Marty's 180g- New House... Old Love... (1 Viewer)

[marty9876]

Pulled from display. I couldn't come up with any fish I wanted long term which isn't a expensive/difficult (unknown if eating) in and of themselves. This fish eats everything I want the Regal, non-aggressive to and is the first one in the trap every time so it made sense (as long as I forget about his cost).

Basically Regal chased him around the first night now the two are in cahoots. I've been leaving nori in the tank and I think the butterfly eats is all and isn't hungry in the evenings for the stuff he's suposta be teaching the Regal to eat. No nori tomorrow!

Yea, butterfly picks on more stuff than the angels.

 

[mrlee]

Here a picture of my regal, had him for 2 years and still fat and happy! Keep trying the P.E Mysis my regal likes that the most. Also got my regal from Jason at Pet Co

 

[marty9876]

Here a picture of my regal,

That's just mean!

Well both of them are now just covered in ich. Saw that coming... Joy.

Nothing like using an appetite suppressant on a fish that's not eating. This has "turning out swell" written all over it.

 

[marty9876]

Regal's dead. After reviewing the facts & situation I'm leaning towards oodinium. That's not good.

FW dip the butterfly, took a 75g offline and am doing tank transfer & copper treatments will be the plan.

Just a bad series of mistakes on my part.

 

[Adam G]

That is too bad. What a beautiful fish. I know they notoriously difficult to acclimate to captivity.

 

[marty9876]

Butterfly died yesterday. Used a gallon of bleach so far to clean up this series of mistakes.

What a waste on so many levels.

Notes to self:
Don't buy sick fish
Don't put expensive fish in with sick fish
Don't put wife's favorite fish in with sick fish
QT really matters. If I had put this guy in the system woud have wiped everyone in the system in 48 hours

 

[LowersMyBP]

Nothing worse than losing your wife's favorite, especially when she has expensive taste.

 

[marty9876]

Say ehello to my little friend...

Apolemichthys xanthopunctatus

 

[Flounder]

hello!

 

[marty9876]

Few updates:

Juvi Goldflake (picured above) died after 16 days. Liveaquaria gave me a refund, not 100% sure what went wrong. Little guy just kept getting skinnier and skinnier despite everything I tried. Took a few days off to feed the little bugger 8-10 times a day and nothing made a difference. After more in-depth research Goldflake's are are more difficult than originally anticipated. Many seem to drop deal one day right around the 1 year mark. My thinking with the Juvi was get them acclimated to captivity for a long live span. Not so much in this instance. I can't say enough good things about Liveaquaria and their refund policy. Either it wasn't meant to be or I blew out the little guys liver with Prazi Pro is my guess.

So... I regrouped and said to hell with things. If this is gonna suck I'm at least going to get the fish I really get excited about and love. Enter Holacanthus ciliaris (Queen Angel). Might as well get two of the largest and more aggressive angels living together and sprinkle in corals!

Queen and Emperor. Yea, I'm gonna need that 400g tank sooner than later! I had them separated with egg crate for 5 days, removed the egg crate last night. Some aggression but nothing too bad.

New additions for fish:
- Queen angel
- Lineatus Fairy Wrasse (one way cool fish)
- Yellow Belly Blue Tang (tiny)
- Midas Blennie
- Fathead Sunburst Anthias (still hiding 90% of the time)

Current fish:
- Emperor Angel
- Multicolor Angel
- Chevron Tang
- Purple Tang
- Blonde Naso Tang
- 2x Maldives Lyretail Anthias
- Flame Wrasse
- Flame Hawk
- Starry Blennie
- Clown

In QT:
- Achillies Tang

Wish list- Potters Angel but I don't think the Multicolor will let that happen.

Next: I need more corals. Thinking of changing around/removing a lot of the rock and getting a ATS.

 

[Fragtastic Reef]

Wow very nice build and setup! Love the fish lineup so far.

 

[Kyle T.]

How big is the current multicolor angel you have? Depending on how big it is, adding a second one that is way smaller to form a pair would be very interesting. Though to do this, I'd recommend an acclimation box as they can be quite aggressive upon first introduction.

 

[LowersMyBP]

Will the wife be getting her butterfly back or will the achilles be the last in?
Good luck with the achilles.

Great mix of fish!

 

[marty9876]

How big is the current multicolor angel you have? Depending on how big it is, adding a second one that is way smaller to form a pair would be very interesting. Though to do this, I'd recommend an acclimation box as they can be quite aggressive upon first introduction.

Full adult or close to. My original intention was to put him through QT with a Flame Angel but I ended up having to separate them. Tied adding Flame in later and the Multicolor pegged him into a corner, mean little dude. I thought about doing a pair dominated tank (lots of different pair), backed off due to the sad factor if you lose one of the pair. SWE had the only "small" Potters I've seen since I've been looking, was rubbing pretty badly in their QT and I didn't have the ability to take on a sick fish at the time so I passed.

Will the wife be getting her butterfly back or will the achilles be the last in?
Good luck with the achilles.

Great mix of fish!

I don't know on the Butterfly. Honestly, my frogspawn is doing a whole lot better now... Not sure if I'm going to be adding more LPS or not as I might be upping the flow more and it's pretty high now. Orange torches and such look pretty interesting to me and Butterfly's tend to be less reef safe than Angels. If I stick with SPS then most likely, maybe wait till the 400g is up and get 3-6 Semi's.

Achilies is #2 for me. I tried one when the tank was ~ 4 months old and put him straight into the DT (from Divers Den). Never got past the ich, this time it's QT for him. I'm worried about getting him in the tank, he's smaller than the other tangs, I might trap them and put them in a naughty basket or downstairs for a few days. Or eggcrate the tank off again.

I'd like to be close to done with fish for the summer.

 

[marty9876]

Enter ATS

Time to ghetto up this build with a DIY ATS for less than $75.00 into it so far (excluding parts I had/tools).

12x36 sump from Something Fishy liquidation $25.00 (Mad props to Adam G. for pointing this out, sump with no baffles basically)
4x VHO 24" 10k Daylight bulbs closeout from Wet World $25.00 (got 6x bulbs actually)
1x IceCap 660 (I had)
VHO Endcaps (I had)
Valves I had, bough the PVC and tubing.
12x18 screen

Got things setup pretty quickly, have some changes to make but see below for current state. My Iwaki 100 didn't have enough to run everything so I took one of my skimmers offline (ETSS 800). Overall things generally don't work out when I go cheap but I've pretty happy with this.

Odds are I will be changing out my sump & taking the fuge offline in the future so things are setup pretty temporarily.

Changes planned:
- Drill into the bottom, setup herbie type drain (use sides as emergency)
- Switch out the VHO for T5/3000k spectrum bulbs with a legit T5 ballast and real reflectors(I wonder if the IceCap draws more juice than needed)
- find a better home for the box once new sump is in

 

[Adam G]

Looks great. Now lets see some turf on that ATS. Once you get the kinks worked out we can streamline it for my build.

 

[David Grigor]

T
T5/3000k spectrum bulbs with a legit T5 ballast and real reflectors(I wonder if the IceCap draws more juice than needed)

Whats the distance from your bulbs to the screen ? If more the 2-3", I'd say stick with the icecap to compensate for the further distance. Really want to keep the bulbs cool using a fan. 30% more electricity but your getting 3% more light. However, if not actively cooled you loose 20% so becomes a near wash if you don't.

 

[marty9876]

Whats the distance from your bulbs to the screen ?

6", this distance is my biggest worry about this design. Right now it's 300 watts at the screen so I'm sure something will grow.

 

[David Grigor]

Yeah but VHOs just aren't near as intense as T5s with reflectors so can't go by watts. Freshfish used a 660 for his ATS and from his descriptions ( I didn't see it first hand ) the light was burning the algae but since your at 6" that shouldn't be an issue.

You may have read this already but if you screen starts getting a slimey algae buildup ( usually brown ) you want to clean it ASAP, try not to let it get a good foothold and takeover as it will make it take longer to get good algae. The slimy produces toxins that can irritate both the fish ( I had an ich outbreak not 100% sure if slime related ) and corals ( usually LPS will close up first ) so if you have carbon, I highly suggest using it during that phase ( if you get slime ). Also sniff your water ( not ATS is will always have a little smell ) but sniff at top of show tank. If you can smell also run some carbon. Doesn't have to be much .5 cup of Rox .8 weekly will be enough to keep in check.

 

[marty9876]

Thanks for the brown slime tip. I've a carbon user, I always worry about HLLE issues with fish but I've never had any issues yet. Personally I think HLLE is more food/water quality related than anything.

Ich great... Just getting ready to move my Achilles out from QT into the DT! I knew messing with this was a bad idea.