JapanReef - 450 gallon In-Wall system

[alien9168]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7161477#post7161477 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by NexDog
Just received an email saying the purple monti has gone already. The pitfalls of online shopping.

That stinks man....i guess your right, its one of the downsides of shopping online, but then again, there are lots of upsides, like the other corals youve purchased :smokin:

 

[NexDog]

Well, not a total loss. I know exactly when they get their new livestock now I have monti caps on pre-order. I'll get a call if something nice comes in.

So as a consolation I got these:

They'll be here tomorrow afternoon. :smokin:

On another note, one of the Lyretails is sick. For 36 hours she has been lying at the bottom of the tank or behind a powerhead. Colour is very mottled - almost looks like a wheelers goby with red and white bands. I'm thinking maybe brook but I'm not really up on what diseases Anthia are prone to. I gave her a 45 minute Formalin bath and also treated the whole QT. No immediate change but fingers crossed for tomorrow morning.

 

[revclyburn]

Hey nextdog,

have to prices on angels come down, you know the ones I asked you about, the Peppermint Angels?

Rev

 

[NexDog]

I haven't seen any available and I don't think I will. It's such a sought after fish that you'd have to put in a special request. I'll make some calls tomorrow and see what I can come up with.

 

[NexDog]

And on yet another note, I think I'm going to jump on the Prodibio bandwagon as I will now have 10 acro colonies. Of the 7 I got originally 3 are showing no growth and next to no polyp extension. They are:

The other corals are doing great and the A. nobilis or yongei (didn't get a definite ID) has about 1cm growth on some of its tips already. Calcium levels are fine, magnesium is fine, no shortage of light but some just aren't growing. Maybe due to my lack of flow in the tank as I didn't bother hooking up the closed loops. Waiting on those Vortechs.

 

[alien9168]

Nice corals... some consolation

 

[alien9168]

oh...almost forgot that you were getting vortechs, post pics when you get them...they look awsome from the video i saw on the web, and the reviews ive read!

TUNZE vs. VORTECH

dududud dum.... :smokin:

 

[melev]

Laurence, your tank is young, and acropora are very demanding. They like very stable water, and young tanks tend to swing quite a bit.

 

[jeffbrig]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7162663#post7162663 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by NexDog
And on yet another note, I think I'm going to jump on the Prodibio bandwagon as I will now have 10 acro colonies. Of the 7 I got originally 3 are showing no growth and next to no polyp extension.

You and I are on the same learning curve, Laurence. I have 7 acro frags in my tank right now. One bleached the first day and still hasn't recovered, I think it's a goner. Of the remaining ones, some showed good polyp extension, others still haven't put out any polyps. Most of them do appear to have grown a little bit, though. After a week on the bottom, I moved them to various locations in the tank, and one of the highest ones bleached after a few days (so I moved it back down). Two others have since been bulldozed by snails, and broke off their mounts. Maybe one day I'll figure out how to do this right...

Oh, and right now none of them look anywhere near as good as the pictures where I ordered them.

 

[scarletknight06]

wow, what are you doing stocking sps if you have no significant flow in a young tank?! of course they're going to not do well. you've got some reading to do.

 

[NexDog]

Jeff, nothing has bleached - just a few acros aren't showing good PE.

Marc, young tanks can still handle SPS and you see plenty of them on RC. Take Energy's tank for example. The pics that Spazz first posted were only 3-4 months after the tank went up. Remember I didn't just throw in 100 kilos of LR, let it cycle and then add corals (I've read those articles too). I transferred everything from my 50g and added a few pieces of LR every frew days that I cured first. You won't see me making any newbie mistakes and my progress shows that.

Alien - will definitely post pics. EM says they are sending out end of April so might even be a matter of weeks but probably won't be until mid-May I'm sure.

 

[NexDog]

Just received an email from Reef Nutrition concerning my order of pods and it's good news. They had to check that they would travel well and apparently it looks like if they send on a certain day they will get here okay. So they are sending them on Friday. I'm going to check out some mandarins later today.

 

[GreshamH]

Your copepods will be in a breathable bag, not the retail poly containers most people see. I'll make sure to over count for you, well, more (over counting) then usual

Gresham
Reef Nutrition

 

[NexDog]

Thanks Gresham, feel free to overcount as much as physically possible.

So the corals arrived - wow, what colours. Really wishing my camera (as crap as it was) was working. I think I need to rethink my rockwork because these colonies are just too damn big to fit in between rocks. Also need more epoxy so will order in tonight. That will be it for coral until mid-may though although I think I've done well in a short space of time.

The sick Lyretail is still hanging in there (unbelievably). Going to do a WC there tonight and dose Formalin again. I'm one week away from the 4 week mark and I hope I'll end up with 5 Lyretails. One has grown alot and I suspect will change to male soon. A few others have really "oranged" up and another two haven't grown much and look the same as when I got them a month ago.

I'm getting the mandarins tomorrow and will QT them for a while in a spare 20 gallon tank. I'm not going to hypo these fish as the general consensus is that these fish aren't very susceptible to Ich. I'll run my 8w UV Steriliser on the tank though in the hope that it will kill any hitchhiking parasites.

There are two striped mandarins there. One is slightly bigger than the other. I read that the male has a longer dorsal fin than the female and the bigger mandarin's dorsal does look a bit bigger. Does anyone know where to find good pictures of the male and female striped mandarins? And if I was to end up with 2 males or 2 females would they fight?

 

[jnarowe]

Wow Dog, Acros and mandarins? That's moving fast...I know you transferred in your old tank but those are very sensitive creatures. I hope they do OK. Of course I got a ration of crap for dropping in a BTA and mated maroons so soon after the cycle. But that was a SPECIAL situation!

 

[NexDog]

I'm pushing the boat out, breaking down the barriers of pre-conceived notions. I'm a wayshower, what can I say.

I think my water is pretty stable. Tank is young but I didn't shock the water. All params are super stable and at perfect levels (Ca: 420, Mag: 1300, PO3: 0.001, Nitrate: 1). Nothing died off in my tank like it prolly did in yours. I've researched high and low and I believe my current methodology is fine. I haven't lost any corals - no RTN, no STN, no bleaching. I lost some fish on the last QT cycle but QT is a process that needs to be streamlined and I got it down now. Only thing I'm lacking is serious flow but from what I've read SPS don't die because of that - they just don't thrive.

I have billions of amphipods and some mandarin owners here on RC say their mandarins eat amphipods. If they don't, I have the copepods coming on Monday but I must have some copepods in my tanks. The mandarins will go in QT with some LR that I'll pull out the main tank and some pod infested caulerpa and I'll try and train them to eat prepared foods. I have angles covered but I'm still reading, still learning, still absorbing. I'm very happy with how everything is going so far.

 

[scarletknight06]

just to clarify. you will see some STN on sps from lack of flow. especially around the base of acros

 

[NexDog]

In that case I'll hook up one of my closed loops as a temporary measure. Thanks for the clarification. Will do tomorrow.

 

[grallster]

Scarletknight took the words right out of my mouth.

 

[NexDog]

You should see a doctor - might be nasty.

I'm seriously battered today after an intense 2 hour training session at the dojo last night. Back is sore, ripped the skin off my toes on my right foot, wrenched my already weak shoulder (which has never been the same since wrecking it when I was a snowboarding bum) plus I caught a nice hook right on the chops splitting my bottom lip. Second dan training sessions are tough.

My sick Lyretail looks alot better today. She had a Formalin bath the other day and I did a 30% water change three days ago and another one yesterday and have dosed Formalin in the tank the last 3 days too. She's not out of the woods as she still isn't active (at all) but she is now a nice orange and mottled look has gone. It's always a feeling of achievement when you cure a fish so I really hope she pulls through.