leftyfb
Non-member
Hey guys. Thought I'd chime in finally with some introductions and questions. To start, We were given a 72 gallon, 2 year established tank with live rock, a few fish and a small cleanup crew. This was November of 08. Since then it's been ups and downs. Tons of learning experience. I've had the entire tank completely blanketed in red slime thinking it was coralline algae and another time wiped out almost every living thing from using a brass fitting on my plumbing.
Fast forward till today and I think things are doing pretty good. For a beginner(even after 2 years). We have good amount of SPS Coral, a handful of some typical fish, some shrimp, sand starfish, snails, hermit crabs and a couple sea urchins.
Some Pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/leftyfb/sets/72157626046000421/
Let me try to best explain my equipment setup.
- 72g bowfront tank.
- An overflow running down to a ... maybe 5-10 gallon sump with some rubble in it. It's an odd shape and I really don't remember how much it's supposed to hold.
- coralife super skimmer needle wheel protein skimmer
- blue line 40 return pump
- a dual reactor with carbon and GFO
- 2 koralia evolutions on either side of the tank
- 3 marineland stealth Pro heaters (1 in sump, 2 larger in tank) that I just learned tonight have been recalled. I really don't have the time or money to replace them immediately, but I might see what I can do this weekend.... ok, after spending an hour reading forum posts all over about these things exploding I'm nervous as all hell. I'll be calling the LFS tomorrow morning. Nothing I can do tonight but prey my tank doesn't explode.
- I think that's about it for equipment unless I think of anything.
As for livestock:
- 1 hippo tang. He's been through some of my "learning experiences" and seems to have what looks like lots of tiny little scratches/scars but otherwise seems fine.
- 1 Yellow Tang. He had a bad case of something bad back in September: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/102233/aquarium/poorfish.jpg but seems to be all cleared up now.
- 3 new tiny clownfish
- 1 Banggai Cardinal
- 1 manderin fish
- 1 Lyretail Anthias
- 1 sand starfish
- 1 I think this is a Paguritta hermit crab in a piece of coral. The coral isn't alive anymore
- 1 cleaner shrimp
- 1 camel shrimp
- 2 tuxedo sea urchins
- 2 or 3 large snails
- a few smaller snails
- probably a dozen or so hermit crabs
- 5 or 6 white snails that burrow in the sand
Corals: (some I don't know the name of, this is where I need help)
- 1 candy coral
- 1 Styllophora
- 1 frog spawn
- 1 colony? red acan
- 1 purplish acan
- 1 small redish acan(about 3 polyp?/stalk?)
- 1 toadstool
- 1 Montpora / Capricornis
- 2 Ricordia that aren't doing so well. 1 of them I have had since the beginning so it's been through hell and back. Surprised it's still alive at all. The other was a nice deep redish color but is now almost completely white. Both I had to high with too much light and water flow. I have moved both down low and under a bit of rock shade. The red one seems to be doing a bit better. The other doesn't seem to have much change but isn't getting any worse.
- tons of pulsating Xenia
- 2 main colonies of green/star polyps
- different colors and size Zoanthids
- some blue and red mushrooms scattered about that I would like to see do better
- some yellow stuff
- LOTS of "Stuff" growing in the back-left of the tank and some on the top-right. I think they might be zoanthids but they seem to be too big and spread out. They're in almost every picture and have that tanish color.
Some past livestock we have had that you might notice in some pics:
- copperband: we've gone through 2. They just die for some unknown reason
- Emperor Angel: found out they're not reef or other things friendly
- couple wrasses to fight off bristle worms. They worms got them
- the original banggai cardinal got eaten by the large anemone
- 2 skunk anemone's and their anemone (see bottom for story)
- a couple manderin's at different times
- 1 hippo tang
- 1 royal gramma
- 2 leopard wrasses
- 1 lyretail anthias
- leather tree coral
- green zoanthids
- torch
So some/most of my questions have been asked in my inventory. Mainly what are some things that I haven't specifically mentioned by name or mentioned that I don't know the name of. Also, what else can I do to help the ricordia along?
I've recently got into fragging the Xenia and GSP. The Xenia I have been using a toothpic and elastic and seems to be working out great. I've already given some to my LFS. The GSP I just started tonight. I cut some off the larger rock and glued it to a couple plugs. I also have a blue mushroom that got broken off from somewhere somehow that I have in a cut up cup and mesh and some rubble hoping to get it attached at some point.
I might come up with some more questions when it's not almost 1am and I'm not more worried about those damn heaters.
Anemone story:
So if you notice in one of the pictures there's an older one of the tank with a large anemone in the middle. For the longest time this was my pride and joy of the tank. When we bought the anemone it was smaller than a fish and completely white with purple tips. As you can see it grew. the LFS was impressed with it since all it had been through. It also had 2 skunk anemone fish. They were all fun to look at and show off, but over time it just kept getting bigger and taking up more room and I was noticing I was limited with adding more corals in the tank due to it taking up so much room. That and the 2 skunks seems to gang up and bully a lot of the other fish. Especially the 2 older clown fish we had at one point that eventually jumped out. I figure due to the stress from the skunks. So we decided to get rid of all 3. This was an ordeal. We first gave the Anemone to the LFS to sell for us. That opened up so much room and made things so much easier. Then we had to get rid of the skunks. Good luck. We tried a fish trap with the door. For 2 weeks they wouldn't go anywhere near it no matter what food we put in it. The tangs would sometimes, but the skunks had taken up shelter behind all my rocks since getting rid of their anemone and hardly ever came out. Finally after 3 weeks of trying to catch them, we joked about but decided to bring back the anemone which hadn't sold yet. My wife put it in a small breeder tank and the skunks took right too it immediately! She caught 1 with a net, brought it to the store and the other she just waited till it was in the anemone and lifted the whole breeder tank out of the water. The Anemone eventually got sold, but as of last weekend the skunks are still at the store.
Fast forward till today and I think things are doing pretty good. For a beginner(even after 2 years). We have good amount of SPS Coral, a handful of some typical fish, some shrimp, sand starfish, snails, hermit crabs and a couple sea urchins.
Some Pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/leftyfb/sets/72157626046000421/
Let me try to best explain my equipment setup.
- 72g bowfront tank.
- An overflow running down to a ... maybe 5-10 gallon sump with some rubble in it. It's an odd shape and I really don't remember how much it's supposed to hold.
- coralife super skimmer needle wheel protein skimmer
- blue line 40 return pump
- a dual reactor with carbon and GFO
- 2 koralia evolutions on either side of the tank
- 3 marineland stealth Pro heaters (1 in sump, 2 larger in tank) that I just learned tonight have been recalled. I really don't have the time or money to replace them immediately, but I might see what I can do this weekend.... ok, after spending an hour reading forum posts all over about these things exploding I'm nervous as all hell. I'll be calling the LFS tomorrow morning. Nothing I can do tonight but prey my tank doesn't explode.
- I think that's about it for equipment unless I think of anything.
As for livestock:
- 1 hippo tang. He's been through some of my "learning experiences" and seems to have what looks like lots of tiny little scratches/scars but otherwise seems fine.
- 1 Yellow Tang. He had a bad case of something bad back in September: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/102233/aquarium/poorfish.jpg but seems to be all cleared up now.
- 3 new tiny clownfish
- 1 Banggai Cardinal
- 1 manderin fish
- 1 Lyretail Anthias
- 1 sand starfish
- 1 I think this is a Paguritta hermit crab in a piece of coral. The coral isn't alive anymore
- 1 cleaner shrimp
- 1 camel shrimp
- 2 tuxedo sea urchins
- 2 or 3 large snails
- a few smaller snails
- probably a dozen or so hermit crabs
- 5 or 6 white snails that burrow in the sand
Corals: (some I don't know the name of, this is where I need help)
- 1 candy coral
- 1 Styllophora
- 1 frog spawn
- 1 colony? red acan
- 1 purplish acan
- 1 small redish acan(about 3 polyp?/stalk?)
- 1 toadstool
- 1 Montpora / Capricornis
- 2 Ricordia that aren't doing so well. 1 of them I have had since the beginning so it's been through hell and back. Surprised it's still alive at all. The other was a nice deep redish color but is now almost completely white. Both I had to high with too much light and water flow. I have moved both down low and under a bit of rock shade. The red one seems to be doing a bit better. The other doesn't seem to have much change but isn't getting any worse.
- tons of pulsating Xenia
- 2 main colonies of green/star polyps
- different colors and size Zoanthids
- some blue and red mushrooms scattered about that I would like to see do better
- some yellow stuff
- LOTS of "Stuff" growing in the back-left of the tank and some on the top-right. I think they might be zoanthids but they seem to be too big and spread out. They're in almost every picture and have that tanish color.
Some past livestock we have had that you might notice in some pics:
- copperband: we've gone through 2. They just die for some unknown reason
- Emperor Angel: found out they're not reef or other things friendly
- couple wrasses to fight off bristle worms. They worms got them
- the original banggai cardinal got eaten by the large anemone
- 2 skunk anemone's and their anemone (see bottom for story)
- a couple manderin's at different times
- 1 hippo tang
- 1 royal gramma
- 2 leopard wrasses
- 1 lyretail anthias
- leather tree coral
- green zoanthids
- torch
So some/most of my questions have been asked in my inventory. Mainly what are some things that I haven't specifically mentioned by name or mentioned that I don't know the name of. Also, what else can I do to help the ricordia along?
I've recently got into fragging the Xenia and GSP. The Xenia I have been using a toothpic and elastic and seems to be working out great. I've already given some to my LFS. The GSP I just started tonight. I cut some off the larger rock and glued it to a couple plugs. I also have a blue mushroom that got broken off from somewhere somehow that I have in a cut up cup and mesh and some rubble hoping to get it attached at some point.
I might come up with some more questions when it's not almost 1am and I'm not more worried about those damn heaters.
Anemone story:
So if you notice in one of the pictures there's an older one of the tank with a large anemone in the middle. For the longest time this was my pride and joy of the tank. When we bought the anemone it was smaller than a fish and completely white with purple tips. As you can see it grew. the LFS was impressed with it since all it had been through. It also had 2 skunk anemone fish. They were all fun to look at and show off, but over time it just kept getting bigger and taking up more room and I was noticing I was limited with adding more corals in the tank due to it taking up so much room. That and the 2 skunks seems to gang up and bully a lot of the other fish. Especially the 2 older clown fish we had at one point that eventually jumped out. I figure due to the stress from the skunks. So we decided to get rid of all 3. This was an ordeal. We first gave the Anemone to the LFS to sell for us. That opened up so much room and made things so much easier. Then we had to get rid of the skunks. Good luck. We tried a fish trap with the door. For 2 weeks they wouldn't go anywhere near it no matter what food we put in it. The tangs would sometimes, but the skunks had taken up shelter behind all my rocks since getting rid of their anemone and hardly ever came out. Finally after 3 weeks of trying to catch them, we joked about but decided to bring back the anemone which hadn't sold yet. My wife put it in a small breeder tank and the skunks took right too it immediately! She caught 1 with a net, brought it to the store and the other she just waited till it was in the anemone and lifted the whole breeder tank out of the water. The Anemone eventually got sold, but as of last weekend the skunks are still at the store.
