400 gallon project

mseepman · #1 09-15-2007, 02:27 AM

Bump
Haven't seen much on the new tank lately. How are things progressing?

untamed · #2 09-19-2007, 05:33 AM

Woke up this morning to find the Leopard wrasse in serious trouble. On his side, breathing heavily. He only lasted about 2 hours before he died.

One of those things, I suppose. All the other fish seem quite healthy and happy. He was completely fine when the lights went off the night before.

He is the first fish to die in the new tank...and it wasn't the one that I expected. I have a Pacific Blue Tang that came in a couple of days ago as a gift. He looks terrible and hasn't eaten since his arrival. I've done everything I can, but I'm positive that he isn't going to make it.

The Pacific Blue is the 2nd fish to arrive in the tank looking like skin covering bones. Both came from the best shop in town, but there really should be a "If you think you can save it...discount". The other skinny fish is going to survive and once she fills out a bit, I'll announce her on this site with her own photo.

Tom R · #3 09-19-2007, 03:44 PM

Hi Brad

It is amazing just how fragile the life forms from the worlds oceans are. They do not give you much of a chance to save their lives. They are here today gone tomorrow. A coral can RTN from top to bottom in 12 hours while the coral next to it is as happy as the days it stood in waters of Fiji.

Tom R

untamed · #4 09-25-2007, 11:19 PM

Today, I lost my 2nd fish. It was the small goby that hitchiked in with the live rock. He was always an extremely fat, healthy fish. Today, he just didn't report for dinner.

No body has been found yet, and likely never will.

I never did get a good picture of him. It seemed like there was always tomorrow...sigh.

Mik_101 · #5 09-26-2007, 12:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by untamed

Today, I lost my 2nd fish. It was the small goby that hitchiked in with the live rock. He was always an extremely fat, healthy fish. Today, he just didn't report for dinner.

No body has been found yet, and likely never will.

I never did get a good picture of him. It seemed like there was always tomorrow...sigh.

Same thing with my fire goby(except he wasn't a hitchhiker) no body, didn't come to eat, not out side the tank nor in the sump. Mind you gobies can go missing for months on end and then eventually come out.

untamed · #6 10-03-2007, 01:50 AM

Time to introduce the world to another fish. I've actually had her for about a month, but she was in such poor shape when I purchased her that I wasn't sure she would make it. Fortunately, she was interested in food. I had to hand feed her for the first week that she spent mostly laying on the bottom of the tank.

This is the wife of Zues...so naturally her name is Hera.

She is a bit smaller than Zues. So far, he has paid little attention to her.

You know...the fish shop should sell fish at a deep discount once they hit a certain stage. A sort of "if you can save it" special price. I'm quite pleased that I saved this one.

You can still see that she is a bit thin looking (you can see how sculpted out she looks on her back and cheeks). But she is getting at least 1/2 of all the food that goes in the tank now, so I'm sure she'll fill in. Between the two triggers, feeding time is becoming a bit like a shark feeding frenzy....you don't go putting your fingers in there .

untamed · #7 10-03-2007, 01:59 AM

This isn't the first reef I've ever run, but it is proving to be different than my previous effort.

When I planned this, I attempted to just do everything as I had always done...just bigger. This has now proven not to work. The reason - bigger fish. In particular...Tangs.

My previous tank was much too small to house any Tangs. I grew lovely macro algae and harvested it as necessary to maintain balance. I like the look of macro algae in the display and figured I would do the same thing in the larger tank.

Moe (the Naso Tang) ate all the macro algae.

One of the golden rules of aquarium keeping is "Algae will grow". It's either nice algae that you like or nasty algae that you don't like. Since all the nice algae was being eaten, the hair algae took over.

Attempting to keep control of hair algae by weeding it from a 400 gallon tank is well...impossible.