Haha I understand that, unfortunately the alternative that would allow you to keep all the cors you enjoy would be to trade away the angels and replace them with other charismatic fish. I know it stinks, but may be worth looking into if they continue to cause issues. There are some very attractive and charismatic nano fish out there! I absolutely love my green banded gobies, the 3 of them scoot all over the tank all day.
itgoeson’s newbie Cobalt C-Vue 45G AIO build
Haha I understand that, unfortunately the alternative that would allow you to keep all the cors you enjoy would be to trade away the angels and replace them with other charismatic fish. I know it stinks, but may be worth looking into if they continue to cause issues. There are some very attractive and charismatic nano fish out there! I absolutely love my green banded gobies, the 3 of them scoot all over the tank all day.
Still on the fence about the coral beauties. I went on an LFS crawl last weekend to try to get excited about different fish (considering some relatively peaceful damsels or a wrasse) but I’m just not ready to part with the angels yet.
I did pick up this nice frogspawn for $10 though!
I also finally decided to make my own water (against the advice of many I’ve been buying it from the LFS). Supplies arrived yesterday so my next project is to get the RODI etc working this weekend.
In the meantime I wanted to document some of the interesting hitchhikers I’ve had.
This little crab (Sally Lightfoot?) came in with the amphipods added earlier this week. I’m hoping I don’t regret adding it but I just didn’t have the heart not to:
These sponges are growing on the back of my scoly:
This hydroid came in on my gorgonian:
And this feather duster appeared in the sand one day:
I did pick up this nice frogspawn for $10 though!
I also finally decided to make my own water (against the advice of many I’ve been buying it from the LFS). Supplies arrived yesterday so my next project is to get the RODI etc working this weekend.
In the meantime I wanted to document some of the interesting hitchhikers I’ve had.
This little crab (Sally Lightfoot?) came in with the amphipods added earlier this week. I’m hoping I don’t regret adding it but I just didn’t have the heart not to:
These sponges are growing on the back of my scoly:
And this feather duster appeared in the sand one day:
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I’ve upped my feeding game to try to give the coral beauties one fewer reason to eat coral. Now I’m feeding TDO pellets, spirulina flakes, and live grindal worms in the morning, an afternoon snack of more worms + replacing a small sheet of nori, and evening Rod’s food soaked in Selcon plus some live phyto. I’ve also got a ton of amphipods living in the rock and I’m culturing copepods that get added weekly
One downside is that I’m ending up with a ton of amphipods in my filter socks - takes forever to get them back into the tank without also dropping in detritus from the socks. I ordered some mesh socks to make it a little easier (I hope). Am tempted to go sockless but that seems a bit risky.
One other downside is that my phosphates climbed all the way to 0.24 (nitrates still around 10). I added some Chemipure Elite to bring them down but I don’t want to run that 24/7 forever. Thinking it may be time to add a skimmer soon but I don’t want to drive my nitrates down too far with that.
I gave away the corals that were withering away (Duncan, acan). Everything left is looking really good and growing, except the scoly which is unfortunately starting to deteriorate. Planning to rehome that one before it gets too bad... it no longer puts feeding tentacles out so I assume the angels are picking at it at night.
Making my own water has been great and so far seems to have solved my phyto culturing problems. My phyto was crashing every time using LFS water (even when I tried boiling it first). Now I’ve had beautiful deep green phyto both weeks I’ve used my own water.
My alk has been pretty steady and I have a decent amount of coraline so I’m going to give some more forgiving SPS a try, thinking they may be less appetizing to the angels than LPS. I picked up a monti cap, digi, stylo, and bonsai frag from a local hobbyist - they’ve only been in 24 hours but so far they look pretty good!
Solo goby in his bachelor pad:
Shrimp toiling away with the other goby:
One downside is that I’m ending up with a ton of amphipods in my filter socks - takes forever to get them back into the tank without also dropping in detritus from the socks. I ordered some mesh socks to make it a little easier (I hope). Am tempted to go sockless but that seems a bit risky.
One other downside is that my phosphates climbed all the way to 0.24 (nitrates still around 10). I added some Chemipure Elite to bring them down but I don’t want to run that 24/7 forever. Thinking it may be time to add a skimmer soon but I don’t want to drive my nitrates down too far with that.
I gave away the corals that were withering away (Duncan, acan). Everything left is looking really good and growing, except the scoly which is unfortunately starting to deteriorate. Planning to rehome that one before it gets too bad... it no longer puts feeding tentacles out so I assume the angels are picking at it at night.
Making my own water has been great and so far seems to have solved my phyto culturing problems. My phyto was crashing every time using LFS water (even when I tried boiling it first). Now I’ve had beautiful deep green phyto both weeks I’ve used my own water.
My alk has been pretty steady and I have a decent amount of coraline so I’m going to give some more forgiving SPS a try, thinking they may be less appetizing to the angels than LPS. I picked up a monti cap, digi, stylo, and bonsai frag from a local hobbyist - they’ve only been in 24 hours but so far they look pretty good!
Solo goby in his bachelor pad:
Shrimp toiling away with the other goby:
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