KrazyKuch's & Michika's 180Gal Tank Build

[michika]

I think you are right about the mille. It does look a lot like a poci. I'm hoping it will start to regain some of its colouring in the next week.

Have you ever kept Purple Anthias aka P. Tuka? I saw a very nice looking harem at the store and am on the fence about them after having done research on them this afternoon.

[Delphinus]

Me? No, sorry, I've always been shy of trying anthias due to the constant feeding requirements. I figure if you could train them onto dried foods that you could use an autofeeder that dumps in pellets or whatever several times per day. I wish there was an easy way to autofeed mysis. LOL - a public aquarium could do it ... with a product called a "summer student" or "co-op intern."

[michika]

Hahaha, yeah good products those Summer Students and Co-op interns!

Since I'm home all the time, the longest the house is ever empty is maybe 3 or 4 hours, its something I could do. I should have asked Kevin to specify what they were eating. I can't even express how sharp their colours were, if I had to compare they were as colourful as some of Greg's, Snappy's, SPS!

I think I've figured out how to keep my nitrates down now. The big thing was to stop feeding commercial frozen foods. It seemed to help quite a bit with both phosphates and nitrates. I don't feed a lot of pellet foods either, just lots of nori, and my homemade frozen food. Like everything though its different from tank to tank.

How big of a spread in nitrate levels do you get between your zeo system and your other tanks?

[Red Coral Aquariums]

Catherine.
Wow nice photos. It was great seeing you today and thanks for dropping off some fish food. Your medley gets most of the finicky eaters I get in to eat like champs. The Purple Anthias eat brine right now as I havn't had the chance to train them into mysis or flake or your food. The key is to get fish to eat something then you can train them to eat nearly anything by mixing it with food they eat.
Kevin

[michika]

They are definitely a harem I am considering. 16 fish is a nice number for a harem. They would probably be the last fish I add, save for a few clean up crew members. I am debating QTing them for another month or so to get them onto additional foods. How often are you feeding them now?

[Red Coral Aquariums]

Right now I am feeding at least once a day somedays twice. I wish I could be more regular but they are looking and doing very well. I would like to train them to eat flake and then autofeed them. HMMM 6 more arms would be nice.
Kevin

[michika]

More photos;

Photos of the other two clams, the middle one and the one on the right are new. Fish, like usual are in the way.







In preparation for the RKE (which is STILL in customs), Kevin cleaned up the control center, and made space for it, and the nitrate monitor.
Before:

After:


Attempts to get the white balance right;






This is the closet to the actual colour


More nice measurements from yesterday


Remember those two bad acro crabs I took out of my colonies? Well they went into the pop bottle prison with another much larger acro crab that I caught in the move from the 28g to this system. The big crab actually ate the little ones, there are little crab pieces in the prison.


The last colony not pictured yesterday, the worm got on it, I'll be moving the colony.