My 110 Gallon Experiment

[Slocke]

Update:
Haven't updated in a while for two reasons:
1. I've been busy planning my dream eel tank which I'll start a new thread on once I've bought it and started aquascaping.
2. Depression about the tank: The goniopora suddenly had full polyp bailout and my elegance seems to be slowly dying.

On the other hand I've just added two fish. A Falco Hawkfish, which has gone straight into the display tank, and a female Bellus Angelfish.
The Bells is super exciting but is going to be my first quarantined fish as it shared its LFS tank with a sick looking blue tang and boy do I not trust tangs and disease.

Picture is just a general photo of the female Bellus Angel

 

[Slocke]

Fish Review 14:

Banded Snake Eel
Myrichthys colubrinus

Appearance:
10/10
Its an eel that looks like a sea snake!! Even without that its stripes are beautiful with the speckled white stripes and the dark crimson/black stripes. Its beautiful when swimming and has a cute face too.

Personality and Aggression:
8/10
When active its incredible! Swimming and investigating the tank. Its super fun to feed and puts up with handling no problem. It also is yet to show any aggression. Loses two for hiding 80+% of the time.

Care:
5/10
Does not take water fluctuations at all and does require either live foods like ghost shrimp or target feeding but you don't have to feed it often and eats practically anything so long its small enough. But otherwise very easy.

Overall:
7.7

My favorite fish and definitely the star of my tanks!!

 

[Echo2656]

Fish Review 14:

Banded Snake Eel

Appearance:
10/10
Its an eel that looks like a sea snake!! Even without that its stripes are beautiful with the speckled white stripes and the dark crimson/black stripes. Its beautiful when swimming and has a cute face too.

Personality and Aggression:
8/10
When active its incredible! Swimming and investigating the tank. Its super fun to feed and puts up with handling no problem. It also is yet to show any aggression. Loses two for hiding 80+% of the time.

Care:
5/10
Does not take water fluctuations at all and does require either live foods like ghost shrimp or target feeding but you don't have to feed it often and eats practically anything so long its small enough. But otherwise very easy.

Overall:
7.7

My favorite fish and definitely the star of my tanks!!

super cool! I love eels and will following both tanks! Love the reviews too, keep it up

 

[Slocke]

Update:
Couldn't resist, got another eel. Should have waited till I had the new tank set up but it was available and they're not available often. But anyway introducing the:
Gold-Spotted Snake Eel

He's a stocky guy compared to the banded but very pretty in his own way.

Hope the two eels get along. They seem peaceful and my LFS kept a bunch of eels together including 2 snake eels. But you never know.

Also got a banded/harlequin starfish to go with my banded/harlequin snake eel. (though the star is goin in the other tank.

 

[Slocke]

Plans for the new eel tank:
Eelysium??

I had 2 options:
LFS installs Red Sea 525(liter) for 4500$
or
Top Fin 125(gal) and DIY everything else for 800$

Pros of Red Sea:

• Quick set up
• Sump
• Better quality glass and everything else
• Support LFS

Pros of TopFin:

• Much much cheaper
• Dimensions work better for me
• I don't really like that particular LFS (who sells firefish for 50$ or a zebra eel for 440$)
• I have big plans for DIYing and aquascaping and the LFS's policies wouldn't let me do them.

I chose the TopFin because I'm cheap and I have big plans



The Plan:
Tank is 72"x18"x23"

• Aquascaping:
  • Black mountain Seriyu Stone (not using coral rock, shocking I know)
  • Will be using black great stuff foam, egg crate, and silicon to attach the rocks to the back of the tank.
  • The background will hopefully hide pipes for the eels.
  • Sources I'm using for inspiration: https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/foam-wall-instructable-a-full-how-to-step-by-step-guide.168/
  • And https://www.youtube.com/c/SerpaDesign
• Bottom:
  • Sand will be a mixture of Fiji pink and special grade because special grade wasn't working for the banded eel so I'm hoping a smaller grain will work better. But I have a lot of excess special grade so I'm doing a mixture.
  • Will hide more pipe in the sand.
  • And some rock.
• Filtration - undecided my current thoughts:
  • Make my own sump from tanks I own
  • Make a "display" sump/refugium that the eels can enter
  • Canister filter if I give up on idea 1&2
• Lighting:
  • Start with the presumably cheap lights that come with the tank but I think I'll use the fluvals from my reef tank once I upgrade them.
• Stocking
  • Banded Snake eel
  • Gold Spotted snake eel
  • 2-3 Bellus angelfish
  • Foxface
  • Basslet
  • Snowflake or Skeletor eel maybe both
  • Snail CUC
• Corals:
  • I think I may just let the gsp and Xenia go crazy.

 

[Slocke]

Fish Review 15:

Falco Hawkfish
Cirrhitichthys falco

Appearance:
9/10
Strange but I like strange. It has two features I haven't seen on other fish. The tip of each dorsal spine splits and goes to the side like little pom-poms on its back and its pectoral fins are broken up and have long strands that almost resemble fingers. Not the prettiest (though still pretty) but one of the most interesting.

Personality and Aggression:
5/10
Fun and ever present fish that's personality matches its weird looks. No aggression either and prefers being cleaned by the shrimp to eating them.
Edit: Now is the bully of the tank.

Care:
10/10
Easy as can be. Eats frozen and flake and has no other special needs.

Overall:
8.0

 

[Slocke]

Fish Review 16:

Bellus Angelfish
Genicanthus bellus

Appearance:
9/10
The rare fish that looks prettier in pictures than to my eye. Possibly because its always zooming around when I see it so it's hard to see the details that make it such a pretty fish.

Personality and Aggression:
8/10
Has been shy for me and I think I need to add a couple more for it to be comfortable. No aggression but us it really going to take on a 2ft eel?

Care:
6/10
Easy in good water conditions. Can be sensitive and sometimes caught with cyanide.

Overall:
7.7

 

[Slocke]

It's here!!
The rocks and sand haven't arrived yet so I can't start aquascaping yet but its exciting to see it in place.

 

[Slocke]

Added black vinyl as a background and have now added egg crate to the back of the tank. The egg crate should add something for the expanding foam to bond to for when I start working on the back drop.

You can also see the pipework. The large 2" pipe will go just above the egg crate with the straight pieces going against the glass so you can look down the pipes from the sides. The smaller pipe will go along the back of the bottom and is for the goldspotted eel. The 3/4" in the current tank will go across the bottom front (both just under the sand) and is specifically for the banded eel.

Hopefully the eels will also use the sand. I'm using Fiji pink which will hopefully be far better for the snake eels.

Back pipes are now glued in. Once that dries I can use the foam and rocks to make the backdrop.

 

[Slocke]

Fish Review 17:

Goldspotted Snake Eel
Myrichthys ocellatus

Appearance:
8/10
Beautiful animal but lacks the elegance of the banded and its more a brown than gold.

Personality and Aggression:
9/10
Very active during the day. Always swimming around looking for more food to become even fatter. Also will dig for food which is fun. Not aggressive but certainly scares the other a bit and stole its tunnel.

Care:
9/10
Very easy. Toss some food in every few days and it will be fine. Doesn't seem to have any special needs other than maybe a good pipe occasionally.

Overall:
8.7

 

[Slocke]

Long overdue update:

I moved everything about my eel tank to a new thread though I will continue to review all my livestock here: Thread 'Eelysium'

As for the reef tank my only additions has been a brittle star to go with the serpent, an orange-spot goby and tiger pistol shrimp pair, and a new naoko fairy wrasse. Unfortunately I have no idea where the shrimp and goby pair are. I've seen the goby a couple times since but not the shrimp. The star and the naoko look good though. Another sad update is that my diamond goby somehow broke through my lid and died on the floor.

Otherwise everything is looking good. Saw some cyano but it died before it could get a foothold and diatoms have returned. Aiptasia and bubble algae still exist but are well under control. All my corals appear to be growing even the sps.

 

[Slocke]

Fish Review 18:

Engineer Goby
Pholidichthys leucotaenia

Appearance:
7/10
Eel impersonator but its color isn't as sleek or crisp as an eel. The grumpy face and big eyes are quite funny though.

Personality and Aggression:
7/10
Mostly inactive and like to stare at you all grumpy but will happily come greet me if I have some meat for them. Can be defensive of their burrow.

Care:
9/10
Very easy apart from them needing burrow room and some target feeding.

Overall:
7.7

 

[Slocke]

Invert Review 4:

Serpent Starfish
Ophiocoma spp & Ophiolepsis spp

Brittle and banded

Appearance:
Brittle 3/10 - a bit creepy and without a pattern.
Serpent 7/10 - less creepy and has got a great pattern

Personality and Aggression:
7/10
Very fun to feed but otherwise very inactive as I only rarely see them move from under the rocks. They aren't aggressive as far as I know.


Care:
7/10
May need extra target feeding which can be difficult if you can't find them or they are out of reach. Otherwise a great and fun addition to the clean-up crew.

Overall:
Brittle: 5.7
Banded: 7.0

 

[Slocke]

Fish Review 19:

Orange Spotted Goby
Amblyeleotris guttata

Appearance:
8/10
Quite pretty and has got some crazy eyes. Like the touches of black.

Personality and Aggression:
2/10
I have had this fish for a couple months and seen it twice...

Care:
9/10
Very easy. I mean I hadn't seen it in well over a month and it seems to be doing fine despite that.

Overall:
6.3

 

[Charlie the Reefer]

Fish Review 19:

Orange Spotted Goby
Amblyeleotris guttata

Appearance:
8/10
Quite pretty and has got some crazy eyes. Like the touches of black.

Personality and Aggression:
2/10
I have had this fish for a couple months and seen it twice...

Care:
9/10
Very easy. I mean I hadn't seen it in well over a month and it seems to be doing fine despite that.

Overall:
6.3

Sorry to hear about the shy Goby ): Is it a sand sifting goby? Or is that the diamond back...

 

[Slocke]

Sorry to hear about the shy Goby ): Is it a sand sifting goby? Or is that the diamond back...

It's an orange spotted which is not a sand sifter. The diamond managed to jump through the smallest of gaps and died on the floor unfortunately. Hopefully now that I know where the orange spotted is I can see it more and hopefully the pistol shrimp is with it. Thought the hawk may have gotten it.

 

[Slocke]

Fish Review 20:

Blue Throat Trigger
Xanthichthys auromarginatus

Appearance:
6/10
Mine is a female and therefor rather drab. But still a cool and subtly pretty fish.

Personality and Aggression:
9/10
Shy at first but now quite bold and fun. Doesn't show its weird trigger fins often but when it does it changes its shape in an odd way. No aggression yet but a bit of a food thief.

Care:
10/10
Easy as can be. Almost too easy as it loves to steal food from the eels.

Overall:
8.3

 

[Slocke]

Fish Review 21:

Pebble Toothed Moray
Echidna nebulosa & Echidna catenata

Snowflake Chainlink

Appearance:
Snowflake 9/10 - a very pretty eel with a great intricate pattern. Love the touches of yellow on the white face in particular.
Chainlink 6/10 - Nice and complex pattern but not nearly as pretty.

Personality and Aggression:
9/10
Fun and strange creatures that spend most of their times with their head sticking out of the rocks though they will also swim around. The chainlink is particularly active. No real aggression except when they go for the same bit of food.

Care:
6/10
Requires target feeding and a well sealed lid. Otherwise quite easy and fun to take care of.

Overall:
Snowflake: 8.0
Chainlink: 7.0

 

[Slocke]

Fish Review 20:

Maroon Clownfish
Premnas biaculeatus

Appearance:
8/10
Very pretty with the deep maroon color and the longer flowing fins.

Personality and Aggression:
6/10
Mine is yet to be aggressive but is also fairly boring as it just swims about casually.

Care:
10/10
Easy. No special requirements.

Overall:
8.0

 

[Slocke]

Fish Review 21:

Radiant Wrasse
Halichoeres Iridis

Appearance:
9/10
A unique and very pretty wrasse that I think may be the prettiest of the Halichoeres wrasses. Black with the highlighter yellow works in a weird way.

Personality and Aggression:
9/10
No aggression and is a bit more fun then my melanarus. Always active like any good wrasse and a bit playful with my Coris wrasse.

Care:
7/10
It needs to eat a little a lot so should be fed many times a day and is outcompeting the Coris if I don't feed enough.

Overall:
8.3