darkcirca

Diamond goby. There is something about watching him sift sand and move things around that just lures me to keep staring. I have a love/hate relationship with my black and white ocellaris. He's a beautiful fish, but he's a real jerk when you put your hand in the tank.

I believe Loudoun also gets water from Fairfax - I didn't see anyone mention them. I know our water is starting to get the chlorine smell.

Better start looking for some great deals... or getting your wife even more interested in the hobby. Find a fish that needs a bigger tank that she just loves. That worked for me to move from 56 to 90... and now the desires to move even larger in the next place. We share our hobbies, which is good and bad at times. The downside to the fish is I want to go with practical/less expensive/still functional solutions and my husband wants to go all out. I caved for this last purchase in the agreement that he would deal with the setup/programming/hassle (AI Hydras and Apex, upgrade from T5 and ACJr). I'd rather monitor chemistry and tinker in the tank than that stuff.

It is, but they won't ship another out. I got a refund. Figured id just go local as shipping for just it kills. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Currently doing a quick acclimation. Foxface and a peppermint didn't make it :/ Guess I'm on the hunt for a foxface locally. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I probably should have said I'm crazy I just love the rock... Drives me nuts Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

At UPS now..she's looking for the box. I'll post back once I get them home. I just heard a "I don't know where it is" from the back. Oh man. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Oh my. It JUST left Richmond, 6:42AM. I HOPE it makes it here and I can pickup by noon. I'll be watching the tracking number like a hawk until then. Thank god I'm 10 minutes from the service center. Lesson of the week: Don't ever have livestock delivered on a Friday. Seriously, why didn't I think about this one before?! Positive: John (ReefCleaners) is shipping out my missing items on Monday. Everything in the first shipment is doing well. And my new lights come Tuesday! 7AM and now I'm wide awake. I'm going to be regretting this later.

The Richmond service center isn't open on Saturdays for pickup. I've already been on the phone with UPS trying to get them to locate the package and hold it there for me to get. I explained over and over again that this is a living animal and they are killing it by holding it.

Looks like bad news. It made it to Richmond but doesn't look like it will make it to chantilly from there today Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks everyone. Still sitting in Louisville. I've requested UPS hold for pickup. Really hoping it makes it here tomorrow... I've got a bad feeling it isn't coming until Monday though. I feel so bad for the poor fish. I've got about 10 gallons of saltwater premade and ready to go. Now I wait...

I thought about that, and will likely ask LA when I call them later today. I've been refreshing the UPS website every 5-10mins in hopes of an update. If they do slow, anything specific you all would recommend - slower acclimation? Depending on how they came in, I may end up QTing because of this. I'm a risk taker and usually don't (I know, bad bad me). I also don't have a big enough spare tank for the Foxface. Keeping my hopes up it'll come tomorrow. My reefcleaners order showed up tonight missing a portion of my order as well. I think I'm running a bad luck streak. I hope all my equipment shows up fine next week. I told my husband that I'm going to get a black and white AI light in, instead of 2 blacks.

I ordered several fish (foxface, dartfish, clown goby), as well as shrimp (cleaner and peppermint), crabs, and some other cleaners from LA on Wednesday. It shipped yesterday with deliver today. All was well until this morning when Louisville had tons of rain which caused UPS delays. My package never made it there until 10:30AM... and it is still sitting there as of right now. I've been on the phone with UPS on and off for the day trying to get an update. I've also spoken with LA today to let them know what is going on. My plan is to call back around 5 to get them to request UPS hold for pickup, in hopes of being able to pick it up tomorrow. I had it shipped to my office, so if they were to offer Saturday delivery they wouldn't even attempt it with it being a business address. Any opinions on chances of survival until tomorrow morning (if it even makes it)? I'm so frustrated, more so because these poor fish are going to be stuck in bags..

I definitely remember that one, thus my thoughts on bleach.. I want it done outside the house as I don't want the possibility of the fumes inside.

I've got a cabinet full of bleach, but no muratic acid in the house, figured using what I got was the easier solution.

Yes, I think we came to this conclusion before, but I never validated the best approach to them. I'm over getting sick from the tank, plus I have a 1 year old and I don't want him at risk. Anyone know the bleach ratio? I'll do a little searching once I get into the office today but figured it didn't hurt to ask. I'd be open to trading it if I could find a piece as big as it. This thing is around 18" tall, which I love in the 90 gallon depth.

The problem is finding another rock this large. It's a hefty rock. You can see it on my post from the fall: http://wamas.org/forums/topic/61657-advice-where-to-go-from-here-neglected-tank/?p=542015 It's the far right rock. I love the rock, and would want to keep it, just get rid of whatever is on it. It's full of all sorts of things... it's been in that tank for awhile. It has GSP, mushrooms, those brown polyps, colt (or kenya.. honestly I can't tell the difference) and god knows what else growing on the back of it. I'd love to see it ALL gone. If I could find someone with that big of a rock I'd totally consider selling it. I traded a bunch of rock on the left side already and was planning to trade this guy but I couldn't lift him on my own at the time. I've got a Foxface coming in tomorrow. Maybe it will decide they look tasty... I'm thanking my lucky stars I only order fish/cleaners since I'm only running 3 T5 lights until next weeks order comes in. I ordered the livestock then that night I found the ballast went bad. I couldn't believe my bad luck.

It's been months and I am finally getting around to getting that giant rock out of my tank that has brown polyps on it. You know, that one that (I believe) has made me sick time and time again. I swear, if I put my hands in my tank I wind up feeling like crap the entire rest of the day, if not longer. If I mess with the polyps, I get flu like symptoms. My husband has agreed to pull the rock in the next week, as one of our ballast kicked the bucket on our T5 (AI Hydras are on order now). I want to kill the entire rock. It's a huge rock, which is why I haven't been able to get it out on my own. I don't want to trade it as I don't think I will get anything close to it in size. I love the rock. So bleaching it was my original thought, but I wasn't sure how to go about doing this. Would anyone like to give some advice? I know to not to boil it. Step one is getting the rock out, maybe tonight if I can coax him into it. We have to get the blenny and firefish out from it since they call it home right now.

Yea, I posted about it awhile ago and I'm believing it is those. There is one right (that big right one) which has them. I've got gloves, so I'm good there. Thanks though!

Someone want to recommend a store here in NoVA that would trade in some GSP rock? I've never brought stuff to an LFS for trade, wasn't sure who does it around here. I like the big piece.. so I'm thinking either A: keep it separate and groom it so it doesn't drop pieces, or B: bleach it. There are brown polyps on it (plus mushrooms and aiptasia on the back). The polyps are my big issue.. anytime I mess with them I wind up sick (throwing up/bad headaches/flu like for 24-48 hours). I'm kinda leaning towards bleach it if I like the piece enough to keep it. I've got 3 other pieces I pulled out about 5 minutes ago that I was thinking of throwin in the sump and either trading in somewhere or seeing if anyone on here wants to trade for even base rock. I do feel bad bleaching as these rocks have been in this tank for years. It has been in this house for almost 4 years and was setup for around 3 years at the last place. Some rocks are newer from the move here.

I can handle it, it is the entire otherside that is literally taking over. It used to be only that side, but it encroached on the other side literally overnight!

I *think* so.. honestly I can't remember names of things for the life of me anymore. My brain went the moment I got pregnant... Half is alive, half is dead, go figure. I do have blastos down in the sand bed which are still alive and going somehow. The GSP was actually worse at one point and I weeded it back. At least my xenia vanished at some point when we moved here 4 years ago. That is one less invasive coral to deal with.

Here is a recent picture to show what I'm dealing with: I've been trying to run carbon and phosban when I can remember to change it (every 2-3 weeks), but if I don't have time I just bypass it until I can get back to swap the media out. Peppermint shrimp never last for me. They vanish within a month and have never touched them. Maybe I need to order them online somewhere. I've had my share of cleaner shrimp (no idea if the last one is still alive in there or not, I don't check often) and they do well, just never luck with peppermints. Just found another firefish today.. I had no idea I had 2.

I've actually done this before and the darn thing STILL comes back. I'm thinking a fish of some sort, then once I get back into the swing either rehome them or just do fish only. I've always loved some of the non reef safe fish. The little guy is doing extremely well so far and is almost walking (will be 9 months soon). Thankfully we are just on hold with all the specialists and will only see them if something comes up. He suffered a stroke at/around birth, followed by seizures and blood problems, but he is a fighter and surprising us everyday with his ability to overcome such things.

Looking for some advice, or maybe next steps to take. We've got a 90 gallon reef (20 gallon sump) which we have pretty much neglected since last February when I had our son. We had medical complications with his birth, which resulted in a NICU stay, numerous followups with specialists after, and has pretty much now normalized as far as everyone can tell. We won't know if he is 100% in the clear for a long time though. Due to all this I just ignored the fish. I setup an auto feeder to feed them, made sure they had top off water, and tried to do a water change every month (more like every other, 20-30 gallons). The kenya tree (or maybe it is colt coral, I never could tell the difference) has spread like a weed, as goes for the GSP. The aiptasia has gone even more out of control. The 5 fish are still alive - 1 male lytretail, 2 clowns, 1 firefish, and 1 blenny. So are some other misc. corals we had. So here we go - I want to get this in check, but at the same time, I don't have a ton of time to invest. I've contemplated just getting out of the hobby but I do enjoy it, plus I sit and think about who could get the fish. I talked to the husband about downsizing, he feels something like a 28 gallon would be a pain. So here I am thinking how to deal with this and clean it up, make it look nice again, and maybe solve these problems. Suggestions, advice, something I can do, or fish I could add? If I had a fish that ate those 2 corals (and H-E-double hockey sticks, all the others), I really won't care. I'm sick of trying to rip the corals out, and sick of those stupid clownfish attacking me everytime I put my hand in.