My 180 Gallon "Pair" Themed Build Thread

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So here it is Friday already and I haven’t gotten back to this. Had my Covid booster shot and man did it kick my butt. Far worse than the first two. But for only 24 hours. My husband didn’t have any effects from his booster.
So back to my tank. Yes, sadly it’s been a year since I updated this, and a lot has happened in that year(besides Covid) In January of 2021 I had surgery on my finger for trigger finger. Then in February of 2021 I had to have surgery on my shoulder for calcific tendinitis. The 3 months leading up to the surgery was painful and I could not take care of my tanks very well. And then post surgery was a long recovery and physical therapy treatments. Approximately 8 months total. The first 6 months I could not do anything with my tank; so you can imagine all the algae growth I had. I think I had one water change in 6 months. Once I got the ok from my doctor I got busy reclaiming my tanks. Phosphate was so high it would not even register on my Hanna checker, and very high nitrates as well. Tried to hurry the process and used chemicals and ended up
zeroing out my phosphate and nitrates, and ended up with Dino’s! I’m still battling with the Dino’s today. I have added some new fish which I will get into in the next post.
 
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I redid my aquascape. (I did this right before my surgery) It was so full of algae and vermethid snails. I took a little out at a time and bleached and then gave it an acid bath. Instead of piles of rock with arches on the top, I decided to make some structures by gluing and cementing it together. I put acrylic legs under them so they are not sitting on the sand bed but raised up a little so there will be flow all around the rock. Like a "negative space" aquascape but with more caves for the fish to hide/sleep in. I used the Marco Mortar Pink cement to cement it all together and used a paint brush and painted some of it all over the rocks to make it look like coralline algae. I am happy with the way it turned out. Then I reseeded the rock I in a container for a few weeks before putting back in the tank. I somehow lost all the pictures I took while making them.:(
 
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January 16,2021, I added a RBTA for my pair of clowns. I guess I no longer have a fowler tank, lol! I used egg crate and section off one end of the tank for the clowns and nem only. It took less than a week for the clowns to go in the nem, but I left the barrier up for about a month. The clowns defend their nem from the butterflies and angels. None of them even try to go for the BTA now.
First pic is with the white lights and other 2 are with the blue lights on.
My nem - Copy.jpg
my nem2 copy.jpg

My nem3 copy.jpg
 

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So here it is Friday already and I haven’t gotten back to this. Had my Covid booster shot and man did it kick my butt. Far worse than the first two. But for only 24 hours. My husband didn’t have any effects from his booster.
So back to my tank. Yes, sadly it’s been a year since I updated this, and a lot has happened in that year(besides Covid) In January of 2021 I had surgery on my finger for trigger finger. Then in February of 2021 I had to have surgery on my shoulder for calcific tendinitis. The 3 months leading up to the surgery was painful and I could not take care of my tanks very well. And then post surgery was a long recovery and physical therapy treatments. Approximately 8 months total. The first 6 months I could not do anything with my tank; so you can imagine all the algae growth I had. I think I had one water change in 6 months. Once I got the ok from my doctor I got busy reclaiming my tanks. Phosphate was so high it would not even register on my Hanna checker, and very high nitrates as well. Tried to hurry the process and used chemicals and ended up
zeroing out my phosphate and nitrates, and ended up with Dino’s! I’m still battling with the Dino’s today. I have added some new fish which I will get into in the next post.
You still having dino issues
I redid my aquascape. (I did this right before my surgery) It was so full of algae and vermethid snails. I took a little out at a time and bleached and then gave it an acid bath. Instead of piles of rock with arches on the top, I decided to make some structures by gluing and cementing it together. I put acrylic legs under them so they are not sitting on the sand bed but raised up a little so there will be flow all around the rock. Like a "negative space" aquascape but with more caves for the fish to hide/sleep in. I used the Marco Mortar Pink cement to cement it all together and used a paint brush and painted some of it all over the rocks to make it look like coralline algae. I am happy with the way it turned out. Then I reseeded the rock I in a container for a few weeks before putting back in the tank. I somehow lost all the pictures I took while making them.:(
Any pics
January 16,2021, I added a RBTA for my pair of clowns. I guess I no longer have a fowler tank, lol! I used egg crate and section off one end of the tank for the clowns and nem only. It took less than a week for the clowns to go in the nem, but I left the barrier up for about a month. The clowns defend their nem from the butterflies and angels. None of them even try to go for the BTA now.
First pic is with the white lights and other 2 are with the blue lights on.
My nem - Copy.jpg
my nem2 copy.jpg

My nem3 copy.jpg
Thats gorgous
 
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I added a pair of blue line angels from Pom Labs. Of course, I put them in observation tank first. I don’t want to trust others and risk something getting into my tank. (I have trust issues I guess, lol) I wanted to add a trio of flame angels and a hippo tang and decided to go with pre quarantined vendor this time. But still put fish in an observation tank for a month. That was a big mistake. I won’t say which one it was but the flame angels arrived with a bacterial infection and died within 3 days. They have a live arrival guarantee only. And the hippo tang had ich! Good thing I put them in an observation tank instead of DT right away! I will go back to quarantining my own fish from now on. Treated the tang and ordered a new trio of flames from my LFS. They are now in the DT.
 
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I have been battling these dino's for awhile now and getting tired of it! I have joined a dino group on Face Book and read lots on here. I am now dosing water glass, phyto, pods, and alternating Mircobactor7, Tim's Waste Away, and Eco-Balance bacteria. Trying to get as much diversity in the tank as possible. I have 3 light fixtures over the tank so I am able to turn off 2 of them and just leave the one above the nem on. This keeps the dinos and algae on only one end of the tank. I started a fuge with maro algae in the sump to help lower the nutrient levels, but I had to remove my macro algae from my sump as the red light just fueled the dinos more. The dinos were taking over my sump too. I cleaned out the sump added the macro algae to the DT in a box to try and keep it alive under my tank lights. This is not helping with the high Phosphates and Nitrates though. The algae is not growing much with the tank lights. Not the right spectrum. But it is keeping it alive anyway. The sump is now cleared of the dinos since there is no light there. I know it will take several months to rid my tank of these nasty things!
 

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I have been battling these dino's for awhile now and getting tired of it! I have joined a dino group on Face Book and read lots on here. I am now dosing water glass, phyto, pods, and alternating Mircobactor7, Tim's Waste Away, and Eco-Balance bacteria. Trying to get as much diversity in the tank as possible. I have 3 light fixtures over the tank so I am able to turn off 2 of them and just leave the one above the nem on. This keeps the dinos and algae on only one end of the tank. I started a fuge with maro algae in the sump to help lower the nutrient levels, but I had to remove my macro algae from my sump as the red light just fueled the dinos more. The dinos were taking over my sump too. I cleaned out the sump added the macro algae to the DT in a box to try and keep it alive under my tank lights. This is not helping with the high Phosphates and Nitrates though. The algae is not growing much with the tank lights. Not the right spectrum. But it is keeping it alive anyway. The sump is now cleared of the dinos since there is no light there. I know it will take several months to rid my tank of these nasty things!
What are your nitrates and phosphates. What type of dono do you have?
 
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@sfin52 I have both small and large cell amphidiniums.
At one point phosphate was up so high it would not even register on the Hanna checker. Now it is down to 0.211
Nitrates were 60 and now to 25. Everything is just so out of balance right now.
 

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@sfin52 I have both small and large cell amphidiniums.
At one point phosphate was up so high it would not even register on the Hanna checker. Now it is down to 0.211
Nitrates were 60 and now to 25. Everything is just so out of balance right now.
Those are the tough ones. Have you tried to stir the sand and siphoned out through a 10 micron sock.
If your using dr. Tims don't forget about refresh and waste away they help each other
 
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Those are the tough ones. Have you tried to stir the sand and siphoned out through a 10 micron sock.
If your using dr. Tims don't forget about refresh and waste away they help each other
Yep done it all. Lowered lights with blue only as recommended and started seeing progress but then my nem looks like it is shrinking so I put lights back to normal.
Anemone is has short tentacles. Hair algae is really taking off, which they say is a good thing to fight Dino’s
Here is a video. You can see at the end of it the nem with short tentacles as compared to previous photos. Along with the hair algae


 
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Time for an update. My Indian Vegabond Butterflies have been fighting the past few months. Might have to separate them. Today I noticed one of them had a scale stuck to it. Looks like it stabbed the other one and got a scale stuck.
EBE84727-1F44-4B8B-B3FB-2F6AFE46D107.jpeg
6EC3F1B4-15C8-4096-8DA2-39E8BC077AF5.jpeg
 
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A video of the two fighting. The Pakistani Butterfly and my long nose black tang get In-between and try to break it up. Right after I stopped recording the black tang got in the middle of them and struck hard with his tail. Wish I would gotten that on video!
 

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Yep done it all. Lowered lights with blue only as recommended and started seeing progress but then my nem looks like it is shrinking so I put lights back to normal.
Anemone is has short tentacles. Hair algae is really taking off, which they say is a good thing to fight Dino’s
Here is a video. You can see at the end of it the nem with short tentacles as compared to previous photos. Along with the hair algae



I really love that scape
 
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Seeing your Pakistan makes me long for another one. Not much room left for another butterfly though. I think they are a beautiful fish !!
They are a hard fish to keep. I’ve tried several in the past that ended up dying. I told myself this is the last time I try them. This one is now 3 years old ! How long did you have yours?
 

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