achillies
achillies
hello all, i was going to share my recent experiences of recent with the epic and elusive Achilles. So a little back ground, I am smack in the middle of oklahoma, we have some pretty good shops around here but rarely see anything healthy this high end. there is a couple of differnt facebook groups for locals with BATTLES over ich and tangs. it gets pretty internet heated. SO my gf and i decided to start ordering fish and condition/qt them then hooking up our friends with them. We have done 2 achiilies and a pb for friends. its been pretty awesome so far, i get to set up more tanks and have awesome fish around all the time.
so round 1
We have a couple that we have become pretty close to and they JUST set up a custom 240g, and wanted a pb and a Achilles. so we abby and i decided that we would see if we could get those fish and qt them and then sell them to the couple.
we use tank transfer and prazipro
it worked pretty well we have used the following protocol ever time.
day 0- fish arrive ( we got one from petco and one from ERA) we matched the SG to each respective fish ,1.023 and 1.019. we float the bag for 25 minutes then in goes the fish ( we don't drip fish if they are shipped) We set up 2 20g Long RIGHT next to each other so the fish could see each other. the pb was about 3 and Achilles was 3.5) we use a sterile set up with PVC of all sizes and a heater
day 1 - we rubber band nori all over the pvc and start to feed, we feed everything we have - NLS pelletrs, flakes, mysis , mega marine, brine, etc what ever we need to do to get the fish eating well
day 2/3 repeat - we trash the water with food prn, if the fish starts eating well we scale it back and feed about every 2 hours from 6am to midnight
day 4 trasnfer in the am per tt sticky
day 5/6 repeat feedings
day 7 transfer add prazipro per ins
day 8 /9 repeat feedings
day 10 transfer add prazipro per ins
day 11/12 repeat feedings
day 13 transfer to new home and done
Its pretty easy to do, the hardest part for us in the rodi - small unit that basically runs 24/7 to make that much water for and the cost of salt can add up. we also have plenty of 20g long so we use one, i wipe it down then it sits outisde in the garage for min of 5 days before used agian. we also use the same heaters and same hobs.
reason for t t over cu or hypo
copper scares me, i know very little about it and hypo i fear AMM level getting to high soooooo i loved the idea or being able to TRASH the tank with food to ensure then fish starts eating. And u basically do a FULL water change every 3 days so nutrients aren't really a issue.
here is some vidoes of said fish eating
this is tank the second achillies we qt'ed - he got his name from a malfucting heater that raised his tank want to 90, i saw it and dumped ice in his tank for a couple of hours and he just didnt care - got pretty luckly on that one
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/m46BDTzZb68" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
this was the set up for luna (pb) and lavos (achiliies) left some pvc inbetween that way if they got to aggressive we would add a towel so they couldnt see each other - these fish have now been together for about 3 months with no issues
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/QwfrAnJ8aKc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
here is a vid of noah hand feeding lavos after a couple of weeks
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/_IyDXFHk4TY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
and finally we have a achillies hybrid in qt now , we got him from DD on tuesday and he is amazing - he is not out of the woods yet on his second tank and is eating okay not great yet -- we may keep this one, he was listed as 3.5 but i would say 2 lol
