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Joel's 175 Gallon Re-build
- Thread starter jkapit
- Start date
It's been a bit over a month so figure it's time for an update.
The multi-tang experiment has not been a complete disaster but could be going a bit better.
In June I acquired two yellow tangs and a purple tang along with a Swallowtail Angel who has become one of my favorite fishes. These were to be added to my display tank that already has a PBT.
The purple in QT was very nervous and not appreciative of having the other tangs in the same tank. A bit of conflict but nothing too aggressive. The two yellow tangs were very happy swimming together. But for some reason, one morning about a week or two into QT I found one dead. He did not have a scratch on him, was eating well but on arrival he was so thin you could literally see the stomach area and skeleton so maybe it had medical issues and was not killed by the other tangs.
Fast forward now, all the fish are in the DT. The PBT went berserk the fist day, not on the tangs but on the Swallowtail. I thought that was not going to end weal based on how aggressive he was so I put a mirror up on one side of the tank. That helped distract the PBT and after the 2nd day they are now totally fine together. The PBT has no issues with the Swallowtail at all.
The purple and yellow tang seem to not mind each other, but the PBT seems to start to chase the Purple Tang around the tank which is not a good sign. I put the mirror back up and now the PBT is so pre-occupied with his reflection he leaves the Purple tang alone at least for now.
My plan is to leave the mirror up for another week then see if the PBT calms down.
Here is a link to the tank as it is stocked today....I think I am about done stocking fish and will turn my attention to acquiring some corals in the next few weeks.
One thing I did notice is that the yellow and purple tangs have some fin rot/recession. I've done some reading on it and feeding some kanamycin based food to try to treat it. Hopefully their fins grow back. I'd like to be done with all antibiotic feedings before I start to put corals in the DT.
Any suggestions dealing with fin recession would be appreciated.
The multi-tang experiment has not been a complete disaster but could be going a bit better.
In June I acquired two yellow tangs and a purple tang along with a Swallowtail Angel who has become one of my favorite fishes. These were to be added to my display tank that already has a PBT.
The purple in QT was very nervous and not appreciative of having the other tangs in the same tank. A bit of conflict but nothing too aggressive. The two yellow tangs were very happy swimming together. But for some reason, one morning about a week or two into QT I found one dead. He did not have a scratch on him, was eating well but on arrival he was so thin you could literally see the stomach area and skeleton so maybe it had medical issues and was not killed by the other tangs.
Fast forward now, all the fish are in the DT. The PBT went berserk the fist day, not on the tangs but on the Swallowtail. I thought that was not going to end weal based on how aggressive he was so I put a mirror up on one side of the tank. That helped distract the PBT and after the 2nd day they are now totally fine together. The PBT has no issues with the Swallowtail at all.
The purple and yellow tang seem to not mind each other, but the PBT seems to start to chase the Purple Tang around the tank which is not a good sign. I put the mirror back up and now the PBT is so pre-occupied with his reflection he leaves the Purple tang alone at least for now.
My plan is to leave the mirror up for another week then see if the PBT calms down.
Here is a link to the tank as it is stocked today....I think I am about done stocking fish and will turn my attention to acquiring some corals in the next few weeks.
One thing I did notice is that the yellow and purple tangs have some fin rot/recession. I've done some reading on it and feeding some kanamycin based food to try to treat it. Hopefully their fins grow back. I'd like to be done with all antibiotic feedings before I start to put corals in the DT.
Any suggestions dealing with fin recession would be appreciated.
Well at this point I can say the Tang experiment has worked, All three tangs seem unstressed and enjoying life in the tank together. The use of the mirror for a week really helped distract the PBT and he has settled down.
I still have some fin recession on both the yellow and purple which does not seem to be getting better. I am feeding them Flake food with kanamycin and another flake food with tertrcyclin. One treats gram negative and the other gram positive bacterial infections.
I am also making sure they get a lot of food and Nori which I've read will help a tang reverse this condition.
I still have some fin recession on both the yellow and purple which does not seem to be getting better. I am feeding them Flake food with kanamycin and another flake food with tertrcyclin. One treats gram negative and the other gram positive bacterial infections.
I am also making sure they get a lot of food and Nori which I've read will help a tang reverse this condition.
Appears to me from bacteria.
Ok. it is finally time to start to stock my QT tank with some Corals. Picked up 4 frags this weekend and so far so good. I am glad I am going the QT route since one Coral had a tiny aptaisia on it and I zapped it today.
One thing I found interesting is I have PC lights on my QT tank, the corals in the store were under LED and basically they look totally different, The Hammer and Zooanthids were orange, and the mushrooms was yellow. You can see under my lights the hammer is green, Zooanthid is brown, and mushroom is green.
I dipped them and will observe them for about a month. I also will wait until I see some growth then move to the DT.
Here are some pics...
One thing I found interesting is I have PC lights on my QT tank, the corals in the store were under LED and basically they look totally different, The Hammer and Zooanthids were orange, and the mushrooms was yellow. You can see under my lights the hammer is green, Zooanthid is brown, and mushroom is green.
I dipped them and will observe them for about a month. I also will wait until I see some growth then move to the DT.
Here are some pics...
For the QT I run the 50/50 actinic/10k power compact. 65watts each. The DT has 3 250watt 20k bulbs. For dusk/dawn I have two 180 Watt actinic. I like the look of the bluer bulbs, but not sure if the corals will like them but will find out pretty soon.
ok, another tank update. So far so good. I've been feeding the fish medicated food for the past month. Twice a day with Gram positive food, and twice with gram negative food and the Tang fin recession is recovering very nicely. All that needs to finish growing back is the Yellow top rear dorsal fin. Now that I see how much of the fins have grown back, the yellow tang had a lot of fin rot before I received it. The fish food really seemed to do the trick and was inexpensive, $8 per 8 oz bag and all the fish really like it. It's from Angelsplus.com if you are interested..
Now an update on my first batch of Corals I purchased from ACC. I had them in QT for about two weeks, killed some aptaisia off of the zoanthid and decided to put them into the DT since they did not look all that happy in the QT. My QT is probably not well suited for corals, but at least I got to observe them and found a pest before they went into the DT.
Now that they are in the DT, they seem to be doing very well. I can see growth on the montipora, the mushrooms are fully extended as well as the zoanthids and hammer.
One thing I am doing is dosing nitrates to keep my Nitrates from dropping to zero. I have an oversized skimmer and I had trouble keeping corals before I tore down my tank for the rebuild. After doing a lot of reading, I concluded the corals need some nitrate in order to live so I dose 8ml a day of potassium nitrate solution. I teaspoon per gallon and it seems to be keeping the nitrates at about two. ONce I did that my Chaeto growth improved and phosphates dropped to 1 ppb. Probably too low on the phosphates now but that should rise over time and will not change the GFO out until it rises.
here are some pice and a video link....
Now that they are in the DT, they seem to be doing very well. I can see growth on the montipora, the mushrooms are fully extended as well as the zoanthids and hammer.
One thing I am doing is dosing nitrates to keep my Nitrates from dropping to zero. I have an oversized skimmer and I had trouble keeping corals before I tore down my tank for the rebuild. After doing a lot of reading, I concluded the corals need some nitrate in order to live so I dose 8ml a day of potassium nitrate solution. I teaspoon per gallon and it seems to be keeping the nitrates at about two. ONce I did that my Chaeto growth improved and phosphates dropped to 1 ppb. Probably too low on the phosphates now but that should rise over time and will not change the GFO out until it rises.
here are some pice and a video link....
Where did you get this food from? I've never heard of it
Angelsplus.com
From what I read the gram negative food with kanamycin was probably all I needed since most bacterial infections in marine animals are gram negative but I ordered both just to be sure.
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Another month of progress with my rebuild, so far so good and happy to report some progress on a number of fronts.
1)The fin rot on my tangs have totally regenerated. It appears that the medicated food really did the trick.
2)All three tangs seem to be playing nice. I keep them well fed.
3)All corals seem to be doing well. I see a lot of growth on the Montipora. I picked up an acropora and after two weeks of no polyp extension, I added some new rock to get it higher up in the tank where there is more PAR and better flow and now the polyps are starting to extend, more so at night from what I have observed.
4)Water readings have been pretty stable now that I have dialed in the Apex.
Phosphate .04
Salinity 1.025
Calc 400
Alk 7.8
PH 7.9-8.0
N03 .25 ppm
Here are some pics and a video....
3 weeks of nog from the bubbleking
Nice dry foam and constant production of skimmate..
Latest video...
1)The fin rot on my tangs have totally regenerated. It appears that the medicated food really did the trick.
2)All three tangs seem to be playing nice. I keep them well fed.
3)All corals seem to be doing well. I see a lot of growth on the Montipora. I picked up an acropora and after two weeks of no polyp extension, I added some new rock to get it higher up in the tank where there is more PAR and better flow and now the polyps are starting to extend, more so at night from what I have observed.
4)Water readings have been pretty stable now that I have dialed in the Apex.
Phosphate .04
Salinity 1.025
Calc 400
Alk 7.8
PH 7.9-8.0
N03 .25 ppm
Here are some pics and a video....
3 weeks of nog from the bubbleking
Nice dry foam and constant production of skimmate..
Latest video...
Attachments
Another month of progress with my rebuild, so far so good and happy to report some progress on a number of fronts. next week I plan to add a few more corals to the tank and a mandarin fish. I am so enjoying my tank at the moment!
1)Still getting very low Nitrate readings(0-.25 ppm reading) continue to boost dosing KN03, gone from 4ml per day to 10ml per day of my KN03 solution. For a mixed Reef my goal is .5 to 1ppm
2)All corals seem to be doing well. I continue to see a lot of growth on the Montipora.
3)Finally see some growth on the Acropora This is the first time I’ve had any success with an Acro. I believe the success is mainley due to the steady Params I am achieving with the Apex and also doing automatic daily water changes.
4)Water readings have been pretty stable now that I have dialed in the Apex.
Phosphate .03
Salinity 1.025
Calc 450
Alk 7.4
PH 7.9-8.0
N03 0ppm
Mg 1400
Here is the latest video of the tank...
1)Still getting very low Nitrate readings(0-.25 ppm reading) continue to boost dosing KN03, gone from 4ml per day to 10ml per day of my KN03 solution. For a mixed Reef my goal is .5 to 1ppm
2)All corals seem to be doing well. I continue to see a lot of growth on the Montipora.
3)Finally see some growth on the Acropora This is the first time I’ve had any success with an Acro. I believe the success is mainley due to the steady Params I am achieving with the Apex and also doing automatic daily water changes.
4)Water readings have been pretty stable now that I have dialed in the Apex.
Phosphate .03
Salinity 1.025
Calc 450
Alk 7.4
PH 7.9-8.0
N03 0ppm
Mg 1400
Here is the latest video of the tank...
Totally agree. I struggled for years trying to keep corals and had a lot of Dino in my tank as well and could not figure out what was going on. My corals would look good for a month or two and then slowly declined and appeared to be starving even though I was trying to target feed them. Nothing helped,
Eventually when I decided to reboot the tank I started reading up on the latest reefing techniques. I found some stories of other aquarists dealing with starving corals due to zero nitrates which sounded a lot like what I was dealing with. So I read up on dosing KN03 decided to try it to avoid zero nitrate levels.
Back in 2006 when I started using the skimmer it was generally believed you could not overskim and nothing I read ever pointed to having zero nitrates a problem. I bought the oversized skimmer since the skimmer I had before did not seem to be able control the algae in the tank so I went big on the skimmer front. Over a period of months I started having the problem of keeping corals alive.
Now that I understand what is going on I like the idea of having an oversized skimmer and dosing KN03 which allows me to really dial it in.