MrX's Build (Started 03/01/2020)

[MrX]

Rough weekend. Woke up Saturday morning and there was no sign of the Kole Tang. After some looking around my son found it and said "he's hiding in that crevice."

Sadly, it wasn't hiding, it was dead. No signs of disease (but I'm no expert). My best guess is the Yellow Tang was picking on it when I wasn't looking. On Friday I did notice that it hadn't come out of it's "cave" all day, but appeared to be swimming ok.

On the flip-side, we did find the new Hi Fin Red Gobies last night (been in hiding for a while) and the Tiger shrimp we bought for the Yellow Watchman Goby is still alive. Although it looks like the Hi Fin Gobies may have evicted the Yellow Watchman from his home with the Tiger shrimp.

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Those shrimp thieving gobies.

 

[MrX]

Those shrimp thieving gobies.

At least one of the new goby pair is back on the other side of the tank again. Not sure if they both moved, and we're not sure if they took the Tiger shrimp with them.

The Yellow Watchman has been swimming around last night and today, and only occasionally hanging out on the sand bed. Haven't seen it in the burrow since yesterday sometime.

--

Looks like something we introduced recently had Ich -- I know I should QT, but (insert useless/senseless reasoning here). I can see some white spots on the Yellow Tang; and if I look really close I can see some pale-ness on some of the others).

Think that's what was responsible for the Kole Eye (and sadly one of the Anthias). I'd like to think the Anthias was Yoko, so now we're just down to The Beatles (based on the "official" names -- happy @afboundguy ? lol).

I'm just going to add an additional feeding (4 instead of 3) to the tank and try and keep everyone else fat (and hopefully happy).

 

[MrX]

More bad news... just went to do a salinity check. As I went to move the screen top over I looked across the top of the tank.

One of the new Hi Fin Gobies jumped through the 1/4" screen top and got stuck.

The past 4-5 days have been very disappointing. First the Kole Tang then an Anthias. A day later another Anthias. Yesterday a 3rd Anthias -- saw it in the morning, was gone by dinner. Today the Hi Fin.

Parameters all check out (tested twice in the last 4-5 days). Salinity is 1.024-1.025 (tested multiple times). Did a 10G water change Sunday (same thing every week), changed filter sock.

Yesterday I did another 15G change just because. I also added a bag of Chemipure Blue.

I know Ich is present, but I suspect some bullying on the part of the Anthias. I knew before purchasing the Anthias that I'd need to feed more so I added an additional feeding (3x per day) - frozen "fish goo" cube in the morning (in feeder), fresh "goo" around 2-3pm, and another "goo" cube around 8:30pm.

Hopefully the last two Anthias make it.

Now to figure out how to make the screen harder to get out of.

 

[coralfishreef]

That is bad news.

Bulkreefsupply sells 1/8” netting. I’ve used this in the past on smaller tanks. The netting is kind of difficult to work with as it can get torn or cut when using a spline tool.

 

[MrX]

That is bad news.

Bulkreefsupply sells 1/8” netting. I’ve used this in the past on smaller tanks. The netting is kind of difficult to work with as it can get torn or cut when using a spline tool.

Yeah, I'll have to look into that tonight and swap over.

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Wow, so sorry it's been rough going. I would have figured 1/4" would be fine. I know people use 1/2" (like egg crate) and fish get through, but hadn't heard of issues with the 1/4".

 

[MrX]

Wow, so sorry it's been rough going. I would have figured 1/4" would be fine. I know people use 1/2" (like egg crate) and fish get through, but hadn't heard of issues with the 1/4".

Yeah, either the fish had very good aim or my extremely bad luck this week lent an assist.

This morning I found the Clean Shrimp eating the Orchid Dottyback.

Six fish since Saturday.

 

[MrX]

And then there were zero Anthias. *sad*

 

[MrX]

*** Frustrated ***

Who wants to buy my tank? $2000 and it's yours. Does not include livestock/coral.

I paid $1100 for the tank, stand, canopy, 40B sump, 2 AquaIllumination 32HDs, and some rock/sand.

I put another $1200+ into upgrades/equipment, etc. If someone really wants it I'll post a list of what's included and what I'm keeping.

The build part (the most fun to me) is over. Now it's fear every time something is added to the tank. (Quarantine or not, that fear is always there. If it's not, you're lying to yourselves.)



NOTE: Assuming the death cycle stops in my tank I'll deal and move on. Really just venting.

 

[MrX]

Haven't seen the other Hi Fin Goby in days and thought it might be dead as well. Nope... it's in the back of the tank, living in the same burrow as the Yellow Watchman Goby and the Tiger Pistol Shrimp! That's cool.

Also thought the Sharknose Goby might have bit the dust, but he just came out of a big cave/hole in one of the rocks.

Maybe the carnage has stopped? ***knock on wooden stand***

 

[MrX]

Cora and Rona (Picasso Clowns) succumbed the other day. They were swimming around in their corner, and the Lemon Clown Goby was even 'sleeping' with them. Came into the office the next morning and they were both dead - stuck against the gyre pumps.

I've been trying to figure out what happened or what changed. Parameters are all fine, same water changes, etc.

The more I think about it, the more I think it all had to do with feeding.

I went from feeding with a 5ml syringe 2-3 times a day ("fresh" fish goo mix made weekly) to using the frozen fish goo cubes and the magnetic thawer, again 2-3 times a day. Every so often I'd replace the afternoon cube with "fresh" again.

I think what happened was that the more aggressive fish were able to get enough from the thawer, while the more timid ones didn't. This reduced their immunity/strength and led to the Ich outbreak.

I've gone back to more "fresh" feedings with the syringe. The food is dispersed more, giving the survivors more chances to get something to eat.

Survivors:
2x Banggai Cardinals - Curtis and Snertis
Yellow Tang - Sunny (after the friendly owner of a local small-town grocery store)
Lemon Clown Goby - Gibby
Yellow Watchman Goby - Swatch
Skunk cleaner shrimp - Mr. Shrimpy
Pygmy Angel - Skin-tee
Carpenter's Wrasse - Don
Tiger Pistol Shrimp - Unnamed
Hi Fin Red Banded Goby - Unnamed

About two days ago we saw the Hi Fin, the Watchman Goby, and the Tiger Pistol all sharing the same burrow. Pretty cool.

 

[afboundguy]

Don't give up!!! Well unless you want to sell the setup for a steal when I'd be ready to get a bigger tank that is!!!

Nothing is fast in this hobby which always used to piss me off in the beginning now I just go with the flow. I finally added more of a CUC (more snails and a few more hermits and emerald crabs) and last night was supposed to be my WC night and I found some brine shrimp in my phyto culture so that took me longer to handle so I didn't end up doing the water change but when I went to look at the tank I was amazed at how clean it was. A proper CUC does live up to it's name!!!

 

[MrX]

Don't give up!!! Well unless you want to sell the setup for a steal when I'd be ready to get a bigger tank that is!!!

Nothing is fast in this hobby which always used to piss me off in the beginning now I just go with the flow. I finally added more of a CUC (more snails and a few more hermits and emerald crabs) and last night was supposed to be my WC night and I found some brine shrimp in my phyto culture so that took me longer to handle so I didn't end up doing the water change but when I went to look at the tank I was amazed at how clean it was. A proper CUC does live up to it's name!!!

Yeah, not quite ready to bail yet; especially not at the price you'd want it for. *evil grin*

I've told FamilyX no more fish for a while. We're just going to let the survivors fatten up more and let the tank mature some more. I'm thinking of trying to get some white worms going... just need to find a starter culture.

Our clean-up crew size seems fine right now. Actually wish I had fewer cerith snails though; they are always getting stuck inside the gyre pumps/etc.

We've got a bunch of new corals (21 if I recall) coming from the R2R World Wide Corals Live Sale this past weekend. I'll post up their pictures later.

In preparation for these new arrivals I mounted all the corals from the Zoanthids.com Live Sale on rubble rock and distributed/placed them around the tank. Will post pics of that as well (but some are still PO'd).

 

[afboundguy]

I have a white worm starter culture if you want to make the trip up to the northshore...

 

[MrX]

So far the deaths have stopped. Will wait on any further fish purchases for a bit.

The only new changes are the addition of another haul of corals from a WWC Live Sale. Will post some pictures in a day or two.

In a week or so my tank will have a skimmer. I won an R2R contest yesterday and am getting a TUNZE DOC Skimmer 9410. Sweet!

 

[coralfishreef]

Congrats. Nice win.

 

[MrX]

Here's my haul from the WWC Live Sale:

Fifth Element Blastomussa
Grapevine Aussie Lord
Green Star Polyps
Lavender Tipped Duncan
Neon Blastomussa
Raspberry Pie Bowerbanki
Superman Montipora
WWC Fairy Tales Aussie Lord
WWC Lemon Tip Clove Polyps
WWC Pandora Zoanthids
WWC Skittles Bomb Cyphastrea
Orange Ricordia
9-pack "Mystery Box":
Red People Eater Zoa
Nuclear Green Star Polyp
Red War Coral
Incredible Hulk Lepto
Hologram Chalice
Neon-green Birdsnest
Lemon-lime Favia
Bi-color Platy
WWC Lavender Platy

Everything has been moved off frag plugs and onto rubble rock. Will make it easier to move things around a bit while I figure out optimal placement. I need to do research on a bunch of these to figure out where they should "really" be.

And some pictures (some from WWC of the frags, others of them in my tank without all the lighting/photog tricks):

 

[absolutecarrot]

Here's my haul from the WWC Live Sale:

Fifth Element Blastomussa
Grapevine Aussie Lord
Green Star Polyps
Lavender Tipped Duncan
Neon Blastomussa
Raspberry Pie Bowerbanki
Superman Montipora
WWC Fairy Tales Aussie Lord
WWC Lemon Tip Clove Polyps
WWC Pandora Zoanthids
WWC Skittles Bomb Cyphastrea
Orange Ricordia
9-pack "Mystery Box":
Red People Eater Zoa
Nuclear Green Star Polyp
Red War Coral
Incredible Hulk Lepto
Hologram Chalice
Neon-green Birdsnest
Lemon-lime Favia
Bi-color Platy
WWC Lavender Platy

Everything has been moved off frag plugs and onto rubble rock. Will make it easier to move things around a bit while I figure out optimal placement. I need to do research on a bunch of these to figure out where they should "really" be.

And some pictures (some from WWC of the frags, others of them in my tank without all the lighting/photog tricks):

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Wow quite a haul

 

[MrX]

Guess I should have been faster getting the new, smaller screen, from BRS.

Was just finishing up doing my weekly water change (last day of vacation). Was wiping down the top edge of the tank and screen... got to the back right corner and happened to look down on the floor. Dammit! The other Hi-Fin Red Goby jumped through the screen and is now dead.

WTF.

Other than this the surviving fish as still surviving. Tiger Pistol is living with the Yellow Watchman Goby.