I started my first salt water aquarium in my parents' basement as a teenager. It was the 1980s and the SOP at the time for saltwater fishkeeping was sterile tanks stocked with bleached coral heads. When I went away to college, I left the care and feeding of this fish only tank to my father (who had kept freshwater fish for many years and hooked me on the hobby as a small child).
Predictably, there was a crash and all of the tank's inhabitants were wiped out (no doubt as a result of my father's overzealous need to feed the fish constantly). During one summer vacation (circa 1993), I cleaned out the 29 gallon tank and restocked it (but at a much smaller bioload that I figured Dad could feed less aggressively). The restocked tank had two Tomato Clowns, a Royal Gramma and an Australian Orange Tail Blue Damselfish. Filtration was provided by an enormous Eheim canister filter (designed for a 55 gallon tank) and several powerheads attached to an ancient undergravel filtration system designed to promote "bacterial filtration" as it was then called.
Fast forward to August 2010. I'm happy to report that the Tomato Clowns and the Royal Gramma are still alive and well. My father still overfeeds them (resulting in Cyano spreading across portions of the coral and rockwork) and I doubt he's ever done a water change in his life (although he does replace evaporation with freshwater). The lighting is also substandard-- meaning he only purchases new bulbs if the old ones start to flicker or fail to turn on.
Amazingly, the tank appears to operate quite happily on the principal of benign neglect. Whenever I visit (usually three or four times per year around holidays and birthdays), I try to do a partial water change and change the filter. There was a time when I held out hope that the clowns would spawn but I doubt that will ever happen given the absence of ideal conditions. I have observed nesting behavior, including cleaning a special place on the rocks and defending that tiny space from the Royal Gramma; however, Dad's never reported ever seeing actually spawn. As these fish are pushing 17 or 18 years old, I was wondering whether anyone has experience with longer life expectancies in their reef fish? (The damsel died about four years ago).
Predictably, there was a crash and all of the tank's inhabitants were wiped out (no doubt as a result of my father's overzealous need to feed the fish constantly). During one summer vacation (circa 1993), I cleaned out the 29 gallon tank and restocked it (but at a much smaller bioload that I figured Dad could feed less aggressively). The restocked tank had two Tomato Clowns, a Royal Gramma and an Australian Orange Tail Blue Damselfish. Filtration was provided by an enormous Eheim canister filter (designed for a 55 gallon tank) and several powerheads attached to an ancient undergravel filtration system designed to promote "bacterial filtration" as it was then called.
Fast forward to August 2010. I'm happy to report that the Tomato Clowns and the Royal Gramma are still alive and well. My father still overfeeds them (resulting in Cyano spreading across portions of the coral and rockwork) and I doubt he's ever done a water change in his life (although he does replace evaporation with freshwater). The lighting is also substandard-- meaning he only purchases new bulbs if the old ones start to flicker or fail to turn on.
Amazingly, the tank appears to operate quite happily on the principal of benign neglect. Whenever I visit (usually three or four times per year around holidays and birthdays), I try to do a partial water change and change the filter. There was a time when I held out hope that the clowns would spawn but I doubt that will ever happen given the absence of ideal conditions. I have observed nesting behavior, including cleaning a special place on the rocks and defending that tiny space from the Royal Gramma; however, Dad's never reported ever seeing actually spawn. As these fish are pushing 17 or 18 years old, I was wondering whether anyone has experience with longer life expectancies in their reef fish? (The damsel died about four years ago).
