Still maintaining my link with the forum as my love affair with malawis certainly isn't over.
Have recently changed to marine - but not without some problems. A year of trouble free malawi keeping has been replaced by a constant battle to get things right.
I bought a load of 'live rock' and set the tank up as I would want. Bought a Lionfish and a Moray Eel - within 24 hours the Lionfish was dead and the Moray Eel had escaped through the smallest hole you've ever seen and committed suicide!
The shop checked my water and all was well - they gave me a new fish saying it must have been 'one of those things'. Unfortunately the same thing happened again! Credit to the shop they took the same action again.
This time I decided to go for a couple of hardier Wrasses. That night I was showing my son and when we were looking into a cave I'd formed we saw a very large worm coming out of the largest piece of 'live rock'. This cave was where I also found the dead fish.
I spent time waiting for the worm to come out again and when it did I could see it was brown with red hoops and had a square shaped head with four corners. Following some investigations I identified it as a type of Ribbon Worm and if you look on the internet you're see many video clips of these worms paralysing their prey and then eating them.
My next job was to try and get it out. I was told that if I leave the rock hanging over a bucket for 10 minutes the worm would come out to investigate - I waited an hour and nothing happened. I poured soda water over the rock as this was another suggested solution - again nothing.
So I decided to just throw the rock away and placed it in the garden. I looked at it the next morning (18 hours had elapsed) and there was the worm poking its head out and moving around. I tried to pull it out but instead decapitated it with a mass of purple liquid coming out of its body - not pleasant but the problem is not resolved it appears.
I now have a Lionfish, Moray Eel, couple of small Wrasses, a Boxfish, Harlequin Tusk, Hermit Crab and a Horseshoe Crab which is quite honestly a prehistoric looking thing.
Still got a few issues to iron out but making headway.
Must be honest - I'm missing the hustle and bustle of the Malawi tank but its cost me a fair bit to convert across so I'll be sticking with it for the foreseeable.
