200g display / 400g system build

[benny z]

sadly, not a good update.

the achilles went for a long time with minimal spots. it was eating and everything was going relatively well. then, literally overnight, it became covered in the ich and was dead the next morning. that same day i also lost my picasso clowns, cleaner wrasse, and tomini tang. ...so in 24 hours i lost 5 fish.

i have now captured the remaining two fish - the purple tang and rabbitfish - and have moved them into a dedicated qt tank where they are undergoing hypo treatment. the display will remain fallow for a period of 8 weeks. i did pick up a nice sohal which i added to the qt setup on friday. the sohal was my next choice acanthurus family tang after the achilles. since i'm not inclined to try another achilles i will settle for the sohal...still a beautiful fish!

in the meantime, i am concentrating on collecting corals. the tank is starting to look like a frag tank!

some bad pictures... here is how the achilles was looking for a long time. he was a fighter.



overnight it turned to this:

[/quote]

[crvz]

cripes, sorry to hear about that. hopefully you'll the regimen will be successful and you won't have to bother with the parasite down the road. good luck with the new sohal!

[Dragonist]

wow that sucks...sorry to hear about the tang. Lost my favorite fish and first fish a sgt. MAjor damsel(tiger striped 1) got ich when switching to my 55g me and wife were sad!

[aquawolf]

Wow, I am very sorry to hear about your losses. The hypo treatment should definitely do the trick to get rid of it and hopefully you won't have these problems again.

[Dragonist]

any updates?

[benny z]

sadly, everything died and i took the system down.

just kidding!

i added two more fish to the qt system, a sohal tang (to replace the achilles) and a tomini tang (to replace the one that died). the qt of those fish is finished and all four fish safely acclimated back up to 1.026 over the course of a week, and have been reintroduced back to the display. i also picked up another ora picasso clown pair and have added them to the display as well. everyone has now been in the display for 2 weeks and all seems to be going well. ...though the sohal tang is a brute! sure did a number on the tomini tang...all fins torn to shreds and slashes on the body, but that was just at first and things seem to have settled down.

otherwise, i have still been focusing on obtaining extremely colorful sps and lps to eventually fill in the tank. i've placed most of the frags on the shelves built into the rock structures for now - once i mount them to their final location i will take some pictures.

cheers!
- ben

[aquawolf]

Glad to hear things turned out well for you.

It is a good thing I read the full posting because at first I was like "no way!, what could have possibly gone that wrong".

[benny z]

quick vid showing some new anthias additions.

in total i added 13... 5 bartlett, 4 dispar, and 4 evansi.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQh7vytT3fQ

be sure to hit the "HQ" button!

[crvz]

I know you were showing off the anthias, but I love the sohal in that video. I could see how you "settled" for that after the achilles debacle.

[benny z]

yes, thanks, it is a beautiful fish.

unfortunately, it is also an extremely territorial fish. when i first dump the food in you get a brief glimpse of the purple tang and rabbitfish, but they immediately disappear. that's because the sohal won't let them come to that side of the tank at all. if they do, they get a serious beat-down. the other two tangs and rabbitfish are confined to the other 1/2 of the tank, which is really pretty sad. for this reason i will be ditching the sohal as soon as i can find someone local to take him. i've got it listed for sale on our local club's forum.

i've got a spotted cheek tang (acanthurus maculiceps) waiting in the wings - as soon as the sohal's gone it will be going in. hopefully it will get along with the others better.

[crvz]

A man after my own heart... I would get a maculiceps if not for the achilles I currently house. Probably on the next build. I noticed diver's den has a juvenile (or did, yesterday). Wonderful fish, do you have any pictures of it?

[benny z]

no, no pictures yet. in fact, i have not yet even seen it. i asked morgan lidster at inland aquatics to find one for me. he did and is holding it. it's been there two weeks now in one of their 500g holding tanks. he's going to move it to a smaller tank next week so he can take some pictures to send me.

[aquawolf]

Very nice video and it does look like the Sohal rules the roost.

[benny z]

here are some more videos, this time from the front side.

crvz - this one show's the sohal's typical behaviour. note that in both of these videos neither tang or rabbitfish go past the center tower.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzrMwawT2rI

this one shows all of the types of fish in the tank...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLmb2cdcVBI

be sure to click the "hq" button on both!

current fish stock list:

5 x bartlett anthias
4 x dispar anthias
4 x evansi anthias
2 x picasso clowns (percula)
scribbled rabbitfish
purple tang
sohal tang
tomini tang

[benny z]

here are some updated pictures.

a while back i had a mini catastrophe where my temp probe came out of the water, thus not triggering cooling devices and not killing the lights at 84.5*. the temperature the following day around lunchtime when i realized what had happened was still 86-something...after having all evening and morning to cool down, i can only wonder what it went up to before lights off the prior evening. i lost some corals, and some other corals took a big hit, losing heads and/or color.

things seem to be getting back to normal. however i have been wanting to try something different with the lighting for some time, as i feel my colors have been rather dull - especially anything with a red hue to it...reds, oranges, pinks, and purples. the phoenix bulbs on my hqi ballasts make the blues and greens look great, but everything else is just kind of washed out.

these will be the last pictures of the tank with these bulbs, so i took them for a record.









also, the fish stock list has changed since the last update.

here's the new list:

4 purple tangs
1 tomini tang
1 scribbled rabbitfish
2 picasso clowns
3 bartlett anthias
2 dispar anthias
1 evansi anthias
1 midas blenny
1 radiant wrasse
1 yellow/canary wrasse
1 melanurus wrasse
1 christmas/ornate wrasse