210g build in TX

[afgun]

Yesterday we could only find 5 of our 7 new chromis. Today, only 4 are visible. Something is taking them out...

And, after noticing the "big boy" crab smashing a gorgonian today, we decided that he had to go. I successfully tempted him with a bit of shrimp from our freezer and was able to grab it and relocate him to the refugium.

 

[SushiGirl]

The chromis may be taking each other out. That's what usually happens. Start out with several, end up with one.

 

[afgun]

Unfortunately, we seem to have luck only keeping one of a kind of each fish... we are down to only 1 chromis now, and one of our 2 recently-purchased firefish vanished as well. We have a few pistol shrimp (or mantis... hoping not) in the tank as we hear the occasional popping, but I don't know if that's what's happening to the fish.

We bought some suspect frags (really rolled the dice, as they were in the "cheap" tank at the LFS) and 2 out of 3 bit the dust. The bigger colonies that we purchased are doing well.

A blue starfish also did not fare well in our tank.

One of our sponges appears to be dying, so we're going to cut off the bad parts tonight.

Otherwise, the tank seems to be healthy. We need to do some re-rock-scaping when I can get help moving the canopy off.

Several fish, snails and crabs have surfed the plumbing down to the sump, so I bought some gutter guard for the weir; I'll be attaching it when we do the rockscaping.

Overall, though, we're quite pleased with how things are working out. Tank parameters are stable and until we get a really good colony of nitrifying bacteria in the DSB we're managing nitrates through water changes. 40 isn't bad, right?

 

[SushiGirl]

If the blue starfish was a linckia, they are very hard to keep and need a long-established tank to have any chance of making it.

Not sure how much you know about sponges, but make sure you keep it under water when you cut it, air will kill them.

Looking forward to more pics!

 

[d3hree]

chromis have a very high metabolic rate, similar to anthias and are more successfully kept with small frequent feedings otherwise natural attrition is more likely to occur. This isnt set in stone and does seem to vary from tank to tank but i would say that you increase your chances of keeping chromis if you increase the regularity of your feedings.

 

[afgun]

chromis have a very high metabolic rate, similar to anthias and are more successfully kept with small frequent feedings otherwise natural attrition is more likely to occur. This isnt set in stone and does seem to vary from tank to tank but i would say that you increase your chances of keeping chromis if you increase the regularity of your feedings.

We've been feeding every other day; possibly a problem? Maybe an auto-feeder is our solution here ?

 

[afgun]

If the blue starfish was a linckia, they are very hard to keep and need a long-established tank to have any chance of making it.

Not sure how much you know about sponges, but make sure you keep it under water when you cut it, air will kill them.

Looking forward to more pics!

Did some reading on linckias last night; apparently they don't ship well and need a highly rigorous acclimation process, which we didn't apply.

Unfortunately most of the sponge is now starting to go, so we think we're going to have to toss it instead of cutting it

 

[d3hree]

We've been feeding every other day; possibly a problem? Maybe an auto-feeder is our solution here ?

I would certainly try an auto feeder delivering maybe 4 small feeds per day.

 

[krjackso]

I have an eheim feeder that is great. You could try one of those. Tank is coming along nicely though. Any long term effects from the filter sock incident?

 

[afgun]

I have an eheim feeder that is great. You could try one of those. Tank is coming along nicely though. Any long term effects from the filter sock incident?

No visible mold or that we can detect by smell, but I should probably get one of those tests to know for sure.

I've been eyeing the Eheim for a couple of days now; my only concern is the coast-to-coast... when we've dropped fish food into the tank before with the return pump running, it largely just flows over the weir. I'll have to experiment with some baffling or something to encourage the food to sink.

I'm also thinking about getting a dosing pump to feed phyto/zooplankton throughout the day; ideally I'd run it in conjunction with the controller that I don't have to shut off the skimmer pump when I dose some.

 

[krjackso]

Go to PetCo, petsmart and get a feeder ring. 2 bucks. Suction cup attachment and holds all the food in place. Problem solved. That's what I have.

 

[krjackso]

Sorry. 3 bucks.
http://www.petco.com/product/10900/NutraFin-Max-Feeding-Ring.aspx

 

[afgun]

Aaaand the zebra-striped bar goby decided to carpet surf Friday night. @#%#%

I picked up the Eheim auto feeder yesterday. I'll play with it a bit today then hopefully get it mounted.

So we did some rockscaping yesterday. Many of the pieces that we got from TBS were simply huge, so we transferred them to a bucket of SW and I took them out to the driveway where I had laid down some plastic. I had my trusty 4 lb sledge and a chisel ready, and carved them into smaller pieces. Look what came out of some of the rocks that I broke apart

There were also numerous tiny pistol shrimp that we recovered. They went back in the tank. We still hear a lot of regular clicking, so we're not sure but think that we still have some mantis in the tank. That certainly would explain the disappearing fish. Although carpet surfers with cats in the house are also still not out of the realm of possibilities.

Anyways, here's the tank after aquascaping and adding some new fish and an anemone this weekend... looks much better in my opinion, and my wife and I didn't fight *too* much while doing it, either

Thanks for following along...

 

[afgun]

Unfortunately we still have at least 2 moderate sized mantis in the tank. I've seen both, but only once each on the same day (different size, so I know that I have at least 2). There's regular popping noises, but I don't know how much is them vs the tiny pistol shrimp that are also in the tank.

The mantis have done a real number on our livestock; we have lost 6 of 7 chromis, a hawkfish, a couple of firefish and a brittle star. Something scared a couple of zebra striped bar gobys badly enough that they carpet surfed.

Had another brittle star sucked into the mesh on the intake cover in the weir (agreed, it IS a bad idea) and torn apart, and we haven't had much luck with polyps. The decorator crab also slowly deteriorated and simply disappeared one day. Given the unique location that TBS finds them in, we're not really surprised (disappointed, but not surprised).

We have a couple of pesky larger crabs (mithrax or rock) that have been harassing some gorgonians, so we're trying to grab them and relocate them to the sump as well. Lots of little gorilla crabs are in the tank; nothing large enough to complain about yet, but we're keeping an eye on them and relocating when we have the opportunity.

Once we get the mantis out of the tank, we'll focus on stocking.

 

[d3hree]

do you know where the mantis are?...what rocks they are living in?

 

[afgun]

I only know the general areas that they are habituating and not the specific rocks that they are in. If I did know that, I'd brave dismantling the rock work and put those rocks into a quarantine tank to get them out of the DT

 

[Esardog]

Thanks for all your efforts to record this process for us! I am so enjoying your build. Could you give more detail on your decisions concerning the closed loop placement and plumbing? Eddie -- San Angelo

 

[Nola]

Tank refresh

Tank refresh

Didn't realize it had been so long since Andrew updated this post. We've been through a few fish, most carpet surfed or just disappeared within a day. The ones that did survive are all thriving. We have a yellow tang, hippo tang, naso tang, coral beauty angelfish, green chromis, two ocellaris clowns (one of which is taking on the female role), two royal grammas that are also showing signs of sex selection, a strawberry pseudochromis, six line wrasse and a mandarin dragonet. We are just now introducing polyp frags -- we hadn't had luck with them earlier. We've gotten torch coral and frogspawn, and just got a large shipment from Richard at TBS of sponges, decorator crabs, frags, starfish and another purple sea urchin. We already had one and also have 3 black spiky urchins that reproduce -- we've had two babies. Our serpent stars are also reproducing. One of our red shrimp looks very pregnant. The tank looks beautiful and all of the various denizens really make it fun to watch the show. Posting new pictures soon.

 

[Nola]

Beautiful pink sponges

Torch Coral

 

[Nola]

Pics

Pics

Full Tank Shot -- colorful again.

This is growing on one of the purple fan gorgonians. Don't know what it is.

Rare neon orange starfish.