I have read through a few threads on another forum where guys order their rock from Tampa Bay Saltwater. They all seem to have a similar experience as you. they are thrilled with the amount of life, but have to deal with pests. I guess there is a trade off to everything. Pretty cool to have all of that diversity. Your tanks looks great.
The 205 rises again! (1 Viewer)
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@Adam - Yeah, it's definitely a tradeoff. I thought all of the isopods had died off, but after weeks of not seeing any, I found a big one in the filter sock this weekend. On the other hand, I routinely rescue pistol shrimp from the filter socks, and I can hear them happily clicking all day long. It's a lot of fun.
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Question for anyone with gorgorian experience: what do you do to keep them upright? My tank was designed as an SPS tank, so there's a lot of flow. One gorgorian stays in place just fine, but the other two seem to blow around the tank no matter how many rocks I try to anchor them with. Any tips? Here's a shot of the blade gorgorian, for the two seconds it was upright and in place:
I was just dealing with this problem yesterday on a 6" tall sea fan. Only way is to glue them down to the solid rock work or glue them to a flat rock that is big enough to not tip over. I usually have the gorg attached to a small piece of rock and then I glue that to a larger flat piece. The flat rock can be thin so it can be buried under the sand with just the small rock above the surface.
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Seems like a good time for an update. With the warmer weather, plus 3 250 watt halides and the fact that we keep our house warm in the summer, it's become apparent in recent weeks that I needed to install my chiller. Sadly, that meant rebuilding my "water maintenance" station, to make room for the chiller and move my dosing pumps and auto water change out of the way. I had several goals for the change: 1) Keep my dosing pump head units readily accessible and easy to view and adjust; 2) keep my dosing containers easy to view so I never accidentally run empty, 3) increase the size of the dosing containers above their current 2 gallon capacity, and 3) increase my storage space for filter socks and towels.
Here's a front view of the solution I reached:
What are you seeing? Well, the white panel on the left is a hinged door. On the front side of the door are the two liter meter head units. One's for dosing, the other runs my auto water changes. When the door is open, the additional pump modules are seated on back. Behind the door are 2 22 quart food grade storage containers. This gets me over 5 gallons of space for Cal and Alk. The blue bin to the right contains clean filter socks, and the tiny shelf above it is for clean towels. The 60 gallon RO tank is on the top right of this mess, and the chiller is on the top left. Overall, I'm pretty happy.
Here's a front view of the solution I reached:
What are you seeing? Well, the white panel on the left is a hinged door. On the front side of the door are the two liter meter head units. One's for dosing, the other runs my auto water changes. When the door is open, the additional pump modules are seated on back. Behind the door are 2 22 quart food grade storage containers. This gets me over 5 gallons of space for Cal and Alk. The blue bin to the right contains clean filter socks, and the tiny shelf above it is for clean towels. The 60 gallon RO tank is on the top right of this mess, and the chiller is on the top left. Overall, I'm pretty happy.
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And since I vastly prefer threads with pictures, here's a current full tank shot. I added the first SPS a few months ago and everything is doing well - the only problem being that the two urchins that appeared as hitchhikers on the rock have a penchant for taking bites out of them. I may have to rehome the urchins, but for now I'm enjoying everything.
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deneed4spd
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What's the dim of the tank? Where did u source the tank from?
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It's 6' by 2.5' in width and 22" high. I got it from Lee Mar back when I was in Los Angeles. I believe they've since shut their doors, which makes me sad since it's a truly lovely, well built tank.
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It's been a while since I updated this build thread. The tank was going along well, through about Jan of 2016, and then things in my life got bad. 'Meet your five-figure health insurance out of pocket max five years in a row', bad. 'The funeral home recognizes you when you walk in because you've made arrangements so many times recently' bad. That kind of bad.
For a long time I was physically unable to take care of the tank, and in the relatively brief times I could physically do so, I wasn't really mentally able. Kind family members kept the top off full and fed the fish, but that was it. Algae took over. The lights burned out. All but one fish died. The corals died. The guilt I felt from letting everything perish was huge, but in the grand scheme of problems to be solved, the tank was low on the list.
About two months ago, I hit one year out from my last major surgery. There are no more on the horizon, so I decided to see if I could rehabilitate the tank. SG was 1.029. Po4 was .16. CA was 330. Only the algae was happy. I got water changes running, skimmer and dosing back on line, discovered that the temp probe had gone bad and have fixed that (I think). I cleaned the tank so I could see in again. The lone survivor, a clownfish, seemed perturbed that I was bothering her!
Since then, I've added a few corals and some fish, and things seem to be stable. Photos to come along as soon as I manage to take them!
For a long time I was physically unable to take care of the tank, and in the relatively brief times I could physically do so, I wasn't really mentally able. Kind family members kept the top off full and fed the fish, but that was it. Algae took over. The lights burned out. All but one fish died. The corals died. The guilt I felt from letting everything perish was huge, but in the grand scheme of problems to be solved, the tank was low on the list.
About two months ago, I hit one year out from my last major surgery. There are no more on the horizon, so I decided to see if I could rehabilitate the tank. SG was 1.029. Po4 was .16. CA was 330. Only the algae was happy. I got water changes running, skimmer and dosing back on line, discovered that the temp probe had gone bad and have fixed that (I think). I cleaned the tank so I could see in again. The lone survivor, a clownfish, seemed perturbed that I was bothering her!
Since then, I've added a few corals and some fish, and things seem to be stable. Photos to come along as soon as I manage to take them!
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My photography skills clearly have not improved in the last 6 years. Here's a FTS. Current inhabitants are the hardy clownfish, five anthia, a diamond goby who refuses to sift sand, and what was supposed to have been a carpenter wrasse, but I am 95% certain is a linespot flasher wrasse. At least, if it is a carpenter, it's a sorry specimen. That's what I get for letting my spouse 'order' the fish while I took the kids to the bathroom!
There are also a few zoas and a few SPS. So far everything seems to be growing and doing well, and parameters have been mostly stable for weeks now. I am fighting high nitrates, despite wet skimming and changing 1/3 of the tank's volume every 2 weeks. I think the feeding of the anthias is contributing.
There are also a few zoas and a few SPS. So far everything seems to be growing and doing well, and parameters have been mostly stable for weeks now. I am fighting high nitrates, despite wet skimming and changing 1/3 of the tank's volume every 2 weeks. I think the feeding of the anthias is contributing.
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I've done a bit more puttering in the fish room lately, reorganizing things to be more user friendly. I have two issues, though. One is that my skimmer keeps going crazy and having random bursts of super wet skimmate throughout the day. The end result is that I need to empty the cup daily to avoid overflows.
It's an old ATB 1050a, with dual pumps. The pumps have always been touchy, so I try hard not to take them offline until I need to do routine maintenance. That said, they're both spotlessly clean and working well right now, and there's no obvious reason for the random bursts of skimmate. I've got the skimmer raised up as much as possible. Anyone run into this before and find a solution? Timing of these overflow bursts doesn't seem to align to any feeding or tank events as it happens throughout the day and night.
It's an old ATB 1050a, with dual pumps. The pumps have always been touchy, so I try hard not to take them offline until I need to do routine maintenance. That said, they're both spotlessly clean and working well right now, and there's no obvious reason for the random bursts of skimmate. I've got the skimmer raised up as much as possible. Anyone run into this before and find a solution? Timing of these overflow bursts doesn't seem to align to any feeding or tank events as it happens throughout the day and night.
Glad to hear things have turned the corner for you!
Our hobbies and pets always take the wayside in the face of struggles so don’t feel guilty. You did your best and sometimes you have to just focus on what’s important.
Our hobbies and pets always take the wayside in the face of struggles so don’t feel guilty. You did your best and sometimes you have to just focus on what’s important.
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Interesting that you experienced that too with an ATB. It’s a great skimmer when it’s working,but it’s sure temperamental!
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I have not done a great job of updating, but changes have happened. Many of them haven't been great.
I ordered fish from Dr. Reef and they arrived in January. The order included a blue hippo tang, a convict tang, a purple fire fish, a carpenter's wrasse, a pintail wrasse, a lubbock's wrasse, and a cleaner shrimp. The pintail wrasse was beautiful, but vanished after the first day in the tank, never to be seen again. The tank is fully screened, so I don't think it jumped. The larger fish population scared my already timid smallest anthia, and she also passed away. Everyone else is is happily out and about all day, except for the cleaner shrimp who hides 99% of the time.
Of the fish in the tank, one was the clownfish I've had for at least 13 years now. The others were the anthias and linespot flasher wrasse that I purchased locally. There had never been any signs of ich in the tank. Unfortunately, about a month after the new arrivals got here, the blue hippo developed ich. It's been 3 weeks now, and I'm struggling with what to do, as the fish is clearly infected, but still eating everything it can and I can't easily quarantine everyone in the QT space I have. No other fish are showing any signs of ich, just the hippo. Further, I can not seem to get my phosphate above 0, and the corals are clearly struggling. Removing the fish would probably be the last straw for the corals. Where to go from here?
I ordered fish from Dr. Reef and they arrived in January. The order included a blue hippo tang, a convict tang, a purple fire fish, a carpenter's wrasse, a pintail wrasse, a lubbock's wrasse, and a cleaner shrimp. The pintail wrasse was beautiful, but vanished after the first day in the tank, never to be seen again. The tank is fully screened, so I don't think it jumped. The larger fish population scared my already timid smallest anthia, and she also passed away. Everyone else is is happily out and about all day, except for the cleaner shrimp who hides 99% of the time.
Of the fish in the tank, one was the clownfish I've had for at least 13 years now. The others were the anthias and linespot flasher wrasse that I purchased locally. There had never been any signs of ich in the tank. Unfortunately, about a month after the new arrivals got here, the blue hippo developed ich. It's been 3 weeks now, and I'm struggling with what to do, as the fish is clearly infected, but still eating everything it can and I can't easily quarantine everyone in the QT space I have. No other fish are showing any signs of ich, just the hippo. Further, I can not seem to get my phosphate above 0, and the corals are clearly struggling. Removing the fish would probably be the last straw for the corals. Where to go from here?
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I think people will remind you that tangs are the 'ich magnets' 
, especially the hippo tang. That is one rock scratcher. It is the shyest of the bunch and easily scared, so it's the one that gets ich the most and does a lot of scratching, almost constantly. So, you kind of picked something that has a very high risk with ich there. To me, taking them out and quarantine them or whatever won't help. Even if they pass the quarantine, and you put them in, they will still get stressed dealing with the tank's environment again, and it might start where it was before. So, I would normally just have things ride out, sorted out by themselves. If you could help them eating more, staying alive, that'll be good. Once the fish survive that strain of ich, they should get used to it. That's my opinion. That's why when things are going fine, I would prefer not to add new things in, and it might start some 'new' issue. Good luck!
, especially the hippo tang. That is one rock scratcher. It is the shyest of the bunch and easily scared, so it's the one that gets ich the most and does a lot of scratching, almost constantly. So, you kind of picked something that has a very high risk with ich there. To me, taking them out and quarantine them or whatever won't help. Even if they pass the quarantine, and you put them in, they will still get stressed dealing with the tank's environment again, and it might start where it was before. So, I would normally just have things ride out, sorted out by themselves. If you could help them eating more, staying alive, that'll be good. Once the fish survive that strain of ich, they should get used to it. That's my opinion. That's why when things are going fine, I would prefer not to add new things in, and it might start some 'new' issue. Good luck! 
Not sure what you are feeding but if your able to added metroplex and focus to the food the day before feeding to give it a chance to soak in that helped my fish with my issue last year. Things have been going fine and have not lost any fish from it. I'm still running a 1 micron filter to help with filtering any floating ick. Healthy and happy fish can keep it at bay but like Ken said don't add any new fish for long while.