picasso

[KellyKM19]

I watch my tank all the time, I love it so much and its such a stress reliever when you are feeling stressed -- its amazing to me how much personality some fish can have and that is one of the joys of having saltwater fish, they just seem to have so much personality.

My picasso trigger, Pablo has the best personality ever. He begs and its so funny because he follows you wherever you go around the tank. Lately, he has been "digging" holes in the sand. I swear, I think he thinks hes a dog! While I do find this behavior hilarous to watch, its kind of annoying because he makes the tank get "dusty" with the spitting the sand all over the place, not to mention it stirs up the nitrates under the sand...

We do water changes all the time but how can I keep everything in check when he continues every few days to dig almost to the bottom of the glass?
http://i529.photobucket.com/albums/dd334/KellyKM19/Fish/078.jpg

[Elsherst]

Duck tape his fins back so he can't move it with his tail, and some on his mouth so he can't get a mouth full to spit out else where.
I had a large mean damsal that liked to dig to the bottom. I finally got rid of him because of his agression towards everything else in the tank. It also solved the diging problem as well. Eggcrate on the glass with the sand on and in it helps from anything moving the sand around to much.

[KellyKM19]

Getting rid of Pablo is not an option, he is one of my favorites :)... never heard of the eggcrate thing though, thanx!

[Linda C.]

Sweet photo of Pablo!! I love his 'makeup'...you nicely capture his "blue eye shadow and yellow lipstick".

anywhoooo...

I wonder if making the exposed sand area a "rubble zone" would help with your Pablo/nitrate issue.

What if you were to put small chucks of live rock on the sand and limit where Pablo 'did his thing'?

I realize Pablo needs to be a trigger but maybe giving him access to a smaller area could help keep your nitrates down.

I am just making up this suggestion. I didn't hear this from anybody so I don't know if it's ok or not to do to a trigger. Hopefully if it's a bad idea someone will chime in and let us know.

[KellyKM19]

We are going to try what Adam suggested to us to help with the nitrates. Its funny because the are he likes to dig in, I put a bunch of shells and small rocks, etc. so it was like rubble, he just moved the stuff he didn't want there and dug under it, lol..

Mike is hoping to get the sump setup Adam suggested in this weekend. Not sure how long it will take to see if there is any change but hopefully that will help alot. He also suggested another thing, do you have his contact info? I remember the sandbed but I don't remember all the legistics to the tubing...

[Elsherst]

http://www.louversintl.com/images/products/plastic_eggcrate.gif

You can get it at Homedepot or Lowes, and cut it to the size you want. Some use it over their tank to help keep some of the jumpers in the tank but still let airflow and light get through. It's also known as a light diffuser.

[KellyKM19]

? -- you mean to use that in the sand to keep him from diggin? We do have some for the top of the tank, maybe I will use the scraps instead of using egg crate... or is that what is called egg crate? lol, I'm having one of those days!

[Elsherst]

That is egg crate. when the sand is poured on top of it, it stops the sand from moving to much.