75 gallon tank

Came home today and was missing my little clownfish, Waggles. Looked all around and found him, turned into jerky, laying on top of the baseboard heater.

He was the third permanent (I say permanent because I didn't know any better than to follow a particular fish store's advice and used damsels to cycle the tank when it was first set up...sorry.) fish in the 29. (Purple firefish 1st-added Nov 8, 2008; Wheeler's Watchman Goby 2nd-added Dec 3, 2008 and Waggles was added Dec 13, 2008). He/she was always healthy and happy, would eat flakes from my finger tips, attacked the pipette when feeding frozen food, and was in general a joy to watch. Model citizen of the tank. Never bothered any of the other fish as long as they stayed away from his "tree" of xenia (first and biggest clump in the tank). He/she'd been with us for a while.

I guess I've been lucky to have gotten by this long with an open top.

So the fish tally isn't so good. In nearly 4 years I've had:
(1)Several yellowtail and one domino damsels (which required completely tearing all the live rock out of the tank to remove. Even without the concerns about how tough it is on the damsels to use them for cycling a tank, the amount of work required to get them out once the tank is cycled is not worth it. Do yourself a favor and use deli shrimp, ammonia, or one of the prebottled methods to cycle your tank. These fish all survived and went back to the fish store as trade ins (lowered price of firefish).
(2)A purple firefish: very entertaining and neat fish. Was with us for about 2 years (quit keeping good records after about 18 months). Just disappeared. One night he was there, the next morning he was gone. Never found any sign of him.
(3)Watchman goby: still in tank
(4)Waggles the clownfish: jerky, found today
(5)Flameback Angel (was supposed to be a Centropyge Argi - Cherub Angel, but fishstore sold it during the 2 week waiting period and gave me the Flameback for half price as a way of saying they were sorry, should have waited on another Cherub) 29 has always seemed too small for the Flameback - he constantly moves around the tank and chases anything that gets near him. Still with us. Probably will trade or sale him when I move to the 75. I don't want him to eat all the "sticks" I hope to put into the 75.
(6)Psuedochromis Fridmani - Orchard Dottyback: jerky, jump from tank and found cats playing with him in the last couple of months.

Not a very good track record, I'll admit. The clownfish was the reason my wife let me set up a saltwater tank in the first place. Maybe I'll get a pair for the 75.

Blake