I was just going to say ... I'm pretty sure that's a false cleaner wrasse (not a real cleaner). The cincher is that you said he's eating prepared foods ...

A real cleaner wrasse won't leave bite marks.

Some more reading.. http://www.wetwebmedia.com/labroiidfaqs.htm
http://www.uog.edu/marinelab/fish/sp...taeniatus.html

Not sure what to suggest. The last page there says most fish will learn to stay away from them but I imagine that's in the context of the wild, not a captive aquarium. I think you may want to get him out of there, for the sake of your other fish. :(

Sorry and good luck!!! (Or should I say "Happy hunting"?)

It's not a Fang Blennie. It's taken me quite a while to find a decent photo of a Fang Blennie in order to see the underslung mouth. (assuming that is the ONLY distinguishing feature...and that's debatable)

My "Wrasse" does not have the distinct underslung mouth of a Fang Blennie. I'll see if I can get a better photo. Meanwhile, I'll continue to watch him closely.

I guess I mistook his nostril for a bite mark. :redface: I didn't know if cleaner wrasses would leave marks at all on other fish.

Well, hopefully you have one of the good guys after all. I'm still sort of shocked to hear of one that eats prepared foods, but maybe you have the 1 in 100, sort of thing.

Ha..ha..yes, I would be much more concerned if those were bite marks! That made me laugh...thanks. The Naso is the only fish with visible marks. The others get cleaned, but the nibbles just don't show like they do on Moe's perfect grey complexion.

The wrasse attemps to eat anything that seems small enough to get into his mouth. A small pellet is too large for him...but he'll work at them for quite a while. Mostly, I feed a chopped up mess of squid, clam, octopus, and shrimp. There's always lots of really small bits for him to eat.

Just a thought .. NLS makes a pellet called "Grow" (or something like that). It's a really small pellet intended for fish fry. I feed it to my FW tank because I have a number of really small fish in there. I wonder if it would be an appropriate sized pellet?

my first thought was a false cleaner wrasse as well, but they actually take big noticeable hunks of meat out of a fish, not the little nips you see on Moe. That's the big distinguishing feature of the lovely false cleaners. If it were me, I would give your wrasse a few weeks just to settle out, and see what happens. While keeping a close eye on him and how the other fish do with his "cleaning" of course. The ones that accept frozen are rarities and not a fish i would relinquish easily myself.

hope the white face gets a break and asserts itself. definitely a good lookin fish.

man. every time i see those gorgs...

My cleaner wrasse "problem" has taken care of itself. The cleaner wrassed died this morning. I'm not having much luck with wrasses. I beginning to think that my sand is not to their liking. It would not surprise me a bit if there is something about my sand that kills wrasses in the night.

I sort of feel bad, because he was eating and I was starting to NOT dislike him so much....but, that's how it goes.

harsh. sorry to hear that. Why were you not minding quite as much? did it's picking at the other fish slow down?

unless Im remembering incorrectly, I believe your sand bed was crushed coral or at least mostly right? and not very deep either? A sand sleeping wrasse really needs a finer substrate like oolitic aragonite and some depth to the bed never hurts either. CC is just too coarse. I think that might be the problem. Is the cleaner wrasse one that dives in the sand when it sleeps or hides?

for example when I had my red coris wrasse, it dive bombed into the sand with some real force. If my sand wasnt oolitic aragonite, Im certain injury would have been inevitable.

It might also just be the kinds of wrasses you get. I know some cleaner wrasses that accept frozen foods (which are rare to begin with) die anyways since they lack the right nutrition that can only be had from parasites. The other wrasse that died was a leopard wrasse right? those guys dont have a very good track record either, so I wouldnt rule these fish out of your system due to luck quite yet.

I don't know if the cleaner wrasse was trying to sleep in the sand bed or not. I assumed that he was because other wrasses do. Yes, my sand bed is fairly coarse. It is possible that they injure themselves trying to bury. Hard to say.

The presence of the cleaner changed the fish behaviour a lot...and not only to my liking. The cleaning was interesting, but in order the get away from the cleaner the fish would dart suddenly away sometimes running into the tank walls.

That, combined with the little peck marks on the Naso....I don't think I'll miss him much.

wow untamed...this stuff is all sooo impressive!!

i just spent my whole afternoon (minus 1 hour) reading from the beginning. i have no clue how i never saw this thread, but i feel like i gained experience just from reading it!!

even my gf sat with me for a solid hour looking at stuff. i told her that you built my dream room, but that she should worry as im not good enough at building things to build it.lol

great stuff!! cant wait to continue reading/spying on the tank's progress.

thanks for the experience!

Did you ever confirm if these were mantis fry?

I was at an LFS today and saw something similar on some gorgonians. A bit smaller than yours though, these were barely a couple mm in size. In fact they were easy to mistake as just "general fuzz" caught on the gorgonian polyps but they were definitely alive.

i had forgotten about that post. well i know what it is now; that's a caprellid (skeleton shrimp). cool and harmless critters. they use their hind legs to clamp on to any sort of substrate like algae or gorgonian in which they can camouflage (obviously) and let the rest of their body drift in the current and wait for unsuspecting plankton to pass by. Do you know if you still have any Brad?

here's a close up of one...
http://forum.mikroscopia.com/uploads...1156918102.jpg

That's definitely what I saw today. Very cool! Hummm, I might go back and buy a gorgonian now :lol:

These shrimp did not survive. As far as I know, I no longer have them in the tank. Thanks for the id!

I had those shrimp in my old seahorse tank as well. They also did disappear after a while. Not sure if they were eaten by the tank inhabitants or died off.

Three fish that are doing well.
 

First...someone please confirm for me that this little guy is a Vlamingi Tang. He has settled in nicely among all the larger fish and is eating well. Little do the other fish know who will be king in a few years!
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0287.jpg

Next...This Foxface Rabbitfish is also doing well. Like the Yellow Tang, I suppose every tank needs to have one of these...so I finally relented.
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0289.jpg

Finally...another shot of Moe. Just because "she" likes to pose for me.
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0292.jpg

An update on the White Cheek Tang. Inexplicably, he is now good buddies with the Achillies Tang. It seems that the rule in fishdom is "If I don't kill you, you get to be my friend". This means he is now free to roam the tank and eat with the others, so he is also going to be fine.

That looks like a Vlamingi to me. They seem to be very common in stores these days.

I can only hope that people realize what they are buying. I did, but I believe that I have a tank suitable for a fish of that size.

They sure are in for a suprise when it becomes a 2ft poo machine.

Majestic Angel
 

I've always wanted one of these. So far, he's taken a bit of abuse from the Achillies Tang and the Bicolour Angel. I've seen worse though, so I hope he'll make it.
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0293.jpg

Pretty!! :cool:

Top down photography
 

Playing around with my "top down" photography. Here's a nice sample or two.
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0309.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0307.jpg

(OK...it's just a cheap bump to see if I can hit 70,000 views...)

That can't really be that far away.. Wow.

Great looking carpet BTW. Makes me miss my old haddoni (looked just like it - sweet green - had to sell it because it was just got too big. I don't imagine you'll be running into that problem though. :) )

The colours are looking great. Tank is looking really healthy.

at least 100 views are me :) I love your rock so much!

love the TBS site too :P

I love it!! great idea for when i buy a house!! your tank rocks:biggrin:

Hi Brad

That is one fine Majestic Angel. As you are well aware it is my favorite angel.
Good luck I hope he works out well for you.

Tom R

Ouch!
 

One of my two urchins bulldozed a recent frag off it's mount today, so I was arm-in-tank trying to remount the frag.

The urchin was kind of in the way so I was gently nudging him to "move along...move along". They are quite reactive to touch, btw...if you touch any spine, it will quickly orient additional spines your way.

Anyway...so I'm pushing him along and thinking to myself.."these spines aren't really that sharp..." Oh Yeah?...ZAP!!!

I don't know if they actually contain some sort of venom or something gets injected or not...but let me tell you that you do NOT want to step on a black spiny sea urchin. I was losing a lot of blood and it hurt quite a bit. I would compare it to a wasp sting....except for the bleeding part.

5 minutes later...pain free and you can hardly even see where he got me.

Here is the offender...
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0306.jpg

your coral colors are amazing ! (hope this help get you to 70,000 too!) but your tank is stunning...very nice! I see why so many people have looked at it!

i do to:)

Urchin Activity
 

I think my sea urchin is lonely...from time to time he climbs up to the highest spot he can get to and thinks about lady urchins...

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...h_000_0313.jpg

That's a beautiful tank you have there mate. I've been following your progress for a while and I'm enjoying your thread alot.

So you played with and lost with the urchin :lol: I've been there and done that too!

tank
 

I have gone through your journal twice now, the wife thinks I am a hermit in my den as I have been looking at your tanks progress..Amazing, I am planning a large tank in a few years when I retire, for now I will plug along with my current set-ups.. I gotta ask and believe me I am not trying to be rude, Have you kept a journal of your costs from start to now? I would love to get an idea of what this set-up is worth. I can only imagine. Where did you compile all your designs from for your equipment. All your design or did you get some inspiration from other sources. How is your sea-hare working out? I have a small one in my tank and he is fantastic. Whatever hair algae I had is gone or so small I can't see it. Have you run into anymore issue with your set-up? So many questions I would love to ask you..Maybe there will be a tour and I will get the priviledge of seeing your tank close-up. Once again, "Stunning Tank" :smilecol:

Thanks. As you are close by, I'm sure you'll be seeing the tank soon enough. We're working on a club activity that I'll probably host so you'll have a couple of reasons to drop in.

For the most part, I kept most of my bills. Partly for warranty purposes, and partly because I might someday want to add it all up. I honestly do not know what the actual total is. I'm quite pleased that people tend to think I spent more than I actually did. There's plenty of opportunity to spend a LOT more on the lights, skimmers, sumps etc (can you say Deltec?). If you are really curious, just estimate based on what you see...

I still have one, very large, sea hare. I'm a bit worried about him as there is little/no hair algae left. It is interesting that the sea hare spends most of his nocturnal activities on the sand bed. There is hair algae to be found in some other areas, but that isn't where he spends his time.

Design? That came from hours and hours of browsing other build threads, mostly on Reef Central. I also had nearly a year of time to think about the plan before I actually began to build it. You should have seen some of the earlier plans! Most were larger.

Cool Worms

Still have these guys from your old tank?

That's Max...I miss him. As he could not possibly be removed from the rock, he went along with his rock when I sold that tank. I hope he is doing well.

I have spotted many, many Eunicid worms in the new rock/tank, but none as spectacular or large as Max was.

If you have ever looked at the webcam, then you know that my Blue Throat Trigger (Zues) paces endlessly across the front of the tank.

His pacing has completely scratched the lower 6" of the front acrylic panel. It has only been maybe 9 months...what will it look like in 10 years???!! I had the opportunity to give him a little back scratch recently, and I call tell you that these fish feel like they are made of steel plates.

I can't really recommend Blue Throat Triggers to anyone. They may be reef safe, but I think they need an EXTREMELY large tank. He is among the largest Blue Throat that I've seen and it seems that when they get to his size, they just don't like captivity. He clearly likes to swim..fast..constantly.

I still don't regret using acrylic for the tank. At the time I made the decision, I had no idea that the fish themselves are the cause of most all of the scratches in acrylic tanks.

Not enough photos...
 

I've been running carbon in a phosban reactor for some time, but I started to realize that the water had taken on a very yellowish hue. (it sneaks up on you!) I decided to double the amount of carbon I've been using. After shopping for a larger fluidized reactor, I finally decided that multiple phosbans were just easier to deal with than one huge reactor.

So...here's my collection of phosban reactors. The two on the right are running carbon and the one on the left is running Rowaphos. The addition of the 2nd carbon has made a big difference in the water colour. That's about 500ml of carbon running in two reactors. The reactors are supplied with a MJ1200 in the sump. They are NOT plumbed in sequence.
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0316.jpg

Vlamingi Tang
 

I managed to get a better shot of the Vlamingi Tang today. This one is with flash and it lights up his spots nicely. Chris calls him "Freckles", but I'm not so sure that he is going to retain these spots as he grows...and he is growing very quickly!
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0317.jpg

Love the Vlamingi....beautiful fish. And the gorgonians.