Smaller place, bigger tank...My 200DD build

[lmforbis]

I too am dealing with ich. Mine is a powder brown so no surprise there. I read somewhere while researching the disease that the parasites leave the fish in the dark and also tend to leave the cysts in the dark. I started slowly dropping the salinity last night. The fish looks better but he's swimming crazy now. I suppose that is better than laying on the bottom breathing hard.
How long is the count down?
Good luck with your fish.

 

[eric b 125]

Thanks! The countdown is 4-6 weeks from the time you last see a spot.

 

[eric b 125]

Lost the midas blenny last night . This was one of my "must have" fish, so I guess I will be doing another round of fish after all. I did a 50% water change this morning and have another 45 gallons of SW mixed at 1.008.

 

[eric b 125]

So far everything has handled the large water change well. No signs of ich on any of the fish and they are all out and about/ swimming.

 

[eric b 125]

Nother day, nother 5 gallon w/c. Saw some spots on the PBT last night...I'm going to have to start figuring out what to do if I still need hypo while on vacation. I'm thinkin I might need to recalibrate my refractometer, just to be sure that it's accurate.

 

[lmforbis]

That Naso is sure pretty. How big is your QT?

 

[eric b 125]

That Naso is sure pretty. How big is your QT?

It's a 29 gallon biocube.

 

[lmforbis]

Looks like a really good size for that

 

[eric b 125]

It is a good size for a QT. I have it way overstocked right now, though. I could have done it MUCH cheaper, but I wanted a clean looking QT since I don't have a basement to hide an ugly setup.

I'm going to use it to QT corals and as a frag tank once I'm done with adding fish to the DT.

 

[lmforbis]

It does really look nice. I use a regular 20 on an IKEA book case, but It sits in my living room more so I can watch the fish for problems than lack of another location. I tried it in another room and I wasn't in there enough to see issues. Lost 2 fish that maybe, if I'd watched closer I might have seen them in distress and been able to do something. Finally got the SG down in mine to 1.009 today. No spots on fish so now for the 4-6 week count down. Once my tang is finally out of QT I might look into a cube to replace the 20. I always have it up and running so even if it is empty I'd like it to look nice.

 

[eric b 125]

That's another reason I like this tank...since its not a mess that I'd want to hide in a basement I can keep it in an area that allows me to check it out regularly throughout the day without going out of my way.

 

[eric b 125]

I saw no signs of ich yesterday or today, so my fingers are crossed that that's the end of that part, LOL. I need to start thinking of what else I'd like in my next fish order, other than the midas blenny. Since I also lost the fire fish, I'm thinkin I might get a helfrichi. I really don't want to have to do daily water changes on the QT after this round.

I mixed 30 gallons to do a w/c on the DT in the next few days. I can't wait to see some more movement in there with the current QT'd fish.

 

[eric b 125]

Maybe a blue dot jawfish?

 

[eric b 125]

I hesitantly did a water change this morning. I haven't seen any dinos or cyano since doing lights out and then treating the tank with Red Slime Remover. I've read that dino's love water changes though, so I'm going to keep a close eye on the rocks. Siphoning the rocks through a filter sock into the sump seemed to work really well.

I vacuumed the sandbed, too. After having the Gyre run solo for a few months I'm starting to realize that either it's not all it's cracked-up to be or it's just not a good fit for this tank...there was a lot of stuff on top of the sand. I think putting an MP40 on either side of the Gyre and setting them to Long Pulse mode, anti-sync, will work really well.

 

[eric b 125]

I gotta say: this whole hypo w/ daily water changes process would be exponentially more difficult if it wasn't for having a kati/ani. With the amount of water I make on a regular basis for the QT and for the ATO, a RODI would make the process much more involved and longer.

The fish in QT are all looking good. I'm going camping tomorrow, just for the night, but once I get back I'm going to have to start planning for my trip to Bermuda next month. I'm thinking the QT'd fish will be in the DT for a few days prior to me leaving. I'll probably just pull-out a 30 gallon Brute and move the Osmolator to that for the week to maintain water levels. I have an auto-feeder that I haven't been using. I'm going to set that up on a bowl and see how it works for a week or so before I leave.

 

[novahobbies]

Ugh, I hate dealing with ******. Doesn't matter how you treat it, you're still bound to lose a couple when you're QT'ing a bunch. I feel for ya. I know that the RIGHT thing to do is QT one fish at a time, but.....yeah. It's so hard to do, especially during your stockout period. Right now I only have one fish in QT, but I'm sure you noticed that there were TWO clowns that were added to the bedroom tank at the same time last week. ;-)
Keep on pluggin' away at it, man. It'll get there.

 

[eric b 125]

So...lost a couple of monti cap frags and the dinos came back after the water change. I guess I can't really complain though, because it is such a manageable level and I've seen what other people have to deal with when it comes to dinos.
I did a 50% water change on the QT and also siphoned out whatever dinos I could see from the DT.
I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing, sans water changes on the DT, for a while. I need to get some CO2 tubing in order to get the Ca Rx running. I'm going to try and go without a water change until I add the next round of fish to the DT (so, like 10 weeks). I'm not going to add any more frags until I do that water change and see if the dino's come back. If they do, then I'm probably just going to replace all the rock and sand, clean out the system, and start over.
In the meantime, I'm going to get those VorTech QD drivers and upgrade the lighting on the QT in case I need to move the frags over while the new rock and sand gets cycled.
I usually do a large purchase for this hobby at the end of summer, when my fair-weather hobbies are winding-down and I'm getting ready for winter (aka fish tank season). I'm hoping I don't need to tear the tank apart and start over. Since I don't really need any equipment, I'd like to take that time to add a bunch of corals and sit back to enjoy this tank for once, LOL.

 

[eric b 125]

I've been real busy getting ready for a kayak camping trip this weekend. I spent a ton of money upgrading my camping equipment. I'm going to start raising the salinity next Friday. That will be a full course of hypo without spots and will give me a few days to watch the fish in the DT before I leave for Bermuda.

 

[eric b 125]

At this point, the dinos seem to be on their last leg in the DT. I'm thinking I might switch back to Reef Crystals from regular IO to help maintain pH, which I've heard will keep dino's at bay. Nevertheless, I'm not going to do a water change until I get back from Bermuda at the end of the month.

I'll be gone for three days: twenty miles of class II and III rapids await me. Need to start coming up with my next fish list and my end-of-summer shopping list for the tank.

 

[eric b 125]

That was an awesome trip. It's been a long time since I've done any camping other than car camping. This was a whole different beast all together. The nice thing about kayak camping was that we could still huck a lot of luxuries with us and not worry too much about weight. Gonna upgrade a few things, like the camping chairs to backpacking chairs, to save a little space and weight. Planning on three days through the PA Grand Canyon in a few weeks.