Joe's Wet Dream, A 550 Gallon Work In Progress

[vwmoneypit]

i have been following this from the start and have to say every time i have an idea for ya well there it is the next dream!!! u will be award winning b4 it all over congrats

 

[Jobiwan]

LOL Thanks vw.

One thing I have had success with Kirk is to blend up a paste of assorted seafood, then find a really rough piece of live rock or a dead coral piece and really smear it around, doesn't have to be on thick, just in the crevices pits etc so he can pick at it, let it dry a few hours so it doesn't dissolve as soon as it hits the water, it may interest him, watch your water quality though, you might want to do two rocks and swap them out each day before they rot too much, be ready for water changes. Check in on the Fish forum, I bet you already have though, they might have some other good ideas, I'd give you an aiptasia rock, but my CBB has cleaned them off, I do have lots on the glass and in the cryptic fuge if you want to give that a shot, I think the paste thingy is your best bet though at this point, he probably is seriously in need of more nutrition than an aiptasia diet woulf give him.

Congrats on the Navarchus, I love those things, one cool thing about them is that they don't get huge, I think they top out under ten inches, and it takes a while to get there. If I get lucky and kill all my SPS I'm gonna get one too...

 

[NC2WA]

Joe,

Bad news..My CBB died yesterday. I had a feeling it wasn't going to make it. It starved to death. But on the positive side, I am hoping to get a pair of golden butterfiles soon. These are supposed to be hardier and easier to feed than the CBB. I will make sure they are eating at the store before they come home to me.

Kirk

 

[Jobiwan]

That's a bummer Kirk, it's painful to watch a fish go through that. This may seem off topic at first glance, but I think minimizing the chance of a disease outbreak in a tank my size is relevant. The method that works for me to quarantine more sensitive species and adapt them to captive conditions including a change in their natural diet is to have a stand alone well established live rock tank for them, I've mentioned the 60 I use with it's cryptic pod factory. I don't do prophylactic FW dips or isolate them in empty bare bottom tanks as I believe this adds to stress, JMO. The LR provides a diverse smorgasbord and lots of hiding space. I have no other fish in there to pester the new arrivals. In short order they start coming out and I play around trying to acclimate them to a captive diet, once I am ready to move them on to my display I tear out the rock for ease of capture, also what I would do if I needed to FW dip them or use copper treatment in a bare bottom, although I have never needed to do that. In a nutshell my philosophy is that the most important thing for new arrivals is to minimize stress and get them to eat rather than going through elaborate prophylactic procedures (I love to use that word...), if you are determined to do those things why not do them after you've got the critters settled in and eating instead of when they have just arrived is what I thinks, but that's JMO. If I were going to set something up like this I would look for an RF bargain of someone selling off their 40 or 55 gallon system, I'd sell or give away any of the critters I didn't want for my display, and away we go. In my younger days I couldn't afford to go this route of course, but back then I stuck with species I had to hit with a hammer in order to kill them. Anyway, gotta go, my Long Nose Butterfly wants his morning flake food....

 

[krisfal]

Interesting approach Joe. However I think part of the purpose of the QT set-up as suggested by Lee is to put the fish into a stressed situation in order to bring out any disease and/or parasite before moving into the display.

Before I started using a QT I was able to put several tangs directly into my display and they did not get ich for several months down the road. I feel that had I been using a QT with its relatively stressful atmosphere this parasite would have shown itself much sooner.

I had asked Lee once about using a lower salinity in the QT in order to reduce stress and he recommended against it, partly because the less stressful atmosphere would be less likely to induce symptoms of disease or parasite.

 

[NC2WA]

Well, in my 20 gallon QT, I have a some cured LR that the fish can graze on. 75% of the water in the QT is from my main display tank and the rest of the topoff water is freshly mixed saltwater. The pH and temp matched exactly what the main display tank is.

I also believe the purpose of the QT is so that I can adjust feeding schedule for the fish and for the fish to get used to people walking by the tank. I am going to try and try my majestic to eat from my hand. I beleive yesterday he finally noticed where the source of food was coming, as it looked up towards the top of the tank.
(boy, that sounds corny)

 

[Jobiwan]

I understand that arguement Kris, I think it has some validity, but it doesn't work for me. I do have a lot of respect for Lee Birch, he has provided me with guidance and info on more than one occasion. Here is a quote from his sticky on stress: "One outcome of stress is the fish succumbing to diseases and infections (mostly bacterial in nature) whereas an unstressed fish would be okay". After a fish has gone through the rigors of capture, transport and transfer to different water conditions more than once, wide temp & pH variations, low O2 levels, on and on, I'm of the opinion that if it is going to come down with parasites etc, it will do it whether you stress it more or put it in more optimal conditions immediately, particularly species that have a proven track record of being more difficult to adapt to our captive environment. I wouldn't go so far as to say that subjecting an animal that has already endured hellish conditions to additional stress constitutes abuse, but it is just not something that I can bring myself to do, in my thirty years of fishkeeping I have always taken the approach of eliminating stress on new arrivals and it has always worked for me, I have never had an outbreak of oodinium, crypt etc in a display tank, but that may just be dumb luck. I'm not really trying to sell anyone on my method, just sharing what I feel has contributed to my success over the years, like so many aspects of our hobby I'd consider this is a "different strokes for different folks" kinda thing.

 

[Jobiwan]

BTW Kris, the parasite outbreak on your tangs sounds like crypt, due to the life cycle of the parasites they were either there from the getgo on the tangs, or perhaps endemically in the tank itself and just not visible on anything, or possibly introduced in a few drops of water from any new arrival, invert or whatever, hard to say, but you could well be right about inducing more stress bringing it out sooner if it was brought in by the tangs, were it not for all this anecdotal stuff flying around what would we have to talk about?

 

[krisfal]

Joe,
I see a lot of merit in your approach. My comment was definitely just a friendly counterpoint I have not tried any difficult fish since I have started QT'ing as I worry about them surviving under my care in the QT environment.

My point with the tangs was that they may not have shown symptoms if they had went into a less stressful QT as you use, as they did not show symptoms (at least that I noticed) for a couple of months after being added directly to the display. My husbandry as a newbie was the stress that seemed to bring out the ich.

I have only had saltwater tanks for a little over a year so I am still learning and enjoy reading about all the different things people do that are successful.

 

[Jobiwan]

Kris, I didn't take it as anything but a counterpoint, these forums would be useless if we didn't use them to discuss different approaches and opinions, if I came across as defensive or whatever I apologize, that was not my intent. I didn't make it clear with my vague reference to "sensitive species", I was referring to fish that just didn't need any additional stress if they were going to have any chance to survive, since we started out talking about CBB's I focused on my own thoughts on such things, we have all found critters in the LFS's that arguably should not even be collected due to low survival rates, it is hard to resist the urge to save them even though it could be argued that buying them continues to encourage their collection, Moorish Idols are my favorite example, various species of butterflies, etc. The point I was unclearly trying to make was that there are species that have a lessened chance of survival if they are subjected to stressors after going through the rigors prior to adopting them, I have no problem with a rigorous prophylactic regimen (there is that word again) on species with a proven record of "hardiness", although I choose not to do this myself, we all have our techniques. For a so called "newbie" your postings are always relevant and thought provoking, keep up the good work, best regards, Joe

 

[mmkeeper]

How are things going with this incredible system?

 

[brady816]

would like to see some new pics

 

[Jobiwan]

And new pics you shall have... things are going just swimingly, ooh la la ... Best news of all, my fabricator has completed the hood, they are delivering it manana, I will post pics, it is going to be a monster... Jason and Eric will be up next weekend to wire it up and set up the electrical panel etc, soon I will have an SPS juggernaut, unless of course I can't keep any alive, in which case I will have one hell of a FOWLR, a Win-Win in any event, I've always dreamed of a school of panther groupers, while happily keeping my nitrates below 25 ppm... Here boys, enjoy another couple of dozen feeder goldfish... I'm picking up a pair of yellow tangs from Oak Harbor Jeff and Linda this weekend, I will of course subject them to a two hour ice cold fresh water dip, that ought to bring out any dormant pathological conditions, or at least create them... Pics to follow....

 

[csdoyle]

Can't wait to see the new hood!

Cheers,

Chris

 

[Jobiwan]

The Big Day!!!

I've been eagerly awaiting this day, Patrick from TRS construction came up and installed the doors on my stand, I'd gotten used to the skeleton framework, as you will see this came out even better than I thought possible. The light hood was also delivered today, all stainless fabrication is now complete, the pattern on the system is a work of art, there is an ilusion of depth that has to be seen in person to be appreciated. Any of you who have been in one of the Ram restaurants have seen this stainless art on the full length of the bar counter. I have to say this was well worth the wait. Well, that should be enough bragging for now. Jason and Eric will be up in a week or so to install the lighting in the hood, the rectangular mounts are set up for the Luminarc reflectors housing 400w moguls. The crossbars will have 6 actinic 140W VHO'S, probably 2 in between the Luminarcs, and two on each outside. The six portholes you can see on the back end are for six large icecap thermostatically controlled fans, the four middle ones will each be directly ducted to one of the Luminarcs, which are custom modified for this. The two outside fans will directly pull air out of the hood. Our heat pump probably won't have to run at all during the winter days, but the dehumidifier will be going nonstop. Here are a few photos of the inside of the hood:
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A couple of photos of the exterior of the hood, the small brackets on the four corners are cable attachment points for the winch lifting system. The bracket was designed by Jason, it will move up and down a guide track when the lifting system is in use, this will serve to to stabilize the hood. The tape is securing the left side access doors, there is also one on the right side, and one on the front...
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These show Patrick installing the doors, using a TIG welder to attach the hinges, and then hanging the doors. This guy knows what he's doing, all eight doors are perfectly aligned.
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And here are a couple of views of the front and the right side of the finished product.
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All for now, I'll post some livestock photos in the next few days, thanks for looking...

 

[csdoyle]

Wowee Kazowee! That's totally unique and looks super cool!

Congratulations!

Chris

 

[nomercymike]

Wow Joe, and I thought it was sweet when I picked up the sumps. I need to get back up there and check it out again soon. By the way sumps are gonna work perfect, thank you again. Mike

 

[Jobiwan]

Thanks Chris, I appreciate that. It was a pleasure meeting you and the other Mikes Mike, I'm really glad the sumps will work for you, it was a shame just having them laying around. You are of course welcome anytime, when the lights are going I think it should be pretty neat...

 

[NC2WA]

Nice. I am going to have to find an excuse to visit you on the Island.

 

[JPG@CFI]

Joe,

Thank you for sharing all the pic's with us. That SS is awesome. We will see what we can do to get your nano lit! Quad 400 watt MH, and six 140 watt VHO's. Thats what I'm talkin' about.......

Jason