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300 Gallon Disaster Reboot


Sascha D.

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On 7/6/2018 at 11:16 AM, Sascha D. said:

I promised myself that if my next stock option trade was successful that I would spend the money on new equipment! It's pretty pricey though and I want to do some more research. Does anyone have any experience with these fixtures?

My last few trades have gone according to plan and it's time to live up to my promise. This summer has been one of the  busiest of my adult life and I had to go all the way back to July to find the quote! The first weekend of October I'll be building a playscape for the kids and the weekend after that I have to refinish an antique vanity. That means I'll have the next two weeks to do some reef stuff! 

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  1. Livestock - Spoiler Alert! LiveAquaria has posted three sales back to back. I might even add a CUC one of these days! My one turbo is getting lonely.
  2. Redo plumbing- Need to decide if I want to yank the sump and add a new one with a huge refugium or just stick to mine.
  3. Saltwater Mixing Station - Ughh! Basically build it again from the ground up. If I have to do it, then I'll probably run a water line through the attic for RODI. 
  4. New lights - I think I'm trying to decide on the below models, listed from least to most expensive. 
    1. Vipraspectra - Highly recommended on RC. Upgrade to "black box" LED's, but still mid line model. Comes with one power cord (Woot!), digital display/time and active cooling. Would need 2x300w fixtures + T-5 or 4 total fixtures for full coverage. . 
    2. Reef Brite XHO or Lumi - I read about these in a R2R post and it sounds like a solid option to use with my 4x54w T-5's. These would eliminate the shadowing common to LED fixtures, but it's unclear what kind of LED's are used and how powerful they are. I like that they're low profile and maybe I won't hit my head on the fixture so much! Would need at least 4x48" or 3x72" strips. Need to do some more research on these. 
    3. Reef Breeders Photon 48 V2 - I've been researching these lights over the last few days. They seem like a solid option for mid level lights with all of the fancy gadgets I have no plans on using. The 5w LED's seem really powerful based on the reviews and I have no doubts that it will light the tank well. The part that I like and dislike most are the channel controls. It seems like you can waste a ton of time getting the settings right! 
    4. AI Hydra 52 HD - Aquatek has one of these on a coral tank and it looks pretty good. I contacted the company and they said I would need one fixture for every 24L x 12w space. That puts me at 4-5 fixtures plus the T-5 or 8-10 total fixtures. Of course I would get white!
    5. EcoTech Marine Radion G3/G4 - About the most expensive light you can buy! I haven't seen them in person, but a lot of people seem to like them. They have the same coverageas the Hydras and I would need 4-5 fixtures plus the T-5 or 8-10 total fixtures. The G3's are about half the price as the G4's when you can find them, but the new models are supposed to be exponentially better than the previous. 
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They vary by region. The ones from Fiji have the red/maroon male and the Indian Ocean have a red male with some yellow mixed in. I specifically wanted the maroon male because it's sexually diamorphic and interesting. They're probably in other areas than Fiji, but I don't know them off the top of my head. I'm surprised that you've never seen a male before. Anthias are hermaphrodic sort of like clownfish - the most dominant female turns into a male. 

Indian Ocean Lyretail Anthias

Indian Ocean Lyretail Anthias

Fiji Lyretail Anthias

Lyretail Anthias

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11 hours ago, Derek Weise said:

Nice anthias. I'm a fan of the Ignitus Anthias myself. The Lyretail Anthias is beautiful too.

Honestly I like the Bicolor Anthias the most, but I thought the Lyretail Anthias would make a better display with the different colored male. This is the second time I've tried anthias and both times they came in looking pretty bad. I'd like to get a nice shoal for the big tank, but I might have to make several orders to do it. 

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Sadly, the Lyretail Anthias didn't make it. This is the second time I've tried them since 2000 and neither group lasted the first week. These are the first fish that I've lost in 2018 so I'm thinking it's an exception (I hope anyway). Diver's Den is a little more expensive, but maybe they'll survive after shipment. The good news is that the Convict Tang is doing awesome and I don't anticipate any problems with him! My latest coupon expires at the end of the month and I'm going to try to score my last tang and possibly some more of something. I'll be honest, it doesn't seem like I have 21 fish in the aquarium! I'm thinking of skipping the anthias and making a display of tangs or angelfish to finalize the list. The LA site is down right now, but I'll check back later this weekend. 

I started working on my mixing station, but I need two pumps before I can get to plumbing. It looks like many people are using Mag 9's as the external pump and I'll start there. It has to be strong enough to pump water from the garage, through the attic, and down into the sump. I'm also going to take a look at moving or removing my ATO resevoir in order to add a large refugium into the stand. I'm just not getting the filtration that I need to keep algae from taking over the sand bed and I don't want to add chemical filtration.

 

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First dregs of a CUC going in the reef. I haven't had crabs since 2002 (that didn't sound so awkward in my head) and this tank hasn't had any crew in the two years since I set it up. The LFS only had two but I plan to add about a dozen along with a cucumber and a starfish. I might even get crazy and put in an order with reef cleaners! You just can't beat their prices.
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On 9/29/2018 at 7:04 PM, BobcatReefer said:

Why the cuc aversion?

I've always had mixed feelings about little critters in the tank. When I first started the LFS were toting the 1 crab/1 snail per gallon "rule" and I was spending $100 every two months or so just to watch them die and/or kill each other. I nearly gave up by the end of that first year. Since then my CUC has gotten less and less every year that I've been in the hobby. I purchased five snails, a cucumber, a cleaner shrimp and a conch for the 150 gallon back around 2013-2014. I really couldn't tell a difference aside from the constant molting, leading me to believe that it's a bazooka or nothing kind of approach. It's kind of like going to the doctor for pain medicine after you break your leg. Something happens and we start to see unsightly algae growth, buy a CUC like it's an Aspirin for the aquarium, and hope that the critters fix the pain.  We're addressing the symptoms instead of the cause. 

This aquarium is at a point where the influx of nutrients from feedings has surpassed the filtration that I have. I currently do a 10% water change once a month, have a skimmer, and a small biopellet reactor. I don't fully trust biopellets and increasing the amount of media makes me nervous. There are more tanks ruined with biopellets than amazing ones, so I'm considering removing them entirely. Carbon dosing seems to work for some people, but neither of the methods that I've tried has done much for me. A lot of people run GFO for phosphates and AC for dissolved organic compounds, but I don't want to rely on media too much if I can help it. Media is expensive and you have to change it blindly on a schedule for it to work properly. If you wait until you see phosphates levels increase before replacing GFO, then it's already too late and you could create a bleaching event. I love Euphyllias and they don't typically do well in a low nutrient system. The options left are to do more water changes, aka more work, or add natural filtration: refugium, CUC, algae scrubber, etc. 

The most successful reef that I've ever run incorporated a refugium roughly 20% of the size of the DT into the system and I'm thinking of going back to that method. Mike Paletta has been running a hybrid Leng method with protein skimmer for the last 20 years, but I don't want to deal with Miracle Mud because it looks messy. Maybe the best method for my lifestyle is a sort of hybrid refugium / protein skimmer / calcium reactor system? The baffles in my sump aren't really set up for containing macroalgae and the stand skin has limited the size of sump that I can install. Maybe I should talk to someone about building a custom sump!

 

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LiveAquaria is having a 25% off flash sale today and I decided to use my credit on some goodies! I ordered two Sicce 5800 pumps for the saltwater mixing station at 62.50% off retail! They're overpowered for what I'm going to use them for, but cheaper than it would cost me to buy Mag 9's. You simply can't beat $60 for 1,500 gph and Sicce is a good brand. 

I also decided to go full tilt on the Hawaii theme and finished out my stocking list with some tangs instead of anthias. I'll be expecting a Blonde Naso Tang, Convict Tang and two Yellow Tangs tomorrow! If all goes well with these fish then my reef will be fully stocked at 25. It's a good number to sit at for awhile and still leaves me the option to adopt some captive fish on the classifieds when they pop up. 

Angelfish

  • Emperor Angelfish - Africa (Pomacanthus imperator) - August 2017
  • Regal Angelfish (Pygoplites diacanthus) - July 2018
  • Flame Angelfish (Centropyge loricula)  - July 2018
  • Rusty Angelfish (Centropyge ferrugata) - July 2018
  • Coral Beauty Angelfish (Centropyge bispinosa) - October 2018

Tangs/Rabbitfish

  • One Spot Foxface (Siganus unimaculatus) - May 2016
  • Yellow Tang (Zebrasoma flavescens) - December 2017
  • Yellow Eye Kole Tang (Ctenochaetus strigosus) - December 2017
  • Convict Tang (Acanthurus triostegus) - September 2018
  • Yellow Tang (Zebrasoma flavescens) x2 - Pending
  • Blonde Naso Tang (Naso elegans) - Pending

Wrasses

  • Melanurus Wrasse (Halichoeres melanurus) - May 2016
  • Dusky Wrasse (Halichoeres annularis) - January 2017
  • Red-Lined Wrasse (Halichoeres biocellatus) - March 2017
  • Cleaner Wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus) - March 2018
  • Christmas Wrasse (Halichoeres claudia) - March 2018

Clownfish 

  • Oscellaris Clownfish (Amphiprion ocellaris) x2 - November 2017

Damsels

  • Pink Smith Damselfish (Pomacentrus smithi) x2 - January 2017
  • Azure Damselfish  (Chrysiptera hemicyanea) x2 - February 2017 (selling the one that bites)
  • Springer's Damselfish (Chrysiptera springeri) x2 - April 2017
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WOW! They came in looking great! Very lively and good colors. The sizes were a bit smaller than I had expected on the Yellow Tangs. Definitely no threat to my existing YT and they're so small they might think they're back in the ocean! I've had good luck with tangs so far, let's hope it continues.


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Yellow Tangs and Convict Tangs are everywhere in Hawaii. They move in huge schools, roaming miles of coastlines looking for food. The new Yellow Tangs immediately went to my existing large tang after introduction. The same was true for the Convict Tang. They're just so social that it's probably against their natural instinct to be solitary like we often keep them in an aquarium. I've been keeping both tanks for the last three years and love the sense of nostalgia they bring to the reef. 

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Huh. I was always used the impression that gangs of the same body type couldn’t be together unless introduces at the same time. Not sure where I may have picked that up. I’ve always kept yellow tang and fox face. And of the 2 pair I’ve had of both, they always pair up. I’d love to have more tangs, too. My 3 squirrel fish are kinda mean tho. Even though al the reading I’ve done on them calls them a “peaceful fish”. HA! Not mine. Lol


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Generally speaking, tangs from the same family will fight with conspecifics. Some tangs, like the Powder Blue Tang, live in territories unless they're a mated pair and they often fight anything that wanders into their feeding ground. The territories that they keep in the wild are roughly 9-18' diameter, so our aquariums are much smaller than they would normally use for feeding. That's why Powder Blue, Sohal, and Achilles are the most aggressive tangs. I've personally known people with these tangs for years without trouble and they suddenly flip their lid and kill the other tangs in the tank. Other tangs, like Yellow Tangs and Convict Tangs, live in schools or shoals in the wild and don't have a territory to defend. Below are the families and the members that I can remember. 

Zebrasoma: High dorsal and anal fins - Yellow, Black, Sailfin, Purple, Gem and Scopas Tangs

Acanthurus: These tangs have a rounded face, like a tear drop - Achilles, Powder Blue, Powder Brown, Caribbean Blue, Clown, Sohal, Convict, Orange Shoulder and Chocolate

Paracanthurus: only Regal Tangs, both regular and yellow belly

Naso: These typically look like bullets - Both regular and Blonde Naso, Vlamingii, and Unicorn

Ctenochaetus: All bristletooth tangs like Yellow Eye Kole, Square Tail, White Tail, Tomini and Chevron

I've been using the one-tang-per-family rule since I started doing saltwater back in 2000 and it's always worked for me. Given that your tank is large enough to safely house them, you could choose one tang from each family and they normally get along fine if you add them around the same time. The reason you add them at the same or roughly the same time is because they wouldn't have had a chance to establish a feeding ground and thus limiting food related aggression. It also helps if the largest fish in the tank is a calm species, like Naso. For example, a PBT will show little to no aggression if there's a 12" Naso in the aquarium, but if the PBT is the largest fish then they are more likely to get super aggressive. Lastly, fish are less aggressive in larger aquariums than smaller. Yellow Tangs kept in a 60g can get very aggressive, but that same tang in a 300g would show little to no aggression even with other tangs. I currently have four dwarf angelfish in my reef and they completely ignore each other. At one point I kept 11 Green Chromis is a 150g for two years before my tank crash. I might have gotten lucky, but it's the only time I've tried them so I can't say for sure. 

It's very difficult to add a new tang to a long time established territory, but there are some techniques that work most of the time. Some people use dividers or acclimation boxes, but it's hit and miss with success rates. Timfish recently posted about pairing up aggressive tangs using dividers and has had great success with his method. Another method is too add fish of different sizes. Large fish may ignore a smaller fish because it's not a threat. However, both of these depend a lot on the established fish and their attitude. My large Yellow Tang completely ignored the two much smaller additions even though he's been established over a year. The technique that I believe works the best is to remove the established fish and quarantine them with the new additions. It often "resets" the territory and eliminates aggression, but you are adding a healthy fish to a potentially diseased fish and that could backfire. I've seen people lose their centerpiece tang while the new one survives. It's pretty sad. 

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Thank you for taking the time to explain all of that. I guess the death of my convict tang a couple years ago wasn’t bc of bullying. Just unfortunate death. Please don’t scold me, but I’ve never had a QT tank set up. [emoji31][emoji31]. I know. Playing with fire! But if I were to add a couple small yellow fangs and a convict, I’d pay someone to QT them for me. My dwarf lion (RIP) always kept my old tank in check. I e been trying to find a Fu Manchu, but no luck. Are you going to Ty’s? Been awhile since I’ve seen y’all


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Thank you for taking the time to explain all of that. I guess the death of my convict tang a couple years ago wasn’t bc of bullying. Just unfortunate death. Please don’t scold me, but I’ve never had a QT tank set up. [emoji31][emoji31]. I know. Playing with fire! But if I were to add a couple small yellow fangs and a convict, I’d pay someone to QT them for me. My dwarf lion (RIP) always kept my old tank in check. I e been trying to find a Fu Manchu, but no luck. Are you going to Ty’s? Been awhile since I’ve seen y’all


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I won't tell anyone on you if you don't tell on me! None of my fish were making it out of quarantine so I stopped completely last year. None of the 25 fish in my tank have had any medication. I plan to treat the whole tank with Prazipro next week to make sure they don't have internal parasites.

Any room at the party for fish nerds like me? I'm not a cool kid like y'all.

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I won't tell anyone on you if you don't tell on me! None of my fish were making it out of quarantine so I stopped completely last year. None of the 25 fish in my tank have had any medication. I plan to treat the whole tank with Prazipro next week to make sure they don't have internal parasites.

Any room at the party for fish nerds like me? I'm not a cool kid like y'all.

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Oh no! No Sascha! I thought I told you guys not to tell the fish nerd! [emoji12]

Come on over sir! Bring Holly and the kiddos too!
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17 hours ago, FarmerTy said:

Oh no! No Sascha! I thought I told you guys not to tell the fish nerd! emoji12.png

Come on over sir! Bring Holly and the kiddos too!

Farmer Ty's Fall Bash Jubilee - The place where coral heads and fish nerds come together as family!

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Has anyone heard of SB Reef Lights? I saw them mentioned as viable LED lights along with the Reef Breeders and Vipraspectra. All three brands look like upgraded "black box" fixtures and I wonder what they look like in real life. I would need 3x30" fixtures for full coverage and I would probably keep my 4x54W T-5 bulbs for supplement and to reduce shading. 

sBox Elite 30" (Ramping) sBox Elite 30" (Ramping)

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I owned one of the basic SBReef lights for a while.  I used it for a frag tank.  It seemed to be made well enough.  I tried to contact them for some support (wanted to buy a hanging kit), and they never responded.  Overall it seemed fine, but I did not feel it put out as much PAR as one would expect.  I believe it was a 165 watt box so maybe I was just expecting too much from it.

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