
Thanks for the compliment!
This is my 'staff pick' tank at the Steinhart Aquarium in the California Academy of Sciences. It contains the 5 OSFF, 2 Meiacanthus grammistes, and 2 Pseudochromis fridmani - pretty sure all of them are spawning. In 6-12 months the tank is prolly also going to get 16 Apogon leptacanthus that are currently in a tank on the same system (and they are spawning regularly).
I was given this tank right before Matt Pedersen published his OSFF breeding success so, after talking with him, I modeled my weaning after his protocol. I also talked with him quite a bit about the tank and how many fish would work - we really had no idea so we decided to try for a display of 5, so I ordered 7 (3 male, 4 female) fish from Divers Den and they went into a cube tank system (12x12 cubes) but the fish could not see each other. If they all made it I would keep 1 pair at home, back of house at work, or put them in the 200,000 gallon reef. They weren't interested in picking on live acro or dead acro with fourmula 1 squished into it. I tried both for two days and then decided, with consultation with my QT partner Matt Wandell, that the most important thing was food in their bellies, not trying to get them to eat 'easy' food, so I gave them live brine shrimp and they ate like pigs. I quickly started offering them Hikari micro pellets which they ignored and then tried crushed up flake, on day 4, which they started eating very quickly. A few days later I offered pellets again, this time letting them settle to the bottom and leaving them there - they started picking at them later that day, and now eat just about any food offered - PE mysis, cyclops, BBS, flake, pellets - they are pigs. During the 30 day QT we lost 2 - one from 'spinning' and one found dead one morning. Necropsy showed nothing obvious.
When they went into the tank they picked at lots of soft corals. They didn't bother clams until I moved the clams around, then they were vicious. Now they are great and eat a lot, they pick on corals a little, but never seem to do any real damage. No acros in the tank with them, mostly because I have another tank with acros around the corner and we like to avoid redundant exhibits.
The tank has a 400 watt 10000 k MH and an auto feeder that feeds micro pellets 4 times a day. They get a 5th feeding every day of live brine, PE mysis, bbs or whatever else I have prepared.
Theres my little OSFF story!