My Journey with C./P. multifasciata

Jeez Kyle -Sorry to hear that. Kevin's support here is monumental. Have you asked Kevin about the use of pods as a "comfort food"? What does he say about your QT setup? I've got mine in a sand & live rock 55 w/ a small wrasse & it's eating like a champ all of the sudden. It does look like it's injured it's eye as it's cloudy right now.
 
Jeez Kyle -Sorry to hear that. Kevin's support here is monumental. Have you asked Kevin about the use of pods as a "comfort food"? What does he say about your QT setup? I've got mine in a sand & live rock 55 w/ a small wrasse & it's eating like a champ all of the sudden. It does look like it's injured it's eye as it's cloudy right now.

Kevin didn't say anything about pods specifically, but said some established LR would be a good thing to have should they stop eating. Now that I one this was caused by a disease the LR wouldn't have worked as it would have absorbed the meds. Since he mentioned this is velvet season, I think I will start a proactive treatment for it after the first week of QT and solidly eating.
 
I have some great news and some more great news!

First the great news. The CP I picked up from Josh this past weekend seems to be doing its job and my clownfish seem to be doing fine with no signs of velvet. I don't think I could handle more losses right now.

Now the more great news is outstanding, really. I notified Kevin of the loss of the angel, which he said both would be replaced when I'm ready. The even better part about this is that he is working on getting me a pair now for shipping in the middle of January so that he and his team can acclimate them for at least 30 days. This should allow for great success should they not succumb to a disease. The icing on the cake, however, is the pair of orchid dottybacks he is going to send me as well. :D

Due to his generosity and understanding I really have to put forth a shout out to Kevin. He is an awesome guy, and I couldn't ask for a better person to work with on this journey. DD couldn't have a better director either. Kevin goes above and beyond all expectations that I have of him or DD itself.
 
I've got some news on my multibar angelfish project. With my recent promotion, I had a temporary cut in hours since I was training. Come January, I am to expect an extra shift or some lengthened shifts and as such I would never have the time to get the angels acclimated/conditioned to captive life. I let Kevin know this yesterday, noting I have thoughts of going a slightly different direction depending on what further steps I need to take upon arrival of the new fish. He let me know that since he will have them for 30 days at minimum, I should not need to feed the 8-10x per day normally needed for initial acclimation. He also noted that if eating flake/pellet food is wanted that he can hold on to them for an extra amount of time to have them on pellets when I get them. This goes beyond what I expect him to do for replacing a fish, but I think it is great! Kevin also noted that if I did change directions, that he would gladly condition a pair of flame angels in place of the multibars. On a side note, he already has the new pair of multibar angels for me and they are in his office tank. I'll have to do some more thinking and figuring before I make my choice, so more to come on that.
 
Hi, since I don't know what your main tank looks like this may be stupid advice but why don't you just release your fish directly in the display tank instead of a quarantine tank?

Maybe I differ opinion from a lot of you but I think that adding fish to a healthy tank with lots of live rock will increase the chances for fished like multibars, leopard wrasses and such a lot. Keep your current fish fat and happy, run UV if you think it is needed and I think the risk is quite small. Oh, and buy from a reputable shop so you know you get a fish well taken care of (it does sound that you are in the right hands with Kevin). This especially if you have an eating multibar.

My experience with multibar angels, I bought a pair about half a year ago from a LFS, one was eating in the shop one not. Still decided I wanted both. They went directly into the main tank and are still swimming there and nice and fat. From one I still don't know what it eats, but at least it does now leave my acanthastrea (Lordhowensis) in peace. I had to temporary remove them since the fish started eating them. But after I put back the acans they were not bothered afterwards. Just luck I think. And this is in a tank with 5 grown leopard wrasses so the amount of pods is probably not so high. I feed twice a day, once frozen and once flakes and pellets.

If I were to do it again I would plumb a small tank with some live rock to my system and put them there to get them eating prepared stuff.
 
I have a small update on the multibars as I have been keeping in touch with Kevin. He had them almost right away as I noted in a previous post. Sadly, over the past couple weeks the larger specimen developed an infection in a pectoral fin and perished during treatment. The good news is that they are getting a shipment from Vanuatu this weekend and he should hopefully be able to get some new multibars to work with again. This will push the date for delivery back some time depending on how well it acclimates.
 
And round two has started as of about 10am this morning!

My parents were home while I was at school and brought the box inside and I got a text saying, "The box is really heavy, how many fish did you get?". An email was sent to me from Chris asking if the fish arrived and are doing well. It was only the two angels, and I opened the box upon returning home, and to my surprise, there are two massive bags in the box with a small bag of the pellets they are eating. As I set up temp. acclimation, I soon realized that I had 5 gallons of water displaced between the two bags! At this point, Kevin and his team have blown any expectations out of the water.



 
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Kyle, I have had my pair for 5+ years. I do agree with putting a piece of well crusted / good algae growth LR in the QT. (Mind you one from a tank that you know to be clean.) I would also hang a cloth across the front of the tank for the first week to prevent them from being spooked by foot traffic and then slowly take it down / open it up over a matter of days. I'm assuming that your QT has been up and running for a while so you're not combating NO2/NH issues? Best of luck.
 
They'll get some rocks, but I don't really have algae on any of it since it is just in a Brute can with a heater and pump. I ghost feed the tub to keep bacteria alive, but that's about it.

The filter I had set the tank up with originally broke last week so the HOB filter now is new, but I had a seeded sponge to put in there tank. I shouldn't have NO2 or NH issues, never really had any even with rather fresh QTs.
 
Quick little update on the new pair:

They have settled in well and seem to be catching on to the idea of where food comes from rather quickly. Not begging like my clowns do, but will stare at me when I'm in the room. :) Both will eat PE mysis readily, but are still at a stage of what I consider needing 4 feedings per day. They typically won't eat more than a few large mysis shrimp per sitting (they are still small, I would say the small one is about the size of the original female and the larger just about half an inch larger), and as such will keep up with smaller more frequent feedings. They might eat some more in a sitting if I bumped the temp up some (76ish right now), but that'll come slowly after several weeks. Brine shrimp is taken with the same amount of gusto, but more shrimp is eaten due to a smaller size.

On the pellet/flake front, they don't pay these foods any attention. I did slip a couple pellets in with a mysis feeding today and one of them tried a pellet, immediately spitting it out.

Just for the sake of variety, I through in a clam on the half shell today. They were very cautious of it. The smaller one took very tiny nibbles out of it, but nothing more than that.
 
Two week update (slightly early):

Both appear healthy so far. However, I noticed today that one has some kind of abnormality on its anal fin that was not present Tuesday (had school and work yesterday so my brother fed them and he didn't pay attention). It looks like a small bubble on the end of two anal fin spines, or possibly a cyst. Whatever it is, I can't get a picture of it with the fish in the water and I'm not sure I can catch it without stressing both out too much. I think I'm going to just observe it over the next few days and see what happens.

They are still eating mysis and brine shrimp well and I'm thinking about trying nori soon just to give them some more variety. One has some interest in Cobalt Flake food, and will take a few small bites from one flake.

Also, looking at the two fish closely, they have different patterns of color. One has some yellow bars between the brown barring in the white area, and the other does not. I find this interesting since both were collected from the same area (Vanuatu) and aren't that different in regards to size.

Just a short video of the two since they didn't want pictures taken:
 
Beauties! Glad they are doing well for you. We appreciate the job you are doing of documenting your experiences with these guys. I hope to follow your path some day soon with the Multifasciata and Venustus.
 
Probably just a little lympho Kyle, it'll clear up with some patients. Glad they are doing well thus far, hope they continue to progress for ya.
 
Beauties! Glad they are doing well for you. We appreciate the job you are doing of documenting your experiences with these guys. I hope to follow your path some day soon with the Multifasciata and Venustus.

Thanks! I am happy as well. I'm a little nervous going into the next couple of days since this is the time frame the last pair died. :( So fart they are looking great though! I'll be updating weekly for a couple months and continue to do so when I get spawns.

Probably just a little lympho Kyle, it'll clear up with some patients. Glad they are doing well thus far, hope they continue to progress for ya.

I hope so as well. This time around I have some hands on experience to go off of and some more insight from Kevin as well. I'm excited to get them in the display in a month!

Your multibarred pair look great and they sure get along well!
Fingers are crossed for spawning!

They really are getting along great. I haven't seen any hierarchy forming behavior since day one, likely from already bein together for two months. I can't wait to see spawns from them!
 
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