Gofor's 60"L X 30"W X 24"T LeeMar Upgrade

[gofor100]

And just for the heck of it, here's some crappy pics of some of the fish...

The Potter's Angel is still a fatty and looks to be doing really well.

As you could see from the previous pics, the MI continues to do really well and is the biggest pig in the tank.

And to finish it all off, here's a pic of the "never-stays-still" Yellow Longnose Butterfly...

All of the fish seem to be thriving, so all in all, I'm pretty happy with how things are going. I just need to get back on track and hope to be there soon.

Thanks again for checking in!

-Chad

 

[mc-cro]

I am so jealous of the M Idol, everyone keeps telling me you cant keep them long term. Nice butterfly too.

so, none of those fish bother your clam? or sps?

 

[gofor100]

I am so jealous of the M Idol, everyone keeps telling me you cant keep them long term. Nice butterfly too.

so, none of those fish bother your clam? or sps?

Thanks bro'!

I LOVE my Idol, they've got great personalities and love the hand that feeds them.

I'm by no means an expert (especially since I've only had mine for just under a year), but I think there are some factors that need to be considered if you're going to be successful in keeping them (other than maybe a little bit of luck and patience to find the right one):

> QUARANTINE: people seem to think that these fish are better off going straight into the DT, but this most likely will end in disaster (if not immediately, then when tank parameters inevitably are not optimal at one point or another). My MI went through the normal QT all of my fish go through- Cupramine and Prazipro. He stopped eating for day or so here and there, but made it through just fine (as you can see).

> ENVIRONMENT: this includes size of tank and tankmates. I don't think there is a specific size of tank that is "minimum", but it helps that no matter what size of tank, you have somewhat of an open rockscape. Also, the smaller the tank, the more important the selection of tankmates become. Probably a good idea to stay away from fish that would compete for food or may act aggressive toward the fish (i.e., tangs).

> FEEDING: these fish seem to have relatively high metabolisms, so feeding them somewhat frequently and a varied diet is probably best. I personally feed mine 3-4 times a day (once in the morning, then an automatic feeder in the afternoon, once when I get home from work, then once about an hour before the lights go out). I don't feed a ton each feeding, but I think the frequency plays a big part. Also, the variety of diet doesn't hurt.

I feed a lot of different stuff, including pellets (NLS and ON Formula 1 & 2) and a frozen mixture of brine/mysis/scallops/clams mixed in with some different angel formulas that are stated to include sponge (listed first on the list of ingredients).

I blend all of this together with a fresh clove of garlic and a little squirt of lipids/amino acids. I then scoop it all out and freeze it up into 1 1/2"X 1 1/2" cubes so that it's easy to store.

As for picking on SPS or clams... I really haven't noticed this YET for any of my fish (the main culprits commonly being the Potter's Angel, MI, and Butterfly). I think if you feed them enough and a good variet of foods, then even if they do pick, it won't be a constant picking, so it's not noticeable and/or doesn't cause any/much damage. But, I know this can always change... I just hope it doesn't .

Chad

 

[maxxII]

Excellent job on keeping three very difficult fish longer than most people in the hobby:

Moorish Idol
Potter's Angel
Longnose butterfly

IMO, the hard part with keeping delicate fish like that is getting them acclimated to captivity. After the first year in captivity, they seem to get completely settled in and begin to become much more aggressive eaters and willing to compete more to get fed.

Great job man.

Nick

 

[gofor100]

Excellent job on keeping three very difficult fish longer than most people in the hobby:

Moorish Idol
Potter's Angel
Longnose butterfly

IMO, the hard part with keeping delicate fish like that is getting them acclimated to captivity. After the first year in captivity, they seem to get completely settled in and begin to become much more aggressive eaters and willing to compete more to get fed.

Great job man.

Nick

Thanks Nick!

Haven't had them too long yet (most just under a year), but hope to keep them for much longer. Definitely agree on the acclimation... my Idol and Potter's are the two most aggressive feeders in the tank.

I think the main issue that some people have with these more delicate fish, is that they for "no reason" stop eating and wither away. Now I could be wrong, but I suspect that there is a reason, and the reason is probably something that they either had the whole time (a parasite or disease of some sort) or was introduced after the fact because of a bad QT process (or no QT process). Again, I could be wrong, but the way I look at it is, if there's little to no disease or parasites in your closed system, when the fish's immunity inevitably dips due to some stress (i.e., new tankmates, diminished water quality, ANY change), it won't be overwhelmed by the parasite/disease that is ready to pounce at the right moment.

Just my own 2 cents, but for all I know, I could come home one day to have the same thing happen to me. We'll see...

-Chad

 

[gofor100]

Been a while since I've updated this thread... so here's what's happened the past couple of months:

> Still fighting the cyano a little bit, but I think it's almost gone. I've been treating it with Chemiclean product and it seems to get most of it with each use, but not all of it. So this weekend, I'll be increasing the dosage a little to see if that helps clear it all out. But it is not nearly as bad as it was before.
> I'm finally getting some good purple coralline growth on all of the rocks. I think my early algae issues was making it difficult for the coralline to get a foothold, but it's coming along nicely now.
> Most of the corals seem to be showing good growth, particularly my ORA Purple Stylo, Sunset Milli, Neon Green Milli, Pink Jade, and Purple Bonsai. I'll see if I can get decent photos of these, but my iPhone sucks at capturing their colors.
> Finally, the fish are all doing AWESOME (particularly, favorite fish, the Moorish Idol). All are nice and plump, active, and have extremely vivid colors (that unfortunately are not captured that great on my iPhone camera).

Here's some pics of the tank...

And here's some pics of the Idol (have had him for almost a year now)...

Thanks for checking in,

Chad

 

[gofor100]

Alright... sorry for being such a slacker, but I've been BUSY!!!

Also, not sure how many people are still looking at this, so I guess posting is more therapeutic for me .

Anyways, I think I have tackled the algae issues I've been dealing with for a while now... over a month ago, I decided that I was going to be one of the last guys to jump on the BioPellet bandwagon after doing some extensive research. I found that a majority of the issues people have is stripping their water of all of the nutrients, then when nothing is left, the bacteria die and they get a major cyano bloom and/or the algae grows back. I didn't want to explain to the wife why I was spending another couple hundo on tank equipment, so that meant I couldn't get a recirculating reactor... so I'm just starting off really slow.

So this is exactly the steps I took over a couple of weekends: 1) cleaned out the sump, 2) did a round of Chemiclean (to get rid of the remaining cyano I had been dealing with), 3) then placed about 1/4 of the recommended dosage of BioPellets online (feeding the output right into my skimmer).

The first few weeks, all was good in the tank, but this was likely due to the Chemiclean treatment I had just done. Then in about week 3 or 4 I could see a MINOR growth in the algae along the back wall of the tank, but it seems like the that has now stopped, and now the algae is slowly going away (which is much more apparent on the rocks since I can see more coralline algae than I have ever seen before). I have not added any BioPellets since introducing them and have been feeding my usual 5 TIMES A DAY (although not large feedings)... mainly to keep this guy plump and happy (have had him over a year now).




Once the algae cuts back further, I'll try to get some more crappy iPhone pics of my tank (one of these days I'll need to get a real camera). I've also got some new additions that should be going in the DT in a couple of weeks... to be continued...

Thanks,

Chad

 

[mr.lamnguyen]

very nice Morish Idol. Always love it

 

[gofor100]

very nice Morish Idol. Always love it

Thanks! Always dreamt of getting one, and he hasn't disappointed. Great fish.

-Chad

 

[mr.lamnguyen]

I have that Morish Idol for 2 weeks. then.. lol with no reason she still eating and healthy

 

[Newbie Aquarist]

Glad you are back and great update. Good idea about you starting slow with the pellets and not dump all of them in at once. Thats how most fail with the pellets.

 

[gofor100]

Thanks for checking in guys. I will hopefully have more updates coming soon.

-Chad

 

[gofor100]

Hey Guys,

As promised, I come bearing some pics (although pretty bad quality) of some of the new fish I just introduced this week.

My main goal was to find some fish that: 1) Added some different colors/shapes/looks to the tank and 2) Were compatible with the fish I already have (especially my Moorish Idol).

So when Tong's in FV had their 25% off livestock sale just over a month ago, I pounced on the opportunity to stock up my quarantine tank with some fish at really good prices.

So I added a few smaller fish, but here are the two last "larger" fish that will be added to the tank...

A 4-inch long Powder Blue Tang, who was kind of pale and thinner than I would've preferred when I got him (but eating really well), and I was honestly not sure would make it through my QT process of treating with Cupramine for at least 4 weeks and Prazipro for 1 week. In about the second week, he stopped eating for a couple of days, but then started up eating again and really took to pellets. Once he started eating pellets, the weight and color got better each day until I finally put him in the tank earlier this week. The first day he was in the DT he was eating my "special frozen mixture" and pellets with gusto. I'll be honest, I was a little hesitant putting him in thinking that he might bully the Idol, but since he's about 50% smaller and my Idol doesn't take any crap from anyone, I felt I'd take the calculated risk. So far so good...


Still needs to fatten up a little bit, but he's looking good and playing nice with all of the other tank residents.

And then there's my juvenile Harlequin Tuskfish (about 4-inches long, and you can still see the false-eye spots on his doral fin). I'm not 100% sure whether he is of the Australian- or the Indo-variety since they both seem to share similar juvenile color, but I have a feeling that this one is from Australia. As you can see (although somewhat blurry in some of the pictures), some of the brilliance of colors are already showing through the more drab juvenile colors, but then again, I've heard that obtaining an Australian juvenile is quite rare and can be quite expensive... so who knows. The adults that Tong's was carrying looked to be from Australia, so I assume their wholesaler might be obtaining the juveniles from the same distributor, but the salesperson didn't know the origin, and to be honest, it was such a good deal, that I figured I would give it a try regardless. This guy also went on a little hunger strike of his own (in about the 3rd week of treatment), but resumed eating in the 4th week and has been chowing down on anything I put in the DT since the first day.




And finally, none of my posts would be complete without a picture of my Idol... the streamer just got a trim (probably from swimming around so fast to meet all of the new fish in the tank), but I didn't see the slightest bit of aggression from anyone. It may have helped a little that I introduced all of the new additions about an hour after the lights went out, but there was still no aggression the next morning.


Thanks for looking, and I hope everyone has a great 4th of July!

-Chad

 

[gofor100]

Here's some more pics I took over the weekend... tried to get a clearer one of the Harlequin Tusk fish, but he's always on the move, so I'll keep trying. The pics don't really capture the nice blue margins between the orange stripes.





And then there's the tank, which is looking MUCH better since running Biopellets several weeks ago.


Still haven't increased the amount of pellets at this point since I'm waiting to see what the current amount does with the algae. So far it has really cut it back (albeit, somewhat slowly). The algae on the back walls of the tank are really minimal, and the rock is clearing up as well. Still have some algae of course, but I'm fine with that since my MI, Potter's, and now my Powder Blue Tang all love to graze on it.

Thanks for looking!

-Chad

 

[gofor100]

Well, the cat is officially out of the bag... if it has seemed like I haven't been focused on my tank as much the last several months, its because my wife and I have had more important business to tend to... meet "Baby" Gofor100.



My wife is just about 14 weeks along now and we definitely feel blessed. Don't know the gender yet, but this has been a long time coming.

Thanks,

Chad

 

[RazorRC]

Congrats on the new one! Is this the first?

 

[gofor100]

Congrats on the new one! Is this the first?

Thanks!

Yep, this is our first... my wife and I have had some difficulty getting pregnant up to this point, but we really hope this is the one.

Thanks again,

Chad

 

[RazorRC]

Thanks!

Yep, this is our first... my wife and I have had some difficulty getting pregnant up to this point, but we really hope this is the one.

Thanks again,

Chad

That's great, I hope everything goes well. They are life changers for sure.

 

[Newbie Aquarist]

Congrats. Its a beautiful thing to introduce a baby reefer. Wishing you and your family the best.

 

[gofor100]

Congrats. Its a beautiful thing to introduce a baby reefer. Wishing you and your family the best.

Thanks!

-Chad