nbgen12

Hmmm well this brings me to another question....what is a good UV sterilizer that everyone uses? There is such a wide range of prices for them....

...I'll have to invest in a litte stress coat. I'm beginning to debate whether to keep running the 29g sump I have with an Aqua C Remora Pro skimmer, or if I should step it up to the 40b I have or a sump/fuge and get a better skimmer geared towards SPS. All my parameters are looking good except the high mg(trying defeat bryopsis at the moment). Even though I have low nitrates, is it possible there are too many organics in the water harmful to the SPS, which is keeping them from completely looking happy? I'm curious to hear some people's thoughts on the low nitrate but higher organics in the water which would be bad for SPS, or any experience anyone has with SPS and Aqua C Remora Pro skimmers.... I'm aware there mayyyy not be the amount of feedback I'm hoping for do to the fact most people were smart and went with big enough sumps with in sump skimmers.

Haha I didn't realize you already had that stuff....curious to see what it does.

Just wanted to say thanks again man. Had a good time checking out the tank and talking reefs tonight! After I acclimated the watermelons, they opened right up in my tank after about 5-10 minutes. I think they will do juuuuust fine. I'll let you know if I change my mind and want to get in on that scuba cert class. Hard to convince myself to wait till later the more I think about it lol

No unfortunately. The nitrifying bacteria covers the rock and sand but the water itself wont do it alone. Sent from my MB865 using Tapatalk 2

I have a 6 bulb T-5 over a 75 with 4 different of the favia style brain corals which I've only had for about a week and a half and I already notice a little growth. You could always take out a blue+ and get another coral+....the coral+ bulbs still have an ok amount of blue in them, so you won't lose an absolute ton of the blue color. Medium flow is great, and they have devastating sweepers without a doubt. You will probably be completely fine with your bulbs you have now

Wow...this is going to be a top notch build.

Nick - thanks man....i think i may just feed the fish well and see what happens over the next several days while i crank the temp up a bit. What is a good product to improve the slime coat on fish? Sent from my MB865 using Tapatalk 2

Awesome looking tank! Sent from my MB865 using Tapatalk 2

I read the same thing somewhere on RC, but I also have a hard time believing it will disappear fully when fish are still in the tank. Tough decisions.... Thanks for the input ryan....I definitely did a good bit of reading about your trials and tribulations with this PITA parasite. And to answer your question about the 11 months....not a chance I can wait 11 months before adding more fish lol. Any other fish I add will definitely be QT'd in the future. I decided against it at the first stages because I only have 3 fish. Last weekend I picked up a 20g tank from petco to use for a good QT or hospital tank, so from here on out it will be used without hesitation. Part of me really want to just keep the fish well fed and minimize the stress since I have yet to see spots, since noticing the symptomatic itching about a week ago. All fish are still eating well. I think the firefish may also have it as I noticed it itch once or twice also. The other part of me really really hates watching the fish itch like that, because it is clearly not comfortable, and I have a hard time watching this go on when I could be doing something about it. The blenny should be an easy snag because he will eat out of my hand and isn't scared of much. The goby and firefish are a different story. I have my net sitting in the tank to make them more comfortable with its presence. We'll see what happens. Does anyone have a fish trap I might be able to borrow in case I can't net them in any of the ways Ryan stated? I would be eternally grateful I appreciate the input Frank and Ryan.

Haven't gotten around to the pictures yet, but would like to add that I notice my tribal blenny itching his gill area a good bit, which is DEFINITELY not good. No spots showing up yet, he and the other fish are eating well. I will not be able to remove all the fish from the DT because I'm absolutely not willing to move the rocks just to catch the yasha goby and the firefish. I have a net just sitting in the tank now to hopefully get them comfortable with it, and plan on trying to net the fish in the next few days to move all 3 into a 20g hospital tank. Sometimes, if it weren't for bad luck, there wouldn't be any luck at all.... We will see what happens. For now I just plan on feeding the fish a few times per day and hope for the best. I can catch the tribal blenny since he's not skiddish at all, but the other two... If I can catch them all, I will treat the fish. If not, well, unfortunately the immune system will have to do it's best and we'll see what happens. Question: If all the fish stay in the DT and stop showing symptoms(as if the life cycle of ich has completed on the fish itself) , how long would it take for ich to be gone in the aquarium if it never re-infects the fish. Will it always be in the tank at this point unless I go fallow? Or after a bunch of months with no re-occurence, could it possible die out? I understand the going fallow part and the disappearance of ich from the DT, but what if you can't catch the fish to actually do this? Can't catch a break. This is a real bummer.

I would also like to know where to purchase the different items as well. Sounds like a terrific money saver Sent from my MB865 using Tapatalk 2

Its all of em for sure, i stocked up lol Sent from my MB865 using Tapatalk 2

LOL Sent from my MB865 using Tapatalk 2

Another mistake made while getting accustomed to the aquacontroller: came home from work for lunch and turned off the pumps to mess with a few things. I left in a rush, and while I turned all the pumps back to their normal settings, I accidentally flipped the ALK doser switch to ON rather than AUTO, so needless to say my sky blue staghorn and the pink tipped yellow mille had completely RTN'd by the time I got home, and I had a lot of water changing to do to fix the problem. This was the day after the salinity issue. When it rains it pours lol. The alkalinity was so high it tested off the chart with the salifert test, ever after a 30g water change. Somehow all the other coral made it through ok. Lesson learned about double checking the very important pumps. I got the parameters back in check(alk back down to 11 DKH) and did a little LFS tour, and checked out Petland, BRK, and F&F. I didn't purchase anything at the first 2 since they were the first stops and I wasn't sure how long I would be out. At F&F I picked up 9 frags. 2 decent frag plugs of zoas, and 7 frags of SPS. Here's the coral I have in the tank so far: Softies: - 1 purple mushroom - several different kinds of zoas/palys *I removed the kenya tree because I didn't want the toxins it gives off to irritate my sps. LPS: - 2 different frogspawns which are pretty similar and small pieces. One is metallic green and the other is a little more dull of a color - 1 purple and green hammer coral - 4 different pieces of closed brain corals, don't remember what the names were other than they looked cool SPS: - greenish/yellow pocillopora - purple pocillopora - teal looking millepora - orangish millepora - 2 acro pieces which need to color up some. 1 is a tri-color, the other has blueish yellow tips and looks great - VERY bright green birdsnest - birds of paradise birdsnest - green tipped pink birdsnest - ora green birdsnest - what looks like an orange montipora I'll get some new pictures posted in the next few days. All the new frags look very happy in the new home. Wish I could keep piling things in there, but I guess it's time for some observation over the next couple weeks and get some pictures up so I can keep track of growth and all that good stuff

The sump depends on whether you want it inside the stand or not. If it's inside the stand, I'm not sure you'll fit anything bigger than a 29g. If you want one outside the stand, I'd go with a 40g breeder. Petco is doing a $1 per gallon aquarium sale right now so if you want to build your own sump, now is definitely the time to run to petco! Building the sump yourself really isn't tough. You can get glass cut at Lowe's for a pretty cheap price (cheaper than buying acrylic and cutting it yourself). As for the skimmer, I don't have any worthy input since I have an aqua c remora pro....works alright, but leaves a bit to be desired IMO. I do hear great things about Avast.

Just went into petco and noticed the sale is back! Sent from my MB865 using Tapatalk 2

So, this is why you normally wait to get tougher SPS until you've had your tank running and know it a little better: I had been solely relying on my calibrated conductivity probe to monitor the salinity in the aquarium. The past few days it had been reading a little lower than I wanted (not much, just a tad). I added a little salt to the top off water a few days ago so it could slowly replace some of the evaporation with slightly salty water and raise the salinity slowly. Little did I know, I guess the conductivity probe was not correct, and I should have double checked with my refractometer, because when I put salt in the top off the salinity of the aquarium was actually perfect. I came home from work today to find the kenya tree a shriveled, and the sky blue stag acropora was RTN'd pretty bad. As I went down the checklist(since I had tested everything a day or two ago and the PH was fine) I decided to head for the refractometer. I had to blink a couple times because the specific gravity read around the 1027 mark, and I knew right away that was the problem. I slowly dropped the salinity over a couple hours, fragged up what was left of the blue stag, and shortly everything went back to normal(well close, the kenya tree is slowly swelling back up). Welp, now I know what my conductivity probe should be reading when the salinity is right on the spot. I'm just glad I didn't lose anything else....

Great guys to talk to over there. I learn a ton of new things every time I've been over there, in addition to getting good deals on whatever I need.

Thanks Jimlin! I agree on the ora birdsnest...looks nice and fluffy. Definitely nice to meet you matt! I like the yasha a lot, but he is not the most outgoing. I've got a lot of places for him to hide and he likes to take advantage of it. I can tell when he's hungry though, because when I come into the basement and he notices, he'll pop out and keep swimming until I get him stuffed haha. I would definitely do a little build thread if I were you...it's an easy way to have a log of things you've done on the tank, and gives you a spot to put pictures so you can see how things in the tank are growing. I didn't do a build on my first tank but I'm happy I took the time to do it on this one. I was pretty happy this morning to see several pods lurking around in my fuge I'd love to get a mandarin dragonet at some point in the next few months

I honestly love the look of the scape you have in the tank right now....the way the height of the rock tapers off to the right side is pretty nice. Going to be a great looking tank for sure.

nice work man! If you want to try out some sps, go for birdsnest or montipora capricornis. They are pretty easy in the realm of sps. Some sps can start dying off and unless you cut that piece off, it will just keep on going until it's all dead. It happened with my first monti cap and I had to cut it in half. Within 3 months my little 1" piece was pushing 4". Once you've got the test kits and whatever you need to dose you should be ready to rock. You managed to get a good little collection of coral in there nice and fast!

Haha, yeah there is....but I only saw him for about 30 second after I put him in the tank, and haven't seen them together or been able to locate him since. I guess that's the only problem having an aquascape with a million places to hideout. I think I might have to toss to skewer a little piece of raw shrimp and see if he will emerge from the rock structure for a little meaty food lol.

Here's some pictures...sorry about the phone pictures, I don't know how to take decent ones with the camera yet so here's some sub-par photos Yasha Goby Yasha 8:28 by nbgen12, on Flickr Purple Firefish Firefish 8:28 by nbgen12, on Flickr Tribal Blenny Tribal 8:28 by nbgen12, on Flickr Sky Blue Stag Sky blue stag 8:28 by nbgen12, on Flickr ORA Green Birdsnest ORA green birdsnest 8:28 by nbgen12, on Flickr Pink Tip Yellow Mille Pink tip yellow mille 8:28 by nbgen12, on Flickr Green Tip Pink Birdsnest Green tip pink birdsnest 8:28 by nbgen12, on Flickr Kenya Tree Kenya Tree 8:28 by nbgen12, on Flickr GSP GSP 8:28 by nbgen12, on Flickr

Sounds great man!