DAY 48

Once again, these are photos of Chloe and Sally before they passed on.

DAY 47

I bought a Yellow Polyps Coral for the office and left the rock in my home aquarium without first dipping it. I was complacent and almost had to pay for it heavily.

Whilst checking out the coral later, I found some creature peeking out from the rock. I took a tweezer to poke at it but it retracted several times. So I had no choice but to take the rock out and dip it in a container of freshwater.

To my horror of horror, after several minutes, a 5 cm long Mantis Shrimp emerged from the rock. I was so freaked out and dared not put my finger within close range of the creature. It is not known as the thumb splitter for no reason, I thought.

The following day, I brought it back to the office and left it in a small of salt water. I left it over the weekend and when I came back the following Monday, it was still alive. It is amazing how much will this creature had. So I gave it to a staff who had a torch for such strange creatures. The ending was, I heard this creature didn't make it in the end.

DAY 48

These are some photos of Chloe and Sally before they died. The Goniopora or Flower Pot Coral opened up more than what is on the last photo.

An observation which I didn't mention in the earlier posts is I noticed the GSP on the right does not seemed to be as luminous green as before and looks more brown now. I guess this means the lighting is insufficient?

DAY 46

Much has happened since the last post and it is a long story. To cut things short, my old Fujitsu laptop was dying, so I got myself a new Sony Vaio laptop yesterday and I am now posting from it.

Anyway, much has changed to my aquarium and the photos shown here are no longer updated. Just looking at these photos, I have to say that I replaced the OF 3 HOB filter with a Atman HF-0600 filter because  it has a surface skimmer when drawing in water through the inlet tube and the compartment is more spacious. However, I hate it now that the inlet tube is sticking too far out into my tank and obstructs the view. I also added the Tunze Nano Osmolator as an auto-top up for water so that when I go for my upcoming trip for 7 days, it will refill the water for me without me having to worry too much. I was running out of real estate area in my tank, so I took out the Boyu wavemaker since the currents appear too strong and blew everything in a haphazard manner. These are the only equipment addition and changes.

In terms of lifestock, I have to admit that I added a cute Clownfish Chloe and a Six-Line Wrasse Sally but both fishes perished. I have decided not to add any fish for the time being until I am back from the trip.

As for corals etc, I added the following which I will post on another day:

• Stick/Tree Polyp
• branching whitish Goniopora
• frag of luminous green and pink Ricordea mushrooms
• plate of mixed Zoas
• piece of brown Candy Cane which somehow broke into 2 and I brought 1 to the office
• rock of luminous Green Star Polyps which has not opened since day 1 on 19 Feb 13. I didn't know it has been 7 days until now.

Looking at these photos, somehow I must say I find the actual tank display looks better in person than on camera but I will strive to post better photos next time.

DAYS 44-46

Farewell Claudia! These are the last photos of you. Till now, I still do not know why you did it.

The Super Suns opened up so beautifully last night. That was the best thing that happened after Claudia's death.

DAY 43

It is with great sadness that I announce the demise of Claudia. I found her on the floor when I came back from work earlier. Did something spook her? Otherwise, why did she jump out of the tank when she was behaving so well all these time? She is still very small, young, has been eating well and was in good health. Sigh, what a pity.

When I saw Chris the other day, the exoskeleton was on the sponge and 3 of the Sexy Shrimps were teasing it apart. Chris the Skunk Cleaner Shrimp has been moulting quite regularly compared to Felicia the Fire Shrimp. Coco's twin crowns are also getting bigger each day. I brought the Daisy Polyp to the office yesterday and rescaped the layout yesterday.

Anyway, looking at these photos, I feel very dissatisfied because the colours shown are so dull. It lacks shades of blue, green and yellow. By the way, the camera did not reproduce all the colours truly in the photos.