Johnny Reefer's FOWLR

[goby1]

Hey Johnny,

I went FOWLR when I started my tank 2 years ago though I went a lot smaller, 46 g. I run a Remora C skimmer (that I have had a love/hate relationship with over the years) and I have 50 lbs of live rock. I ran a filstar canister filter on it for the first year and a half until it leaked and I disconnected it. I did order the part I needed but I never did get around to connecting it up again. I don't have the messy eaters you have (2 clowns, a royal gamma, a bi-colour angel, keyhole angel, goby) but man I have to say I love running that tank without that canister. I routinely do a 10% water change every two weeks and at first there was a bit of brown stuff on the glass (cyno I guess) but after the initial adjustment, the tank is way easier to maintain. My nitrates are down, the sandbed is white and the tank well, looks as good as it ever has - even better. I do have a good clean up crew that includes 2 shrimp, a sandsifting starfish and various crabs/snails that you may be can't have with your fish.

As a note, I did clean out the filter every two weeks. I would empty, rinse the foam pads and clean it out every time I did a water change. It grew to be a real PITA and I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that I don't have to hook it up again.

[Chaloupa]

Hey Mark! Your tank is looking/looks really nice! We are in the process of setting up our FOWLR 120 and was looking through your thread for ideas on stocking it....LOVE your trigger selections especially the Pink Tail. I think that's what we are going to get and your pics confirmed it.

[Johnny Reefer]

Well it's been two months since my last post so I thought it's time for an update.

Sarah: Thanx for the good words. I think you'll be happy with a Pinktail. I know I am. It's my fave. The Clown and the Humuhumu are the toughest in the tank and they exhibit some interesting behaviour toward each other at times, particularly at feeding time. A little agressive, competitive rough housing, but nothing serious.

Goby1: Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to the website know as CanReef, my friend. Ah yes....nitrates. A problem, yes, but I think I have that at acceptable levels in my tank. More below.

So....the Green Brittle Stars....uh, not a good idea with Triggerfish. At least not Clown and/or Humuhumu Triggers. The legs on both were pretty much devoured. I put them in the sump of my Reeftank, but as they had no legs they couldn't move around to get food. Lesson learned.

Nitrates. To help with this problem I bought and hooked up a Rena XP3 solely for the purpose of using Kent Nitrate Sponge and filled this filter with said product. It worked. Got the nitrates down from 50mg/l (and climbing) to 20mg/l. Stiil high, I know, but better than 50.

Cyano: That got real bad in late May so I did a Chemi-Clean routine on the tank. It worked, .....but it looks like it's coming back.

Anyhoo, maybe I'll pull the camera out again in a day or two and post another pic. (Although it kinda looks the same, really).

(Typing like mad right now to beat the time-out!)

Cheers,

[reeferaddict]

Heya Mark...

50 mg/l Nitrate = Cyano...

I gotta get down and see it someday!

[Johnny Reefer]

Originally Posted by Ruth

Looking good so far - nice coralline growth on you rocks. What fish are you planning to stock?

Well, I have the three Triggers in there already...

I'd also like to get two large Angels...there is a nice Personifer (Chaetodontoplus personifer) at my LFS that I would like to get if it is still available in January...undecided on a second Angel species.

Thinkin' of a Tang for Algae control...maybe a Purple Tang.

And a Ladder Glider Goby (Valenciennea sexguttata) to keep the substrate sifted.

I would also dearly love to get a Butterfly of some kind. We'll see about that one!

Cheers,

[Johnny Reefer]

Day Ten-Tuesday December 6:

Temp: 81.0F
SG 1.025
pH 8.0
NO2 0.1
NO3 5
NH3 0.1

Cheers,

[Johnny Reefer]

Day 13-Friday December 9:

Female Blue Chin and Clown Triggers have Marine Ich.
Introduced a Cleaner Wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus) to aid in eradication of Cryptocaryon from female Blue Chin and Clown Triggers.
Cleaner begins cleaning Triggers within 1 hour of introduction.

Also begin lowering SG for hyposalinity treatment. SG measures 1.024. Intend to lower .002/day to 1.015. Intend to maintain 1.015 for one week.

Day 14-Saturday December 10:

AM SG reading: 1.0225.
Remove another 10 gallons and replace with FW.

Other readings this day:
Temp: 81.1F
pH: 8.0
NO2: 0.1
NO3: 5
NH3: 0.1
Alk: 5.04 ( will get this up tomorrow).

Male Blue Chin came out for PM feeding and decided to stick around for after dinner mints. Looks healthy.

Brown diatom algae beginning to set in.

[ree-fready]

3 weeks, no update on ick problem.

[Skimmerking]

Mark the tank looks great

[Johnny Reefer]

Thanx Mike.

Originally Posted by ree-fready

3 weeks, no update on ick problem.

Sorry. Yes, it has been awhile.
I have two excuses. HaHa.
I've been workin' 12 hour shifts, daily, since Dec 14th. Doesn't leave much time for CanReef.
Also, I tried makin' a post onto this thread on Dec. 11th. This was right after the CanReef new software was installed. The post didn't take. As if the thread was locked, or something. I queried about it but the answer didn't make sense. Something about "Display Options" at the "bottom of the page". Couldn't find "Display Options" at the bottom of the page so I'm not sure what I was missing. Didn't have time to bounce posts back and forth about it so I pretty much just walked away from it, figurin' "Well, there goes that thread".
Anyhoo, thanx much for bringin' it back to life!

Update? Sure! Good news and bad.
Good: The ick appears gone, although I can't be 100% certain because the Cleaner Wrasse continues to peck at the female Blue Chin and the Clown Triggers. Looks to me like the Cleaner and the hypo-salinity has done the trick, though. All three of those fish are doin' very well. I just recently started to slowly bring the salinity back up. Today it was 1.017. Aiming for 1.022.
Bad:The male Blue Chin died. i just removed him tonight, actually. I don't know what it was but I don't think it was ick. I never saw any spots on him, when I did see him, which was pretty rare. In hindsight I should never have bought that fish in the first place. I had an unsettling feeling about him at the store, actually. He and the female were in the same tank, but the male seemed to be hiding all the time, while the female was always out and about. But I bought it anyway 'cause I wanted a male and a female together. When I had it in my tank I saw the male all of two times, when it came out to feed on some mysis. The rest of the time, the whole rest of the time, all four weeks, it just hid in amongst the LR.
Live and learn. I'll never buy another fish unless it is showing obvious signs of healthy, robust activity.

Otherwise, the brown algae is still present and has not started to recede yet. There is a scant amount of green algae. Very scant. I have been running the lights for six hours daily (3:30-9:30) for the last three weeks. I'll begin to increase the lighting when I am off work on Jan 11th.

More updates to follow and thanx again for opening this thread up again.
It lives!, but not the male Blue Chin, unfortunately.

Cheers,

PS I just had to get rid of three smilies from this post. Somethin' else to figure out. I wonder if that is in Display Options? Haha. (Limited out on smilies).

Cheers,