon will break out the wax.
Here is the first picture of both my shrimp, gobies. The tiny one grew about 1/4 larger since I got him and now they both live in the burrow with the shrimp.
I hope to see some spawns after she grows a little.