Matt LeBaron

I've so rarely bought fish over the years that I'm actually not terribly familiar with the illnesses that can affect them.. (Very familiar with seahorses though after having those for 5+ years now) I recently moved my seahorses to my new 29G Cube, which freed up a whole lot of room in my 90G for new fish. My daughter thought Chromis were the greatest thing ever so I purchased 3 on Monday. Into my 10G quarantine they go. On Tuesday one of them has what looks like a red line about half way down their body. Thinking some type of infection being the likely culprit I began treating with Furan-II. Tuesday evening that Chromis had passed away. I continue the treatment because I'm just asking for trouble stopping early. Wednesday morning a second Chromis was showing similar symptoms but this time I noticed that the red spot was more of a vertical line and was present on both sides. I was hoping that since I had begun treatmnet maybe this one would recover but when I got back from work today it was dead too. Last Chromis seems fine but doing a little bit of googling didn't really make any disease stand out as for what could be doing this. Can anyone point me in the right direction about what this may be so that I can maybe see about treating it properly because apparently anti-biotics are not covering it.

Always nice to have another club member up near me in Ellicott City. Welcome to the club!

90g was taken apart and rescaped. Got the gobies and pajama cardinals back in. Not sure I like the placement of the magnetic rocks on the back wall so I may move that around some but we'll see. I have more cleaning crew arriving tomorrow and I'll be giving the tank a couple months to settle in since I added some new live rock and some new dry rock before getting corals again. The clove corals and palys survived the transition well though. Also thinking I may get a bit more rock for the left side of the tank. I'm thinking of getting a fairy wrasse or flame angel for the tank since it's kind of lightly stocked right now with just the cardinals and gobies.

Since it it not STNing I wouldn't worry about it to much. Let your tank mature a bit and keep your parameters in check and it will likely recover over time. Like was mentioned above the newness of your tank is probably not making it terribly happy but it isn't dying off so I think this turns into a waiting game for you were you are making sure your parameters stay solid.

Yeah you can setup two heater ports. I use two because of past issues with a failed heater, which is actually the original reason I got my Reef Angel in the first place.

Any longer term thoughts from people that are using the Gyres? Looking at maybe replacing my MP40 this summer and I was wondering what peoples longer term thoughts were on these now that we're coming up on 6 months with them now.

Yeah Maryland is a bit thin on the Reef side of things. You can check out the Mason Dixon Reef Club but they're more Northern MD and PA centric. As far as stores, well there's House of Tropicals in Glen Burnie, they've got a decent fish selection and most everything seems healthy-ish there. (Healthy-ish means I usually see one or two fish that don't look so good when I got but I've never seen any ich outbreaks or anything like that) Their coral selection is usually on the poor side but more recently they've found some new source that has been providing some good looking corals, VERY pricey in my opinion though. There's also Today's Pet in Columbia next to the Costco there. Smaller store so their selection reflects that but they do have a very hit or miss coral selection. Their coral tank goes back and forther between looking healthy and not and the selection reflects that. Sometimes I go in there and oggle a bunch of really good looking corals and sometimes I go in and get a bit sad over how unhealthy it all looks. Very hit or miss but their fish selection always looks healthy to me. While you won't necessarily be "close" to Pacific East Aquaculture you won't be terribly far away either, they're located on the eastern shore. If you're looking for corals and even some fish, check them out. That place is like a candy store for corals and their fish always look very healthy, that place is like the poster child for how to run a business as far as I'm concerned.

These corals are jaw dropping beautiful. Hoping you get more in this spring when my tank is put back together and ready.

Seahorses, their feeding dish, and a bit more of the seagrass moved over. 29G cube is all done, now it's time to start tearing down the 90 G.

The zoas close sometimes if the seahorse decides to sit on them for a while but the branch they are on is a bit to big for the seahorses to really grab onto so it doesn't happen often.

So got more gravel moved and transplanted some of my turtle grass. Just about ready to move the seahorses over and start taking apart my 90G DT.

The 90G is still going minus some sand and that big rock. Once I get the seahorses and my firefish out my remaining goby and 4 pajama cardinals will go into the 20 gallon frag tank I have plumbed into my sump. I'll clean up and redo the 90 gal and then move everyone back. I'll likely pick up some new fish for the 90G too since I don't need to worry about keeping the seahorses safe. Will be a lot of research since I've never really done much on fish that were not seahorse safe. Maybe a flame angel as I just love the look but again no idea what their care requirements are.

So after a tank crash this summer from a malfunctioning skimmer and then a mini crash from a fish slowly decomposing under my sand bed I decided that I needed to refocus a bit. My 90 gal setup was primarily a seahorse tank, I added some SPS with a bit of interesting balance act going on to keep it seahorse safe but it was difficult and again as primarily a seahorse tank that consideration came first. So with the consent of my wife I purchased a 29 gallon bio cube that I will move my seahorses into and then totally overhaul my 90 gal setup. Here is the story and pics as I go about this. Bought the intermediate JBJ 29g biocube. I went with the bicube because I wanted an all-in-one tank that was taller rather than longer because I had a corner in the dining room that I wanted to place it in and seahorses prefer the taller tank rather than longer. Got a good deal on Fosters and Smith that included the stand for free. The intermediate version means it comes with LEDs instead of the normal CFL's. Honestly I went this route to avoid heat problems that people have had with the CFL version. So far I've been very happy with it, no heat issues at all. Unfortunately the tiny skimmer I have that would have fit in an IM tank does not fit in the JBJ cube, irony is that the IM desktop skimmer will, so have to spend money I didn't really want to on a IM desktop skimmer. Initial setup in our dining room, which I like as it will be seen much more often. So then this weekend I got one of the large center piece rock constructs from my 90G DT moved into it along with some sand. I'll be moving my turtle grass and more sand soon and then once that is done I'll move the seahorses and my firefish over to it. So that's it so far. I may try and move the turtle grass this week if I have time. If anyone is interested in some turtle grass message me, I will have a bunch of it left over as I have far more in my 90G than will ever fit into my biocube.

I think that may work. I'll just have to figure out the easiest way to cycle power, power strip maybe where I just turn it off and then back on to start he delay timer. Thanks!

So I'm looking for a timer (plug in preferably) that will turn off power for like 10-15 minutes and then restore power. Lots of timers that will turn something on for a while and then off but I can't seem to find the opposite. Any ideas or suggestions? Looking for a way to turn off circulation pumps for a little bit easily for feeding and then not having to remember about turning them back on.

I'd be transplanting my sea grass and maybe some Zoa's and Gorg so I need a fixture that can put out a bit of usable light, I just don't need super power LED's or halides for it. I'll have to shop around a bit and find something that will work. The setup will be permanent for my seahorses though.

I'm looking for a small tank 20-30 gallons and I want an AIO so I don't have to spend a ton of time on a new setup. I just really need a home for my three seahorses and my fire fish while I redo my DT. My pajama cardinals will end up in my Frag tank while I totally redesign my DT. I figure the seahorses will likely live another 4-5 years and then my daughter will be around 7-8 years old and I'll let her pick out what she wants for the tank and it can be hers.

I might see if I can find one of the older innovative marine 30 gallons. I want a taller rather than wider tank and the new IM 30 gallon is a long tank. Thanks for the info folks, saved me a wasted $300.

I am thinking of the getting the 29 gallon version of the Corlife Biocube to house my three seahores so that I can totally gut my current 90G DT and redo it. I have read in a couple of places though that it can tend to run very hot, getting upwards of 80 degrees just with the stock equipment. Since it would just be for the seahorses I wouldn't want the temperature to be over 75 ideally so that is a concern that I'd like to get some input on from people who own one. I'm looking for an AIO solution that is not going to break the bank for me and the Coralife Biocube may be it if the temeprature isn't a problem. Thanks,

Nope, used the Hanna Nitrite URL tester, forgot to convert the reading though. Should be 38 x 3.29 so 125 ppb or 0.125 ppm.

So Ammonia: 0 Nitrate: 0 Nitrite: 38 ppb Magnesium: ~1485 Phosphate: 0.22 ppm Copper: 0 Not sure what the deal is still but no sign of the pistol shrimp or second goby. Algae growth has seemed to halt, after cleaning the front glass two days ago no new growth on it. Protein skimmer is still going nuts and making really dark skimmate. Soft corals like my zoa, clove polys, and pipe organ coral are retracted. Many of my acros are STNing and/or not showing any polyp extension. Might be over the worst of it now, I'm not sure and still don't really know for what happened... Just frustrating really.

They were retracted before I added the extra GFO and they're in a 200 micro felt filter sock so I doubt much is getting through. Will test more tonight and hopefully have some idea of what is wrong but still really in the dark and just guessing.

Skimmer has also been going big time since this all started. If the issue isn't one of my gobies and maybe the shrimp decaying I'm not sure what else it could be. One thing to keep in mind is that since they're under the sand no CUC can get to them to assist with the clean up so I basically just likely have a rotting fish in my tank. I've accounted for my 4 pajama cardinals, 3 seahorses, 1 firefish, and the 1 goby, which is all of my vertebrate live stock. Only new piece of equipment is a new heater, but that was put in after this started as part of my yearly heater replacement. I'll test for iron and copper today just to check for the sake of completeness but I'm really at a loss. I'll test my replacement water too just in case something is wrong there. And don't get me wrong, my tank isn't all dying or anything but my softies have retracted and my smaller SPS frags are STNing a bit. Larger SPS are not happy, no polyp extension but are not dying at all as far as I can tell. algae growth is just the brownish gunk algae and it's not bad but normally beyond having to clean my front glass a few times a week I normally have no algae growth and that stuff is all over my rock work now.

90g DT with a 40g sump. Everything but the corals seem fine, my SPS are fairly unhappy right now, softies are just retracted a bit. Algae growth isn't horrible either but there's normally almost none. Real concern is that if this goes on for another week or more I'll likely lose some of my SPS.

So last week I noticed some corals retracting and some abnormal algae growth. I thought it was odd but did a water change figuring that maybe I had just been feeding to heavily recently or something. The problem continued into the weekend so I tested and found high levels of phosphate and nitrates. At this point I tossed in some extra GFO and carbon into my filter sock and replaced the same things in my reactor to get those levels back under control, which after testing on Sunday I did but the corals are still unhappy and algae growth is still occurring so there has to be some active source of nutrients that are in the water column until it passes through my sump and get absorbed. I have a pair of stientz gobies and a pistol shrimp in my tank. Today I noticed one of the gobies hanging out under a rock with my firefish, which is out of the ordinary. He kept that up for all of the evening so now I think the source of the extra nutrients in my tank may be a dead goby and/or pistol shrimp since I haven't seen the second goby or pistol shrimp since this began. That is not terribly out of the ordinary honestly since they hide out under the DSB for long periods of time but I've accounted for all of the rest of my live stock. Not sure what to do now since I can't really dig up my DSB without taking most of the tank apart at this point. I may try digging around where I can tomorrow and see if I get lucky but not optimistic about it.