Successfully keeping an Adult Emperor Angel

[jgall]

Originally Posted by crypt keeper
http:///forum/post/3151151
I would not buy a fish with plans to upgrade unless you are honest with yourself. I know I have room to upgrade that is why I bought my emp. I will upgrade when the time is needed out of the 150. If your powder blue is pacing and not swimming around he is probably stressed out. I would try and sell him as well and start over. I have a kole tang in my 150. He was in the 75 and was fine in there even at 4 inches.
I would skip out on the large angel and stick with two Dwarfs. Coral beauty and Flame. Or Flame and BiColor. BiColor gets about 7 inches and is one of the most gorgeous fish we try to keep. Make sure its MAC caught and it should do well.
Any angel and tang shouldnt be placed in a tank unless it has mature rock with lots of growth. Your dead base rock that has copper in it is trash. You need to get rid of it IMO.
Can I do butterflies in the tank when I start over? If so which ones? Tangs? and what fairy wrasses?

 

[cranberry]

Having copper in the tank poses some probs with butterflies. They rely on their rock microfauna besides prepared foods. But some that take prepared well and are hardy... the raccoon, pakanstani... a pearlscale.... auriga. The raccoons are pretty hardy.

 

[crypt keeper]

cupramine isnt as toxic as most coppers. Like I said earlier I have used it before not knowing what copper does and then had snails and corals in the tank later on. A few months went by. I had to replace all live rock though. I didnt replace the sand and it shows. I would empty this tank. Clean it out. Let it dry and start over.
The "live sand" you get from CaribSea isnt live. Its just sand. You can get true live sand from your LFS or buy a few pounds from online and it will establish your sand in half the time for a 1/4 of the price. You are better off getting all new rock IMO and my experience. You can do 50 pounds base rock. 60 pounds live rock. This will establish the rock faster as well. Then in about 6 months you can get the more fincky pickers like dwarf angels and a butterfly if you choose.
Set up the qt at the sametime. Never put copper back in your main tank again.

 

[jgall]

Originally Posted by crypt keeper
http:///forum/post/3151200
cupramine isnt as toxic as most coppers. Like I said earlier I have used it before not knowing what copper does and then had snails and corals in the tank later on. A few months went by. I had to replace all live rock though. I didnt replace the sand and it shows. I would empty this tank. Clean it out. Let it dry and start over.
The "live sand" you get from CaribSea isnt live. Its just sand. You can get true live sand from your LFS or buy a few pounds from online and it will establish your sand in half the time for a 1/4 of the price. You are better off getting all new rock IMO and my experience. You can do 50 pounds base rock. 60 pounds live rock. This will establish the rock faster as well. Then in about 6 months you can get the more fincky pickers like dwarf angels and a butterfly if you choose.
Set up the qt at the sametime. Never put copper back in your main tank again.
Cryptkeeper / Cranberry
So far I am down to 4 chromis, 1 heniochus butterrfly, and the powder blue tang. All look healthy and are eating. Water parameters are fine. I am going to ride it out before doing anything else and possibly run a reactor with carbon lots of carbon in it to pull out the copper. Cryptkeeper if I decide to replace rock and sand, I was wondering if you could reccomend a specific place to purchase it online??

 

[ophiura]

SWF sells live rock and sand
Out of respect to the owner and operator of this board, please do not request links to other stores, thanks