rtelles

I'm a fan of rbta's, but they grow, and sometimes split, and can quickly take over a smaller tank. I started with one 5" rbta about a year ago in a 40B and ended up with 3, one of which was 5", another that was 8", and the largest about 12". I never really target fed them and had them under a relatively cheap reefbreeder led, and they still exploded in growth. That said, they survived a tank crash that was due to a salinity spike (ato failed while I was on vacation and salinity rose to 1.32 - didn't lose any fish but lost 90% of my corals). My clowns love them, they're incredibly attractive, and once they get comfortable you'll rarely see them move without a big change in parameters. However, when one of the splits decided to roam a bit, I lost a small colony of zoas and a hammer coral, so you have to be willing to lose some corals if the rbta gets restless. I've since sold two, so only have the 12" left. Mine also bubbled for about a month before becoming stringy and have never bubbled aside from when I removed them from the tank to sell, so you won't know if they'll be stringy or bubbly in your tank until they're in there.

Would advise against anthias with no top. I have a trio of anthias that was originally 4, but the male will ultimately pick on the females (it's what they do) and their response will be to dart away. Mine slipped through a tiny opening in the corner of the glass-covered tank while I slept. I've seen the rest jump up into the mesh netting multiple times since I added it. Lost a ruby red dragonette the same way, despite dragonet's reputation for not being jumpers.

I've had a trio of Bartletts for about 6 months. The male picks on the two females every once in a while, but for the most part they all hang out together in one corner of the tank and are generally model citizens.They're pretty bold little fish and definitely one of my faves.

Sounds good. Will trust the two of you.

It's a bit damp.

I'm finally going to buckle down and set up an aquarium I've had sitting empty for a few months and consolidate most of the stock from my two tanks into it. I was planning on transferring the rock and sand over from my current 40B all at once, but would like to start with mostly new sand and take my time. I currently have a large 30 gallon tote filled almost halfway with sand from an old tank that's been sitting outside for 6 months, and I'd like to clean it. I've read a number of ways of doing so, but wonder if anyone has baked sand, and if so, what was the process/was it successful? Thanks in advance.

Yours looks good as new, Tom. I'll post a pic in a few weeks when mine's a bit more healed up, but he's already started to reach for the light in his new spot, which he seems comfortable in. He's not as blood red as his split, but he's coloring up again, luckily. Interestingly enough, his tentacle tips have a green hue to them now, especially those that were cut more than halfway. He's picking food up from the water column, and my clownfish had been more than happy to host him again. Parameters are all stable. Could have been much, much worse. Thanks for the suggestions and support.

Iodine was a good idea, didn't think of that in the frantic aftermath - will do so. The rbta's been hanging out under the shelf rock that I placed him under for a few days, and one of my clowns almost immediately rehosted and has been feeding the nem. He lost about 50% of his tentacles, and the ones that remain are pretty stumpy, but he's reaching for the light and is a deep red again, so it looks like we're past the worst of it. Starting to see some critters in my refugium again as well, so that's a plus. Lesson definitely learned. He had bubbled for about a day, but he's back to being a long-tentacled guy. I know nobody really understands the reason for bubbling, but I wonder if it has something to do with protection/defense.

How long have you had him and what kind of lights are you using? Are there are colorful corals nearby? Has he moved? There's been a bunch written about anemones gradually changing colors due to lighting conditions and possibly picking up zooxanthallee from nearby corals.

Just wanted to share this story, because I made an idiot mistake that could have turned out much, much worse. I've had my rbta for about a year and purchased him and his then recently split twin from a wamas tank breakdown. My clownfish took to the nems immediately and they've been hardy little guys, surviving all of my rookie mistakes including a massive spike in salinity that killed nearly all of my corals when my ato failed during a trip a few months ago (surprisingly enough, I didn't lose a single fish). The big guy ultimately split due to the shock, and all three nems were healthy when I stabilized my system. That said, three relatively large rbta's in a 40b was a bit much, so I sold one a few days ago and redid some of the rock work. Big mistake. I have a very small pump for my HOB refugium sitting in the corner of the tank under a small bit of egg crate, which has always been separate from any of the rock work to keep the nems away. When I reorganized the scape, I put a small piece of LR a few inches too close to the pump, and my angry anemone walked himself to the corner. I came home today to a slightly cloudy tank and only one visible nem. Sure enough, there was my once massive nem shriveled up and stuck to this little tiny corner pump, most of his color gone, and with bits of his tentacles floating in the 'fuge. The bad news: my refugium, which was crawling with various types of pods and baby and adult brine shrimp, seems to be devoid of the majority of that life, and the nem itself looked close to death, with nearly no color, and a wide open mouth. I nearly put the little guy out of his misery. The good news: First, none of my fish or remaining corals have died. The pump goes directly into the refugium, which is immediately filtered through chemipure blue and some floss, so the nasty nem juice didn't get blasted directly into my main system. I did a quick 10% water change on the main system and then removed the 3-4 gallons of fuge water, cleaned out the pump, replaced the chemipure and fuge water, and added a small filter sock to the fuge return. I also set my skimmer to skim super wet. A few hours later and the water is relatively clear and the parameters have gotten better. I'll continue to do 10% water changes until everything's back to normal, but it looks like things will be okay (hopefully not a 'famous last words' situation). Second, and more surprisingly, it looks like my nem may have a shot. I was about to remove him from the system, but upon closer inspection, although he was pretty beat up and lost a large number of tentacles, his foot, which is quite large, was intact. After removing him from the tank and brushing him to remove any remaining dead tentacles, I placed him on a shelf rock in the middle of the tank and turned the pumps off to see if he would attach, and within 10 minutes he had crawled his foot under the rock and exposed his remaining tentacles to the light. He started showing color again, so it looks like he didn't expel all of his zooxanthellae, and his mouth closed. A few hours later, at feeding time, I sprayed a miniscule bit of mysis onto his tentacles to see how he'd react, and he attacked them per usual. I know I'm not out of the woods and may ultimately lose him, but it looks like the little guy will live to fight another day. I'll watch him to see if he starts to deteriorate, but here's hoping. As for the pump, aside from recreating the sand moat surrounding the pump, I wrapped a bit of the mesh from my screen around the egg crate to add another barrier and turned the pump intake so that it faces the glass (which I should have done in the first place, but I do stupid things sometimes). Final random observation: Once he had attached himself to the shelf rock, the remaining tentacles of the unfortunate rbta bubbled for the first time since the day I added him to the tank.

Fair enough. Again, wasn't trying to be a jerk, but you put a fish that's generally a territorial, opportunistic predator with one that's an aloof, explorative, goofy, slow fish, and things will probably go sour. Sorry for my earlier tone.

Mandarins are really slow, aloof fish that work their way in and out of crevices all day without paying much mind to their surroundings. Mine leaves no area of the tank unexplored, and I had to rehome an orchid dottyback that was kicking its butt. It's almost guaranteed that any mandarin you pick up will wander into the eel cave. When that happens, if your eel is even a bit little aggressive or nippy, you can kiss the mandarin goodbye, whether it gets eaten or just picked apart over time. Why even risk it? More importantly, if you have a number of experienced members such as those above saying it's not a good idea, and you pick the mandarin up anyway, why ask? I don't mean to be a jerk, but this reminds me of all of the "what's the actual minimum tank size for x fish" questions that are asked, and experienced members say the poster's tank isn't big enough, and the person buys the fish anyway. Maybe you'll get really lucky and have a model citizen of an eel. I certainly hope so.

This tank is a work of art.

Same as most others here - I used to use pantyhose and then a legit cover, but have since gotten lazy and have risked it for about a year with no issues. Luckily my two have found spots they like and haven't moved much, but one of them recently split after a large water change, so I'll either be rehoming one or two or will soon basically have a nem tank. I'm sure I'd feel differently if I came home one day to a nuked aquarium, but that's the risk I take. All that said, I'd wait until they seem rooted to their spots for a week or two. If they're still roaming, or worst-case, free-floating, you may want to keep using the cover for a bit.

Def some of the cooler markings I've seen. Very nice additions.

They sell the netting and spline, but not the frame (at least not as of a month or so ago). Can pick that up cheaply at Home Depot. The netting is quality stuff.

Nice! Do you prefer the green clown over the citron? If not, you could probably sell or trade him relatively quickly and problem solved. Glad you found him!

My tank has battled ich because I'm not a perfect reefkeeper and, though I do quarantine and have had long, fallow periods to rid the ich, sometimes I put things into my system (dipped corals, etc.) that may have a few remnants of the disease, and sometimes it pops up as a dot or two on new fish in my system. I only have the space to run two relatively small tanks, and sometimes a third quarantine when necessary. That said, although I don't feed blackworms every day (I've tried and failed various methods of keeping them going and they typically only last a week or so, so I'm doing something wrong), I do my darndest to feed them high quality foods (reef frenzy/enriched brine/mysis/newly hatched baby brine/fresh seafood/blackworms every week or two), and the only fish I've lost have been new additions with weak immune systems (both in quarantine tanks and in my main), and fish that have taken suicide plunges during water changes or other times when they cover is off (RIP my favorite frozen food eating ruby red dragonet). Paul, you've been really helpful and I've stolen a few of your ideas (my extremely fat male mandarin and female ruby red dragonet both learned to eat frozen brine and mysis because i spot feed above your baby brine shrimp feeder, which they still hover over), and I always appreciate your posts and input. I, and I'm sure many others, look forward to reading your book.

My experience with clown gobies is that they'll pick on any fish that is roughly their same size and shape. I've had a few yellow clown gobies, and their temperaments have varied. One would constantly pick on a yasha goby (which was moved) and a randall (when he was a juvenile, now too big to be messed with) before he himself was picked off by a sixline (since rehomed). My current guy is living peacefully with a small harem of purple firefish and a pair of clownfish, but they can be territorial little buggers when housed with other gobies. Hopefully your green clown has just been picked on and is in hiding, but your citron is definitely capable of killing the green guy.

My dream fish is a simple porcupine pufferfish. I like the idea of the equivalent of a water dog, but I lack the space for the 180+ gallon it would require. I first got into keeping aquariums after seeing freshwater dwarf puffers for the first time and had a trio in a 12G edge for a while before making the switch to saltwater. In the meantime, I make due with a small blue spot puffer.

As others have said, I wouldn't mess with him for a while. If he's poking his head out, he'll likely shift around little by little until he gets the kind of light/flow he needs to be happy. If you move him manually, you'll either A. stress him out and cause him to find another dark cave or float around or B. damage his foot and potentially kill him. Your tank is pretty new, so he's gonna be searching for that sweet spot.

I realize that it wasn't clear in my post that I use live newborn baby brine shrimp, not frozen, the idea being that they'll attack the live bbs and accidentally stumble upon the frozen and realize that it's awesome. Seemed to work.

Quick update: the male dragonet disappeared after I transferred the pair to my main about a month ago. I don't have any particularly territorial or aggressive fish, so the reason for his demise is unknown. Was sad for him to go, though. The female is still alive and fat, but I'll get to her a bit more later. I found another male and was able to get him to eat prepared foods within a few days using the same method I used to get my green mandarin to eat prepared foods: spot feeding a combination of baby brine, enriched frozen brine, and cyclopleeze using a turkey baster. The mandarin and ruby reds are all in my 66 long and are all fat and eating well. I still supplement pods and set up a small culture of amphipods per Dave W's recommendation, so they have plenty to hunt, but I spot feed them in the same place at least one a day with enriched brine shrimp and reef frenzy, and add cyclopleeze and/or live bbs a few times per week. They've all become accustomed to congregating in the feeding spot when I approach the tank, so they make my life relatively easy. This may seem like a bit much, but it only takes a few extra minutes per day and I get to have three voracious pod eaters in my relatively small tank that I can't upgrade due to space constraints. The female and new male dragonet immediately took to each other in the larger tank. They spend the days foraging but inevitably end up hanging out in the same area of the tank after feeding. I also caught them doing the ruby red mating dance near the back of my tank one evening, which was very cool, but I wasn't able to get my phone quickly enough to record it. All that said, I noticed the female's round, plump belly today and realized that she's pregnant, so the pair is definitely spawning, which is awesome and was my goal from day one. So here's the new million dollar question: would I be able to sustain a healthy female mandarin and keep that pair in my system if I can train her to accept the same feeding regime as my male mandarin and the ruby pair and beef up my pod culture?

Depending on the size of your tank, I'd wait a day or two and see if the little guy emerges. When I got my first cleaner shrimp I was distraught the next morning when I woke up to what looked like a fully formed, fully dead cleaner shrimp. I was more than pleasantly surprised when I saw him happily stealing food from my fish a few days later. Aside from being a slightly lighter color, their molted exoskeletons can look exactly like their living bodies, and they immediately go into hiding after molting. If he is dead, I'd agree with everyone else that the drip acclimation is less important than the temperature acclimation, which, like many others, I learned the hard way.

FWIW, I ended up breaking down my edge setup because of an ich outbreak (blarghhh) that took out one of my clowns (although the rest of my fish made a successful transition to my other tank after treatment). Parameters were stable and corals, especially LPS and softies, were doing fine and growing (albeit not as quickly as in my main setup). As discussed earlier, maintenance on the edge is a pita, but it takes up so little space and looks nice, and, more importantly (to me), the closed top keeps evaporation to a minimum so manual top-offs were really simple. I'll probably keep the edge in storage for future use, since I generally like the way it looks, but for now it'll go back in storage.