A new reefer... a new tank. What could go wrong?

[SereneAquatic]

Remember when the hairy legged anemone crab was killed? He had recently moved his anemone from one shell to another and I wondered if the anemone would survive without the crab. It appears that question has been answered. It is doing very well and has increased in size by about twice as much. Yesterday I watched it grab something from the water column and stuff it into his mouth... very fun to watch! Still unsure about the exact kind of anemone that it is (though there are only a few that the hermit crabs tend to pick up and acquire). Any help with identification would be appreciated!

[WifiDan]

Wow what a rollercoaster ride! Following along. I may be wrong and I hope I am but I remember hearing that the copper would leach into the silicone of the DT and cause issues later on to any Coral or inverts. I hope others chime in and I’m wrong.


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[SereneAquatic]

Originally Posted by WifiDan

Wow what a rollercoaster ride! Following along. I may be wrong and I hope I am but I remember hearing that the copper would leach into the silicone of the DT and cause issues later on to any Coral or inverts. I hope others chime in and I’m wrong.


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I have heard the same, and hope that it isn't going to happen. We used Copper Safe which claims to be less toxic than cupramine, but it was in the tank for many months. We have some cuprisorb in the sump, just in case.

While everything settles in I'm using a tiny piece of GSP and some inverts to "test the waters" and see if they have any negative responses. So far everything seems ok. If you see a post in a month or so about everything dying in this tank, we will know. *face palm*

We don't plan to add much to the tank very quickly, just in case. The giant toadstool and GSP frag may be it for a time. The nano tank will be the holding ground for the corals we have during the fallow period that starts soon. Both tanks will be on the same timer and we can slowly frag things in the nano and place in the 90 gallon as we gain confidence that there are no copper issues.

If there is any luck to be had in this hobby, we haven't seen it much yet, so I won't ask you to wish us luck!

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[WifiDan]

Hang in there! I love your system and will be following along!


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[SereneAquatic]

Its been a couple of months now and I'm happy to report that all of the fish are back in the 90 and 30 gallon tanks, along with their coral counterparts.

We only had 1 coral that didn't make it because it seems it was infected with green boring algae and was on its way out. We tried to frag a couple of small pieces that didn't have the green skeleton yet, but it was not successful.

Other than that one piece, we have now had a few months success with:

1. The Australian Moseleya (by far my favorite)
2. The Hammer, and its frags that we placed in the 90gal
3. The "Cup Coral", and the frag that we took off of it - Seriously, what are you?
4. The Pavona
5. The Rhodactis Mushroom, including the one that hurt its foot and recovered
6. The Montipora (I think)
7. The unknown and strange coral that I think is another toadstool
8. The golden lepto and its frag
9. The GSP, which isn't 'spreading' yet, but is definitely getting very looong.


I'm also very excited to report that the Lemonpeel angel, who was placed in the tank AFTER the corals, has not bothered any of them at all yet. He only has the Hammer, Mushroom, Toadstool, GSP and the Cup Coral in that tank, but so far, our plan seems to have worked. I imagine he would love to get ahold of the Moseleya and Montipora, but those are in the nano tank.

The hybrid blue tang we have is beginning to grow into his a**hole persona. It is soon time to provide him a bigger home, or give him to somebody who can give him a happy place.

The Crocea clam we purchased did not survive, and we are not entirely sure why. It may have been the lighting, but whenever I tried to increase the light for it, he seemed to do worse. Being more brown than blue, it appeared from all research that this variety would not want such strong lighting, so it made a bit of sense.

I'm also very upset about a Harlequin Tusk that we ordered from Divers Den. He was healthy, strong and absolutely amazing... quickly becoming one of my favorites. (Watching him eat was astonishing!) One day when we were not home, it seems he jumped out of the tank and was dead on the floor when we got home. Though we can't prove it, my bet is that the Tang chased him and he ended up leaping out. There had been a bit of animosity from the Tang in the first day or two when he was introduced, but they had seemed to mellow out and were getting along. A very occasional chasing would ensue but was quickly diverted after that. The Tusk did have a strange habit though of sticking his head up out of the water, seemingly to look around. He did it quite often, and would sometimes spit water or cruise across the top of the water with his fins out like a shark. He was a top dweller, to be certain. I just never imagined a fish of his size... over 4 inches... would leap out of the tank. We've considered putting a lid on it before, but I honestly dont know how I feel about it. They seem to just be in the way every time you want to scrape the glass, feed the tank, clean or rearrange something, etc. It hurts though to know that we could have prevented his death if one had been in place.

Now that everyone is back in the main tanks, I’m undecided about what to do with the 55. I know we’re going to need a place to quarantine CUC replacements and for certain, there will be some coral or fish that will come home at some point… but the question is WHERE to put it? Do we leave it in the living room? It’s a bit crowded in there now. Do we put it in the garage where the environment is not so stable? That would mean not parking in the garage anymore, and doing more to make it a usable space probably… which we do plan to do, but maybe not right now. Honestly I’m very tired of moving things around with these tanks so the easiest thing is to leave it where it is, even though I don’t want it there long term.

There is something masochistic about this hobby, I think. I’m not sure what draws me to it. There are so many things that can and do go wrong. After the Tusk died, I wanted to smash the tanks with a baseball bat, I swear. Three days later, I was making sure the 55 gal. was at the proper salinity for the next purchase. What is wrong with us?

[SereneAquatic]

Recent pics

[SereneAquatic]

Full Tank (90 gal)

[Jason9488]

A power blue and tusk in a 90 gallon....ouch...poor fish

[ghurlag]

Nice thread. It's been fun to read.

[SereneAquatic]

Originally Posted by Jason9488

A power blue and tusk in a 90 gallon....ouch...poor fish

I agree, it's time to make some adjustments. Up until we had to put everyone through the tank transfer the tang seemed pretty happy with his home, but it's almost like the tank transfer series and then being in the 55 for a few weeks gave him claustrophobia. He's been restless ever since. I reached out on a local facebook group to see if anyone would like to purchase him to put in a bigger tank, but I don't want to take less than what I paid for him if he goes. I'd rather upgrade the tank we have and keep him. All in all, he's a good kid.

I've been looking at what their next home should be and trying to decide on our best option. We actually may have room for a six foot peninsula tank, but I dont want to spend a fortune on one from say, Red Sea. That's why I've inquired in the forums about the sumpless reef tank opinions. I THINK I could make it work on a bigger tank. The nano and 55 are sumpless already. I'm thinking maybe I could scale back the photo period of the refugium a bit at a time until we aren't using it at all and then halt the use of the return pump and see what happens. I'd have to add some more flow to the display, but it may be worth testing to see if I can keep them alive and happy in the 90 without a sump for a minute while I set up a new system.

The funny question would be, what to do with the crab? I honestly think I should just build him his own (ISOLATED!) "crabitat" in the display. I love watching him, he's hilarious... but hell bent and determined to climb up and out of whatever he's in. I wonder how stupid it would look to have a rimless 5 gallon on the sand bed in a 6 foot tank with a crab inside of it. LOL

[SereneAquatic]

"Look, I made it over the wall Mom!"

"Great, you little terrorist. Now back on the other side you go."

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[SereneAquatic]

Wall climbing, almost had it.

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[SereneAquatic]

Well... for better or worse, a decision has been made. I could not find a satisfactory buyer for Jagang the Tang, so we decided to upgrade. A good opportunity arose in a local reefing group online for a 250 gallon tank with a stand, refugium and lights so we hopped on it.

The stand that the prior owner built for it is REALLY tall, plus the tank is also quite deep... it feels like you are looking UP into an aquarium display when you stand next to it. Kind of neat, but it poses some issues we'll need to address.

If you follow along with this post, you'll see how indecisive we have been during the past few weeks... going through all of the possible scenarios:

1. Sell the tang, buy smaller fish for the 90
2. Keep the tang, create a reef tank in the 250. Sell the 90g to get our money back. Create a 'refugium' of sorts cascading from the 250 to keep the lemon peel angel in so he doesn't eat the corals.
3. Forget keeping corals entirely if they don't fit in the nano... make a massive FOWLR tank out of the 250.
4. ... Keep both the 250g and the 90g... make a FOWLR in the 250 and a peaceful reef tank in the 90 with small fish.

Guess I forgot option zero... smash the tanks to smithereens with the bat and wash my hands of this godforsaken hobby. That option was only a fleeting thought when the tusk jumped to his death.

Shake it off, just shake it off.

I was honestly surprised to hear hubby present option 4. His stipulation when we considered the 250 seemed to be that we'd need to sell the 90 and recoup some of our money to make it happen. One day after a few weeks, he comes out and says "I think we should keep it for corals" lol I wasn't moping around, I swear!

Now that I'm fairly certain we've settled on a plan, we have to tackle the logistics. The 250 is much too big to be in the house, first because of space for a sump... but more importantly, we had a massive flood happen in our house a few years ago and I think the thought of putting that much water in the house scares us both a bit. The tank will go in the garage... yet another suitable and functional piece of the house lost to reefing. Yes, I'm willing to park outside. Dangit. I will only cuss a little when it's super cold out and the windows are frosted over. Or damaged by hail. Or hotter than the seventh circle of h#ll. Why am I doing this again? Oh, right. Tang. *Goes to look again and make sure he's still super cool to watch*

The biggest obstacle we're probably going to have is electricity. The wall where we want to put the tank is the ONLY one in the garage that doesn't have power. Go figure. I wish I was an electrician, but nay... I shall spend the money.

Right now we imagine this will take at least 4 months to build...

1. Buff scratches out of the glass (yes, glass... how the heck)
2. Reseal the tank for good measure
3. Scrape the background off the tank so we don't have the logo from previous owners car club
4. Repaint the back of the tank
5. Get electric lines properly installed
6. Hang lights
7. Build stairs for along the back of the tank for easy access
8. Plumbing (cascading sumps are happening... oh, yes they are)
9. Buying additional equipment (bigger skimmer, return pumps, heaters, etc)
10. Aquascape
11. Run RODI nonstop for about a week...
12. Cycle

Somewhere in all that we also need to be buying and putting some of the new inhabitants through QT so they can go into the tank before the tang. Not planning on keeping corals in the tank really opens up the possibilities. We can create a rock structure that fish will love without pandering to 'where will I place my coral' nonsense. On the flip side, we can also do the same in the 90, leaving lots of open space below and not worrying so much about dart holes, etc under the corals. I think this is a good option for us.

The only fish we have so far that will go in the new 250 are:

1. Hawk Fish - Steven Hawking
2. Lemonpeel Angel
3. 2 Spotbreast Angels (1 Male, 1 Female currently in QT)
4. Jagang the Tang

That leaves a LOT of room for additional occupants, and we have a wish list a mile long that needs to be trimmed down and ordered appropriately. They'll be added slowly, with the most peaceful going first. I'm a little bit concerned about the swallowtails... they are much more peaceful than the tang, but they don't really go for algae or graze rocks very much so I'm hopeful that he won't think of them as competition.

Onward we go...

[SereneAquatic]

So today I find myself stuck at work waiting for the Helpdesk to completely wipe my computer and reinstall everything. Seems like a great time for an update!

The scratches on the 250 are proving to be a real PITA. At this rate it could take a hundred hours of work to buff them all out. Neither of us has the time for that, so the tank will probably be listed for sale soon and we will have to buy something new. The stand is still usable though, as are the lights and fuge tank that came with it. It's really just a matter of spending the money now to buy the tank... Again.

This is an expensive hobby.

In order to not have to mess with fixing the electricity problem in the garage, we may tear out the counter in there that is on the opposite side of the living room wall and put it there. Doing so gives us the option of some day opening up the wall so you can see the tank from within the house. It's also more convenient to where the RODI unit is installed.

Is funny the questions you ask yourself. "How committed are we to this hobby in the long term?". "How much are we willing to spend?". "Let's be honest, some of the kids aren't smart enough for college... Right?" "Will I ever be able to go on vacation and actually relax if we build this?"

Maybe we need to drag the neighbor into the hobby too...

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