smokythemattman@gmail.com

April 2020 update Lost my candy hogfish. Like just gone lost. Couldn't really tell how old it was from the start. Was 3 inches + and had him for like 8 months. Was fine a few days ago and just disappeared. I have a lid but I will investigate the overflow later. Everything else goes well. Need more fish. Ive lost like 3 in the past 5-6 months. The banggaii pair I got from another reefer and they were absolute units. Had to be 4-5 years old already. Biggest ones I had seen. Can't decide on which wrasse I want to do. May do leopards, maybe melanarus not sure. Still want a marine betta as well. I will probably replace the cardinal pair just because they are such a different weird fish. I decided to do some top down shots before I cleaned the tank. (I am garbage at photography). But holy crap that is how you can tell things are growing.

Last ? Of my 20 ? series lol. Ever added ones to others that are established? Id assume as long as its adding a female itd be ok.

Yeah I have liked the moyers there were 2 in DD earlier when I looked. What have you found to be the hardiest/easier to ween off of pods?

Yeah thats been my fear is that it can be hit or miss. Were they fighting from the onset? I have multiple tanks so if they spar to much in qt I can separate. But my real fear is putting them into my display and then they fight. I had a blue star leopard wrasse once. By far one of my favorite fish. Lasted a while and disappeared I chocked it up to capture but who knows. I had kinda paused the leopard wrasse trio/harem because I havent been able to get more than 1 or 2 at a time from LA. Have any good ideas of where to source them? What kind of leopards have you had?

I would like some more wrasse for my display. I love fish in pairs or groups. Has anyone had any experience with melanarus wrasse in pairs or even a trio? I would get them as juveniles and let them sort it out themselves who becomes male just curious if anyone has done this.

If you need water I am in Potomac Falls area. I can board the livestock as well depending on size. I have a 40b setup as my frag tank. Its only got a couple smaller fish in there. I got a 10g as well for the mantis shrimp if need be.

You just suck some QT water up and realize the oops and squirt it back into the QT? If so I wouldn't sweat it at all. I'd rinse it out a few times and be on my way. Ive done the same thing.

What on Earth is that red alien looking perching fish? Like a basslet and flame hawkfish mixed lol

I think it looks great! If it were me Id add a little bit more rock and some corals that give it more height! Some nice red or orangeish acro colony or maybe a gorgonian to break up the green.

I know lol. Worst part is I work in tech and still haven't gotten anything like that for this system ?.

Haven't updated in a while. Everything has been doing well for the most part. Not much really gone wrong. I have still been trying to find a nice balance for dosing. The SPS can consume some serious alk and I have had it drop to the 5 dkh range a few times from 7.5 in a matter of days. Trying to reign that in still. Problem is the more alk and ca I add and stable the faster it all grows lol. And faster and faster and I have to test constantly weekly. Guess its a good problem to have. Two main issues I have encountered. One is still ich. I am becoming less and less convinced it is crypto. Still have yet to see any other fish have any signs besides the hippo tang and its spots just dont seem to last more than a day if that. Much longer post as to why I am doubting this. Really need to get a mollie and put it in there to see once and for all. Second problem is I am getting a little bit of cyano in some areas. They seem to be mostly lower flow/dead spot areas so I may add some more flow. Phosphates were 0.01 but I figure they are a little higher and nitrates were 1. Plan to siphon it out and then going to run my refugium less and phosguard more since my macro algae been growing slowly. Not nearly enough for me to consider running Chemiclean yet just a few small patches. Been doing more on the frag tank/qt because I am going to need it soon. Some of the SPS is beginning to shade other corals. In there I got a chocolate tang, a neon dottyback(probs add to display seems super chill) and a red rooster waspfish. I want to upgrade from a 40b to a like 60g or 80g frag tank. So waiting for someone to sell one.

Almost looks like paletta pink tip. I think Jason Fox and TSA had versions at one point.

Ive seen people use a like 50$ sock washing machine. I wish I had the link. I dont use filter socks anymore but I almost bought one for that purpose.

2nd the sapphire damsels. Mine is probably my most passive fish. Got it from Reef eScape well over a year ago. Very nice blue color and eats everything. Wish I wouldve done a few of them.

Update on the tanks. 180 DT Fish Ich returned sometime in early November. Ive made enough posts about potentially where it came from. Ultimately through some talking to folks etc my best guess is one of the fish I added in Oct was aymptomatic even though I qted them. Only 1 fish showed signs of white spots. Hippo tang of course. Had about 15 or so spots. 0 behavior changes. Watched him and the others for many hours. No scratching at all. Didnt want to break down and treat in smaller tanks when nothing was really wrong. So the display I am fairly positive has become an ich management system. In early December some spots came back on the hippo tang but probably more in the 5-10 range. Again 0 behavior problems and still nothing on the others. So I am still in and watch and observe phase. If it gets worse Ill break down and use TTM(got a bunch of like 50g totes) to treat them as they have already been through copper a few times. But besides suspected ich all are fat and healthy. Some are super fat(looks at Starry blenny). Corals Sps still growing like the plague. @gws3 corals must have something special additive in them (more likely just from long term well cared for aquacultured colonies) because they explode in my tank. Had a red robin colony from end of July that was about 4x5x3inches maybe 5x5.5x3.5 that is now at least 6x8x4. Some monti pieces from him have also grown super fast. The other SPS frags from other reefers has been cool to watch them grow out. Some took alot longer than others to start growing but have taken off. Alot of the softies I got from another reefers breakdown to start the tank have dome softie things as well. I am reducing my kenya tree population. There were over 20 that are 3+ inches that I know of and I stopped counting at 50 baby ones. Trying to get another small colony or 2 of SPS sticks to take their spots. 40b Frag/QT Lol. Well I got some corals from folks I don't know their systems well or online and into the frag tank they went. Now its a red bug(think planaria), aiptasia, bryopsis, GHA thunderdome. I had ordered a 2.5-3 inch Chocolate tang like 3 days before I got ich in my display. I didn't know where it came from and since I feared maybe cross contamination from the qt(I dont think it was but who knows) I didn't want to add the chocolate tang to that tank right away. Cue tang police here lol. Mine has alternated in TTM between a 10g and a 50g tote for a month and goes into the 40b today. Its been nice and healthy trying to fatten him up some more but I think having room to graze will do the trick. He will stay in the 40b while I watch what the ich does in the display. I plan on using some reef flux first to kill off the GHA/Bryopsis and then siphoning out the red bugs and getting someones reject 6 line wrasse. Params 1.025 salinity Alk 7-7.2 Ca 400 Nitrates 2 Phosphates .05 Ps No idea what this SPS is in the last picture. Got it from frag fest and its like grown 3 inches.

Yeah weirdly some fish can build up a resistance to that to. Though i wouldn't leave it to the fish to fight that or brook off on their own. Actually that is one reason I can't be to upset that ich snuck through into my tank. Couldve been velvet or brook.

Reefescape might. If not that brand I am sure they have some form of chelated copper.

Alright ich lifecycle round 2 is underway. I anticipated it would be sometime in the next few days that the cysts would hatch and it would become visible again. Hippo tang got 5-10 obvious raised white sharp spots and no other fish have any. Its still weird the parasite has yet to appear on the fins of the hippo tang only affects the body. So far seems not as bad as the first time. Hippo tang still seems normal. It is very fascinating how it can be impossible to identify ich on fish that are in a closed system with the parasite none of the others show anything at all. This has made me a full believer in not just observing fish in qt and treating proactively.

I second @lynn.reef.nerd. The build threads are great places to find folks with similar tanks to yours and see what they are doing. There are so many people keeping successful tanks doing it different ways in here you can definitely find someone to look to for knowledge. Thank you for your service. Being MD/NoVa this group is full of active duty/vets/govt folks. Lots of great people and great reefers here. There are quite a few folks down your way but I don't wana "out" them on here haha. I am sure they will post or reach out.

I thought it was the other way around. I am about to do more research haha

You know I have wondered that as well. Last time pretty much all the fish had white spots. It was quite obvious. Not a ton but like 5-10 visible. What was also weird is this time it was only on the body of the hippo tang. Where last time it was on the fins predominantl of all the fish. It looked very similar to the usual pointed white under skin spots. But they didn't last the typical 3-7 day feeding period at all. Which was also interesting. All were gone within 36 hours. I wonder if its bacterial or something else as well. Ive only killed 2 fish in this tank and both were acanthurus tangs. One within 5 or so days of being returned after my first fallow/cu treatment. I chocked it up to the copper/being fragile. The other spent 6 weeks in a qt tank and I treated it with copper as well. No signs or symptoms. I added it to the display. After a few days it looked like it had an injury on its face. So I plucked it and it healed up after like 10 days or so. Added it back in. Another week or so it was dead stuck to the powerhead. No signs of anything wrong even hours before. Again assumed fragility of being an acanthurus tang. Fast forward quite a few weeks and this whole episode repeats. Hard for me to justify fat healthy acanthurus tangs gone in hours from ich without any signs/symptoms of ich. I also did a little autopsy on them and found nothing weird at all. Which was even more confusing. I had read 4fords post about acanthurus tangs and ich a while back. But his seemingly all wasted away over time. Whereas mine just poofed and dead. I am actually waiting to see if it runs through its life cycle again. Should be any day now for the hippo tang to show signs. If it doesn't Ill put a molly in there in an acclimation box and it should break out real fast if there is crypto in there.

@treesprite Thats been whats eating at me. I want to believe that catching all my fish and going through the whole thing again is best. Part of me just feels that putting them through copper again or tank transfer is more likely to kill one than ich. As it stands now. I only really wana add one more fish. And I already have it its own QT tank. Its a chocolate tang. I may just leave it in my 40b frag tank for like 6 months to a year anyways since its small. I also am kinda waiting for round 2 of the life cycle to see timing/how bad it is.

I know acanthurus tangs are super fragile. I have a chocolate tang and hes gona stay in my frag tank for a while. What was your stock list for fish when you waited it out? Mine is definitely on the hardy end. Just a tang and a potters angel as the only fragile ones. Even though I have seen no symptoms froms the angel yet at all.

Thanks guys. I wanted some opinions on folks that rode it out before. Its really been eating away at me. I lost two fish last time I caught them all and treated. They jumped out of qt and I have no clue how. Its one of those things where I want to believe the "right" thing is to catch them all and treat again. But I just keep reading more and more about how managing it isn't as wrong as many believe. After ich sneaking through my process I really think ich is in more of our systems than we know. I think what I am leaning towards is getting a uv sterilizer. Probably good to have anyways. And just keeping an eye on them. I have the extra equipment to pull them and treat anytime I have to.

Quick recap before my ?. Had ich a while back in early summer. Added snails from LA and got it (oops). Broke down tank, caught fish, treated with cu, went fallow the whole shebang. Added fish a few months ago. They were fine until last week. I have no clue how ich snuck through my qt process but it did. Here is my dilemma. I am 99% sure there is ich again. My hippo tang had like 15 or so very obviously under skin raised sharp white spots. After 2 days they were all gone. No other symptoms my fish are all still fat(very fat) and healthy as far as I can tell. I hawked over the tank for days as I got backup tanks ready. Clownfish had like 2 spots and nothing else showed signs. I know my tank has ich. However, before almost all of my fish had white spots and symptoms. I wonder if the rest have built up more of an immunity by now and are basically just carriers. I dont want to retreat with copper. I just got burned by trusting that and I dont want to re-expose the fish. If I treat itll be TTM and fallow. But heres the catch. I am only planning on adding one more fish. I know people run tanks with ich and after about a year or so the ich loses its potency especially without new additions. Part of me wants to wait and see how the next few weeks go. Breaking down the tank will be hard now. Alot more corals and growth. And being honest my corals are worth alot more than my fish so I am hesistant on that. It was a mess last time even though it didnt take long. I am debating the drain method as well (dig out sand and suck the water out, catch fish and refill) but again Im a little scared of that. I have wrasse and rock hiders. This is the most knowledgeable aquarist group I have ever seen anyone tried management and failed? I know you can win many battles with ich and lose the war but I haven't found many examples of that. What would you all do?