Bills CDA 225 gal 72x30x24 tank upgrade/SPS Dream Tank!!!

Billldg · May 22, 2021

Just got home. I looked at the bag dreading anything, LOL, but the Achilles was swimming around like it was no big deal. I am temp acclimating it right now, and will release in into the QT tank in a bit. I don't believe in drip acclimation when its not necessary. It adds way to much stress to the fish and you are dumping ammonia into the bucket. When its possible, I will always match the salinity to the supplier and just float and release the fish.

After I release the fish, I will see if its photogenic, and if so I will take a pic.

Billldg · May 23, 2021

My dream fish. When he is a little more comfortable I will take some better photos.

Billldg · May 23, 2021

The Achilles tang is eating like a champ. Frozen and Nori, so that takes a load off of me. I am always checking the @tsmaquatics site to see what pops up, and it appears that the 2 wrasses I was waiting on to get thru QT have made it thru and thus I can get 2 orders shipped with 4 wrasses and 4 Cleaner shrimp ASAP. SO hopefully I will have them by the end of the week.

TexAgReefer · May 23, 2021

Billldg said:
My dream fish. When he is a little more comfortable I will take some better photos.

Congrats!

count krunk · May 23, 2021

Tang looks great. This is the tank size I dream to have someday. Maybe 26 inches tall though.

Billldg · May 24, 2021

I did my first water change on the tank yesterday, AND, after siphoning out the water I found that you could use a hour glass to time it, LOL!!! I knew that doing a water change on a 225 gal tank would be different on a 225 gal tank vs a 120 gal tank, BUT DARN, I just walked away for a bit. I ended up doing roughly a 55 gal water change, but on my 120 gal tank, that would have been roughly a 50 percent water change. In this case it was roughly a 20+ percent water change. I just laugh thinking of the difference.

I may do another one this weekend to lower the N03 and P04. This time I will try to do a bigger water change.

Billldg · May 25, 2021

I was going to wait until nighttime to take some photos of the tank with the new Octo Aquatics top, but I couldn't wait as I have no patience, LOL!!! It couldn't have shown up at a better time as I have 4 wrasses showing up at my doorstep this Friday.

Please forgive me for the new tank UGLY'S, LOL!!!

Billldg · May 28, 2021

I just received my first shipment from @tsmaquatics today. I was supposed to get 4 wrasses and 4 Cleaner shrimp, but only 3 wrasses were shipped, but its due to the high quality of customer service from @tsmaquatics. I will explain why I didn't get the 4th later. So far I am extremely impressed with @tsmaquatics. I will make a detailed post later after I finish floating and releasing the fish and shrimp.

First impression of the fish though are that they are very active in the bag.

chizerbunoi · May 28, 2021

Tank build looks great. That Achilles is so lovely.

Billldg · May 28, 2021

chizerbunoi said:
Tank build looks great. That Achilles is so lovely.

Thank you

The Achilles tang has always been my dream tang. It is a big reason I went to a 225 gal tank.

TexAgReefer · May 28, 2021

Billldg said:
I just received my first shipment from @tsmaquatics today. I was supposed to get 4 wrasses and 4 Cleaner shrimp, but only 3 wrasses were shipped, but its due to the high quality of customer service from @tsmaquatics. I will explain why I didn't get the 4th later. So far I am extremely impressed with @tsmaquatics. I will make a detailed post later after I finish floating and releasing the fish and shrimp.

First impression of the fish though are that they are very active in the bag.

I have 13 fish from @tsmaquatics, including some difficult fish (Moorish Idol for example), and have been nothing but impressed with the health of the fish when they arrive, how quickly they start eating, and how durable they've been. Customer service has been awesome as well since most of my orders I added to them along the way just prior to shipping.

Billldg · May 28, 2021

K, here is my write up and experience with @tsmaquatics. I initially saw the weight of the package and was surprised. With only 3 fish and 4 shrimp, it weighed 45 pounds.

Then when I received the package and saw the size of the box I was even more surprised. You would think I order a big Yeti cooler or something, lol. I opened it up and it was packaged good, but more importantly, the bags in which the fish and shrimp were in were massive. @tsmaquatics apparently didn't care about the shipping cost they would have to absorb with the extra weight, they thought about the safety of the fish. When it was all said and done, I dumped almost 5 gals of water in the 7 packages that were in the box. How often have we received packages, and the bags that the fish were in only had a couple of inches of water in it.

I started to pull out the bags and the first thing I noticed was the activity of the fish in the bags. Again, how often have we received fish or invertebrates and they were huddled in the corner of the bag, or swimming upside-down. These fish were clearly health and no were near as stressed as I am used to dealing with. After temp acclimating I released all the fish and invertebrates and they immediately started to swim around. The biggest surprise was my Divided Leopard wrasse. It didn't dive for the sand, it immediately started looking and feeding on pods. 2 hours later and it is still doing the same.

I said I would explain why I only received 3, and 4 wrasse and it was because of the top notch customer service of @tsmaquatics. Tsm called me personally yesterday to talk about the delivery. They do a day before shipping check on the fish, and they told me that they had discovered a injury on the Eightline Flasher wrasse that was likely old, but had healed over and it created some imperfections that would be less than a perfect wrasse. This is were I say that @tsmaquatics customer service is above any others. Most vendors would not, or couldn't care less, and would have shipped it anyway. No, they said that they would prefer not shipping a less than perfect fish and that they had some more going thru QT at this time and would be more than happy to ship it with my next order that I currently have. That tells me they care more about quality than quantity.

Here are some quick down and dirty pics of the wrasses. Trying to have them hold still is almost amusing, LOL!!!

Billldg · May 29, 2021

I had to get my Carbon reactor working as my Par reading are dropping due to the waste in and such in the tank. I just removed the flow sensor and resealed it. Now I am waiting a few to let it dry a little before re-installing it and turning on to check for leaks. If no leaks are present then I will add the BRS Rox 0.8 to the reactor and clean up the water clarity.

OHHH!!! The wrasses are doing great. SO MUCH SO...that I keep going back to my tank to watch them.

Billldg · May 30, 2021

Today I am shutting down my 40b that I used to temporarily hold fish and corals as I have nothing left in it. I removed the corals, fish, and snails from it. I will dry to dunk the rock in 1.040 water for a few minutes to try and get the brittle starfish out. Hopefully I can as their are 2 or 3 in one rock. I don't want to put the rock in my DT because the 40b came down with a very bad case of bubble algae, and I want to try my best to keep out any undesirable algae.

Billldg · May 30, 2021

Been a busy day. I cleaned up the fish room, meaning I shut down the temp 40b tank and removed all the cardboard that was covering the hardwood floors in the same room as I was building the new tank. I also just replaced the RO membranes on my @Bulk Reef Supply RO/DI 7 stage system. I upgraded from a dual 75 gal membrane to a dual 100 membrane. I am currently flushing the system. Eventually I will turn the system back to producing RO/DI water, but not sure how to gauge it as I was used to the 75 gal membranes. Now I need to gauge the new 100 gal membranes to see how much quicker they produce water. The membranes were right at 3 years old, so they were due to be replaced. Do not upgrade to the 100 or 150 gal membranes if you don't have at least 75 pounds of water pressure. It will not work.

Billldg · May 31, 2021

I just setup my second 20 gal tank to move the Achilles into tomorrow. The fish has been in CP for 14 days tomorrow and now it will be moved to a sterile tank and get 2 doses of GC. So hopefully in a few weeks it will be added to the DT and become the boss. My Tomini tang is going to hate me, LOL!!! ;Hilarious

Tom Stevens · Jun 2, 2021

Hey! I expect a post at least once a day! Is everything OK? How are the new fishes doing?

Billldg · Jun 7, 2021

Tom Stevens said:
Hey! I expect a post at least once a day! Is everything OK? How are the new fishes doing?

Sorry, been very busy at work. The new fish are doing great. After putting them in the tank, you would have thought they had always been there. They never stressed out. @tsmaquatics is definitely my go to place for fish. I am currently waiting on a Purple tang, D. Sailfin tang, Eightline Flasher wrasse, Orangeback Fairy wrasse, and as of buying it yesterday, a Gem tang.

I won't get the order until late July because I am also waiting on them to get a Blonde Naso tang in.