Really happy things turned around for you Eric! I saw Mark’s video the other day, that’s awesome! Tank is looking great as always!
3 Foot Nano Tank (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter eschulist
- Start date
Very cool videos! Happy to hear things are on the up and up 
Looking great as usual! How's the light?
OP
OP
I am very happy with it. Corals are getting light from the fronts and undersides and looking very healthy. Coloration on the fish and corals looks great both during the day and at night. There is only a few corals on the far left side of the tank that are lacking. (CrazyT Monti, RRC Pink Cadillac, and Oregon Tort) Idk if they’ll ever get their full color but I’m hoping with time they color up.
Livestuff
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Looks great. Eric
OP
OP
Well you can never be too happy or proud in this hobby because karma bites you in the ass for getting too complacent. Either in the middle or the night or early morning my Flame Wrasse Houdinied out of the tank somehow. While at work my wife texted me “your orange fish is dead on floor”. Working only 5 minutes away I rush home to find the flame crusty on the carpet. I look over at the tank and the cover is on without a gap anywhere. So with the Hawaiian ban and me doing everything right this lose really hurt.
Davy Jones
Senior Member
I'm sorry to hear that man it's the worst when you do everything you're supposed to and the shit still happens.
Same thing that happened when I got my chicago sunburst. Nem guards on all the powerheads, sat with it all day, and got blended overnight.
it's the worst when you do everything you're supposed to and the shit still happens.Same thing that happened when I got my chicago sunburst. Nem guards on all the powerheads, sat with it all day, and got blended overnight.
acharpenter
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Dammit. Sorry dude. : (
Ouch. That sucks dude.
abhishek
Senior Member
So sorry to hear ! Well if money is no objection , you can still get Jordanis here and they are best in the industry for qt :-
tsmaquatics.com
TSM Aquatics
Largest Quarantined Saltwater Fish Facility. All fish go through a minimum 30 Day Quarantine. We carry Captive Bred & Wild Livestock. Angelfish, Anthias, Basslets, Butterflyfish, Blennies, Clownfish, Filefish, Gobies, Rabbitfish & Foxface, Mandarins, Triggerfish, Tangs, Wrasses. SPS & LPS...
tsmaquatics.com
OP
OP
Thanks for the condolences.
Yea this was one of the only places I could find that one in stock. At 650 that’s almost 3 times what I paid for a few years ago. Money kinda is an objection. I really want the fish but it’s hard to swallow money wise for a fish I just had 48 hours ago.
Maybe I’ll go back to having a Midas Blenny or get a pintail wrasse.
So sorry to hear ! Well if money is no objection , you can still get Jordanis here and they are best in the industry for qt :-
TSM Aquatics
Largest Quarantined Saltwater Fish Facility. All fish go through a minimum 30 Day Quarantine. We carry Captive Bred & Wild Livestock. Angelfish, Anthias, Basslets, Butterflyfish, Blennies, Clownfish, Filefish, Gobies, Rabbitfish & Foxface, Mandarins, Triggerfish, Tangs, Wrasses. SPS & LPS...
Yea this was one of the only places I could find that one in stock. At 650 that’s almost 3 times what I paid for a few years ago. Money kinda is an objection. I really want the fish but it’s hard to swallow money wise for a fish I just had 48 hours ago.
Maybe I’ll go back to having a Midas Blenny or get a pintail wrasse.
abhishek
Senior Member
I don’t blame you ! It’s a hard pill to swallow
$399 for the female...
OP
OP
Ya and it should eventually transition. $450 (with shipping) is a bit more reasonable when compared to buying a male straight up.
acharpenter
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FWIW I paid $700.00 for my pair just a week before the Hawaii ban hit although I did order them about a month before that so my original order price was honored.
Sorry about loosing your wrasse. They are a beautiful fish for sure.
PS: Just to show how crazy things are right now, I paid $99 (shipped) for a pair about 8 years ago At the time I thought that was a lot.
PS: Just to show how crazy things are right now, I paid $99 (shipped) for a pair about 8 years ago At the time I thought that was a lot.
OP
OP
Jelly. Now that’s a deal.
It is crazy how much prices have changed over the years. I started back in highschool and while I wasn’t buying expensive corals, I was looking at them, and back then $100-200 was the high end stuff. Now corals and fish are 500-1000+ for 1 thing.
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Eric - Sorry about the Jordani! I have purchased multiple fish (mostly wrasse) from Ray and Matt at TSM and can vouch for their QT and shipping. They are top notch.
OP
OP
ITS ALIVE!!
Long time no posts. Apologies everyone.
The tank unfortunately slowly whittled away over the course of 2022 and I lost almost every coral and a few of the fish, including my Venustus Angelfish that I had for many many years. But I never shut the tank down. I still had my clownfish, royal gramma, and my black widow anemone. Over the next 2 years I was just sad with the decline and wasn't sure what happened to kill off all the corals. Took the Trident offline, didn't do much for dosing, and just feed the fish to keep them going.
Fast forward to early 2025. I just happened to see our local reef club was having their frag swap so I took a chance on a couple frags to see if I could have success again. Probably spent too much rather than testing with some FIF canary corals but by doing so it lit a fire under my butt to make sure I put in the work to keep them alive.
A week or two later everything was doing well. Coraline was going crazy, corals were surviving so I decided to keep pushing. I ordered myself a new captive breed baby Venustus from Biota, another Midas, and a red firefish.
The fish have all been doing great!
A few weeks later my 2 of the SPS corals I bought at the swap, the yellow encrusting Monti (Maybe CrazyT or Minions) was losing its yellow color and so was the Anacropora. All of the main salt parameters and nutrients tested great. Then it dawned on me. Even with the large water changes my trace elements have probably been striped to absolute zero over the last few years, which might have even been the reason for the decline and crash in 2022. I probably could have done an ICP test to confirm but I wanted to try and save the 2 corals before those results would even get back. I decided to switch from my usual BRS 2 part that I've used for years to All-For-Reef. With a tank this size I figured it was a no brainer to switch. I ordered the powder form and mixed up a batch and replaced the CA container with the AFR. I left the Alk in the other container and have it currently turned off at the DOS but could tweak it and add little bits if I needed to supplement.
Since making the switch those 2 corals have shown recovery and are regaining their tissue and yellow coloration!!
Now with this success that those corals are improving and showing bits of growth I've gone back all in and have ordered a bunch of corals online from AquaSD and TCK. So far I have not lost a single coral and I'm really happy!! A few of the corals I got online were acros I've always wanted but kinda struggled with year prior, they aren't doing amazing but I'm slowly working away at figuring out my dosing and feedings to get the nutrition balance to where they will be happiest and bring out the brightest color.
So I looked back through my photos and unfortunately I couldn't find the last Full Tank Shot while the tank was in its prime.
This photo was taken June 17th, 2021
Coral was covering almost everything. SPS was growing so well and had great color. Looking back at this I really need to reacquire that smooth skin bright green acro (I think they called it Flashlight) and the pink branching cyphastrea on the right.
I think the tank was declining the most in the winter of 2021-2022 but I couldn't find any photos I took around that time. Again its best for to record and document everything even when things aren't something to be proud of to at least have a record of it and to reflect and learn from, both internally and for others.
In the April 2022 we redid all the carpeting in our house and I believe my corals didn't look great like the photo above, and most likely this put things over the edge and finished everything off.
Tank was under the hanging light. The tank was drained and all the corals / fish that I still had were put into buckets. I moved the tank into a shop / storage room nearby and refilled the tank and put the inhabitants back inside. During this period of a few days I took the opportunity to repaint the office as well so thats the mess all over the floor.
Once the carpet was all finished in the house I redid everything again by transferring everything to buckets, draining the tank, moved it back under the light, and refilled everything. It continued to run but like I said earlier it was just minor bits of coral and a few fish and slowly dwindled away.
I have to wait at least 2-3 years to match what I had in 2021 but I want to have the rocks completely covered again!
Long time no posts. Apologies everyone.
The tank unfortunately slowly whittled away over the course of 2022 and I lost almost every coral and a few of the fish, including my Venustus Angelfish that I had for many many years. But I never shut the tank down. I still had my clownfish, royal gramma, and my black widow anemone. Over the next 2 years I was just sad with the decline and wasn't sure what happened to kill off all the corals. Took the Trident offline, didn't do much for dosing, and just feed the fish to keep them going.
Fast forward to early 2025. I just happened to see our local reef club was having their frag swap so I took a chance on a couple frags to see if I could have success again. Probably spent too much rather than testing with some FIF canary corals but by doing so it lit a fire under my butt to make sure I put in the work to keep them alive.
- Dragonsoul Torch
- A new Kelly Green Psammacora
- An encusting Orange Psammacora
- Yellow Monti (Maybe Minons, or CrazyT)
- Golden Rod Anacropra
- Favia of the Gods
A week or two later everything was doing well. Coraline was going crazy, corals were surviving so I decided to keep pushing. I ordered myself a new captive breed baby Venustus from Biota, another Midas, and a red firefish.
The fish have all been doing great!
A few weeks later my 2 of the SPS corals I bought at the swap, the yellow encrusting Monti (Maybe CrazyT or Minions) was losing its yellow color and so was the Anacropora. All of the main salt parameters and nutrients tested great. Then it dawned on me. Even with the large water changes my trace elements have probably been striped to absolute zero over the last few years, which might have even been the reason for the decline and crash in 2022. I probably could have done an ICP test to confirm but I wanted to try and save the 2 corals before those results would even get back. I decided to switch from my usual BRS 2 part that I've used for years to All-For-Reef. With a tank this size I figured it was a no brainer to switch. I ordered the powder form and mixed up a batch and replaced the CA container with the AFR. I left the Alk in the other container and have it currently turned off at the DOS but could tweak it and add little bits if I needed to supplement.
Since making the switch those 2 corals have shown recovery and are regaining their tissue and yellow coloration!!
Now with this success that those corals are improving and showing bits of growth I've gone back all in and have ordered a bunch of corals online from AquaSD and TCK. So far I have not lost a single coral and I'm really happy!! A few of the corals I got online were acros I've always wanted but kinda struggled with year prior, they aren't doing amazing but I'm slowly working away at figuring out my dosing and feedings to get the nutrition balance to where they will be happiest and bring out the brightest color.
So I looked back through my photos and unfortunately I couldn't find the last Full Tank Shot while the tank was in its prime.
This photo was taken June 17th, 2021
Coral was covering almost everything. SPS was growing so well and had great color. Looking back at this I really need to reacquire that smooth skin bright green acro (I think they called it Flashlight) and the pink branching cyphastrea on the right.
I think the tank was declining the most in the winter of 2021-2022 but I couldn't find any photos I took around that time. Again its best for to record and document everything even when things aren't something to be proud of to at least have a record of it and to reflect and learn from, both internally and for others.
In the April 2022 we redid all the carpeting in our house and I believe my corals didn't look great like the photo above, and most likely this put things over the edge and finished everything off.
Tank was under the hanging light. The tank was drained and all the corals / fish that I still had were put into buckets. I moved the tank into a shop / storage room nearby and refilled the tank and put the inhabitants back inside. During this period of a few days I took the opportunity to repaint the office as well so thats the mess all over the floor.
Once the carpet was all finished in the house I redid everything again by transferring everything to buckets, draining the tank, moved it back under the light, and refilled everything. It continued to run but like I said earlier it was just minor bits of coral and a few fish and slowly dwindled away.
I have to wait at least 2-3 years to match what I had in 2021 but I want to have the rocks completely covered again!
Bummer @eschulist most of your pic links aren’t working.
Great update thanks for sharing! Reefing has ups and downs, and many don’t persevere through the downs.
Great update thanks for sharing! Reefing has ups and downs, and many don’t persevere through the downs.