DaveS

Wow, great story (for us) thanks for sharing. Just out of curiosity, why cold water? I recall the generally accepted guideline to be hot water for such stings.

The 2-L bottle show there is similar but different than the one I used. The main problem was that my Hippo tang was too big to put the inverted top back in. So instead I just reduced the amount of the top I cut off and attached a line to spring the trap.

I made one, it took 2 minutes thanks to some ideas from Raf. Take a 2 liter soda bottle (clear is better) take the labels off. Cut the top off. Plan how much of the top you're going to cut off based on how big the tang is. Basically larger the tang, the lower down the neck you cut. The goal is to get the opening as big as you need for the tang to go in but no larger. Cut a little hole near the top, tie some fishing line to it, run the line out of the tank. In theory what you can do is lay it horizontally on the bottom. You might want to put a rock or something in the bottle to keep it from floating around. For my tang, he was a mid-water eater. I but a mag float inside the 2-L bottle and was able to hold the it against the tank wall mid water. Now put some yummy food in the bottle. My Hippo was very skittish so I tilted it slightly so the food would eventually fall out. I fed the fish daily that way. By tilting the bottle, eventually the food would come out so it kinda became a food dispenser. After a few days the hippo got used to it and went inside for the food. I waited until he did this for a days or two just to make sure he was secure going in for food. Then one day I pulled the string! The bottle went vertical and he tried to swim back/forth to get out but got nowhere. Pull the bottle out and he's gone!!

Yea, I fought rush our traffic one day to get out there only to find out they were closed on Wednesday- doh Any chance you'll have some Wednesday hours John? I have to be out there on Wednesday nights for a class I teach at GMU.

Anyone near Tyson's or Reston going by? I need to pick up a Rainbow Monti SWAP frag but can't make it today. Help would be appreciated. Thanks Anyone near Tyson's or Reston going by? I need to pick up a Rainbow Monti SWAP frag but can't make it today. Help would be appreciated. Thanks

I agree with pretty much everything said about asking a reef guy to tank sit. But having been THAT reef guy I'd say it's not so simple as "have a reef guy, no need to worry". How many people have had their tank crash when they weren't on vacation? Not to get into too much of Squiddly's details but I think what she arranged for was very reasonable. She had a person living at the house and then a reef guy as a back up. The problem here is that something broke while the house sitter was out of the house. They came home, noticed the problem, fixed it. Then things went bad again the next day while at work. Yea I think there might be a few things that could have helped but realistically, how much more coverage could one expect? 1) Most people need to work so unless you willing to pay for someone to stay 24/7 at the house, they are going to be gone for 8+ hours at a time 2) If you find a reef nerd to help out, what is the chance they would be willing to live at your house? Again, even they would be out for 8+ hours at a time 3) Unless the guy is a super reef nerd, there is a good probability they wouldn't go over your system to the level of detail that they would notice an ATO pump not plugged in. I mean yea, we're all curious how things are set up but would you actually trace out every wire? Eventually they would notice the water level dropping but it's hard to say what the timing of that would have been like. I think the only thing that a reef nerd might have done differently is a preventative large water change after the first failure. But I also think many wouldn't have thought to do that for their own tank much less someone else's. Dunno, not trying to be a jerk here. Just trying to put some realism into the situation. I'd say there are about 300 reef nerds in the DC area and they are ALL on this forum (otherwise they wouldn't be true reef nerds). The chances of having one of them able to house/tank sit for you to the level necessary to prevent all failures is pretty slim. I will say however that at least the chances are greater than zero thanks to WAMAS and that's a huge step to begin with.

Yea I got there about 20 minutes after she called me. When I arrived the tank smelled pretty bad. I couldn't see through the tank front to back but I could see the dead shrimps. The HOB filter was running as was the skimmer but the cup was full. I found the bucket of salt and the Brute trash can plumbed into the RO so I quickly mixed up some water and did a 50% water change. Looked like all the animals were gone but hopefully the water change will keep the smell down and maybe the tank will cycle again soon. It wasn't immediately obvious what the problem was. Maybe the filter failure caused something to die and things went downhill from there. The sitter didn't really know enough to give me any more clues. Sorry for the loss, I wish there was more I could have done.

Was Googling all over the Internet and lo'and behold part of the answer was right in my back yard. Dandy or others, can you expound on this approach? I have 2 returns in my overflow box. I was going to convert from straight, noisy standpipe to durso. I've seen/read about tuning problems and have seen this gate valve approach. My questions are: 1) how do I determine the height of the elbow on the durso? 2) how do I determine the height of the straight standpipe? 3) how do I determine the how much to close the gate value to tune the durso? Sorry if these are simple questions, I just wanted to get an idea of what I need to do before I start hacking away. Thanks!

Hi everyone, Just wanted to start a thread to see what everyone's strategies are on getting new fish to eat. Yes, the best approach is to only buy fish from the LFS that you can see eating. But how about sharing what you guys have learned the hard way. While the main reason for starting this thread is to just learn and exchange ideas, I'll share the situation I'm in to start the discussion off. I've got a copperband butterfly. Yes I know they are notorious for not eating. Anyways, I've thrown Mysis shrimp and Cyclopeeze at it and no dice. I've taken both and melted it with Garlic extract before shooting it in with a turkey baster and still no luck. He did look/sniff at the cloud which is a step up from before without the garlic. What strategies do people have for getting fish to eat? Thanks for sharing.

Yea I'm in GF and would be willing to be an emergency guy if she gets confused.

Hmm, here's a silly question: how likely is it for an anemone to catch and eat a healthy fish? Yes I know they are big and poisonous. But it seems to me that fish pretty much know to stay away from them and it's not like they are fast. So has anyone seen or have knowledge of maxi carpet anemones catching healthy fish? Sick, dying fish I can believe....

Any special reason to dump the sponge filter after use? I'd think washing/rinsing/soaking in freshwater would be enough to clean out anything bad in it. Sure you'd have to put it back in the sump to grow bacteria again but just wondering if there's a specific argument for throwing it away.

Are they selling them? I'm in Houston right now, maybe a little carry-on?

Thanks Brian and Scott. Any chance there's someone closer to the Tyson's area that can help? If not, I'll probably take Scott up since his tank is established. WAMAS members are great!

I got a 4"-5" hippo tang from Jake. I'm looking to add fish to my tank and I'd like him to added towards the end since some of the other fish are more tangs and things much less territorial than tangs. Can anyone host my tang for a while? thanks.

Wow, looks like a great arm workout!

I'm interested in: Teal/Blue Turaki Mayagi Tort

I'm not a carpenter but I have done enough work around the house to have a few comments. I'd say the biggest problem you'll have is enough work area between the wall and side of the tank stand. Can you move the tank over to create more working space? Also, looking at the shots from downstairs, I see what look like 3 2x4s next to each other. My guess is that they are more than just that. Where is the footer for the wall that you need to drill through? Hopefully it's not in that area.

Yea so that's an interesting question. Sounds like even after you remove any infected clowns and the other fish are fine the water is still infected and any new clowns would/could catch it. So is the only answer to remove all fish for 6+ weeks or something? Any other solutions like UV as suggested?

What are some suggestions for a really bare bones QT? I'd like to set something up but have minimal space, time and patience. Basically the more complicated or expensive it is, the less likely I am to QT my new fish Stupid yes, but also human nature. I'm thinking something real simple like a 10G rubbermaid type container, power head, a few pieces of live rock and heater. Will that work? Any other suggestions? Also what about maint? Does it make sense to replace 1/2 a gal of water from QT with water from the main tank? I was thinking this might help to keep the chemistry between the two tanks similar so that there is less stress when the fish is added to the main tank. Thoughts?