Good, the Bad and the Ugly

[leon.1980]

SETUP
Tank : Red Sea Reefer 425 XL
Salt: HW Marine Mix Reefer
Lights: Single Kessil AP9X
Filter Roller: Reef Mat 500
Protein Skimmer: Seachem Division 125
Refugium: Red Ogo
Wave Maker: MP 40 x 20
UV Sterilizer: Pentair 25w

Fish List In planned order of addition
2 x Clownfish
Yellow Headed Pearly Jawfish
Diamond Goby, Bella, or Tiger. haven't decided yet.
Mandarin Dragonette (Captive Bred for frozen feeding)
Fox Faced Rabbit Fish
Solon Fairy Wrasse
Carpenter Flasher Wrasse
Hippo Tang
Tomini Tang
Lyretail Anthias x 3 Females




Not a fan of these things. Don’t have a lot of time to create a diary of my tank with three kids after all, but I’m now driven by a post I saw. IG and FB hurting the community because of glamour tank shots. The pics and stories of only when and what’s going good. Hence my title. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I promise to share all. You’ll get both my smiles and my cries here.

So here We begin. 6 months into a tank that has already had a crash and has been fallow since the beginning of may. Why? Because I didn’t listen and did too short Of a qt that killed 3 amazing fish that I was quickly growing fond of. Now I’m down to my original two clowns. One is Nemo and the other is fondly referred to as *******, aptly named for attacking my hand every time it goes in. I’m sure you can Figure out who named what. lol.

About two weeks ago I added pods and started dosing 10ml of Phyto. I am going to document my nutrients over a month after I get to add my fish back in on the first (YAY!) and adjust phyto dosing accordingly.

 

[Carabeo]

Nice scape and hardware! Following.

 

[Mastiffsrule]

Looking good. Keep us updated.

 

[kevgib67]

Great scape, I’ll be following for the roller coaster ride!

 

[leon.1980]

So here I am. Happy days! Time to put my clowns back in my DT. plop. Plop. In they both go. As I watch them lazily swim about getting used to their digs again and stretch their fins I notice something. What’s this! Spots I haven’t seen before while in qt! Sooooo long story short ******* got spots that only showed up under blue light. I pull my clowns and dumped them back in qt and started to investigate. White opaque spots that only show up under blue light. Couldn’t find anything and he died in the process unfortunately. His tank mate (Nemo) is still alive, fine and no white spots under blue light. I am treating him for Brook starting Sunday when the treatment comes in. I’m using Ruby Reef Rally Pro in a 90 minute bath and then two weeks of metroplex treatment. All this per Humble Fish. THE best place for qt/disease info in my Opinion!



In the meantime I’ve purchased mama pearl (my yellow headed pearly jawfish) , a RBTA Anenomie and a few coral! A green Slimer Acro, Puprle whip Gorgonia, A Torch, and a good sized frag with two different Zoas in it! Happy times. My tank has life again!

 

[sheeb]

So here I am. Happy days! Time to put my clowns back in my DT. plop. Plop. In they both go. As I watch them lazily swim about getting used to their digs again and stretch their fins I notice something. What’s this! Spots I haven’t seen before while in qt! Sooooo long story short ******* got spots that only showed up under blue light. I pull my clowns and dumped them back in qt and started to investigate. White opaque spots that only show up under blue light. Couldn’t find anything and he died in the process unfortunately. His tank mate (Nemo) is still alive, fine and no white spots under blue light. I am treating him for Brook starting Sunday when the treatment comes in. I’m using Ruby Reef Rally Pro in a 90 minute bath and then two weeks of metroplex treatment. All this per Humble Fish. THE best place for qt/disease info in my Opinion!

In the meantime I’ve purchased mama pearl (my yellow headed pearly jawfish) , a RBTA Anenomie and a few coral! A green Slimer Acro, Puprle whip Gorgonia, A Torch, and a good sized frag with two different Zoas in it! Happy times. My tank has life again!

Your aquascape is so cool! Love to see a nice mixed reef in the making, btas acros, torches etc!
I have 5 torches myself and let me tell you, from my experience they are the easiest thing to take care of. I never had a problem with them but zoas on the other hand… I can’t keep ‘em! Idk why lol

 

[leon.1980]

So here I am. Happy days! Time to put my clowns back in my DT. plop. Plop. In they both go. As I watch them lazily swim about getting used to their digs again and stretch their fins I notice something. What’s this! Spots I haven’t seen before while in qt! Sooooo long story short ******* got spots that only showed up under blue light. I pull my clowns and dumped them back in qt and started to investigate. White opaque spots that only show up under blue light. Couldn’t find anything and he died in the process unfortunately. His tank mate (Nemo) is still alive, fine and no white spots under blue light. I am treating him for Brook starting Sunday when the treatment comes in. I’m using Ruby Reef Rally Pro in a 90 minute bath and then two weeks of metroplex treatment. All this per Humble Fish. THE best place for qt/disease info in my Opinion!

Your aquascape is so cool! Love to see a nice mixed reef in the making, btas acros, torches etc!
I have 5 torches myself and let me tell you, from my experience they are the easiest thing to take care of. I never had a problem with them but zoas on the other hand… I can’t keep ‘em! Idk why lol

Thank you! I hd no clue what I wanted it to look like. Lol.
I just knew I was going for a negative space habitat based reef.
if I stay in the hobby my goal is an 8 footer. I will probably take a few months to develop a fish list and then probably another six just to build the scape. The entire scape will be planned around each fishes specific habitat.

 

[leon.1980]

Ok. So For the latest update I have 3 new fish in qt! A yellow headed pearly jawfish, a diamond goby and another clown to replace the one that passed. Got the last two in on the 16th so I can start my qt process. Personally I don’t medicate unless it’s needed. Copper is the equivalent of chemo therapy to humans and I just don’t see a point in needlessly putting them through that. I run a two week observation period keeping an eye out for the more extreme things (velvet, Brook, euronema, etc….) if none of these show their ugly heads within 2 weeks I start a 60 day hypo salinity treatment at 1.009sg.
Also I’ve discovered my alk and cal are low with my latest box of salt for some reason. So I am going to do some research into 2 part and start dosing my fresh wc batches before they go in the tank.
leaning towards Red Sea 2 part maybe. More research to be done though.