The Moorish Idol Thread

[zfunk007]

Hey Kenny, thanks for posting your experience with Idols so far, even though it wasn't a good one. My Idol loved Zoanthids as well. He just about cleaned my display tank out before I moved him. I will definetly contact you when I can get the Idols from the guy in Hawaii.

We purchased just about all the tanks we need (the small business loan came through woo hoo!) so all I have to do now is set them up. It is probably going to take me about a month or 2 before everything is up and running. But it's coming right along.

By the way, since I got this loan, I will be upgrading my Idols tank, probably next week. He is getting a 210 gallon (or larger, just depends on what I can get from the wholesaler) and the 110 he is in is going to be used for Blue Leg Hermits .

What I will do is document the entire upgrade on this forum. So everyone can see the process and how my Idol is doing and what his new home will look like. I haven't quite figured out how I am going to move everyone and get everything figured out, but I think I am going to buy one of those very large Rubbermaid Vat's and put him and the others in there for a day or 2 while I get their tank set up and plumbed. I am going to start maping out my new system this weekend.

Anyone have any suggestions as to how I should design his new home? I need ideas and suggestions. So any feedback will be appreciated

[kenny77]

Nice. I will like to see this project becoming a succes.

I was thinking that maybe it will be too mucho for the MO to travel from HI to FL and then from fFL to PR. SO i deside that when ever you are ready to ship a nice, healthy, eating MI I will go personally and will come back with him. Any way I have a tank in Orlando I will bring some coral from that tank to this one. Specially some zoanthids that are growing like weed. I know he will love them. Those are the only one that survive the MI I had because I tokk them out before they were all gone.

[Paul B]

Sponge is finally in season in New York again. I collected about a pound of it today which is about a year supply for one moorish Idol. I will try to collect a few more pounds in a coof weeks. I took it all from a dock where I collect behing my friends home but I have to wait until it grows more. My Idol is happy again. I gave him fresh sponge today but I had to freeze the rest of it because it only lives a few hours in a tropical tank. I tried last year and it started to rot by the next day.
Paul

[kenny77]

nice point there Pual. I was about to ask you about the time a sponge will remain fresh in a tropical tank.

I live near the shore and over here there are plenty of sponges. the most common is the blue one and the orange tree sponge.

Will freezing the sponge wont kill nutrient that come in the sponge from the water. I was thinking of collecting just enought for a week and having a 5g tank for for it with phytoplanktom and selcon( don't know if the sponge will filter selcon )

what you think about this. I don't having to go snorkeling every week. well I don't even need to snorkle, sponges over here grow even at 3' away from the shore and there is a mangrove cost that it is covered in sponges almost all year around.

[zfunk007]

Hey Kenny, if you go back a few pages you will see some pictures of the sponge I collect (usually blue and orange). Let me know if it is the same sponge you have where you are, changes are it is. If it is, all you have to do is put it in your tank and it will live and grow. My sponge actually spreads onto the rocks (until the Idol and Regal eat it all). That might be your best bet when you get an Idol.

My plan, once everything is up and running, is to buy the Idols directly from this guy in Hawaii and get them eating and fat and healthy. Then I can ship them out (in oversized bags, in case they poop a bit) and they should make the trip just fine and be ready to eat once they are in your tank. As far as I can tell, no retailers do it this way.

Well the day is almost here. I will be ordering my Idols new tank most likely tommorow and once it is delivered (probably Monday) I will get to work on it. Like I said, I will take lots of pictures and document it all on here. I am a little nervous though about moving my Idol into a holding place. But it has to be done for his own well being. He isn't going to thrive in a 110 gallon tank. Hopefully everything will be ok. He's survived a hurricane, multiple blackouts and an earlier move. I think he'll be ok this time as well.

I am also concerned because I won't be able to use all of the same water from their former tank. I'll have to add new water. I plan on adding this stuff called "Right Now" Bacteria, which by the way is GREAT stuff. The stuff eliminates the cycle time you need in a new tank (I've been using the stuff for years and never had a problem with adding fish right away). So hopefully if I add some of that to compensate for the new water I'll be adding everything will turn out ok. We'll see....

[kenny77]

Yes that the same type of sponge I have seen here. There is also another one that is blue but it grows like the tree sponge, that the most common. I just don't want to put something on the tank that will rot and will add to the bioload with no need.

Will the 5g thing work to keep the sponegs alive at least for a week. I think that with Phytoplanktom and a lot of water movent they can survive more than usual

[Paul B]

Kenny where you are the sponges will live in a tank but they are filter feeders and you can't put much in a tank at the same time.

Most sponges will not live a long time because they filter a lot of water. You can try Selcon but it's no where near their natural food. Selcon is mostly oily but try it anyway.
The sponge we have here in NY look like dirt. Disguesting looking but he loves it. None of my other fish will go near it.
Paul

[kenny77]

I was thinkink on adding selcon to the "sponge tank" to see if they will filter that and then feeding the MI witha sponge that has filter some Selcon. It was just a though becasue there is no way to know if the sponge will filter the selcon or not.

Thank if this doesnt work I will keep anyway a small amount of sponge in the freezer and will feed both to see wich one has more effect on the MI

[zemuron114]

If you can get them direct from the diver, they tend to live longer. My friend catches many of them and sends them directly t petstores (skips wholesalers) and all of them have eaten right out of the bag... (im in Hawaii by the way)

So this is the trick i believe. So far i think only 2 out of 4-6 dozen have died, and this has been a long time (maybe 3-5 months) Plus I hear hawaiian idols fair much much better in captivity anyway due to the collection. If a diver doesn't rough them up, they will be fine.
But that goes for all fish

[ReefGeekster]

My Idol just turned one year old.... as far as me having it. Still the bully of the tank eats like a pig and pretty darn sassy.

[Paul B]

It is easy to tell which moorish Idols will eat and live a long while when you see them in a dealers tank. They have a personality and if you see enough of them you can tell when it's the dominent fish. Since I have dove with them I believe the dominent fish is the male and it is much easier to care for. I think the females kind of need the male to lead them to food. It's wierd but thats the way I always see them in the sea. If you get the subordinate one, they don't live very long on their own.
The ones that actively search for food and don't just hang in a corner should be the one to get. And of course as with any fish you must see it eat in the store. If it does not, leave it there.
Paul

[kenny77]

Paul if that the way yo say. Won't be a better idea to keep a "pair". unffcourse a a big big tank. Have anyone found out the difference bewteen the male and female(physically)

[Paul B]

Kenny, you can tell the difference when they are mature but it's hard unless you see a few of them at a time. The males have a slightly larger bump near the eye but even if you buy a male and female that does not mean that they will pair up. I believe they mate for life (but I am not 100% sure of that) I need a lot more bottom time with them to figure that out. If anyone wants to finance me another dive trip to Tahiti I will tell you all I learn about them.
Paul

[KDodds]

Okay, well, FINALLY, I can start contributing. Some excerpts from my 450 journal, HTH:

Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 4:00 pm
Fish is between 2-2½" TL. MAC Certified specimen. The minor tearing on the fins was cause post introduction by the Powder Blue and Navarchus. Otherwise, besides being a little skinny, he's a perfect specimen.

Introduced 24 hours ago as of this posting. He fed in the store on Mysis and Bloodworms. More later...

Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 1:12 am
Okay... have a little more time at the moment.

At first in the store, he didn't look like he was eating the Mysis he was taking. IOW, he seemed to be spitting them out. Then I noticed on the third Mysis that he was taking them in, doing the distinctive Moorish Idol sawing of the head, and spitting out the tails and shell. Oddly, or maybe not, he treated the bloodworms in a similar fashion, eating most of the "meat" and spitting out the rest. Fine, he was eating, he looked spectacular, and he's MAC certified! Stupendous, what more can one ask for? Well... two would have been nice. Ah, but they're so few and far between. The last acceptable specimens I saw were a year ago, when I really wasn't ready for them and made the biggest mistake of my most recent fishkeeping career. I settled for this single specimen and will add another when it becomes available if this one does well, which (yeah, I know, it's only a little more than a day) he does appear to be doing. I half eyed a $15 sponge on the way out, but decided against it. If he's eating other foods already, prepared foods at that, I don't really want to take that step backwards at the moment. Perhaps in a few weeks, once he's truly accustomed to other fare.

Other than the Powder Blue and Navarchus, no one is bothering him at all and haven't for hours. The PBT still makes a run at him every now and then, as does the Navarchus, but everyone else has pretty much learned it's futile. This little guy can swim like greased lighting and stop and 180, in place, at top speed, and shoot of the other way with almost no change in speed. Not even the PBT can compete with these maneuvers. But it does go to show that Idols are swimmers, incredibly consummate ones. If you think you need a 6' tank for most Tangs to be comfortable, I'd say it's probably the barest minimum for Idols, and probably chancy at that unless it's 3-4' deep (not high). So, is he eating? Yup, you bet... next update I'll list all of the food items he's taken, which he seems to prefer, and which he seems not to, and which he won't take at all.

Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 2:40 am
48 hours later and he's showing signs of the dreaded "full belly syndrome". Yes, he's eating very well, and the 6+ meals yesterday and 3 today certainly helped fill him out as well as curbing the aggression. All signs of aggression are already all but gone. The Navarchus is the last hold out, but only makes half-hearted passes and only twice today that I observed.

Enough, right, what's it eating and what's it not? Here goes:

First and foremost, the size, oddly, of what is being fed seems to matter a great deal. This particular individual seems to prefer anything about the size of a quarter grain of uncooked rice. Weird, right? Especially since they're reportedly natural browsers.This makes me think that young Idols may not be the consummate sponge-grazers that the adults are reported to be. Granted, this is a single individual, but he (or she) is decidedly targeting food items of a particular size in the water column and it did so immediately and without hesitation upon introduction. This rules out possibly learning the behavior from other fish in the tank (although Moorish Idols, IMO, are an incredibly intelligent and observant species, always aware of their surroundings and able to very quickly assess situations). It also indicates that plankton was probably taken by this individual in the wild. I'll have to check the MAC cert, but my guess is that it came out of Hawai'I and was in my LFS's tank within days of capture. You don't see Idols in this good condition that haven't been rapidly transferred, especially when held under the fairly common practice of lowered SG and somewhat common practice of maintained Cu levels. I know it wasn't at my LFS more than a day. I haven't been able to find any natural history on possible dietary differences between juveniles and adults in the wild, but it would be interesting to see if there are any. If anyone knows of dietary studies of juvenile Idols (or any studies of juvenile Idols), I'd greatly appreciate links. Why am I going so far into this? Well, a year ago, as you might recall, I tried two Idols, prematurely, and both exhibited the same preferences and both were about this same size. Even only having had them a very short period of time, the observed behavior bears investigating on a broader scale, IMO, if it has not already been done. It should also be stated that this particle size preference does not seem to exist when the Idol is grazing or "blowing sand". This is also another curious Idol behavior that has been going unmentioned in several internet threads on Idol keeping. It's been stated by almost any keeping them that Idols are sponge crazers almost exclusively. That may be born out by gut content studies of several or a dozen or more specimens, but it does not explain away sand blowing behavior. Reef fishes being what they are and living in the environments in which they do, energy conservation is one of the most important determining factors in species success or failure. In this case, it would seem incredibly odd for a fish to have developed energy-sapping behaviors that are completely useless to its continued survival as an individual or a species. What I mean by this is that if a fish exhibits these behaviors, there must be a reason for it's doing so. The logical conclusion would be that it hopes to uncover something. But what? Submerged sponge? I'm no sponge expert, but it would seem to me highly unlikely that an organism that depends on circulation through its colony would remain buried in sand for great lengths of time. This would be the only advantageous reason for the Idol behavior if you believe the assumption that they consume only sponge (or almost only). So, they must be looking for other organisms, right? And there would have to be substantial benefit, otherwise, why not just go for the sponge that's reportedly preferred anyway (and yes, there's a ton of sponge life in my tank)? So what are they hunting for in the sand? When a nice sized sponge is staring them right in the face? Well, it happens so quickly that I can't tell you what this specimen is eating, but it is eating some things that it is blowing out of the sand and rocks. Small gammarids, possibly, or pods or mysids, maybe. But it is eating something in this fashion and spends about 20% of its time doing this. The other two specimens I had did the same. So what am I saying here? I'm saying that I don't necessarily believe that small Idols feed predominantly on sponge. In fact, you'll see once I start listing foods, that sponge matter in this particular specimen's diet does not seem to be preferred at all. So on to the foods, in no particular order in any category, except that there is ALWAYS a preference for size of the particles...

Most Preferred:
ON Formula Two Flake
NL Spectrum 1mm Pellets (will blow sand to get these into suspension again)
ON Formula Two Frozen
ON Formula One Frozen
PS Veggie Formula
Nori

Moderately Preferred:
Hikari Mysis
PE Mysis
ON Angel Formula (contains sponge, but will take both Formula One and Two over Angel Formula, given a choice)
ON Prime Reef

Low Preference:
SFBB Bloodworms
SFBB Spirulina Brine Shrimp

Refuses to eat:
Hikari Squid

Foods not yet tried, but will be in normal rotation as they come up:
SFBB Glassworms
SFBB Emerald Entree
SFBB Omega Brine Shrimp
Hikari Daphnia

Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 12:23 am
72 hours, he's right up in the mix with all of the other fish, albeit "on the fringe" of the main boisterous lot. Feeding preferences remain the same, as well as particle size, with the exception of Nori, which he's now grazing from, but only if they're smaller floating bits. His belly remains nice and rounded, stool short and solid. IOW, all appears to be well. I should see him starting to fill out a bit all around from regular eating by mid to late next week.

Someone asked whether the spitting into the sand would seriously impact a DSB. My answer is this, in a tank large enough to house an Idol, no way. The sand stirring is FAR less than you would get from a single small sand-sifting goby.

Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 3:49 pm
One of the great things about "diarizing" this whole experience is that I can go back and check dates. Not dates that I wrote (or forgot to write), but actual post dates.

So, the Cleaner Wrasse was put in over a month ago. While a month is certainly not a measure of SUCCESS in terms I understand, I can say that I have been successful SO FAR. He remains healthy and, from what I can tell, "happy", inasmuch as he is behaving normally, is filled out well, and is displaying brilliant colors.

In my experience, the best indicators that a "tricky species" is going to do marvellously, in terms of marine keeping, are feeding and behavior. If you can get the species to feed regularly and with gusto on a varied diet, and it's behaving normally for its species, if you can get this to happen almost immediately and sustain it for the first month or so, well, chances are very good, again, IME, that the specime you've acquired is going to do very well. The first two to four weeks seem to be the most critical point. If the above doesn't happen immediately, but within the first two weeks, your chances are still pretty good. If it goes beyond two weeks, your chances decrease with each passing day. At about the four week point, if you're still having trouble achieving stable "success", or you haven't achieved it at all, it's probably only a matter of time before the specimen dies.

Anyway, I bring that up because of my most recent addition, which could probably be a journal unto itself, the Moorish Idol. "Uh-oh," you're saying at this point, right? Have no fear. Things are fantastic, or at least as much as they can be within the first week. He's actually progrsseing ahead of schedule. He's noticeably filling out already, which I didn't think I would see until next week (I mentioned this above). He's also eating more food items with more gusto with each passing day. And here, behavior comes in again. Not species behavior, mind you, but a general kind of thing. Ever notice how a Lawnmower Blenny will ravenously attack Mysis? Especially when kept in a tank where natural algal growth is not abundant? Why do you think that is? I'd postulate that the Blenny's "hunger" mechanism remains triggered, even tho it's obviously quite full. Maybe not something that clear cut, but probably very close to it. I mention this because it's not a species specific behavior. You can see it in corallivorous Butterflyfishes as well. Eventually, such specimens can die for "unknown" reasons. I mention this because this is what I would expect to see from an Idol that appears to be doing very well, to some people, but in actuality may not be doing so well at all. I'm very careful to observe my Idol's behavior at feeding time and there does not appear to be anything suspicious in his manner.

So, end of week on of MI keeping... let's hope week 2 is as good or better.

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 4:44 pm
Why so many updates on a single fish? Because, it's a Moorish Idol, simple as that. Any brief research into the species will bring forth the same stories, almost all culminating in the same vein, it's virtually impossible to keep them alive for any length of time that would be considered "successful" by most experienced aquarists. There are a handful of people keeping them pretty successfully, but they have not, to my knowledge, journalized those efforts, at most offering only cursory recommendations and suggestions. IOW, this diary of MI keeping is, IMO, long overdue in the hobby. There are others, as well, who have kept MIs with a reasonable amoount of success but have had continuing problems with their individual specimens including hunger strikes, emaciation despite feeding for no apparent reason, chronic infections, etc. While their specimens continue to live, one could not reasonably say that they're thriving. These intrepid aquarists are actually more likely to detail their keeping of MIs, perhaps in search for better ways to do things.

Anyway, updated feeding list:

Most Preferred:
ON Formula Two Flake
NL Spectrum 1mm Pellets (will blow sand to get these into suspension again)
ON Formula Two Frozen
ON Formula One Frozen
ON Prime Reef
PS Veggie Formula
Nori

Moderately Preferred:
Hikari Mysis
PE Mysis
ON Angel Formula (contains sponge, but will take both Formula One and Two over Angel Formula, given a choice)

Low Preference:
SFBB Bloodworms
SFBB Spirulina Brine Shrimp
SFBB Emerald Entree
SFBB Omega Brine Shrimp

Refuses to eat:
Hikari Squid
SFBB Glassworms
Hikari Daphnia

[Paul B]

Kieron, thanks for that update. You are correct that a year or two life span for a fish of this size is considered a failure. I will consider it a failure if I can't keep mine for at least ten years because I am fairly sure they live at least that long. Mine is almost three which means very little. These fish may appear very healthy for a couple of years and then all of a sudded stop eating and die. I have had quite a few of them and that is what happened to all of them although I did keep some of them about two years which as I said is a failure. I went to Tahiti specifically to study them in the sea and I spent all of my dives there with them. Unfortunately I did not get to see any juviniles but the adults which always swim in pairs ate mostly sponge. Of course it is hard to tell if they only ate sponge because they can swim much faster than me. They make these 75 yard dashes before they stop to eat.
Also the fact that they eat all sorts of food while being an asset to their longivity it does not guarantee success. Mine eats live worms, sponge, bananas, plankton, mysis, fresh clams, small fish, seaweed, nori, flakes (soaked in vitamin A) pellets and live amphipods. I feed many of these foods every day. He will eat as much as I give him. I set up a feeder to feed him while I am not there. The biggest problem is that people should watch them eat in the store. As I said before, I believe one in the pair is the dominant one and without the other one present one may not eat. This fish may never be able to be kept for ten years. We always assume it is food but it may be other things like the need to be in a mated pair, or the need for long swims.
If I get back to the South Pacific I will study them more but until then I will keep collecting sponge and doing what I am doing.
Have a great day.
Paul

[KDodds]

Curious on the pairing thing, or maybe not, mine has seemingly "paired" with my Onespot Foxface. The two are pretty much inseparable and even sleep together.

I'm wondering if their speed and agility have something to do with their longevity (or lack thereof). It will be curious to see if a MAC fish does surprisingly better than a non-MAC fish. IOW, possibly collection method, even in areas where cyanide is not used, other (legal) chemicals may be, and this migth be part of the problem. Just guessing, of course.

Do you have any idea how long Pabloe Tepoot has been able to keep his?

[Paul B]

Kieron, On the pairing thing I can only go by the two dozen or so that I followed (or chased) off Bora Bora, In all cases but one I saw two of them together, once I saw three. This was not in any way a scientific study but I did not ever see only one alone. Although they are long swimmers I diden't feel that they were very fast. Just for additional information they live along with heneocus (false moorish Idols) and long nose butterflies. Along with plenty of very large sharks. The Idols were also mostly in very shallow water, less than ten feet. I don't remember seeing any in deep water. (Maybe because of the many predators in the South Pacific)
Mine also hung around with a foxface until I gave it away (the foxface)
I don't know who Pabloe Tepoot is.
Idol with foxface.

[KDodds]

Pablo Tepoot is the guy from New Life, the makers of Spectrum.

[Skynyrd Fish]

Paul, you mentioned that it could be the need for long swims. My Idol swims on the treadmill. Thats what we call it when he swims in the stream from the Seio power head. He will hop on and off the stream and sometimes swim in the current for a minute or two. By the way he is great.

[Paul B]

Skynyrd Fish, sounds good to me. Don't forget, it's only a theory of mine from watching them. Maybe they hate to swim and would rather take a taxi.
Paul

[zfunk007]

Great posts everyone. And thanks for the updates and details you have been giving us KDodds. Glad to see your Idol is getting off to a good start. Keep those updates coming.

There have been undocumented reports of people keeping Idols for 8-10 years in captivity. If you scroll back to the teen pages of this thread you will find my conversation I had with this guy from Australia that has kept a couple of them for nearly 10 years. It was an interesting story and encouraging. Of course, as we all know he has the luxury of catching them right out of the ocean. So I'm sure that helps.

Skynyrd Fish, my Idol does the same thing with the power head (you'll notice he's doing it in the picture below). About every 2nd or 3rd lap around the tank he will sit up in the flow and "run the treadmill." Interesting behavior, it probably has to do with the fact that my tank doesn't have enough flow for him. I am really quite amazed that he has done as well as he has in this tank, considering the sub-optimal conditions I have for him. Not enough flow, too small of a tank, feeding him only 3 kinds of food (Spectrum Pellets, Live Sponge and Caulerpa). But he continues to do well. Things will change though once I get his new tank up this week.

Speaking of that, here is the very last picture I am taking of my Idols current tank:





I ordered his tank (and quite a few others) this weekend and it will be arriving tommorow afternoon. From there, I have to setup a temporary holding tank for him and all the other fish in my system (probably going to use large Rubbermaid containers I got at a tractor supply store), rip apart their current system and then set up the new ones all over again.

The system my Idol is going to be in is going to be roughly 600 gallons. It will consist of 2, 210 gallon tanks, one 80 gallon tank (for the refugium) and a 100 gallon sump. Both the 210's have built in overflows this time around (goodbye overflowing tank!). One of the 210's is going to be exclusively for the Moorish Idol and his other 3 tank mates (I don't know if I will ever add more fish because I don't want to upset the balance I have now) and the other 210 is going to be my reef tank. I figured if I put the whole system together it will be better for water quality reasons.

I am also adding a much bigger protien skimmer. It's rated up to 600 gallons so it should get the job done nicely (the one I have now is miniscule). There will also be a calcium reactor and hopefully new lighting for my Idols tank (the current lighting stinks, just white florescents). So I'm excited and will post pictures of my first steps either tommorow or Thursday.

I am going to post the pictures here because my Idol is the whole reason I am upgrading my system, if it weren't for him, I wouldn't have much of a reason to upgrade this system.

Any advice you guys might have on a good holding method while I am building the system would be appreciated. Do you think a 150 gallon rubbermaid container would be ok for a day or so for the Idol and a few other fish? Let me know what you think.

[zfunk007]

Another thing I was thinking about.... My system now is around 450 gallons. I want to keep some of the same water but was thinking about changing out a lot of it for fresh sea water (I am getting a trailer hitch installed on my car tommorow and a water tank onto the trailer so I can go to the ocean and get water myself). I want the transistion to be as unstressful and painless as possible for my Idol and other fish.

I am going to keep all the same live rock and sand and I was thinking of keeping maybe about 300 gallons of the same water from my previous system and adding a fresh 300 and then adding some of that "Right Now!" bacteria to compensate for the new water. Do you all think that would be too much? Should I try and keep as much of the original water as I can and just add the extra 150 gallons of new water? Or should I do a full 300? I'm just worried about my Idol. Any advice would be appreciated.

[zfunk007]

Well the new tanks came in today! Here are some pictures of the 210's (one of them is for the Idol like I said).





You can see my Idols old tank in the background of the first picture. Like I said guys, any advice about how to store these fish while I'm performing the switch would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[zfunk007]

Heres another update and some more pictures. I ripped down my 210 last night and my 110 today (Idols tank) and am about to do the refugium next. Unfortunatly I lost some fish in the process. I lost both of my Atlantic Blue Tangs and both my Fairy Wrasse .

The good news is the Idol, Broomtail, Regal Angel and Parrotfish seem to be quite healthy and happy in their 150 gallon rubbermaid sump (which is bigger than the tank they were in!). They are eating and well for the time being. I'm going to try and get these tanks up and running in the next 2 days so I can get them back in as soon as possible. Wish me luck. Here are the pictures:


Draining the Idols Tank...


My Idols home for the next few days... He seems to like it so far.. ha!

[Skynyrd Fish]

Paul- A few pages ago I mentioned I saw my idol eating a bristle worm. The tank he is in was filled with them. I think he ate them all. I liked the taxi comment.

Zfunk- what are you using for sumps? I build mine own using glass aquariums and acrylic. The only reason I ask Is I did'nt see any in your pics. Mine are a variation of an ecosystem mud filter. Bigger is always better in my opinion. My friend and I just built one out of a 70 gal for his 220 gal tank. They work great and you can swap them from tank to tank or to holding tank when you are upgrading. Good luck.

Dan