Jane and I determined on Tuesday to frag the very large (nearly 2′) hammer coral in our marine tank—because it had grown up against the glass and took half our 54 gallon tank. We prepared: we got buckets (polystyrene), a small saw for the coral, found a jar of carbon—check—to calm down the corals once a wounded coral started spitting. And we had also—more on this later—ordered some new kitchen cabinet top—because the old one is a time-consuming mess. (More on it when we start trying to take it apart and will be getting water from the bathtub faucet until we get it all back.) Quite a day on Monday. But Monday was a good day.
Tuesday wasn’t too bad. We got into the tank in short sleeves and moved out to water-filled buckets any coral that could be impacted by falling bits of other coral. The hammer coral proved impenetrable by the saw—but fragile when it came to being lifted. It broke in every which direction, leaving us wildly trying to get its pieces into buckets.
Then we had to catch the 5″ rabbitfish, the assassin who had done in 5 other fish: he is venomous, seriously so, but not fatally, and we are not willing to get jabbed by one of his spines. We nabbed him and took him downstairs to the sump that serves the tank, so he could stay overnight in the weed down there.
We cleaned the walls of the tank with a razor blade, and replaced the corals from the buckets back into the tank, having to find places for the broken hammer, which had so many heads our tank ended up looking like the Rose Parade.
We’d done our days work. Except I’m also writing the ending for the current book.
Wednesday deserves another post.