Moving fish...

[Greatwhite]

OK, this was a VERY dumb mistake on my part, caused by a long day mowing 2 lawns, and being rushed back to my "new" house...

My fish have been living at my old house for a month while we were getting this place ready.  I have been so busy with renovations and painting that I just haven't had time to do the big move.  Well, I finally got my office set up in such a way that the aquarium is going to be in a great spot...

So today, I zipped over to the old house and mowed the jungle in the back yard down.  I just stuck all my live rock in bins, covered with water, and went after the fish.  The water was cloudy, so it was very hard to target any one fish in particular with the net.  I managed to get my 2 clowns together, and my tang, and the rest were hiding at the back of the tank in the dust cloud.

I was finally able to wrangle my Mandarin into a corner, and low & behold, an Anthias and Chromis decided to hop into the net with him.  SO I stuck them all in one ziplock bag.  And that was where I went wrong.

I remember reading a while back that Mandarins have a mucous coating that they "shed" when they are threatened.  I have a feeling that the mucous MAY be toxic, but I am not sure.  What I do know is - if another fish is trying to breath, and they get the mucous in their gills - they die.  So ya.. I'm down one Anthias and a blue Chromis.  The Mandarin and everyone else is fine though.

(all my other fish were caught and bagged seperately...)

BTW.. one good thing about moving everything is that it gives a good opportunity for a scrubbin' of the rock...  I knew I had a LITTLE BIT of bubble algae, and my emerald crabs have NEVER eaten any.  But after pulling the rocks, I saw that I had ALOT more...  Lots of time was spent popping those little bubbles off the rock, and they went down the drain followed by a maniacal laugh.

I'm sure that I will have more in the rocks, so will have to buy a whole herd of Emerald crabs when Fish Tail reopens! (hint hint... Emerald Crab super-sale? Anyone???)