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rt502

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Urchin

Urchin (4/13)

  1. I will take the wrasse.  What time on Sunday is good for pickup?

  2. I've had a tiny biota mandarin in a Spec V growout (lots of rock) for roughly three months. I feed a mix of frozen baby brine, a micro pellet called first bites, and a little bit of LRS (for a trimma goby). He DID NOT eat frozen or prepared food for the first few weeks - I had seeded the tank with a large amount of pods months beforehand and didn't add the mandarin until the pods covered the front glass, and I'll still need to replenish every few months. He has since begun to swim to the top of the water when I walk up to the tank in anticipation of the mix. He has about doubled in size, so the growout is working, but I'd highly recommend against getting a mandarin if you don't have a large pod population to begin with. As with others, mine was shy and refused the prep food until he was comfortable. Because the system is so small and I feed so heavily, I do a 2.5 gallon water change every 10 days or so. I'll move him to the larger tank when he's fully outgrown his current setup. I paid about $90 for him at tropical lagoon.
  3. LRS herbivore blend would be worth a shot.
  4. It's funny how the former 'it' corals are growing beautifully but don't seem to engender the same sort of "oh no, can't lose it" feeling a few years later (for ex. "there's my lovely Walt Disney being strangled by rastas" lol). Per usual, everything looks bomb, and newer corals continue to have ridiculous names. Love how the bottom is filling out. Also, those nems you sold me have about doubled in size. Do you still keep any fish in there or is it corals/inverts only at this point?
  5. Have had anemones die via getting stuck in powerheads and disintegrating in tanks as small as 5g. In my experience, the amount of damage a dead anemone causes is overblown, so long as you remove the pieces and use carbon/floss. I wouldn't do a change larger than 50%, especially if your fish and corals seem to be doing okay. If anything, do the large volume change and then do a series of smaller changes over the subsequent days. When my decent size rbta got shredded in the 5g, the hammers and zoa's were angry for a few days but were just fine, and the fish didn't really seem to notice at all. Years ago I had a very large rbta bite the dust in a 40g, and I lost nothing, despite not even running carbon. A guy in the forum has a tank with like, 30 anemones that all died within days and the fish and most of the corals were unharmed. Keep an eye on things, but unless you notice some serious struggling, it'll probably be okay.
  6. We're all complicit in the nasty side of keeping ornamental marine fish. We can try to mitigate our negative impact on the overall environment and on the lives of the fish themselves by purchasing aquacultured fish and corals when possible and doing our best to source our wild-caught purchases to areas that are known to be more humane and have fewer animals killed in transport. We can make ourselves feel better by arguing that the hobby brings awareness to the creatures of the ocean and can spur compassion and funding for various environmental initiatives, etc. Really though, most of us just want to have beautiful fish and corals in our homes, and are willing to accept the relative harm that the industry itself causes. However, that can be said about many things. Do you eat meat? You're causing harm to the environment. Driving a car that gets less-than-ideal mileage given your own budget, especially if you drive for fun? Damaging the environment. Purchase timber that isn't a fast growing and sustainable type to use for projects? Damage. Play a sport like golf that destroys local environments and uses an enormous amount of water? damage. Etcetcetc. The overall impact of our individual choices is relatively very small, and the best we can do, unless we have an absolute moral issue with a specific activity, is to act in good faith and cause the least harm in achieving our goals (in our case, keeping and growing pretty fish and corals in a window box filled with saltwater). In my own case, if there's a fish I like that I know I can take good care of and there's an aquacultured option, I buy it, because it also is more likely to survive, even if it's double the price of a wild-caught specimen. However, I still have a few wrasses and a blue spot puffer that I really like and they aren't available aquacultured, so I made the arguably immoral choice to purchase them, and have since justified the purchase to myself by feeding them high quality foods and taking care of their environment. That said, that has not always been the case, and I've been directly responsible for the deaths of many fish due to a lack of knowledge and user error, and I did a ton of research beforehand. I assume that most of us have been through that phase and many others remain there. I'd imagine that a forum like Wamas will have among the most knowledgable and humane reekeepers, so there's a lot of preaching to the choir here, but most don't really care all that much. These arguments seem to pop up on this board every few years and generally elicit the same reaction. The very long-term reefkeepers will argue that things have improved considerably over the past couple of decades and that it's possible for the industry to be relatively sustainable. It may or may not be better, but the overall impact of the hobby is pretty undeniably negative. I think that, so long as we acknowledge it, it's no worse than many, many other choices we make daily that are almost universally accepted and just as damaging, if not moreso than keeping pretty fish and corals in saltwater boxes..
  7. Have you tried leaving a clam or mussel in the tank for them to pick at during the day (tied to a rock so it doesn't get pushed around)? You just remove it at the end of the day so that it doesn't cloud up the tank, but they can also be a good transition food that is relatively cheap.
  8. Used to buy regularly from tropical lagoon. Had a cbb that ate the worms, but he went nuts for LRS, so you may want to give it a try as a transition food.
  9. Nice tank you got there. You can get a cheap black yoga mat at five below and cut it to size if you don't want to drop $20+ for an 'aquarium leveling mat.' I have a lagoon 25 and it works fine under it. It'd probably be fine with the blanket, but why risk it when you technically don't have anything in there to kill yet?
  10. If ocellaris or a percula, it shouldn't be too bad if you find a considerably smaller clown (ideally the smallest juvenile you can find) and use a breeder box. If you don't have a breeder box, you can add the smaller fish and keep an eye on them and separate if the aggression kicks up. Worst experience I've had with the roughly 6 pairs I've had was a maroon/ocellaris hybrid female that nearly beat a black ocellaris to death over the course of a few weeks before finally accepting him. The black clown was ragged for months, but they ended up forming a really strong bond. Regardless, you'll want to have a separate small quarantine tank up and ready in the event that the female is hyper aggressive and a threat to kill the new clown. Rehoming clowns is relatively easy in the area and some of the LFS' will take them back for credit if the pairing is unsuccessful (of course clarify before purchase).
  11. Very nice. What light are you running?
  12. Had a 20g Nuvo at my office a few year's back. Coworkers loved dropping by and checking out the fish, and with the 2 clowns and pistol shrimp/goby pair it was relatively easy to maintain (smart ato for top off, and heavy feedings before the weekend). I'd do a 5 gallon water change every few weeks and only kept hard soft corals and lps. That said, they shut the power off in the (government) building over a long weekend with no warning, and I lost everything, including the clown pair and goby I'd had for 3 years. It was pretty devastating. Even if you're familiar with your office's power situation, I'd be sure to add a backup battery. Otherwise, I'd do it again - the fish were peaceful company.
  13. Yeah man. I was 'this' close to picking up a baby CBB to keep for 6 months or so, just because I enjoyed the process of weaning them onto prepared foods, and finding a new home for a healthy CBB is a cinch. Yours is obviously in good hands. Your tank looks great.
  14. Was the CBB the reason for the emergency LRS post? Had one a few years ago that was my fave fish ever, and loved him some LRS. Only thing I dislike about my lagoon 25 is that it's 1/4 the size of a proper CBB tank.
  15. Def enjoys it. He'd be running or pecking if he didn't. Has to feel good.
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