mpitzer

Whoa! Sweet!!!!!!

What are the orange zoas in the 4th picture called?

Love the aquascape! Super excited to see this baby in person!!!!!!

I am in the same boat as you looking for a light to hang over my new 525xl. I just saw the AquaticLife T5HO Hybrid that debuted at MACNA 2017 and is scheduled to start selling in December. It a BYO-LED setup that has mounting fixtures in the middle for the Radions or the Kessil LEDs and then T5HO on the sides with reflectors to keep light bleed at bay. Really think I want it but my tank is 59" wide and the light only goes up to 48"....don't know if 5 inches on either side of the tank would matter but seems like a 48" would be perfect for you. "The T5HO fixture comes in 24, 36, and 48" lengths and they each hold up to four lamps. But the most intriguing part of the T5HO Hybrid fixture is that they come with several types of universal mountin brackets designed to allow the user to easily mount a radion, prime, hydro, kessil, and other LED fixtures between the T5 lamps." Sounds pretty awesome to me.

Gorgeous!

Interesting.... http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/19/technology/fish-tank-hack-darktrace/index.html

Had a great time moving the tank, eating pizza, and learning how patience and planning come together in such a great design. I had no idea an empty tank could weigh so much. I'll let you know when I tank the plunge into SPS.....I am assuming that Acans and Acros are SPS but I still don't know at this point. I have a long way to go.

Yea I was going to clarify that as well Tom. I expect people will ask for price decreases but I never expected so many people to offer water as currency. My personal favorite rebuttal when I politely declined the offer for water was "The fact that you haven't sold your tank yet and I sell 1000G of water a month tells me all I need to know about your crappy tank. I didn't want to buy your tank anyway."

if it makes you feel any better, I wanted to name it "Craigslist Jerkoff Awards" but thought I might catch some flack for that.

oh too bad. I just thought it was for dumb people. guess I can give myself a Darwin award too.

A little bit bored right now so I wanted to throw out a discussion topic. I just recently sold a tank on craigslist that I bought back in August 16' and never used for a little more than half of what I paid (sold for $200). I was not at all angry about selling it cheaper than I paid because the guy that bought it was nice and because I rushed in thinking I wanted a cube and later changed my mind so I was willing to take a loss for my dumb decision. However, in my dealings on craigslist, I ran into quite a few a-holes (not scammers) that would contact me about the tank and then try to substantially decrease the price and barter with their "super special water" that I would never be able to find anywhere. I would consider this an isolated incident if it only happened 1-2 times but it happened about 5 times in two weeks. Then, when I would politely tell them I was not interested in water as currency, the majority would try to demean me or my tank as not worth their water anyway. It was quite humorous dealing with these people but it made me think whether this is a normal occurrence in the tank resale world. Ill see if I can find any screenshots of the conversations when I get home

what kind of blenny is that in the picture?

ready and willing and live close.

I ended up taking the rock out of the tank and getting rid of it. Thanks guys!

have you every injected aiptasia with boiling RO water? I have read where that has worked before.

Best way to rid aptasia?

I saw this alien looking thing in my tank last night....before I rip it out, can anyone tell me what it is?

Everything else has survived and is doing good. I ended up getting a lawnmower blenny and he has been happy as well.

Royal gramma had expired when I got home today. Neither the gramma nor the blenny showed any signs of velvet. Will test water params tonight

This is unrelated to the firefish situation but would still like some advice about a fatality in the tank that happened last night. I have had a fairly large orange spotted blenny in the tank for about a month now. Kind of a bully but not too bad and usually very active. He loves to 'sleep' and chill up near the overflow teeth throughout the day for whatever reason. I came home around 3pm yesterday and went down to check on the tank....everything is fine and everyone accounted for. I then departed for two hours for a doctors appointment and got home around 530. I do not remember if I checked the tank when I came home but when I put the pumps on feed mode, I noticed he wasn't around being the pig he normally is so I look up in the overflow teeth and he is hanging headfirst out of the teeth with his body in the overflow box, still breathing and I caught it right as the overflow water was draining down. I freed him right away and he quickly swam to the rock and chilled there but didn't eat anything which was strange. I watched him for about 10 minutes and he sat on the rock the whole time breathing. So I dunked the baster in there to see if he could move and as soon as I touched him, he quickly swam to the sandy bottom in the shade of the liverock still chilling and breathing. Inactivity is very strange for him but I just assumed he was stressed or shocked with what happened. Woke up this morning and he was in the same spot but had perished during the night. Does anyone have any ideas on how he died? He couldn't have been in that position in the teeth for more than 2 hours. Could it be shock or could he have tired himself out trying to get back? stress? shock?

Its great to hear all these uplifting Paul B stories! The purple firefish was even more lethargic the day after I made the post. I ended up taking him out of the tank and putting him in the freezer to humanely put him down. All of the tank inhabitants seem to be doing just fine since he has left the tank. I don't see any signs of sickness from the others although I can almost guarantee the six line wrasse was giving the purple firefish a really hard time because he is now bullying around the red firefish who stays in his rock the majority of the day now.

Its an expensive lesson to learn. I got half of my fish from reef escape and love their dedication to quarantining. Will go to them from now on.

Alright, I forgot to get a picture but the firefish was looking much worse and almost dead, it looked like it was going in and out of consciousness. The white spots were more prevalent and were on the fins as well. I went to the LFS and asked whether they had any problems with velvet in their last shipment . the owner asked whether it was getting bullied and said it might have just been picked on but in looking at the pics, he said it probably was ich rather than velvet. He also said firefish skin is so mucousy that it may have just been on the surface. He also told me if I see any problems, I can bring in the rest of my fish and he can quarantine and treat my fish until I can get a QT.

Based on my research, I believe it is velvet as opposed to ich. When I saw it yesterday, it seemed to be in the very early noticeable stages as I saw a few particles on his body but didn't seem to be on any of the fins yet. When I get home around 3pm, I will check him and post another picture. If it is much worse, I will take him out of the tank and put him in a freshwater dip and then a 5G bucket until I can buy a little quarantine tank for him. If the suspicions are correct, that would mean that the display tank and the rest of the inhabitants will be infected soon if not already, right?

Ok, so now that I got a computer that gets along with the forum, ill post more. Zygote - thanks for the advice, that really helped I bought the purple firefish from Quantum Reefs. It is a 57G with a six line, two clowns, firefish, royal gramma, orange spotted blenny, skunk cleaner shrimp, tons of snails and a couple hermits. Yesterday, I found him in the bottom right corner of the tank just laying on the sand looking very lethargic. He was pretty uninterested during the first minute of feeding but then began moving and picking up the floating scraps. Here is an very close if not exact picture of the parasite (?) behind his right fin.