ohaverd

I was thinking of doing that... They are a fairly cheap fish anyways.

This will be my first frag fest... what can a newbie expect to see at this thing? What should I bring? that sort of thing. Is there a post that all ready describes this?

Weeks 3 and 4: I hated that fish anyways… So the hypo has been going well I guess, I’ve got the water change down to a science now. I know that I just need to change 3 full popcorn buckets (the ones from target that are apparently also used for popcorn) full of water changes, two caps of amquel plus and 1 spoon full of baking soda in a 1 gal drip container. I do this every morning before work. For a while all of the fish seemed like they were doing well. The only one I was worrying about was the sixline wrasse, I don’t remember where I read it, but I believe I’ve read that they do not do well in hypo, so I was keeping an eye on him. He was eating just fine up until the 3rd week of hypo, and all of a sudden things went south for him really quickly. He just stopped eating and laid around on the bottom of the tank. My guess is that he didn’t have any more pods to eat because you can’t have live rock in hypo treatment. In hindsight I guess I should have researched a different food for him? I don’t know… But like I always tell myself after I lose a fish. I hated that fish anyways… sniff sniff. It’s really going to suck when my daughter looks for her favorite fish and looks up at me with those big brown eyes, and says “where’s Pinky Pie?” “She went to the big ocean in the sky sweetheart… the big ocean in the sky…” Anyone else have trouble with wrasses in hypo? starting next week! The slow climb up to 1.025!

Did anyone ask about RO/DI membrane? TDS? its a no brainer, but the life of that membrane does sneak up on you.

Upon first look of the first image, I just thought "sponge". As mine look like that and are the same color, but after I saw the second photo, I realized this thing is moving! awesome find! thanks for sharing.

I wanted to thank you for posting this, its been my "moment of zen" for the last few days during some very long work hours

In the future, If there are no stores open and its an emergency, you can go to HD and get the grey PVC for electrical (must be grey because they are not tapered), and get the male and female 1 1/4 coupling fits the 1" bulkhead I believe, and then just get a shower drain "O" ring (forget what size, I just open the packs and see which one fits... Ya I'm the guy that opens the packs of stuff at the store and make you say, "who's the jerk that opens all these packs?"). I actually have 4 of these going on my 110gal frag tank because I was too lazy to take the 30+ minute drive to the "nearest" LFS.

You are supposed to clean those things!? :P once a week when I do all my other maintenance, fill top off tank, check two part levels, that sorta stuff.

I recently had an "Oh crap!" moment where my ATO switch got stuck, fortunatly I use the kind of ATO with the second switch which really saved my butt. Lessons learned: Clean your float switches regularly, and use an ATO with the dual switches. Also, my ATO comes from a 20 gal bucket. If the 2nd switch hadnt activated I would have had only around 5 gals of water on the ground... and might have had enough time to clean it up before my wife got home :/

watch out for foxfaces though, mine loves to trim my LPS for me.

LOVE the rockwork! nicely done.

Ya I never had any success on BTA in a tank uder 12 months. If it doesnt work out you could try bubble corals, they have worked for me in newer tanks.

hmm, this brings up a good point. How would one go about introducing new snails to a DT without getting any possible parisites that may be in their water? I'm not sure if reefcleaners has fish in their snail tanks. But I'd like to be sure that I'm not putting ich back into my display with the new snails. Maybe do the tank exchange method? Or just wash them off with tank water in a strainer.

I tried to go crabless, but there are always a few that hitchhike in my snail orders. I'm way too lazy to sit there and look through the bag of snails before I put them in the tank. Besides, what if I get pinched by one of those little serial killers? I don't need my wife and kids to lose anymore respect for me than they all ready have due to my spider "issues". No thanks bro...

what is your PH ranging in that low gravity? I also think I need to add a light to the QT to help keep my PH up... It may stress the fish, but probably less then the huge PH swings I'm getting.

So I thought I’d share with everyone my latest (I’m bored so I thought I’d try this out) adventure. This is following closely on the heels of the “I’m bored: acrylic tank building”, and the less popular but just as relevant “I’m bored: Learning how to make a quilt” adventures; I’ve had several different “experts” tell me in the past that Ich is ALWAYS PRESENT in our systems, and to just make sure water quality is pristine and to keep the fish well fed and the ich will not be a problem. Most of you well know there is a lot of research out on the interwebz that refute these claims like this post http://wamas.org/forums/topic/41558-ichy-battle/ on the greatest forum the world has ever known EVER. So I’m bored and I decided I want to try and rid my system of this son of a gun of a parasite. I’m going to go through step by step what I have done so far. This way first time hypo’ers can see exactly what NOT to do. First, I’d like to point out that I am and always have been a big believer in QT. But mostly I used it as a stress reliever and feeding trainer than anything else. My goal is to be able to A: rid the fish I currently have of Ich, and B: allow my DT to go without fish for 8 weeks to kill any parasites in it. If I go through this long process that will take around 10 weeks, and my fish still pop ich, I will yell and scream like a little girl, and then go back to not caring about ich and just stuffing my fish full of Jan’s food and join the ranks of the “ich is always present in our systems” zombies. What I done Firstly: A fisher of… Fish. Why didn’t anyone tell me what a pain in the butt getting your fish out of the display tank is? Holy crap that was absolutely a terrible experience and anyone that asks me about hypo-ing the fish they all ready have… ima say “don’t do it just let them swim around with big ol crusty friggin salt looking pebbles all over their butts, because getting them out is a huge PITA! So after a few minutes of trying to get the buggers out, I decided to research “fish traps”. There is one trap that looked like it would work (think it’s called “the cage” or “the box” or something like that), but I didn’t think it was big enough. So I did what anyone else would do… Built one myself right!? So I used some scrap 1/8” acrylic and made basically a box with a rubber band powered trap door. The trick however was to leave it in the display for a few days and feed ALL FOODS directly inside the trap. Also, go for the hard to get fish first… For me it was the sixline wrasse… what a little A-hole he is. It took him 3 days before he would go in it for food. But once he did I pulled the fishing line and trapped the little booger; I must tell you all… A more glories victory cry has never been echoed throughout the history of mankind, I assure you. The other fish like my chromis and tangs were very, very stupid and continued going in and out of the trap even after they saw their friends gathered by the hands of their all mighty overlord (that’s me). So… I have currently one 5” foxface Lo, one 4” powder blue tang, one 2” scopas tang, two .5” chromis, two 1” Oce clowns, and one 1” 6line wrasse (that I am thinking of feeding to my cat). That equates to around 15” of fishes. So I decided to go with a 30gal frag tank I made out of scrap acrylic. What I done secondly: THE AMMONIAGEDDON!!! So at this point my new quarantine tank has been sitting with DT water and a HOB filter for 3 weeks. I am using the HOB filter that has a carbon and bio bag in it, an air stone, and a heater. So why didn’t anyone tell me that taking all of my fish and plopping them into an aquarium that doesn’t have enough room for them would cause a huge ammonia spike! I thought I was going to just put the fish in, drop the salinity and call it a month… Not really but ya, I knew I was going to try to control ammonia with frequent water changes. So for one week I was doing two 25% water changes a day, one in the morning before work, and one after work when I got home. Words cannot describe the lack of patience that I have, so doing this was like pure friggin torture. Week two was a little better with the ammonia spikes, but I still couldn’t get it all the way to 0 for very long, so I decided to add Amquel plus to the daily dosage. Of course I didn’t research what this would do during the hypo salinity treatment because I’m a big ol dipstick, so watch what happens next… Nextly: PH, what the H-E-double hockey sticks is that? So after two weeks, it was time to do the DEED! I mixed up some salt water using my handy dandy hydrometer thing, but what in the crap man! Why won’t this stupid plastic arm stop moving up and down? What the heck bro? Why didn’t anyone tell me I needed a refractometer for this? Oh wait, just about every hyposalinity guide in the history of Al Gore’s interwebz has said you need a refractometer, I am ashamed once more… So now I’ve got my new tool in hand and I successfully get my salt down to 1.009. We are in business, the fish look like they are doing well, the ammonia looks good, nitrites are good, nitrates undetectable, PH looks… it looks… what in the crap… I’ve never seen orange in my PH test tube before. Must have been something in the tube, let me try that again… Nope it’s friggin ORANGE. Holy crap! My fish are going to die of PH shock! Quickly, to the google machine! Ah, I find THE ANSWER! Apparently if I’d done my research before, I would have realized that adding Amquel Plus to Hyposalinity will make your PH drop like a (insert prostitute joke). So Mr Google… what is the answer to this PH Conundrum? Ah ha! I’ve found it! I am such a great google’r! Apparently the answer lies with an arm and a hammer! So I went to the garage and picked up the hammer… (And ok; now we are getting a little lame). So I went and got the ol trusty half part of the 2 part solution that is BAKING SODA… So I had to deal with the weird looks from my wife as I spread her baking soda on a cooky sheet and inserted in the oven at 350 degrees… Apparently baking soda is not only used to bring PH up in our reef systems, but it can also be used for baking... thats good to know... So now: (Deep breath) So now I’ve got a slow drip baking soda to keep the PH up that the Amquel Plus is driving down because the salt level is too low but is keeping the ammonia down that is up because I have too many fish in a small space because I’m an idiot. Got it? My fish have 3 weeks left of their (4 weeks after the last white spot has been seen), and I think I will take this time to write hate mail to anyone on the world wide web that said Hyposalinity is EASY. I shall update ya’ll in the not too distant future. If anyone actually took the time to read all of this nonsense, I leave you with these words of wisdom. "Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does." (mic drop) I'm out...

nice, I like the price and ease of the PraziPro, Ima give that a shot! thanks!

not tryin to highjack but while the tang police are watching this thead, do you think a 94"Lx20"Wx12"H tank is large enough for an orange shoulder tang even though its only approx. 100gals? I thought it would be ok because maybe the 8 foot length would be enough swim room...

Hey all, I'm looking to add a dewormer to my quarantine process. Has anyone used the one in the link below? Or does anyone have a recommendation on a brand? http://www.kvsupply.com/fish-tapes-5-count

quick question for any tang experts... My new frag tank is 12"Hx20"Wx96"L. its approx 100 gal. but with that extremely long length of tank, could I have larger tangs than the 100gal rule states? whaddyathink? images of my new frag tank and QT tank coming soon.

so the options are to A) run an airline outside or B) add a co2 scrubber? or does the co2 scrubber need to be fed from outside as well?

Nevermind I just noticed the two intakes behind the two reactor ports.... when you cover them the foam stops... thanks for the heads up. Now to find a way to run an air line up and out of the basement some how.

Hm... I thought the nozzles on top of the ev400 where just connectors for adding a reactor. I didn't know one was actually pulling in air...

I've been looking to find a way to help out the co2 in my basement tank, but I use a AquaC EV400 skimmer with a mag 24 pump. There is no air intake, so how would one go about hooking up a co2 scrubber to a system like that?

IDK whats more interesting... your love for fish or your hatred for cats lol