copps

Yup... 100% Chaetodon citrinellus (speckled butterfly). Good luck! Copps

It's absolutely my pleasure! I was out in San Diego on business for a couple of weeks and I spent the weekend with Bob, and then got a weekday off and we drove up to LA to hit all of the wholesalers... Bob has simply done EVERYTHING in this hobby... and on top of it all is just a good man. I'm excited to bring him out to DC here. John

I've owned two of these and both reverted back to 100% normal coloration... pretty cool to document though and it surprised ichthyologists... Copps

She was turning in the shot... it's there, as evidenced by the second photo...

Yup... when I got her a while back... And a recent shot... growing up... Copps

The only thing I treat with prophylactically is Prazi, after the fish is adapted and feeding. Many of these medications are harsh and unnecessary unless you notice symptoms... Cupramine, while better than most copper, is still sometimes harsh, and there are some fish I will not treat with it at all depending on which family or genus it is... In QT a trained eye will catch anything parasitic early on before it becomes a problem and becomes lethal.

Honestly Roni, a 20 gallon long is good for most all fish... I also have a 37 gallon long for some fish, but I've done many large angels in a 20 long. A 90 gallon is way too large in my opinion for a few reasons. If monitored, many fish can be QTed together. The drawback you mention is the major one! I am a huge proponent of 100% water changes in QT, and at a minimum large water changes are necessary. Most people do not have the ability, time, or money to do this on a 90 gallon. Also, many times you will need these water changes on fairly short notice, and making up that much water is just not possible. Also, many medications can get expensive when dosed in that amount. This much water volume is just not necessary and a real drawback for many reasons. John

No sweat Jan... happy to help... in reference to your statements above, adding water from an established tank does nothing... nitrifying bacteria live on surfaces, not in the water column, so adding water from an established tank does no good... and potentially harm if you are adding parasites. Sponges in the HOB filter do not remove medications, the carbon does. Having set up a new QT with nothing established I'm not surprised that there were beyond lethal amounts of ammonia, and that even after a 100% water change you were registering ammonia. One other thing... your biological filter bed will take a little bit of a hit when certain things are dosed... depending on what is dosed, but in a properly cycled QT with a good population going you will not even notice it, and neither will your fish. I can dose anything pretty much and not worry short term about nutrients... I may need to do a water change sooner but that's it... Addressing other questions you had... again in a properly cycled QT you should not have to do water changes more than once a week... In regards to testing for copper, I never bother with it... I prefer the Red Sea over the Seachem for testing cupramine, but testing copper is sometimes spotty and if you are off once on your testing you could easily overdose your fish... copper is lethal at not too much higher a dosage... so how do I get by with never testing copper? With the 100% water changes I do, I know exactly what the concentration will be with my dosing... the dosage will not fall in a QT, so you do not have to worry there... keep in mind though that at therapeutic levels even Cupramine can be stressful to certain families and genera of fish, so it should only be used if needed. To answer this, yes the sponge filters always act as media for your biological filter bed to grow. As I said above the hit the filter will take depends on what you're dosing, but will not be that much, and the bacteria within a few days seem to adjust. These sponges are tremendously beneficial... when the QT is empty I continue to drop food in there when I feed the other fish so that the bacteria remain populated and fed. When properly done I'm able to add a shoal of a dozen anthias in a 20 gallon QT without registering ammonia... I trust my QT methods with even the most important and expensive of fish... two days ago I just added a small wrought iron butterfly to QT for my subtropical system... Many people rush their fish through QT as they do not have confidence... but in reality when properly done you have MORE control in a QT system than in your display... Copps

Hey Forrest, that is cool! I've had the IG monti since 2003, the year Reef Farmer's first distributed it... in my 2004 Reef Central TOTM you could already see a good sized colony... I've distributed a ton of frags of this fast growing and beautiful coral and never seen that! It's got to be a result of grafting... the IG monti took in the pigments from someone else (a green Poci is a good candidate as they're notorious for polyp bailout!)... as a matter of fact I wouldn't be surprised if my 3 and 6 year old kids have some Pocillopora in them! Were these small pieces bleached out or stressed? Are only the new growth polyps taking on the color? Copps

I always say when I talk about QT in my lectures that the most common problem BY FAR with QT is improper biologiocal filtration... and that seems to be what got Jan here... I do 100% water changes on my QT tanks, not daily, but usually weekly depending on the circumstances. I also highly recommend these, as ammonia is by far the biggest QT killer... http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/AmmoniaAlert.html They will give you a real time reading on your ammonia levels and let you know when it's an issue... they minute it starts to turn off yellow... even before it gets to the first stage on the level indicator, you should plan a water change... also be sure to mix your newly made up saltwater for at least 36 hours (or 24 if you're in a pinch) and be sure it is the same temp and salinity... One other note... a lot of people initially get discouraged when they have issues with QT... do not give it up! Like anything else there is a learning curve, and as much as you read about something you will have initial hiccups... you could read and study and study about riding a bike for months and yet you'd still have issues when you first tried it out... and if we all gave up after initial failures NONE OF US would be in this hobby! The nice thing is that once you gain confidence in your QT and treatment methods and understand what goes on when you do have an issue pop up you handle the situation much better. This is very true and you need to be aware of that... copper works amazingly well but has its drawbacks... I use Seachem Cupramine over any other copper products... Many of our displays harbor parasites, and so what is also very common is infecting our newly purchased fish in the QT with parasites introduced from our display... I keep my QTs completely separate and do not let one drop of water go between any of my QTs or display... it only takes a drop (actually less) to introduce a parasite, the the newly purchased weak and stressed fish easily become vulnerable to many of them... I prefer Aquaclear hang on the back filters with a couple of the sponges that come with them in them. These sponges act as all the media you need for a good colony of nitrifying bacteria to colonize (the kind that break down ammonia and nitrites). On top of being great for biological filtration, they are great for mechanical filtration... when you do your water change you ring out the sponges and remove all of the excess food and wastes before they have a chance to breakdown (into ammonia of course)... and unlike what many people think, these sponges do not affect any medications or copper based remedies... Hope that helps! Copps

Glad to hear Kim! Thank you! John

As has been said running two MP10s would not really cut it... On my 60 gallon below I have two MP10s providing all of the flow and they are maxed out. On any system larger I'd bump up to the MP40s. For the size they are though, the MP10s are excellent pumps. Ideally, you'd want two MP40s for your tank, giving you a lot of flexibility even in a mixed reef. One will suffice, but it is not ideal. Having two of these pumps strategically placed allows for a much more natural flow pattern. Hope that helps, John

I know what you mean Mike... I love palmata! I just spoke in Nebraska and met up with Mitch at the Omaha zoo... man was I tempted to take some of his palmata... it blows away cervicornis... keep up the good work to help ensure the future of Atlantic Acropora... and if you want a frag for "science" let me know!

Thanks again everyone! Juvie regals are very hard to find on the market for a few reasons... 1. Juvenile regal angelfish in the wild are VERY secretive... I've dived months in Guam and seen plenty regals as they are one of the most common angels... and never one juvie. 2. Of the juvie ones that are collected many go to Japan, where they pay a premium for smaller special fish like these... 3. When they do come on the market these require a very short supply chain... I've gotten mine from friends in Hawaii that import from the Marshall Islands... when that small they are a bit fragile and cannot go long without feeding... Here's one of my tiny girls when I got her... No transcript Jon, but I'll be at the meeting next weekend if you want to pick my brain! I do use GAC, and forgot to include that tidbit in the article. Copps

Kevin has a few more of these and that will be it for a while... this is a long haul trip to collect these in West Australia and they are seasonal... Also keep in mind that this is a subtropical fish... even mid 70s is pushing it... And buying Anampses with a guarantee is worth its weight in gold... Kevin knows how to condition these fish! Copps

Thanks so much guys! I'm still gauging this, but it will be nowhere near as slow as the purple monster and Oregon tort... Thanks Mike for doing that! Say hello to Jen for me and I hope all is well! Thank you... I took all of the photos for my article... Copps

Hey guys, while I attend just about all of the meetings and have been a member of WAMAS almost since the beginnining, I have not participated much on the board here recently... funny what two children will do! Anyway, I wanted to share some photos and an article on one of my systems that is featured in Reefkeeping Magazine and Reef Central this month as Tank of the Month. Check it out! http://reefkeeping.com/joomla/index.php/current-issue/article/76-tank-of-the-month Copps

My wife woke me up and told me to go check my tanks downstairs as she thought one of them exploded to cause the shaking (I have over 1000 gallons in the house :D)

Hey guys... the one man show behind the scenes at Glassbox-design, Eric Michael, has been my friend for a few years now. I know a lot of people in the industry and Eric has been my go-to source for the latest info and cutting edge LED and newer lighting technologies. I've convinced him to put together a talk on the subject, and he may be our speaker for the summer fragfest. WAMAS will be the first to see it. He's also a down to earth guy and any questions beyond the talk he'd be willing to chat about... exciting technology that's evolving fast and I've embraced it... not yet ready to drop my MH on the sps systems... but it's coming in handy so far in many applications... Copps

Conspic angels are found in a few different subtropical locations... the only place there is regular limited collection is in New Caledonia, where they are collected in very small numbers... large specimens are much easier to find, and with alot of the market for these being in Asia, those buyers are willing to pay high dollars for smaller specimens... most fish get more expensive as they get larger as you are basically paying their plane ticket, and freight goes by weight... but with these the smaller specimens adapt much better to captive life and a captive diet... large Chaetodontoplus angels are notoriously finicky eaters... so for those reasons you end up with the very rare upside down pricing structure you see with this species... This is my little guy, from the same collector in New Caledonia (and a very good one) that Johnny at BRK gets from... one of the smallest ever brought into the US... and such a cute fish... just smaller than my car key when I got him... keep in mind these are a subtropical species... I keep mine between 68 and 72... this has been one of the Holy Grail angels for decades... Copps

This is a very rare morph of Zebrasoma flavescens that comes out of Hawaii... with the number of yellow tangs collected in Kona (they are by far the most exported species out of Hawaii) these are at most one in a hundred thousand... probably less... I got my first specimen a couple of years ago... here is the fish when I received it... This fish reverted back to normal color over the course of a few months... in this shot you could see the white patch just about gone... I received a second specimen early last year... with a much more clearly defined white area... I knew this fish would probably revert back, but I enjoy documenting these things, as ichthyologists are unable to follow these specimens in the wild... this is the second specimen... This fish too is just about reverted back ... A few of my Zebrasoma morphs have held their color, but as I've found through many fish families this "xanthic" coloration is always temporary... This small blue angel I got also reverted back to normal color... Here is that same blue angel a few months later looking mottled ... it is now a normal color... what causes this no one really knows... Copps

Hey guys, my talk will be a new talk I've been working on for MACNA this year... It'll be titled "Angelfish in Reef Aquaria: From QT and Adaptation to Pairing and Spawning"... you could read more info about it here... although I may change it to " Angel stuff fo sho tho" Doug, I asked one of you guys to update the info a little while back. Can one of you do that? Thanks in advance! Copps

Me!

Forrest is not the only one getting these anymore... I've spoken to Kevin a bunch recently as it's an exciting time in the rare fish world... he got a few carmabi... all of which are not seen in this pic... As Justin says, this species appears electric. And looking at the wholesale price, the $900 retail is quite a bargain, especially coming from the DD. The price will not be coming down soon... I'm amazed collectors can catch Liopropoma... Copps

I was actually in Hawaii last year when the US part of the program debuted on the Discovery Channel, and I was invited to watch at John Earle's ridiculous apartment overlooking Waikiki! Here's a shot of us... from left to right it's Rich Pyle, me, Jack Randall (the ichthyologist that has described more reef fish species than any in history), and John Earle... It was amazing getting all of the stories and seeing their reactions firsthand... an amazing experience...