Jason's 300 gallons of frustration and fun

[Radman73]

My condolences.

I'm waiting for Black Friday to pick up a controller and a different return pump. My current return only does 6x turnover and I need to bump up to 10x if I'm going to implement the Triton method. Also considering purchasing a store bought sump. I don't like the one I have (homemade).

Thanks Jim.

What do you not like about your sump? Mine was homemade and it seems to be working fairly well. My main disappointment is that I forgot to silicone in the filter sock holder I made so I get a little too much dripping sound from it.

Tank looks pretty good!

I've got a SP6 on my 220, purchased last Black Friday, and am well pleased with it. It's pushing plenty of flow through two 3/4" returns, augmented by a brace of mid-sized Gyres - one at each end. When I feed my fish, I don't feed the tank - I feed the return pump, which then blasts food into every part of the display within a second or two - and the chase is on!

I also modified the pump's intake by creating a PVC elbow that pulls water from the bottom of the return section. I felt that the pump's intake was mounted a bit high for my taste, given the water level in my sump.

~Bruce

Thanks for the feedback on the return Bruce. I'm incredibly tempted in the COR but that's mainly the tech gadget guy in me coming through. The SP6 has a solid history and comes with a 3 year warranty. I doubt the COR has more than a year. I'll do something similar in regards to the pump intake as anything that increases the time before a pump running dry is a good thing.

 

[Jim Harrison]

Thanks Jim.

What do you not like about your sump? Mine was homemade and it seems to be working fairly well. My main disappointment is that I forgot to silicone in the filter sock holder I made so I get a little too much dripping sound from it.

I made the baffles too high, there isn't enough room for a fuge like I want (a little too small for a good amount of chaetomorpha) and I don't have enough space to put in 2 socks for both drains.

Should have picked up a 40b, but they weren't $1 per gallon!

 

[Radman73]

Alright, going a little(okay, a lot!) out of my comfort zone here. While I've been in the hobby for a while, 7 years, I've never really done it "right." My QT efforts, once I found out I was supposed to, were fairly pathetic but thankfully I was able to skate by. I haven't bought a new fish in at least 3 years. Until today. So I'll be documenting my QT of 6 small Dispar anthias, a Carpenter's flasher wrasse, and a tail spot blenny. All courtesy of LA. I'm 50/50 on my previous LA order roughly 4-5 years ago. I had a yellow coris wrasse come through like a champ whereas a red-lined wrasse struggled from day one and passed around day 5. In short, I have very little confidence in my QT abilities but in the interest of knowledge sharing I'll document every experience I have in this thread, good or bad. Hopefully good! I've read every sticky in the sick fish forum and feel grateful to those who have shared their knowledge and experience in the effort to help us all do a better job at QT. At least I have the TTM of my current fish behind me, though I've still never used copper. My comfort zone violation comes from posting this before the fish arrive instead of after they've been QT'd and in the DT. Most of us don't want to admit when we fail, but it's just as or more important to document failures than the successes. The added bonus is to hopefully get more experienced eyes on the plan and get some constructive feedback.

Anyway, I plan on putting the 6 anthias in a 20gal for QT while the blenny and wrasse will share a 10gal. I'd love to put them all in the 20, just don't think it's large enough. QT plan is to give them a few days to make sure they're eating, and then start ramping copper power up slowly over 3-4 days monitoring for any sings of stress. I have an API copper test kit to test copper levels. They'll get the full 30 days of therapeutic level assuming they all respond well. Those that don't will go into a 3rd 10gal where I'll then frantically try to come up with another plan with help from this board lol! After the 30 days are up I'll remove the copper and observe for another week or two while treating with prazipro or API general cure. After the first couple of observation days they'll also all get a 3-5 minute FW dip to check for flukes. The results will determine if they get treated for flukes first or get copper first.

I'll have freshly made saltwater at 1.017 in both tanks and 5 gallons of plain RODI and 5 gallons of 1.025 on hand to hopefully quickly and easily adjust the salinity to match the fish. My biggest fear is each fish having different salinities but I'm guessing the anthias would all have the same. I have well seeded filter media in the DT to be used in the QT tanks.

Meds\products I have on hand:
Kanaplex
Furan-2
Prazipro
Focus
Copper Power
Formalin-MS
Prime
Stability
Selcon

Meds on order and scheduled to be delivered Friday:
Metroplex(I know this is in general cure along with praziquantel but it seemed prudent to have it on hand anyway)
Ruby Reef Rally.

I should be pretty good from a meds standpoint.

Food on hand:
Rod's
Cyclops
Pellets
Flake

Plenty of each though light on the frozen stuff. Cyclops will be my first food as every fish I've ever had loved it. I do have a local source for live black worms and, in a pinch, I'll order brine shrimp, hatch them, and feed them. Living in Orlando, I have plenty of resources for picking up other kinds of food too.

I'm extremely excited and extremely anxious. Anthias are a personal favorite of both my wife and mine. We want both Dispar's and Lyretails and the advice was to go Dispar first. I hate waste so I really want all of these fish to come through. Weather is mild and comparable between Cali and Florida so I'm hoping the transit is as easy as possible. A bonus is that I work from home so I'll be able to get the fish immediately out of the shipping containers and temp acclimating as soon as possible. Quick checks on salinity and then they can be in their respective tanks. I also get to observe the fish all throughout the day.

I did go back and forth on copper vs TTM, or Option A vs Option B. In the end, all of the fish I ordered seem to typically tolerate cheated copper fairly well and I can treat for both velvet and ich with copper vs just ich for TTM. That, and I don't have a second 20gal for the anthias and all the equipment to go along with it.

Wish me luck! And advice, can always use that!

 

[Jim Harrison]

Thanks for documenting so well and I look forward to reading your results! I'm about a month away from adding fish (maybe 2 weeks) and will be going through the whole QT process as well.

 

[Maritimer]

Sounds like your pharmacy is well stocked - and Rod's is a fairly complete diet for most fish, all by itself.

~Bruce

 

[Radman73]

Gotta love Murphy. Filled up my mixing container last night and added salt to mix for today. Went out this afternoon and there's a huge puddle on the mixing table and the mixing container is obviously at a lower level then before. I can't find where it's leaking from so I pumped the water out into a few brute trash cans. Have most of the water I need, just need to make more RODI to lower SG down to where I need it. Didn't need this on the day before new arrivals lol! I can only seem to find one of my koralia nano powerheads too. Anthias will get the flow priority while I tear the house apart looking for the other only to find it in a painfully obvious place.

Made egg crate and screen covers for the 20 and 10 gal QT tanks. I zip tie the screen to the egg crate which makes it easier to access the tanks while also keeping frisky critters in. Should have everything set tonight for the new fish tomorrow. Excited to finally be adding fish instead of selling them or giving them away.

Also, just got the shipping notification. Let's hope they all arrive in good shape.

 

[Radman73]

Fish just arrived. Blenny looks a little rough but is breathing. McCosker's wrasse is in a blacked out bag so hard to tell. It seems all of the anthias were active in the bags. All floating in their respective QT tanks right now.

Edited to add:
The temp seemed perfect for the fish. No heat packs or ice packs were required. They were well packaged with only the blenny's bag seemingly light on water. The anthias and wrasse all had plenty of water.

 

[Radman73]

 

[Radman73]

Blenny proving me wrong. He and the wrasse are both immediately active. Good sign.

2 down, 6 to go.

 

[Radman73]

And the 6 anthias are in their temp home. I'll turn lights in later and try to get pics of them. They were all pretty active coming out of the bag which I hope is a good sign. I asked for 6 females but couldn't tell if that's what I got or not. Time will tell for that.

12:18pm all 6 anthias are out and about exploring the left side of the tank. Makes me happy. Placed a blanket over the 10gal as it gets a fair amount of foot traffic by it. For the most part it is me walking by it every 20-30 minutes. Blenny and wrasse are still chillin and hard to see/find.

 

[Radman73]

Looks like I got all females as requested. They all have the pale underside.

 

[revhtree]

NIce!

 

[Radman73]

Thanks rev.

 

[Radman73]

Anthias have eaten again. With passion lol! They all hide when I first walk up but come out and attack the cyclops/Larry's combo once they notice it and ignore me.

Blenny is still hiding in his little corner and other than a couple of bites, ignored the food. The flasher, a Carpenter's that I kept calling a McCosker's, pokes his head out to eat but otherwise stays in his PVC tube. I'm almost wishing I'd put all 8 into the 20gal as I think the anthias bravery would encourage the wrasse and blenny to be more comfortable. I did find the other koralia nano powerhead. Yes, it was in a painfully obvious place. No, I won't say where to avoid looking even dumber than I feel. I'll get it cleaned up and put in the 10gal. That might encourage some level of movement from the blenny and wrasse.

Visually, the anthias look great. No discoloration or spots visible. The blenny is in his stressed out coloration. Haven't seen enough of the Carpenter to discern anything. Anthias are doing well enough I'll likely start ramping up the copper safe slowly tomorrow. I want to take my time raising the level since it's my first experience with it. Hoping the wrasse and blenny do better tomorrow after a night of rest.

 

[Radman73]

All fish are out and about this morning. Blenny has lost his stressed out coloration and looks like the tail spot we all know and love. Flasher is chasing his reflection throughout the tank and seems confused as to which reflection to chase in when in a corner. Still haven't confirmed that the blenny and wrasse have eaten yet. Cyclops is so small it makes it difficult to tell. The anthias are obviously eating by behavior. Hopefully putting the powerhead in the 10gal will move the food around more and elicit an obvious feeding response from the blenny and wrasse. Heading to church and will do a 1gal water change on each tank and then start copper safe on the anthias when I get home.

 

[Radman73]

QT is seemingly going well. Both tanks are on their second dose of copper. All fish are eating. 1 anthias tends to only come out when feeding time, but I'll take that for now as at least it's eating. Blenny will swim openly as long as it doesn't notice me watching. Wrasse still chasing its reflection so all is well there. Should reach the full 2.5ppm Copper Power level on Tuesday. Hopefully they all keep eating well. The one anthias worries me but maybe it's just the most skittish of the bunch. At least it does come out to eat though.

 

[Maritimer]

It does sound as though that guy may just be at the bottom of the anthias pecking order.

Sounds like your QT is coming along beautifully!

~Bruce

 

[Radman73]

Just did the 3rd of 4 doses of copper. Blenny and wrasse looks be handling it just fine. For the anthias, they seem fine though in general 4 are out most of the time, a 5th is out some of the time, and the 6th rarely comes out. Briefly saw all 6 this morning but only saw 5 at feeding. Again, it's cyclops so the food was likely getting to where the 6th one was anyway. On the bright side, I tried some flake mixed in with the cyclops for the anthias and, as long as it was a very small piece, some of them ate it. They ignored the larger pieces, which isn't really a surprise.

Also got some water change water mixed up and copper added. I'll get it to 2.5ppm or slightly higher to ensure I keep copper high enough during water changes. I guess once I reach therapeutic levels there won't be much more to comment on besides running GC a couple of times. Once the full 30 days is reached I'll do some copper free water changes and run carbon to strip out as much copper as possible, observe for a week or two and add them to the DT. Perhaps even by Christmas .

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Cool stock list in QT. Definitely looking forward to more pics as you go along.

 

[Radman73]

Cool stock list in QT. Definitely looking forward to more pics as you go along.

Thanks!

So, I started stressing about the copper level because I couldn't discern the API kit if my life depended on it and the fishes lives do depend on it lol! I'd been using my wife and daughter to read it but came across a post by @Brew12 that suggested creating a reference photo using a known quantity vs guessing about how much we have in our QT, taking a photo, and using that as a reference. Glad I did as both tanks were already at the 2.5ppm that Copper Power recommends based off of the reference sample. So, day 1 of 30 started yesterday morning. The fish all seem fine. The wrasse and blenny are consistently out and about. 4 of the 6 anthias are almost always out but I do see all 6 on occasion now even when it isn't feeding time. Last test to do is on the water change water and make sure it's at 2.5ppm as well.

Also pretty sure I discovered the source of my algae problems in the DT. Checked the DI canisters and both were brown. The only thing I can figure is that at some point I back siphoned some salt water into it when topping off the mixing barrel. I check the DI fairly regularly and the last time the first DI was only 1/2 out. In any case, I'll have new DI resin today. It is hilarious to me how many people who are seeing the tank for the first time tell me how pretty the "sea grass" is . It's all good, a little time can cure a lot of things in this hobby. I did put some GFO on line to help speed things a long a little bit though.

Goal now is simply to keep the copper level steady, keep fairly clean water on the QT, and keep the fish alive. It'll be really nice if I can introduce all 8 to the DT. I do have an acclimation box on the way to assist that process. And I should have more flow courtesy of Black Friday by that point too!