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Unread 07/02/2014, 12:45 PM   #826
crvz
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6 weeks later, yeesh.

Are things going well... uh, sure? I broke down a tank for a buddy in may, and he gave me all the inhabitants. I thought I was careful, I stuck all the fish in the QT and put the rocks in a bucket to leave them fallow in case of parasites, but I think i brought in ich from one of the corals. It's not bad, but it does give me an excuse to tear the tank down, catch that stupid sailfin tang, and maybe get a few different fish. In other words, I'll be re-aquascaping in late july to treat the tank for ich.

But speaking of the stupid sailfin tang and his tendency to nip clams... that issue is a bit moot. The last two small gold maxima clams I got from LA must have had pinched mantle, as first they whithered, then the other blue maxima, and then the three large clams kicked it. I tried to do freshwater dips and other mitigation steps, but they proved fruitless. I spoke with LA about it and they've certainly responded in good faith, which is why I love that store, but it was still a big fat disappointment.

So, once the ich is treated in the tank (late september), I'll be tearing down the quarantine tank as it stands, then I plan on making the 40 gallon breeder a full stand alone invert and fish quarantine (it's currently plumbed into the main display tank). Changes are coming, but I'm waiting to get back from some travel before I implement anything drastic.


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Unread 07/25/2014, 12:32 AM   #827
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I saw two juvenile achilles tangs today while snorkeling (in maui for an annivesary trip). They were right off the beach, in about 3 feet of water (I was probably 10 yards from the beach). And now I must have one again... I havent had one since we moved into this place over 4 years ago. This trip is going to create a lot of re-work in the tank, I believe...




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Unread 07/25/2014, 10:43 AM   #828
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Achilles are beautiful, can't go wrong with that fish! I still remember seeing the one you had in your last build....


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Unread 07/26/2014, 04:09 AM   #829
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Quote:
Originally Posted by crvz View Post
I saw two juvenile achilles tangs today while snorkeling (in maui for an annivesary trip). They were right off the beach, in about 3 feet of water (I was probably 10 yards from the beach). And now I must have one again... I havent had one since we moved into this place over 4 years ago. This trip is going to create a lot of re-work in the tank, I believe...

Great photo. Did you see any other fish while snorkeling?


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Unread 07/26/2014, 10:35 AM   #830
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There were a whole lot of different fish. I snorkeled a lot right off the beach at our resort... it had about 10 yards of sand and then rock. And then about 50 yards out the rock gave way to deeper water, which still wasnt but about 10 feet deep, but full of coral. Near the beach was mostly juvenile fish, convict tangs, lavender tangs, butterflies, naso tangs (regular and unicorn), and then further out just loads of larger fish (where the yellow tangs hung out, as well as sailfins, moorish idols, etc.). What was crazy to me where the huge unicorn tangs that hung out in like 2 feet of water or less. Example.



But then you'd see, and this is a bad example, schools of 30-60 juvenile tangs.



We took one boat trip to get to a bit more of an isolated location, where there were loads of turtles, corals, and larger fish. Probably saw 20 or more turtles at this location, it was pretty slick. I've never been impressed with the coral I've seen in hawaii (this was my fourth trip), at least in terms of diversity and color, but there were huge colonies here too.





And a turtle.




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Unread 07/26/2014, 12:24 PM   #831
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awesome tank!


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Unread 08/04/2014, 09:53 AM   #832
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True to my word, I've been making some changes to the tank this last week or two. There were a few things I wanted to address. First, possibility of ich in the main display. I'm not convinced, but there were a few spots on a few fish over the last month or two, and I wanted to be proactive. And that meant pulling all the fish from the tank and leaving it fallow for a few months. Two, I wanted to catch a few fish. There were a handful that were problematic (sailfin tang, lamarck angel in particular), and I may choose to trim down the number of larger fish in the tank (on the fence: hippo tang, chevron tang, foxface). And also, of course, I wanted to add an achilles, and to do that with the powder blue tang, well that may be an issue. I wanted to shuffle the tank up before doing so, and I'll probably give them some along time in the stock tank together before deciding whether or not to try both in the display. Lastly, and this is more of a taste/preference thing, I wanted more hiding places in the tank. I've done pillar style rock for the last ten years, and I wanted more of a wall. I know aesthetically, for me at least, it's less appealing, but for the fish I feel it gives them more comfort (being able to hide out), and I like when fish can disappear for a while and then come out when you dont expect it. Last week I did the work, and here is a before picture.



Ripped out most of the rock and corals, and this was the midway point after catching all the fish.



And then when I was done putting rock back in. I added probably 80 or so pounds to the tank, which I had gotten from another tank I tore down for a friend in May (it was good rock, most of the white stuff you see here, and I'd been curing it for about 3 months). I've got another 80 pounds or so available, but I don't know if I'll use it. I'm sure I'm not finished, but this is what I've got right now (the left side is pretty open, which I like, but the rock is stacked more in a wall with a big portion of the back relatively open so they can swim behind it).



The pillars work well when you have a lot of coral in my experience, but my display has turned much more into a fish tank over the last few years, and I wanted to highlight that more. I think with fish in it this will work a lot better, but I'm sure I'll tinker with the rock placement until I return the fish.

Most of the larger fish are back in the 120 gallon stock/quarantine tank (it's a bit crowded, but at 48x30x18 it's got a decent footprint), and the smaller fish I stuck in a 30 long that I had in the attic (just to keep the fish population down in any one tank... there are 15 damsels and a handful of other fish in the 30 gallon tank). I also separated out the tangs for now in that system, splitting them into two groups to help with aggression, and I'll start a cupramine treatment this week. I know a lot of folks prefer the tank transfer method for ich and other parasites, but with the number of fish I have cupramine is a lot more practical. Included in that treatment will be the new fish that I received last week, including the sought after achilles tang, whom I'm delighted to see eating vigorously from the algae clip already (though keeping clear from me, hence the angle from this shot).



I'll probably run 3 or 4 weeks with the cupramine and then wait another handful of weeks before sticking them back in the display, targeting the first of October unless something changes. That's all the news for now.


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Unread 08/04/2014, 04:29 PM   #833
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tough choice to make but likely a good move, head things off, and as a bonus get to re-scape!


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Unread 08/04/2014, 05:02 PM   #834
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Well the fallow may be a bust... i just moved in the last of the few rocks that were in the sump just now... and in doing so a bicolor blenny fell into the main display. It had been hiding in one of those rocks in the sump, and now it's lost in the display tank. I doubt I'll take the effort of ripping all the rocks out to catch it (and was not certain I was actually suffering a tank with ich in it), but since the other fish in the stock/quarantine tank have been mixed with the new additions they will get the full treatment and QT process. That was quite irritating. Maybe he'll make himself easily caught in the next few days, but I doubt it.


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Unread 08/04/2014, 09:25 PM   #835
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Quote:
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Well the fallow may be a bust... i just moved in the last of the few rocks that were in the sump just now... and in doing so a bicolor blenny fell into the main display. It had been hiding in one of those rocks in the sump, and now it's lost in the display tank. I doubt I'll take the effort of ripping all the rocks out to catch it (and was not certain I was actually suffering a tank with ich in it), but since the other fish in the stock/quarantine tank have been mixed with the new additions they will get the full treatment and QT process. That was quite irritating. Maybe he'll make himself easily caught in the next few days, but I doubt it.
How annoying. Treating the rest of the fish will minimize possible issues though.


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Unread 08/06/2014, 10:38 AM   #836
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good news, sportsfans (or really just me), the stupid blenny made his presence known, and true to form, hid in a rock when I got close. So I just picked the rock out of the tank and dropped the blenny in the quarantine system. As of yesterday, I am fallow in the display system to the best of my knowledge (I'd had about 40 fish in that tank, and I'm quite certain I've captured them all now). The hardest to catch where the halicheores genus wrasses (which burrowed in the sand) and this blenny (who disappeared until just the last few days), but I dont think any other fish could be hiding at this point. I'll still probably run only run 6-7 weeks fallow, but we'll make that decision when we get closer to it.


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Unread 08/20/2014, 10:41 AM   #837
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All's going well enough with the quarantine, I've been running about 0.4 mg/L or a bit less (hard to compare to the color strip, but definitely less blue than the 0.5 mg/L sample vial provided in seachem's copper test). It's been 16 days, I'll probably go another 7 or so before I start water changes and carbon to remove the copper from the tank. I havent seen any ich on the fish after about the third day at this concentration, but I'll monitor for another 3-4 weeks before returning the fish to the display tank. The fish are eating well, though certainly the behavior and aggression is worse now that they're cramped in the smaller system (though I took all the damsels and most other smaller fish and put them in a 30 gallon long for treatment).


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Unread 08/29/2014, 09:22 PM   #838
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Meh, I had another trip, and when I got back the achilles tang did not look well. I tested ammonia, and it was just a bit over 0 (not to the 0.25 mg/l level, but those color comparisons are a bit subjective). So I started doing serious water changes on the quarantine, and the fish have all seemed to perk up a bit (though it was really only the achilles that showed distress). After a couple 40% water changes, the achilles started eating again and I'm hopeful it will continue to recover. However, I had been keeping the cupramine treatment at around 0.3 mg/L, and that was clearly inadequate, as it was covered in ich. I've gotten the concentration up to closer to 0.5 mg/L (though again, reading the color of the test is pretty fuzzy), and I'll run that for two more weeks and then remove any and monitor for a while.

In the mean time, I'm also realizing how much the fish (tangs) where keeping algae at bay in the main display. One thing I've always wanted to experiment with is an algae turf scrubber, which I know a lot of folks don't care for, but I like harvesting other algae in the past and I think this be a good option. I bought some acrylic to run a couple more support tanks on the system to help simplify and isolate that from the display a bit (as well as incorporate a UV scrubber out the return of those systems).

The rough idea is to stick two tanks above the utility sink. The top one would be a horizontal turf scrubber, pumping water up from the sump into that tank for the water to flow over screens (tank is about 6" deep), then it runs down to the tank below which would serve as an isolation and/or frag grow out area. Not real big, about 32"x14"x12", but should be fine for what I'm thinking. Then the water drains back to the sump. Simple enough, but a bit of work to get running. It would fit more or less like this, but this places the scrubber about 6 feet in the air, which may be a bit high for maintenance.



Now I've got to get gluing up some acrylic... I had the supplier cut it out for me (at $40 labor, it was well worth not doing that side for this one-off project, and I can't get a full sheet in my car anyways ever since I got rid of my tundra for a small coupe).


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Unread 08/31/2014, 02:51 PM   #839
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I finished the assembly of the smaller of these two tanks. The weldon vapors are strong. Still need to router the bottom for a clean edge and then flame polish the edges to round them a bit.




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Unread 09/06/2014, 08:35 AM   #840
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I finished the construction on the two new tanks, but I'm waiting on some bulkheads to do the plumbing bits.



I'm looking forward to the end of the month when I'm done with QT, as it's taxing to take care of 3 different tanks at this time (main display plus the two QTs).


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Unread 09/07/2014, 05:28 PM   #841
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Looks cool. Can't wait to see how it turns out. Any reason you didn't give yourself more clearance above the sink?


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Unread 09/08/2014, 07:45 AM   #842
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Love your set up, enjoy see your thread.


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Unread 09/08/2014, 09:37 AM   #843
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Looks cool. Can't wait to see how it turns out. Any reason you didn't give yourself more clearance above the sink?
really only so I could reach into the top tank without a stool.


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Unread 09/09/2014, 06:41 AM   #844
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I love the new aquascape. Hope all is well with the Achilles. I have heard of surge tanks in the attic, not a QT. That's definitely a first unless I'm just late.


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Unread 04/25/2015, 11:47 AM   #845
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How are things going Chris? Just checking in since we haven't heard from you in a while...


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Unread 04/25/2015, 12:29 PM   #846
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We took one boat trip to get to a bit more of an isolated location, where there were loads of turtles, corals, and larger fish. Probably saw 20 or more turtles at this location, it was pretty slick. I've never been impressed with the coral I've seen in hawaii (this was my fourth trip), at least in terms of diversity and color, but there were huge colonies here too.
Sadly, this is pretty much the case with most dives in Hawaii. You will see turtles, sharks, and of course some fish - but nothing related coral say like you might see in other warm waters say like, Cozumel. At least that is my take after doing some dives in Hawaii vs. other parts of the world.

Then again I dive yearly in Monterey for which I consider some of the best diving in the world.


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Unread 06/03/2015, 12:11 PM   #847
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Things are chugging along. Tank is pretty status quo, though I have some algae growth that I need to attend. I've got about 10 red mangroves that are just starting to shoot leaves, so I'm hoping that will help once they get a bit more mature. I might get a few more fish strategic to algae reduction, but we'll see. The algae I have in the tank is some kind of hair algae but it pulls off rather easily (I siphon it when I do water changes, and I can get a good amount out without any scrubbing).

Hardware wise, I think one of the chambers in my calcium reactor leaks, so I need to tear that apart and investigate (it sits submerged in the sump, so it's not obvious). Some of my equipment is nearing ten years of age, so I'll probably need to pursue some preventative maintenance or replacement.


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Unread 06/13/2015, 06:14 PM   #848
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I replaced one of my old Tunze 6100 pumps with a maxspect gyre today. So far, very happy with it. We'll see long term, but I may replace the other two tunzes with another one of the gyres.

and couple images. I've been enjoying the halichoeres wrasses, and I've got six of them in the display right now. a pair of canary wrasses.





christmas wrasse



three spot wrasse



redline wrasse



hoeven's wrasse



In some of those images you can see the tufts of algae that are growing in various areas of the tank. I can siphon them out pretty easily, but they've been dying off a bit as the red mangroves are starting to sprout leaves. Hoping these keeps up the good work of nutrient export and will work as a good refugium.




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Unread 06/15/2015, 01:23 PM   #849
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Looking good Chris

Also went on the Achilles hunt when in Maui. Ended up seeing a ton


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Unread 09/19/2015, 08:14 PM   #850
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Earth to Chris, come in Chris...


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