WOOT! nitrates finaly at zero

[SharkBait_Mtl]

after my near crash 2 months ago, nitrates at over 100.... my nitrates are finally at 0. In the 2 years of keeping my SW aquarium, I have never seen my nates below 20.... A BIG THANK YOU to everyone here at reef central who have guided me and helped me through all the bumps along the road.

my parameters are now

nitrates - 0 :D zilch :D nada :D niente :D rien :D
nitrites - 0
ammonia - 0
phosphate - 0 (could this be why my chaeto is not growing??)
calcium - 460
KH - 8
pH- 7.9-8
SG - 1.026
temp - 77-80

however on a grim note, this morning I woke up to find my yellow tang dead, stuck to my koralia 1. :( before I moved a month ago he was barely eating and after the move I have not seen him eat at all... I think that the poor guy starved to death... as recommended by a friend of mine, I tried keeping him in a QT for a week longer than the other fish when I introduced them back into my DT after the move, but would still not eat. So I put him in the DT to see if he would eat. I was going to post about it this weekend but I guess I am too late.

So....

now my 90 has room for some new addistions but I don't know what to put. I have a maroon clown, a blue hippo, and an ornate wrasse. I also have a small mix of corals (brains, leathers, candycanes, trumpets, blasto, plate, torch, and an acro frag). My CUC consists of a handfull of mixed snails (turbo, astrea, nassarius) and some blue legged hermits.

any suggestions to what I can add?? and how many more fish can I add to the tank?

my son really liked the yellow tang so I would like to go with something yellow, and preferably not another tang. I think my tank is too small for 2 tangs.

Are there any angel fish that are reef safe???

would it be possible to introduce a mate for my maroon?

[ser_renely]

grats :)

[seapug]

yeah, congrats...Why don't you share what you did to bring them down to zero?

[SharkBait_Mtl]

1st thing I did was a 50% water change. At the same time I cut back on the feeding of the tank to every 2 days instead of daily. (I thought this would affect the yellow tang but when I thought about it he already didnt eat when I fed the tank daily)

then I did 20% weekly water changes for 3 weeks.
when I moved I had to do another 50% water change and continued to do 20% water changes.

week 1 - 50% water change
week 2,3,4 -20%
week 5 - 50%
week 6,7,8 - 20%

that was basically it. reducing the feed also helped a lot with my detrius and cyano problem that I had. I also did a 3 day light out the 1st week to get rid of my cyano which caused a little cycle.

Surprisingly my tank did not cycle again after the move which I thought it would have, but to be honest with you I did not really check the water parameters for the 1st week after the move because I was just to tired from moving, working and unpacking.

[sps1-2-b]

Glad to hear your tank's doin great. Yellow reef safe fishes may include yellow wrasse, pyramid butterfly, bartlett's anthias. That's all that comes to mind.

[r0bin]

Lemonpeel angels are beautiful, but it would be hit or miss on the reef thing.

[bbyatv]

Congrats. Getting there can be tuff.

Bruce

[LulusMoogle]

Yes, lemonpeels are beautiful. But also hit and miss reef-safe-wise.

Yellow clown gobies are also reef safe. A bit on the smaller size, but they're kinda fun to watch. :)

Congrats on the nitrates. :D

[SharkBait_Mtl]

thank you all that replied....

I also forgot to mention that I turned my skimmer up pretty high to get a really wet skimmate.... I have been emptying half of the collection cup every morning.

I was hoping that the lemonpeel angel was reef safe... some ppl tell me they are some say they are not.... and I think I saw one at my LFS yesterday... gonna do some more research on it...

as for the anthias... I heard that they are not the easiest fish to keep..... is this true???

I was thinking of possibly getting a lemon peel and 3 anthias (1male 2 female) would this be too much to add to my 90? keep in mind I have a maroon clown, a blue hippo, and an ornate wrasse.

[Runner]

They do not swim in the water column like the yellow tang, but a yellow watchman gobie is a good-looking and interesting addition (especially if you get a shrimp for him to pair up with). If you get the pair, you need some crushed coral for them to dig around in. Or some sand with a little big of crushed coral to shore up their tunnel with.

[SharkBait_Mtl]

from what my LFS told me.... a lemon peel would not be a good addition because they tend to eat corals more often than not.. and as for anthias... these fish are very hard to keep fed... from what I was told by many ppl at my LFS they need to be fed 3x daily are very dirty fish.

I would like to pair up a yellow watchman but decided not to due to my ornate wrasse... I had shrimp in my tank before and the wrasse made a quick meal out of them (2 cleaner and 1 flame shrimp within a month)

However... my friend has a convict blenny that he will be giving me... he just moved and decided to go with a barebottom tank and the poor blenny does not look happy.

is a yellow clown goby like watchman goby or are they 2 totally different fish?

what about schooling fish?? what can i get that would stick together and how many of them must I get?

Also nobody has mentioned anything about finding a mate for my maroon. what are the chances of him paiing up with another smaller maroon??

[Mike31154]

Ah yes, the Maroon. I have a bonded pair, haven't mated/spawned yet but I consider them one of the main attractions in my tank hosted in their BTA. How long have you had your Maroon and what size is it? If it's been in there for close to 2 years chances are it's a she by now so definitely get a very small juvenile if you'd like to attempt pairing. Having said that, I was lucky in that the clown I introduced was almost the same size (both still juveniles) as the resident and in about 4 weeks they had sorted out who was the boss. The resident was already hosted in the BTA when I introduced the newbie. Plenty of room and hiding places in my 75 gal so he was able to steer clear of the initial attacks. Did not have to keep him isolated in a separate container. It was a little nerve wracking in the beginning though. He took more damage from a blue devil damsel than the resident Maroon.
So if you're willing to give it a try and have some time initially to observe the behaviour of introducing a small Maroon, chances are very good that you will end up with a happy pair.

[SharkBait_Mtl]

thanx mike...
The maroon that I have is about 2-3 years old... 4-5" long.

I will give it a try.... however I do not have a BTA.... do I really need to get a BTA??

I had a RBTA but it died when my tank nearly crashed.

[Runner]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13298291#post13298291 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SharkBait_Mtl
is a yellow clown goby like watchman goby or are they 2 totally different fish?
Different. I have had both. The yellow clown goby just sat around on my acro and stared at everything that went by. The yellow watchman goby is longer and has more personality. He will dig a little if by himself, but mostly likes the shrimp to do that for him.

The maroon pairing could work if you can find a small enough maroon to pair with your larger maroon (or do something with a tank-within-a-tank method to keep them seperate but in sight of each other for a while). I have a 10+ year old BIG maroon clown. I managed to pair her up with a very small juvenile maroon about a year ago. I put him in the tank and the royal gramma (another reef-safe purple and yellow fish that might go good in your tank) came over to check him out and started actually acting threatening to him. The big mama maroon intervened and took him under protection him right away. She used to be quite passive before that moment. Now I can't put my hand in the tank without being threatened or nipped. The pairing went really well because the new maroon was so small. It may be hard to find one like that in the stores. I got mine straight from the owner of Sustainable Aquatics back when his business was in the forming stages. It is nice to have a clownfish breeder in the local club. :)

[SharkBait_Mtl]

very cool.. thx for the info


I think I will try to find her a new boyfriend... hopefully she wont kill him.... I saw one that is about 1/2 the size of mine at my LFS.... is he small enough to put in the tank?? Do I absolutly need a BTA for them to pair-up / mate? I have a torch coral that the clown hangs around but does not really go into like a BTA. I have tried a few times to put a BTA in my tank but they never seem to make it. I am also worried that if I get a BTA that is too big it will eat my other fish. has anyone really had problems with BTAs eating their fish?

as for the royal... I have heard that they are very sensitve fish... I really wanted to get one but they never make it long enough at my LFS when the shipment comes in...

are there shrimp that I can get to pair up with a watchman goby that my ornate wrasse wont eat???

[jbc123]

You don't need anemones or corals for clown fish. They can live and even breed just fine without it.

If you are adding a new male to an established female it can be risky. I'd suggest a specimen container or some sort of separator.
See if she goes nuts trying to get in. Let him out after a while and see if attacks, if she does put him back in for a day and try again. If she doesn't accept him after 2 or 3 tries then she may not ever.

[SharkBait_Mtl]

thx for the info jbc123... I wil ldo that...

[Runner]

Agreed. That's what I meant by tank-in-a-tank. About 1/2 the size is not small enough for easy introduction. Mine was more like 1/20 the size and the big female just automatically guarded him.