Project 150!!

[Maxx]

I like how clean and straight your plumbing job looks in the first few pics. That lil' critter looks happy.

Thanks Reeferdude. The first attempt was going pretty good, but I goofed on one last part...which messed everything else up and I had to pitch the whole thing. I'm prett happy with it. The eel seems to be happy, he always returns to the rock, which has half a dozen little tunnels in it that are interconnected with a different entrance/exit for each one...

cool little guy.

Thanks James, I really dig watching him.

kool looking eel man ,will he get much bigger?

Thanks Scott. He wont get much bigger, if at all. These eels only get to be about 7 inches in length, and he's right about there. He kinda reminds me of my dog...always hungry, always curious, and entertaining to watch.

Cool eel Nick! Make sure he doesn't climb out! My friend found his eel on the floor masny times until eventually he was too late once and the eel died.

Thanks Krish. You're right, eels are definately curious about things and are always looking and exploring around the tank. I've kept morays before in the past, but I plan on keeping a close eye on this guy...

I'm in the midst of dealing with a nasty bryopsis outbreak in that tank, so no full tank pics til after its gone....raised the magnesium level up to 1605, which should help with getting rid of the bryopsis.

Regarding the 120...
The fish in it are doing good, no squabbles, everyone is eating happily. The 12lbs of chaeto in the sump apperas to have grown into 15 lbs....
and I still have no idea how I'm going to get the Royal Gramma out of the 58....

Nick

 

[Maxx]

07-15-2007

Brief boring update....

The 120 is doing fine. I turned the halides on (dual 250 watt XM10k's on an HQI ballast), because I was worried the Tomini wouldnt have enough to graze on. They've been running on a timer since shortly after the Tomini was introduced to the tank. Everything has a brown fuzzy algae growing on it, but I'm also seeing coralline algae in the tank, interestingly enough, I'm seeing most of it concentrated on the Thorite covering the PVC rock rack...

All the fish are doing fine, eating happily and not squabbling over territory.

As far as the 58 goes, the SPS are doing great....still havent figured out a way to get the Royal Gramma out of there yet....need to get on that.

The eel and the two clowns in the 10 gallon are all doing fine too...

Nick

 

[Scooterman]

Well your update was better than mine LOL! Glad to see everyone is doing well!

 

[Maxx]

I'm most likely going to remove the Doliatus Rabbitfish here in the near future. Its very greedy and is starting to try and hoard the broccoli by keeping the Regal Angel from it. I'm also considering taking the Royal Gramma to the LFS for credit towards something...
Its pretty large, Its pretty difficult to remove him, and I'm not real sure how well its gonna get along with the Blackcap basslet, (Which is smaller than the Royal Gramma), but this is a 120...

What would be ideal is to replace the Royal Gramma and the Doliatus Rabbitfish with a Powder Blue tang, and a Flame Angel.....but I'm not real upbeat about my chances of finding a Flame Angel that wont nibble on clams or acro's.

Possible substitutes are the Peppermint Hogfish (Bodianus masudai), or a Flameback Pygmy Angel (Centropyge acanthops), or the Flame Hawk (Neocirrhites armatus).

I want something relatively easy to care for so anything like Anthias or fairy wrasses are out...too much effort to feed every couple of hours, and the constant threat of jumping....I have an open topped tank for better heat dispersion.
My only concern about the Flame Hawk is that I have heavy flow throughout the tank, and that I would like to have some cleaner shrimp in the tank as well....and Hawks are pretty well known for munching on shrimp.

Thoughts or suggestions?

Nick

 

[cheeks69]

I love the Fairy Wrasses and I only feed once and when I'm feeling good twice a day but they do have a voracious appetite. Nick I would go with the Longnose Hawfish which is much safer with shrimp than the Flame. I've added several shrimp to my tank since I've had mine and there's been no issues:exclaim:

 

[Maxx]

How long have you had your Longnose Hawk Robert?
I've seen several throughout the years eat shrimp. Ones that werent small enough to fit in the mouth of the hawk were made small enough...

What are you feeding your fairy wrasses? I'd love a Hawaiian Flame Wrasse...

Nick

 

[cheeks69]

How long have you had your Longnose Hawk Robert?
I've seen several throughout the years eat shrimp. Ones that werent small enough to fit in the mouth of the hawk were made small enough...

What are you feeding your fairy wrasses? I'd love a Hawaiian Flame Wrasse...

Nick

I've had mine for several months. I think mine would have serious difficulty eating any of my shrimp due to their size but I'm sure the smaller shrimp would be a quick meal.

My Cirrhilabrus rubrimarginatus will eat anything I put in the tank, he loves Nori too ! The open top would be a problem for sure. Doni aka Woodstock used some gutterguard very effectively to keep her Jawfish in the tank maybe that would be an option ?

 

[Maxx]

08-04-2007

No pics, things are kinda in a holding pattern at the moment as I've been working quite a bit lately.

I took the Doliatus/Scribbled Rabbitfish out of the tank and brought him to a LFS for store credit. He/she was actually slightly larger than my Regal Angel and was hoarding food from the Regal, and actually chasing her away from Broccoli placed in the tank. That pretty much meant it was leaving the tank IMO. The Regal is one of the showpieces of the tank for me.

I turned off the Halides and went back to NO flourescents over the 120. The algae growth was impressive, and the only one grazing on it was the Rabbitfish....and it would still chase the Regal from the broccoli even though it was fat from grazing on algae growing on the rock work and the sides/bottom of the tank.

I added to Astrea snails, (didnt do much due to the size of the tank they were in), and moved the Long Spined Diadema urchin over to the 120...The urchin made a major dent in the algae, and the tank is almost looking presentable again.

Still no luck w/ the Royal Gramma.

In the 10 gallon with the Dwarf Moray there have been a couple of changes too.

I had a very small purple H.crispa anemone, (about 3 inches) and a decent sized Long Tentacled Anemone, (M.doreensis), the tank bred Occelaris clown and the tank bred Gold Striped Maroon clown.
The LTA decided one day to move all across the tank and I found it sitting over and potentially stinging the H.crispa, and the Maroon had followed it over, and subsequently chased the Occelaris out of the H.crispa and banished it to a small corner.

Both the LTA and the Occelaris were taken out of the 10 gallon, with the Occelaris being taken to the same LFS as the Rabbitfish for store credit, and the LTA taken over to a friends house and given to him.

I know he'll take care of it, and I think it will do better there over the long haul than it would in a LFS where it could wind up with someone who has no experiance w/ anemones and would end up killing it.

So that's all for now.

Nick

 

[Maxx]

I've had mine for several months. I think mine would have serious difficulty eating any of my shrimp due to their size but I'm sure the smaller shrimp would be a quick meal.

My Cirrhilabrus rubrimarginatus will eat anything I put in the tank, he loves Nori too ! The open top would be a problem for sure. Doni aka Woodstock used some gutterguard very effectively to keep her Jawfish in the tank maybe that would be an option ?

Wow, sorry Robert. I didnt see your reply before.

Thats good to hear about the Hawkfish...Rocio really likes the look of the Flame Hawk and has also stated that a Longnose Hawk would be cool too.

The only issue w/ the gutter guard/tank covering is getting it fitted properly since the Wavy Sea takes up some space and is oddly shaped. Nothing insurmountable, but another thing to consider.

Nick

 

[Maxx]

Having a bit of an aptaisia problem in the 58 at the moment. One large aptaisia has turned into 40 or so little to mid sized ones. And they are not confined to one rock any longer....they're pretty much on every single rock in the tank.

They will not be moving to the 120.

Tomorrow, I'll be heading over to www.saltyunderground.com and picking up some Berghia Nudibranchs. Turns out they are local to me, (about 5 minutes away) and I never knew it. I talked with Lisa on the phone today about them, and she initially suggested I consider buying a raccoon butterfly to remove them as she did not feel I have a sufficiently large enough aptasia problem to justify the non recoverable cost of the Berghia's. (Berghia's only eat aptasia, and they will starve to death if there are no more for them to feed on).
I contemplated it for a bit...but I also have the H.magnifica anemone and some SPS left over...and its not exactly easy to get fish out of the 58 once they are in there.....the freakin Royal Gramma is a perfect example of this.

So I'm going to go with the Nudi's. It will take a bit longer, but be worth it in the long run I think.

Gawd this is a long tank build up....

Nick

 

[Krish]

Sorry to hear about your troubles Nick. Bummer you can't use your work pistol to get rid of them Hope you get them wiped out

 

[brady816]

I had tried using them i got 4 for my 55 gal tank i cant see any difference in the aptaisia at all..so good luck

 

[Maxx]

If this is the worst thing I have to deal with in this hobby, I'm still doing okay...

I have to account for every bullet in my duty pistol Krish......so I'm pretty careful with it.

Brady,
How long have you had the nudi's in your tank?

Nick

 

[Damsel13]

I recently have um.... "grown" a new aptasia(sp) on a different rock AND on the complete other side of the tank! It's a bummer. I am watching this thread closely!

 

[Scooterman]

Well Nick dealing with abtasia before & trying every single trick for over two years & ended up getting rid of all of the rock. You can nuke them & if you don't paste that spot tight it will come back in that exact spot 6 8 weeks later mark the spots as you think you kill them. I had reduced them a good bit as I was getting to be a better aptaisia killer but they still had some when I sold off the rocks. The best thing to do is dump the rock on a bucket of bleach & start new, flush it well. I advise not to use any of this rock in your new tank otherwise, as many people that I've seen claimed the removed them completely I don't think it was long before they found more later.
Hey on the bright side, your way ahead of me on this build & I've been set back so many times it is depressing at times, but I keep bouncing back

 

[brady816]

I have had them in for about a month now..I was going to set up a small tank and try to breed them but i never got around to it. As scooterman said dump the rock get all new if you can...Cant wait to see some pics of the new tank

 

[Maxx]

I've got corals growing on the rocks....I'm not dumping anything. If this doesnt work out, I'm going to move the H.magnifica anemone over to the 120 and get a raccon butterfly.
I stopped by Salty Underground today. I picked 4 Berghia Nudi's and spoke to Lisa for a good while. She is very knowledgably and very friendly. She said it would take some time for the Nudi's to take care of the aptasia. I'll be keeping everyone informed how it goes.

Scott, thanks for the words of encouragement....its still annoying that I dont have things squared away yet. But it will happen.

deb,
If you only have two aptasia, cover them with putty/epoxy, or superglue. Dont try Joe's juice, kalk or any thing else. You can almost always remove the putty/epoxy after a couple of weeks.

Nick

 

[Scooterman]

Yea I would never dump LR you, lets see how the Nudi's work, you can always get a butterfly that will eat them & once gone find it a home as part of the plan.

 

[brady816]

what i was agreeing on is what scooterman said The best thing to do is dump the rock on a bucket of bleach & start new, flush it well

 

[Maxx]

I understand....unfortunately, I have corals growing on the rock work....so I wont be doing anything to the rock other than letting the Nudi's eat the aptaisia off of it.

Nick