Azfishgal New Tank Diary!

[azfishgal]

Couldn't find any divider, so I covered both sides of the tank with black paper, leaving only one side open and turned off the lights. The larger clown did go down to her PVC pipe she sleeps in, so maybe she finally leave the little guy alone. Oh, just saw her back at the top of the ph, but maybe after I turn off the kitchen light she'll stay at the bottom.

 

[kevin34]

Good to hear things have started to calm down. I bet you cant wait to get those fish out of the QT once and for all. Must be rough. Ill probably be going through the same thing soon though as by bday is coming up in just a couple weeks and hopefully Ill be picking up my tank!

Hope everything works out for you Az.

 

[azfishgal]

Originally Posted by Kevin34
Good to hear things have started to calm down. I bet you cant wait to get those fish out of the QT once and for all. Must be rough. Ill probably be going through the same thing soon though as by bday is coming up in just a couple weeks and hopefully Ill be picking up my tank!

Hope everything works out for you Az.
That's the truth, I'm starting to go stir crazy. :hilarious I was thinking of doing Hypo on all my incoming fish, that way, they are only in the QT for four weeks and NOT six. But the idea of raising and lowering the salinity that many times is making my head spin.

 

[saltn00b]

get a divider in there! she most likely is not gonna leave him alone. go to local hardware and get some egg crate. or get a pet carry case that is ventilated and put the little guy in there. you are gonna need to do something similar when they go in the DT anyway until she stops being aggressive and the swim together , through the plastic wall. i have heard that is the way to go with male and female clowns that arent getting along. good luck!

 

[katz]

My two clowns did the same thing for a while. I found out from my LFS that they do that when they are deciding who is going to be the female. Mine fought for two weeks and then they were fine. But boy did they have me worried. Harry Potter the smaller of the two looked beat upped for awhile but he is fine now. Jenny now loves Harry and they only fight when Malfroy my diamond goby trys to take their food. The clowns are in my current 54g tank.
Tank is looking great by the way. I wish mine was up and running.(125)
Katz

 

[kevin34]

Originally Posted by azfishgal
That's the truth, I'm starting to go stir crazy. :hilarious I was thinking of doing Hypo on all my incoming fish, that way, they are only in the QT for four weeks and NOT six. But the idea of raising and lowering the salinity that many times is making my head spin.

I have heard this idea before of putting all new fish into hypo. Has anyone here tryed it before? Is it too much work? My plan so far is to get most of my inverts and corals into my tank before my fish go in and make sure once my last invert or coral goes in wait 6 weeks before adding a fish just to make sure there will be no ich in there and there will be nothing to bring it in.

 

[azfishgal]

Originally Posted by Kevin34
I have heard this idea before of putting all new fish into hypo. Has anyone here tryed it before? Is it too much work? My plan so far is to get most of my inverts and corals into my tank before my fish go in and make sure once my last invert or coral goes in wait 6 weeks before adding a fish just to make sure there will be no ich in there and there will be nothing to bring it in.
IMO you only need to wait three to four weeks with your inverts being alone, of course six weeks would be extra insurance. I would also like to know if anyone else hypos every fish that comes in. I feel at this rate it will be a year before I have all the fish I want.

And then if we want to make sure all that work was not done in vain we also need to QT every coral (if you are adding fish first, like me). This really IS a slow process, isn't it.

 

[kevin34]

Any update on the clowns?

 

[azfishgal]

Originally Posted by Kevin34
Any update on the clowns?
I was able to split them up with an egg crate, but found out very soon that the smallest one was able to go through the grids.

But I thought at least he has a place to hide if the larger one starts after him again. WAIT A MINUTE, I then found out the larger one was also able to get through the small grids too.

The divider, however, has captured their interest and the larger one has stopped cornering the smaller one, for now anyway. :cheer: Salinity is up to 1.017, so by Tuesday we should be up to normal.

 

[sexyfishers]

azgal, I have been keeping up with your post as we both started our tanks on the same day almost and we too have a 125.
However, instead of doing it ourselves we had it customed so I am learning more about the sump, skimer etc as I read along with others here on this site. Also, we allowed the customs crew to basically add whatever fake stuff to the tank and are about to add some lr and inverts here in the next few days. (ordered from swf)
Currently, we have 3 damsels (soon to come out)
4 inch leaflip grouper
5 inch antennata lion
I have about 10 snails coming and 20 hermits, 3 stars (should have waited a little longer on the stars prob, but hopefully they do well).
MY ? is this..
What is the concept of adding verts and plant life to the sump? What benefits does this bring and also the light that you added there. I was thinking of starting a new thread on this, but seems as you already know and have done this. Also, you added sand and rock. If you wish you can email me the dos and donts on this if you feel I am imposing on your thread. Any help in this area would be great. btw.. tank lots amazing!

 

[azfishgal]

sexyfishers, I'll help you with what I know so far (and don't worry, you are not imposing at all, it's how we all learn here).
I would have waited on the starfish, they need a very established tank or they will starve. Usually you need to wait at least 6 months, but some say 8-12 is better. The sump/refuge helps in many ways. It adds more water volume to your tank, and is where you can stick items that you don't want seen in your display tank. Like the cheato (macroalgea), it's very beneficial in keeping nitrates down and is a breading area for pods. It also steals nutrients out of the water that the bad algea likes to feed off of. You don't want it in your DT though or it will take over. I have hermits in my fuge because they are good scavengers (will eat anything) but I don't want them in my DT because I want my snail population to stay up (hermits will go after their shells). The fuge light I run at night, when the DT light is off. The cheato needs the light to grow and having at least one light on all the time helps keep your pH level.
The live rock works as an added filtration system and is home to many good organisms. Unlike my freshwater tank, I won't have to take out my decor and clean it.

Though I will turn a powerhead on it every once in a while to blow off any debris.
I'm still learning though, and have a ways to go, but I'm having fun. Good luck to you and your tank. Have you posted pics of your tank? If so, I'll hunt around to find them.

 

[kevin34]

Did you say your LR is from this site? How do you like it? I am really confused at this point about live rock and the prices are stressing me out. lol

 

[azfishgal]

Originally Posted by Kevin34
Did you say your LR is from this site? How do you like it? I am really confused at this point about live rock and the prices are stressing me out. lol
Yes, I did get 100 lbs of lr from SWF. It was VERY good rock with lots of purple coraline on it. I haven't seen any hitch hikers yet, but that also means I havn't seen anything bad either. The price here was much better than my lfs, even after shipping. One way to help is to get some base rock first. I got mine at my lfs for $1.80/lbs. I got enough to cover the bottom of my tank, because half of that rock was going to be covered by sand anyway, so why pay a lot fo something I'm not even going to see. It gave a good foundation for when my lr came, I just stacked it on top of the base rock. So all together I have 160 lbs of rock. Oh, and that base rock will become live in time. Yes, it's pricey, no way of getting around it, but like I said, here at SWF it was a lot less expensive and actually more cured than the one lr I got from my lfs (used to cycle my QT). Some people buy what they can as money allows, but I didn't want to have to cure rock in a different container every time I got some, so I just did it all at once. This of course is what started the cycle in my DT.

 

[kevin34]

Would it be too much to ask to provide a few recent pics of your LR?

 

[azfishgal]

Originally Posted by Kevin34
Would it be too much to ask to provide a few recent pics of your LR?
Here are some I took today (just for you).

Here is a pic with a dead sponge that I still need to pull out. I was hoping someone would eat it, but no one wants it.

 

[azfishgal]

Here are some more pics I took last week, but they also show the great rock I have.
Mr. Emerald Crab not being shy at all.

Here he is stopping at the buffet.

Here's another showing the nice color on the rocks.

Of course I can't forget about my cleaner shrimp. One of them has already molted.

 

[bill109]

how much longer b4 the clowns go in?
they r gonna love tht tank

 

[azfishgal]

Originally Posted by bill109
how much longer b4 the clowns go in?
they r gonna love tht tank
Salinity in QT is up to 1.019, so I'm thinking Tuesday.

I can't wait. I think I'm going to call all my friends and have a BIG Acclimation Party!

The clowns are going to think they were put back into the ocean after being in that 10 gallon QT for so long.

I'm curious to see what my cleaner shrimp will do. "Oh fish to clean, fish to clean!"

 

[fish addict]

Your emerald crab actually lets you see it? Not fair! Whenever I get near my tank my emerald darts behind a rock or into a crevice.

 

[azfishgal]

Originally Posted by fish addict
Your emerald crab actually lets you see it? Not fair! Whenever I get near my tank my emerald darts behind a rock or into a crevice.
I have three of them, and never have seen all three at once (but I have seen two at a time). The first day they didn't care because they were acting starved and I had a lot of food for them. But after the second day they were hard to find. It's been almost three weeks now and they seem to be braver these days, allowing me to take pics and my girls running up to the tank to see, without them scurrying off. I love to watch them, they are a lot of fun. I was thinking of getting three more, but these three do such a good job keeping things clean, I'm afraid they might starve if I add more.