vaironman

"10 gallon sump with built in skimmer (came with sump)" Looking at the lps in your tanks, they are very happy, I suspect the skimmer is not able to keep up with the bioload once a the hippo tang(s) was/were introduced. Like Jason said, for the tank this size, to keep a hippo Tang, it must be tiny, really small juvenile, and after about 6 months, it's time to setup a much large tank size for it (financial planning) because you probably would be emotionally attached to the fish by then. If you can post up a pix of your skimmer, that would help a lot. You might want to take the whole skimmer out of the sump and let us view a complete pix of it. Some of the inexpensive skimmers that come with a sump are just for show, not well function/performance. With 10% water changes weekly, this also helps a great deal for corals and fishes survival.

Powder Blue and Powder Brown Tangs are very hard to keep in a small 54G tank. I would not recommend them. Not sure why the 3 blue hippo tangs didn't make it. Can you provide us list of your equipments: brand and model of skimmer, # powerheads (brand and model), type of lightings using on this tank? Thanks.

Yup, special RBTA with the purple foot. Fantastic captured pix!

If you can narrow down to your favorite type of fishes/species such as: Tangs, Butterflies, angels (dwarf since this is a 54 gallon tank size), gobies, dottybacks, etc... and rank the orders of your favorite species, most of us can help you much better to your preferrence. Say as an example: Favorite: 1 - Butterflies (copperband, long nose, pyramid) (favorite first, then next to favorite) 2 - Tangs (yellow, blue hippo) 3 - Gobies (orange red spotted, orange/purple firefish, high fin red goby, yashia) 4 - Angels (flame, bicolor) You can find out a lot on www.marinecenter.com . Just give us a rough list of what you like in first impression. And we'll chime in whether those would work for your tank and the order they should be going in. Don't worry so much about making mistake. The best thing is you had posted here for everyone to help you. Cheers, KLee

James, Sorry to hear your lost dude. I recently lost a fast growing red table acro that I grew out from a small frag of Rik and love that one. Know how you feel. Come over, I'll make a Cali blue tort frag and a neon green frag grew out from Dandy7200, for you when your tank is ready again. Just LMK. KLee

Very pretty tank and nice new angel, Steve!

There is your rubbermaid alternative Dave. I am thinking if this is going to be replacing my current refugium. Scratching head.

If your female dies, get a new one smaller than your current male. They will pair up in time and the larger male will change to become female.

The place is big and will be beautiful when they are done with all the setup. Got a couple nice AOG colonies with good price there yesterday. Not much corals moving over yet. Lots of fishes.

Call Josh over the phone and ask if he has in the warehouse. That would save a trip if just looking for Tonga branch.

Imagine our wives read these posts and their comments. But these are our ways of fun after marriage.... Heheh.

I can pitch in the help on weekdays except for the weekend of January 8th - 11th, on business trip to Denver.

If you need more cured live rock, I can donate at least 20lbs.

Bob, May be it's time for you to make frags of those rose milli and let us start the fun of bidding war and in return you can have your new toy of the pearlberry. KLee

Beautiful redone of aquascaping Chris. Lots of open space and more place to place all the acros on new rocks. Umm, my bad. Thought first pic was a redone. The real solution probably is upgrade to a larger tank with all the SPS colonies. Anyway, we all get bore with seeing the same thing in our tank days after days. Change is good!

You're doing everything right. The trick of having a powder blue tang is it HAS to be the king of its tank, meaning it is the first one to be introduced to the new environment. The second possible scenario is if one would like to introduce to an already populated tank with a few, not several, tangs, then the tank has to be large, roomy for the new PBT to roam around, not feeling being harrass by the established tankmates/tangs. The sympton probably dues to being introduced to a new environment. Like others said, just continue monitoring and feed it well. Perform routine 10% - 20% weekly water change. Keep us post! IMO, that is the most beautiful tang in all the tangs and it's affordable. Cheers, KLee

It's a sign of ich for this fish, very typical. First, tell us your tank setup system. - How big is your tank? - What fishes/tankmates already occupied this tank before the powder blue was introduced? Now, borrow a UV light or purchase one, hook it up by tomorrow and hopefully, it can help control an outbreak of ich on this fish. KLee

Pretty soon, it will be like its sister/brother tank in behind. Notice the behind tank is very clean now and no longer has aiptasia. Good job Bob!

Couldn't you be a little more discreet Bob?

peppermint shrimp and copperband butterfly are hit and miss to control/destroy in tank aiptasia. Here is a sure fish to completely fix the issue, the Bristle-Tail Filefish. Not the prettiest fish; however, it will do the job for sure after bringing it home. It will convert/adapt to eating regular food that we feed other tank fishes after all aiptasia are gone. http://www.wetwebmedia.com/filefish.htm

A school of green chromis.

Nice postcard pixes!

looking at the base, it looks like a small frag of an elegant coral but I think davelin and doug are right.

Pretty tank.

There is another small fish, forgot the name. It has been done before but Y? What is the real useful purpose out of this experiment? No real practice use and it's not that colorful to start with fresh water fish. That's why most of us switch to saltwater in the first place, aren't we?