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rtelles

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Reefer (7/13)

  1. Given the number of fish you've alluded to that have jumped out of your tank and died, is incorporating some sort of cover not an option?
  2. Only a few months in, you're gonna go through some ish, especially with that stock list. Cyano is ugly and gross, but it's not particularly dangerous unless it's blocking corals. As others have said, lights off for 2-3 days (complete blackout - don't let any light in whatsoever if you can help it), either no feeding or super light feelings during that time, and manually siphon as much as possible. When you do water changes, get as much cyano out as you can with the hose. If your corals don't need a ton of light, lower the intensity and photo period. Also, 20% isn't a large water change, that's just a water change. Do 20% every 3 days or so for a bit of possible to get the nutrient levels down. Conversely, it'll probably go away on its own with time of you let the tank stabilize.
  3. You need to get the rest of the fish qt'd and treated, or most, if not all, will die. Your firefish was clearly ill with either ick or velvet based on the picture you shared, and sometimes velvet is hard to spot even on a very sick fish. It's now in your system, and it's not going away. Some of the remaining fish may have strong enough immune systems to make it through, but given all of the recent losses, that may be wishful thinking. You'll need to leave the tank fallow (fishless) for a while, until the underlying (likely parasite) issue clears up. Nobody wants to hear this, but unless you both treat your fish and leave your tank fallow, you'll always have mysterious deaths in your tank moving forward. Sorry you're dealing with all of this.
  4. Id love to see another video if you have any new ones.
  5. Glad the store will potentially be helping you out, but if there's one lesson to take from all of this, it's to never, ever, ever buy from a LFS (with few exceptions) and put the fish directly into your display without quarantining and/or treating. Unless you're buying from a LFS that has an aggressive quarantining/treatment protocol ala ERC or Reef Escape, expect that any fish you purchase will have, at best, ich, and at worst a number of other illnesses that will kill every fish in your tank. You may get lucky and have a series of relatively healthy fish, but all it takes is one and you'll have to remove everything and treat or they're all going to die. There's no nice way of describing it, and nearly every person in this group has some horror story of deciding that the fish looked healthy at the store and added it directly to their display, only to either lose every one of their fish or have to break down their tank to catch everything to treat. It happened to myself when I sold a few fish to a fellow WAMAS member and received a lovely frag as a thank-you, which I put directly into my display. I learned later that week that all of his fish perished due to velvet from a fish he hadn't quarantined and added directly to his display, and sure enough, I lost 75% of my own within a week as the water or coral itself carried it into my tank. You can either set up a separate treatment/quarantine system yourself, which is actually relatively cheap (lots of threads on this) so long as you only have 1-2 fish go through the process at a time, or you can buy from a treatment-first LFS. You'll pay more upfront, since the LFS' that treat initially eat the cost of the fish that they lose during their treatment (which would normally be sold by other LFS' and the entire loss will be on the customer). Either way, somebody will be paying for the treatment of any fish that is ill during the admittedly terrible collection/shipping process that any non-captive-raised fish goes through. FTR, I've purchased many fish from Quantum and other LFS that don't have a long treatment process automatically baked in, and many of them have been healthy, but I've also lost quite a few during my own quarantine/treatment process because the fish had latent illnesses that I couldn't successfully treat (finding a healthy copperband was a nightmare, though I finally got lucky). Paul B and a few others have more or less circumvented this by feeding healthy foods such as live black worms, clams, LRS, etc, to instead build their fish's immune systems, but they also expect to lose some of their fish as they're introduced to their systems, even if that part is left unspoken. I don't mean to be a debbie-downer, but it's always so sad to hear about ich and/or velvet outbreaks, because they're preventable, but the industry has very little incentive to treat on their own unless they do so as a premium service.
  6. Are the ruby red dragonettes still around? Haven't seen too many updates on them from people on Wamas and/YouTube who have had them in the past. Seems like their mortality rate in aquariums is pretty high. I had a pair for about 6 months (one got caught in the screen top mesh and the other simply disappeared). Had plenty of pods, fed baby brine shrimp, and they also had no problems eating frozen brine and mysis.
  7. This sounds like a such a cool high maintenance peaceful tank. Do post pictures once everyone's settled and you feel more comfortable. Excited to hear about the success so far.
  8. Probably an unknown disease introduced by the xmas wrasse or corals. Unless your quarantine process is pristine, there's no way there isn't a connection between the new additions and the tang's illness. There are various diseases that would cause the white spot on the pectoral fin, but there are tons of online articles that in sure you're aware of on how to identify and treat them.
  9. Wondering if keeping OSF's in captivity will be similar to the trajectory of the copperband in the long run, in that it will be entirely dependent on the collection method and health of the individual specimen upon sale (assuming the buyer has the correct setup). Both have obligatory appetites in the wild, both are from the indo-pacific, and both have been historically difficult to wean onto prepared foods. Neither are generally well-cared for during collection, with their issues exacerbated by not having the correct foods from the time they're caught until they're sold to the final buyer, which places the burden on the buyer to more or less rescue the fish from starvation almost immediately. Both have been kept by advanced aquarists who have written about them extensively (Paul B and Pedersen, respectively). And many, many more individuals will die in captivity than survive for a year or more. Looks like you got a well-cared for, healthy individual, which I'd guess is 90% of the battle with these.
  10. Nice. Couple of responses to your points, and again, take with grain of salt: Hermits aren't necessary, imo. They're good for cleaning up detritus, but there are snails that will do the same, and hermits often prey on snails. It's okay being cheap - keeping a reef gets ridiculously expensive if you let it, so you save where you can. As a general rule, to keep the costs down, don't purchase new unless it's an item with a limited shelf life (tests/food/filter materials/purigen/etc). I've used both a smart ATO, which I love, and a JBJ, which worked okay, but needed a separate pump and uses a float switch, which I'm not a fan of. I'd post a WTB in the for sale section and see what ATO's people have available - most of us have an extra or 2 or 6 laying around. I bought both of mine second hand, and that $50-100 purchase will be one of the most useful you'll make in the long run rather than trying to set up a hob refugium, which won't really do much in a system your size. The nutrient export in a small hob refugium wouldn't show up in your nitrate/nitrite/ammonia readings, and it'd only be useful as a refugium for pods. Yes, there'll some nutrient export, and you may have fewer issues with nuisance algae, but the amount on a 15g tank would be minimal, unless the refugium itself was also large. I had a large CPR aquafuge (about 3 gallons) on my system for a long time, and it was neat to have and fun to watch the copepods/brine shrimp/amphipods/mysis shrimp in their little safe haven, along with the chaeto and caluerpa growth, but when I removed it, it barely registered in my tank readings. I found that it was much more useful to run purigen or chemi-blue. Yasha gobies are awesome - I had one for over 2 years before my office tank crashed :( They're much more interesting with the pistol shrimp, since they live in the caves the pistol shrimp are continuously building. As far as the snapping sound they make, unless the tank is right next to your bed and the shrimp builds its cave next to the side you sleep on and it's being continuously attacked by a pesky wrasse, you'll rarely notice it. I had two large tiger pistol shrimp and you'd hear the odd click, but it rarely registered. Worst-case, you get one, it's too annoying, and you re-sell it, but it's worth giving a shot if your first fish will be a yasha.
  11. Lastly, for a tank your size, no mandarins or scooter blennies or dragonets. They're tiny and awesome and seem like they'd be fine, but they need large systems with tons of copepods to survive, let alone thrive. Hope this helps.
  12. Take what I say with a grain of salt, but I've wasted a ton of time, energy, and money during my short time reefkeeping (~4 years), and if I can steer you away from some of the more common problems, I'll consider it a success. Not sure if this has popped up yet, but an ATO would be incredibly helpful for a tank that size, especially if you want to keep anything other than softies. I have a smart ATO and a small freshwater reservoir and it was well worth the investment. Manual top-offs are a pain, and you'd need to do it everyday, and if you're a normal person that will be one of the first tasks you slack on. Given the size of your tank, the day-to-day fluctuation in salinity wouldn't be great for any moderate care coral such as frogspawn. I also suggest taking a look at leather corals as well. I had a massive tank crash last year and the only survivors were a gsp rock and a large green leather toadstool coral that I've had for years. I'd suggest posting in the WTB/WTS section of Wamas and seeing if anyone would be willing to make a frag for you, as they're incredibly overpriced at a LFS but are more or less given away on the forum. Same with pulsing xenia (which I continue to love, despite its reputation as a pest) and cheap blue and red mushrooms. If at all possible, I'd start by purchasing livestock and corals from the forum instead of a LFS since the better forum members have already taken care of the quarantine process and can walk you through their own history of pests (there will always be some). All of the pest issues I've had in the past have been attributed to livestock and corals purchased from various LFS in the area, since they tend to do a quick dip and turn around their products quickly. Or you can spend a bit more and purchase fish from Marco at Exotic Reef Creations, who has a pretty extensive quarantine process for his fish. Better to spend the extra 20-25% upfront for a fish with a lifespan of 10-20 years than go through a bunch of fish waiting for a healthy one. As far as stocking, you can't go wrong with a clownfish pair and a goby/pistol shrimp combo. Add some kind of hovering and peaceful mid tank fish (firefish, etc), and you have an active, peaceful setup. With a tank your size, unless you want to go full semi-aggressive, I'd stay away from wrasses (sixlines, etc), since they get really territorial and will kill any new arrivals, unless you plan to only have a pair of clowns and a single sixline. I also second having a large cleanup crew consisting of small snails and hermits. Your tank is too small for the larger snails and hermits, but an army of the smaller ones would be great for a tank your size. I'd also add a single cleaner shrimp, mostly because they have really cool personalities. I unfortunately can't keep inverts since I have a puffer, but c'est la vie. Most importantly, try not to go down the "I know I've read that these two fish living together are considered iffy, but maybe I'll get lucky" rabbit hole. It almost never works out long term, and, at best, you'll have a stressed out setup or, more likely, you'll lose a bunch of fish trying to be the exception. It's hard to keep yourself from doing that when you have a peaceful setup and that beautiful wrasse or puffer or damsel is so tempting and the LFS worker tells you that it'll probably be fine, but fight the temptation if you can (admittedly, sometimes you won't). Your setup looks great so far, and good luck!
  13. Page 6 has a youtube video link where they walk through the system.
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