taking a new direction

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eric b 125

Guest
I've really been trying to think about what other fish I'd like to have other than a mandarin and I honestly can't think of any that wouldn't bother shrimp or a clam. I'm going to consider green chromis again but I'm not sure I want to have a tank filled with bread and butter fish. Sure, yellow tangs are extremely common but since I have 3 of them in one tank I feel like it's a little more unique. Plus, 3 yellows and a mandarin will be a decent bioload on the tank: enough to feed corals but not too much for the system to handle.

I think if I was going to risk a fish it would be a flame angel just for the colors.
 
lubeck

lubeck

Active Member
Flames are a gamble that I lost on. Had to give it away after it pecked away at my clam and corals. Beautiful fish though. It is possible to find one that is reef safe if you look hard and is at or near the adult stage. I would go for anthias again. What about blue reef chromis. Also six lines have never been an issue for me and have a great personality. I love my mandarin the most. Black ocellaris , yellow,watchman, coral goby, on of your last fish you could get once your shrimps are full grown could be a dwarf lion fish. I remember murph had one in his 180 reef for years It would. Be a small gamble and one I will consider when I get a bigger tank. I wouldn't wait too long before your yt get too territorial.
 
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eric b 125

Guest
Anthias are a gamble with shrimp, no? Also, I don't think I'm around the house often enough to feed them as frequently as they need and an automatic feeder won't work (at least I don't think) because of the coast to coast overflow. I was considering an orchid dottyback, but again they are a risk with shrimp.

I wouldn't mind a few more fish but I'm more of a coral guy anyways and like I said before I really like the idea of having lots of inverts.

I cleaned up the QT last night and I'm going to keep it running for the the next few days. I'm heading out of town for the weekend and if I can't justify more fish then I'm going to take the QT down. I'm definitely getting a mandarin but they don't get QT'd anyways.
 
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eric b 125

Guest
I didn't think there was a problem but two different online vendors (including this site) suggest that you monitor anthias with shrimp. Really, I should know better than to allow that information determine my decisions without doing more research.
 
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eric b 125

Guest
I have no experience with anthias (with the exception of losing all of them from my swf.com order in QT) but now that I think of it, I've never heard of any issues.
 
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smallreef

Guest
I had a harem with a male of lyre tails...in with about 10 sexy shrimp and 6 tiny-medium cleaner shrimp...no problems with mine had them together for almost a year before I sent the fish to a larger tank.,
Really pretty though territorial, but my tank was a bit small..50g for the 4 of them...
 
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eric b 125

Guest
My weekend plans fell through so I'm going to play around with that reactor for a bit and see if I can't get it running properly
 
snakeblitz33

snakeblitz33

Well-Known Member
Red Bull..... breakfast of champions

Well, the reactor looks pretty solidly built. Can't wait for yah to get it online and see if it works.
 
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eric b 125

Guest
Haha... I had a pro-am sponsorship from Red Bull and since I'm still good friends with some guys there whenever they come over they always bring me some. Now that they're not cutting the checks and I doubt that I will compete again this year I can say: I hate Red Bull the drink (the company was pretty great to be associated with) I'm more of a Monster man..

I played around with the reactor for a while yesterday and I think I got it figured out. The last time I tried using it the pump fried and caused some problems for my tank. There's two lines that come out of the top of it and I didn't realize that one of those lines was a 'vent line'. I still need to do more testing before I install it but I won't have a need for it for quite some time.

The problem I'm having (I think) is small leaks at the unions. I'm sure some teflon tape and a few hours would fix that though. Also, it's an in-sump model and I don't have a bunch of room down there. It doesn't have to be sitting in the tank water I'm guessing so I wonder if I were to get a 10g tank for it to sit in next to my sump, with the intake and effluent lines in the sump, would that work?
 
edat

edat

Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric B 125 http:///t/389056/taking-a-new-direction/760#post_3531837
I think if I was going to risk a fish it would be a flame angel just for the colors.
+1

I passed on it a few times and finally got one.
I put him in the frag tank first for a couple of hours to see what it would do..... Just swam around not interested in the corals at all.
It has not bothered any of the VERY small corals I have in the display. I just hope it stays that way.

Cant tell from your last pic but is that a Reef Octopus reactor??
 
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eric b 125

Guest
My refugium is disgusting. There's all types of algae and now cyano growing down there. The fuge is fed from a tee in my return plumbing and there's a Koralia 1 in there as well. I thought the K1 would be enough flow, considering the small area. Today I increased the flow from my return pump to the fuge just a bit and I'm going to replace the light bulb which is something I've been meaning to do for a long time. I'm hoping that will be enough to turn it around otherwise I'm going to have to do my next water change through the sump and manually remove the algae and cyano.
 
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eric b 125

Guest
Quote:
Originally Posted by SnakeBlitz33 http:///t/389056/taking-a-new-direction/760#post_3532201
At least that algae and cyano in your fuge is keeping it from growing in the display tank!


Yeah. I think with all the flow in the DT, cyano would have a pretty difficult time in there, lol. Actually, after the water change about a week and a half ago, the algae that was creeping up in the DT is beginning to go away slowly.
 
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eric b 125

Guest
Just placed another order through this site.

3 Disbar Anthias
3 Green Chromis
1 Mandarin
5 Peppermint Shrimp
2 Cleaner Shrimp
5 Emerald Crabs
10 Astrea Snails

To arrive on Tuesday. I think I will do the same as I did with the yellow tangs and do a preventative hypo on the chromis and anthias. I'm pretty sure that will be all as far as fish and CUC goes, at least for a while. I would love to add a bunch of sexy shrimp and pom-pom crabs but I'm not chomping at the bit for those quite yet.
 
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