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Victoria M

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I have a very large green slimmer colony and the damsels live in and amongst the branches. There’s a picture of that somewhere in this thread. I don’t have any aggression issues other than a bit of bickering amongst the yellow tails. Always found them to be a pretty meek fish actually. I do think though, given the right conditions, any fish can be a bully.

The other smaller fish that I like a lot is the chalk basslet. Don’t have any in my tank at the moment but I may add a few once my QT tanks becomes available again.
I guess I will need to add a green slimmer...darn . :)
 

Victoria M

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I have observed an interesting thing with my damsels. Several months ago when I added our fox face the yellow tail damsel was awful to him. He had claimed prime real estate with a great cave and Mr. Fix Face was too curious. The damsel was nipping his fins constantly. The fox face even started to spin to defend himself with the sharp end! The yellow tail started swimming around chomping his mouth all the time, and his lips turned pale. I pulled him out for a time out in the sump. Easiest catch I ever made. He was was so focused on the gripper he didn’t see the net. LOL. Total chaos erupted among the azure damsels. New pecking order had to be established. The new top dog started chomping his mouth all the time and his lips got pale too. I had to plug up that cave because the fighting and defending against all comers was nutso! I had to epoxy rocks in place because those little turds could move boulders.
 

Deezill

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I am getting this weird thing for damsels. I just fell in love with the talbots damsel. A school would be lovely in my tank with its blue back ground.
@Victoria M I am also a fan of the damsels. I just recently ordered 11 Talbots. They will be going into QT today.
 

Deezill

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@ca1ore I was watching a video of yours on Youtube. How many times have you experienced ich with that hippo tang?
Does he get it frequently? I want to get one but I am scared to get one. My yellow tank and bristle tooth tang has not gotten it since my qt process 4 years ago. I put in a PBT a year ago in March and the thing got ich a few days later had to get him out asap. Let me know.
 
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ca1ore

ca1ore

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Hippo tang is an interesting story. I took a sabbatical from the hobby 2009-2012, When I got back in early 2013, I did so by buying a running 90 gallon tank from a local reefer (mostly for the livestock). A pair of hippo tangs were part of that livestock. Since none of the fish were showing any disease symptoms, I chose not to QT them. Later in 2013, I moved up to a 265. In the transition, I rehomed one of the hippos; the other briefly showed ich spots. Clearly ich was in the system, and remains so today; however, the hippo has never again shown spots. I know the system still has ich because when I tried to introduce an achilles tang last year he cam down with major ich. Means I cannot keep one, but otherwise the fish are asymptomatic.
 

Deezill

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Hippo tang is an interesting story. I took a sabbatical from the hobby 2009-2012, When I got back in early 2013, I did so by buying a running 90 gallon tank from a local reefer (mostly for the livestock). A pair of hippo tangs were part of that livestock. Since none of the fish were showing any disease symptoms, I chose not to QT them. Later in 2013, I moved up to a 265. In the transition, I rehomed one of the hippos; the other briefly showed ich spots. Clearly ich was in the system, and remains so today; however, the hippo has never again shown spots. I know the system still has ich because when I tried to introduce an achilles tang last year he cam down with major ich. Means I cannot keep one, but otherwise the fish are asymptomatic.
I want to get one but I think he will get ich even if I QT. I guess its roll the dice
 
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ca1ore

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Hippo is not quite the ich magnet that is the Achilles ....
 
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ca1ore

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Sulfur reactor has been great at reducing nitrate levels, but it’s been tough on my alkalinity levels. I’ve been pleased with the performance of my trident unit so I’ve acquired a second DOS which I am going to configure to offset the alkalinity losses. If I goose the CaRx, calcium gets too high. Will configure it this weekend. I also purchased one of the new versa peristaltic pumps and am going to see if I can use it to replace the MasterFlex on said CaRx.
 
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Looks good @ca1ore . For what it is worth I have my Trident dosing Alk and Ca (ESV - 2 Part). Doing very well. I'm testing 4/2/2 but may bump that up based on some of my observations the last two months. At the end of the day the way it is designed it isn't going to nuke your tank. They have some pretty good safety features the way it is implemented.

To those all asking about the damsels as Ca1ore said you want them out of the Chrysiptera genus. So something along the lines of Talbots, Tracy's, Azures, Starcki (more expensive). Fusilier's are also a great choice and Rollands is another. There is a deep water Gold I think, or yellow, that is also rare, epensive as is the Starcki, but another great find. Stick with these to start your search and you can't go wrong. That is unless you don't have enough tank and coral maturity.

Ca1ore has a large slimer as he mentioned that they call home. If you have ever gone SCUBA diving damsels are living all around corals with places to retreat should their buddy become hot headed. So lots of coral to break up the chase. Rocks with nooks and crannies. I have a 210 gallon now almost 2 years into its upgrade. By December of 2020 I plan on adding a slew of damsels with Talbots, Fusilier's, Starcki, Yellow/Gold deep water, and that should do it. All in all probably about 25 or so. Then throw down a trio of Millseed Butterflies and a few royal gramma's and I'll call it a day. I'll have more smaller fish, 4 medium, and 3 larger with the Lavender and Scopas tangs and rabbit fish...

Again, great update Calore - hope all is well.
 
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Bnagle

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Just spent the past hour and a half reading through your entire thread and all I can say is WOW. Extremely intriguing thread as your tank has evolved so beautifully. I love how invested you are and how you always are down for new projects/improvements. Good luck with everything and keep us posted on how your water parameters hold up in the next few weeks.
 

Bruce17

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Looks good @ca1ore . For what it is worth I have my Trident dosing Alk and Ca (ESV - 2 Part). Doing very well. I'm testing 4/2/2 but may bump that up based on some of my observations the last two months. At the end of the day the way it is designed it isn't going to nuke your tank. They have some pretty good safety features the way it is implemented.

To those all asking about the damsels as Ca1ore said you want them out of the Ghrysiptera genus. So something along the lines of Talbots, Tracy's, Azures, Starcki (more expensive). Fusilier's are also a great choice and Rollands is another. There is a deep water Gold I think, or yellow, that is also rare, epensive as is the Starcki, but another great find. Stick with these to start your search and you can't go wrong. That is unless you don't have enough tank and coral maturity.

Ca1ore has a large slimer as he mentioned that they call home. If you have ever gone SCUBA diving damsels are living all around corals with places to retreat should their buddy become hot headed. So lots of coral to break up the chase. Rocks with nooks and crannies. I have a 210 gallon now almost 2 years into its upgrade. By December of 2020 I plan on adding a slew of damsels with Talbots, Fusilier's, Starcki, Yellow/Gold deep water, and that should do it. All in all probably about 25 or so. Then throw down a trio of Millseed Butterflies and a few royal gramma's and I'll call it a day. I'll have more smaller fish, 4 medium, and 3 larger with the Lavender and Scopas tanks and rabbit fish...

Again, great update Calore - hope all is well.
Thank you very much for the info. I’ll definitely go check out these damsels.
 

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Just got some yellow tail blue damsels delivered and they are doing great in their little group! Thanks for the idea Simon!
 
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ca1ore

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Just spent the past hour and a half reading through your entire thread and all I can say is WOW. Extremely intriguing thread as your tank has evolved so beautifully. I love how invested you are and how you always are down for new projects/improvements. Good luck with everything and keep us posted on how your water parameters hold up in the next few weeks.

Thanks for taking the time to go through the entire thread. My long ago reef mentor always said that a reef tank is a journey and it’s the getting there that’s the fun part. I always think about the original Vacation movie where CC spends the entire move getting to the Grand Canyon then just a few seconds actually looking at it LOL. I think thats proven quite prescient for me in keeping a reef tank. A new project has always been a good way for me to not get bored. I’ll get my water issue sorted .... always do.
 
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A worm with high fashion and practical utility: Have you ever kept feather dusters in your reef aquarium?

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