Finally got my tank started up

[austinsdad]

How many males of the 4 wrasses? I haven't read the earlier posts from this thread, but are they carpenter fairy wrasses? One of my favorites.

Also, you got the tank covered with something. Ya know, they will jump easily. But it's a good thing no newcomers other than a goby or something is planned. They won't likely spook the wrasses.

 

[Ratrik13]

As of right now, no confirmed males. I'm reasonably sure I've got two females, the other two I'm just not so sure on. I purchased a total of 4 small juveniles/females based mostly on size. Honestly, they seem a little bit on the large side since they were suppose to be between 1 and 1.75 inches, but /shrug, could just be me.

They are actually Red Tail Flasher Wrasses (Paracheilinus rubricaudalis) from Drs Foster and Smith. I'd actually waffled pretty hard on which species I wanted to get (I think I've actually wanted each of them at one point or another) it finally came down to a simple mater of watching a male McCosker flashing in the display tank in my LFS. Then I found out that almost no one seems to EVER have female flashers... much less female McCoskers. This led me to try taking a risk on the DrsF&S order since I'd had my LFS looking for females for me since I got my tank set up about 2 and a half months or so ago.

For gobies, I'd like to find either a Amblyeleotris or preferably, a Stonogobiops. My dream would be to actually find a pair of Dracula gobies with a pistol shrimp, but I'll probably just get a Hi-Fin type, either the black fin or the yasha, depending on what I can find.

As far as covers go, I've been using egg crate. I'm kind of hoping that the high amount of current in the upper part of my tank helps to dissuade them from jumping since atm they theoretically might fit through the holes if they were flawless in their aim.

One quick question though, I'm looking for advice on food and feeding. Right now I'm feeding twice a day, before and after work (about 8 hours in between). I've started feeding Omega One's "First Flake" in the morning and I generally feed frozen mysis in the evening since I have the time to thaw out the cube without totally forgetting to feed in the rush to get ready... or going to work smelling like seafood. (BTW, cause I know the question would be asked, Yes, I thaw the mysis in a container of tank water and then rinse it off in a net with a little tank water before feeding.

I've been using the first flake for a few reasons. The first reason is that it's suppose to be a good introductory food for new fish. The second reason is that it's a high fat food (which according to one of the articles on wetwebmedia, "Fat content should ideally be below 10% to avoid fatty liver disease, except in the case of juvenile fish, which require fat as an immediate energy source in order to spare the much-needed protein for building muscle.") I don't actually know if it's true or not, but I feel that right now it can't hurt to much. Finally, and the worst reason of all... my LFS gave it to me for free. They apparently get a large container of it free with every order so they've been using it as cricket food and said if I wanted to try it they'd give me all I wanted from a fresh canister. The owner also has a huge box of the Omega One marine flake with garlic that he's going to let me have some of to try (I really wanted the pellets of it, but I'll try the free flake first.) Anyway, I'm sure it's a huge factional can of worms, but I just figured I'd pose the question to any of y'all out there with exp with flasher wrasses.

(man, i gotta make some fish friends in RL to talk to... my posts are way longer than they need to be.)

 

[Mitchell0605]

(man, i gotta make some fish friends in RL to talk to... my posts are way longer than they need to be.)

No you don't! Why do you think we are here? Just slip in a few pics and no one will mind.

 

[Ratrik13]

Here's your bribe then!
FTS, lets play a game... find the new corals!

Here's one! It's a Montipora digitata (orange)

Here's another! It's Green Zoa's!

OOOOOH, I found one! Nope, sorry, that's the same Montipora digitata (purple) that was in the tank already, it just got moved to make way for the new guys, but he doesn't seem to mind one bit!

Not like Mr Acropora kirstyae, he's still grumpy that he lost his spot to someone else, even if he might be in a better place! Don't worry, we'll find him a nice place somewhere if he doesn't like this one.

Oh look, there's our old friends Xenia,

Nephthea (Neon Green Palau),

and zoa's pink'n tall!

Wonder where the rest of them could be!

 

[Ratrik13]

Is that a new coral? Nope, it's the little pink zoa gang and they've all had hair cuts after a visit from Mr Mantis Shrimp.

OH, I found one, I'm SURE of it! Yup, that's Mr. Montipora capricornis who was an offer you couldn't refuse. He just needs to find a good home.

Oh, and there's the last one! Mrs Pavona maldivensis hiding down at the bottem. She's kind of weird and no one seems to know her well, she must not get out much. Lets hope she'll be our friend!

Sorry about the weird post, I spent most of the day looking after a bunch of kids so it just "felt" like the right way to phrase everything. =P Not much has changed with the GSP and the shrooms and I'm not really worried about tracking their growth like I am the stonyes and the others so I don't often take pics of them anymore.

Likewise, I had just fed about 15 mins before so the fish were pretty much done with me. They are such diva's. They bicker amongst themselves a bit, but if I get near the tank they are all happy hungry little pig-tailed girls until I feed them. Then once the food is gone and their little bellies are full they kick me to the curb and go back to weaving in an outta the rocks... UNLESS I have the camera. You'd think I was paparazzi from the way they hide when I get out the camera. One is definitely on it's way to being a him, but there's still one other that I'm not so sure of. The mystery gender wrasse seems to always take a lighter shade of color than the others except when feeding. It doesn't really seem to be stressed though and it's doesn't seem to be picked on anymore than it picks on any of the others. It just takes a lighter shade of pink across the top of it's body with a bar of the normal red under that and then the white belly. The other two look and act pretty much like females from what I understand. They mostly hide in and around the rockwork on the right side of the tank and don't really venture very far unless it's feeding time. They so far look healthy, good color and so on, but time will tell if I'm stupid or lucky.

Side note... I found a freaking draclua goby for sale the day after I posted about wanting one. Only it doesn't come prepaired with a pistol shrimp so it's easier to resist the urge to buy it. It's gonna be hard to fight it though if I see a pair + shrimp come up on Diver's Den again.

Lemmy know if you guys got any feedback, doubly so if you've got any exp with the Pavona maldivensis from Dr Foster & Smith. I've found all sorts of conflicting info on it, but decided to try it anyway.

 

[austinsdad]

No fun in having flasher wrasses when no one is flashing IMO. The males really look great when they are flashing for the females. See if you can find one, and you'll see some really beautiful displays. Good that the females are in there first if you were to add a male.

On the feeding, watch those nitrates. Twice a day feeding is asking for trouble IMO. Flakes add nitrates so I've heard. Try some frozen brine or myisis (rinsed in FW - that frozen cube is FULL of nitrates), mixed with some vegetable matter, and soaked in Garlic Guard and Zoe. Once a day. heck, I've gotten my fish to deal with every other day without a problem.

On the food mixture, I used a small tupperware container and made up enuf for 5 or so days and kept it in the fridge.

 

[Zer0]

Ratrik, what kind of Xenias you got there? They look like my pumping Xenia.. is that what those are?? Just want to see if those are the ones i have, because "supposedly" i bought "pom pom xenias" but last time i checked.. pom pom xenias are supposed to be white.. and mine aren't.. they look just like yours. Hence, why i think they are pumping xenias.. Or pulsing... whichever lol.

Austinsdad, lol, i do the same thing. I rip all of the frozen food out of its cube packaging, throw it all in a container and then let it melt blah blah blah.. and then throw it back in the freezer. Isn't so much easier that way? Then having to brake out teh cubes everytime you need to feed yer fish. lol.

Ratrik, if you don't already know, which im sure you do, don't forget to rinse your food in ro water, if it is frozen.

 

[Mitchell0605]

Nice bribe Ratrik! I like it! Nice new corals looking forward to tracking them. BTW your mushies do they kinda go purple/blue depending on how you look at them? Cause if they do they might be the same as the mushies my LFS is fragging specially for me. I love my LFS. 3000L DT at the front of the store. IT'S FREAKING INSANE!!! I go there for random things every weekend just so I can check it out.

 

[Ratrik13]

OK, well my computer crapped out on me today so no pics of the fish tonight like I'd hoped to get. Really stinks cause they were really hamming it up tonight. I did however learn something, I'm 99% sure that I have a male now. The one I've been suspecting was a male for some time now spent almost an hour zooming around the top part of the tank flushed with color and flaring it's fins. Every so often, one of the others would zoom up to him, flair it's fins a bit (though none seemed to have the elongated dorsal ray I would expect from a sparing male) they would circle and then dash into their hiding holes in the rock. If this isn't flashing behavior, I'm scared to see what is. The funny part is that my first impression of the male flaring it's fins was "It's like a Betta on speed!"

As far as feeding, I'll probably feed some frozen stuff on the weekends cause it's just far to easy for me to set the cube aside to thaw and then forget to feed it before work or bed. I've heard it actually go both ways on rising frozen foods, 95% of people to say to rinse, but I've also been hearing more people saying that the "juice" is actually a good food for corals and filter feeders or at least helps to train the coral to feed in the daytime. When I've fed frozen, I normally rinse, but I may play around with it a bit to see what happens. I'm actually worried I might not have enough algae now for my snails and hermits.

At the moment, I'm feeding the flake very VERY sparingly. When I got it from the pet store it came from a big tub so the flakes are HUGE, about the size of a coaster or coffee saucer. I generally break off a piece about the side of an US quarter then grind it up in the palm of my hand. I then put it in an old fish food container blast it with a squirt or two of water then quickly suck it up in the turkey baster and squirt it into the tank. It's generally gone within a minute but I rarely feed anymore at one time because they never seem interested after the first little bit of feeding. So far I've not noticed any raise in nitrates or ammonia but I've only had these about a week now. =P I'm actually more worried about phosphates since it seems almost every flake and most dry foods seem to have them in some form.

My Xenia is actually Heteroxenia from Dr Foster & Smith. Supposedly, the way to tell is that the Hetero's have smaller polyps between the larger ones. I honestly don't know to much about Xenia's as it was kind of an impulse purchase (was only like $15 or $20) and the more research I did the more confused I became. I actually specifically didn't want the "pom pom xenia" because I don't like white corals (I feel that white clashes pretty hard with the other colors in a tank, that and I've always wondered how do you tell if something white has bleached and is dieing). I also didn't like that fact that the polyps are kind of puffy looking reminded me to much of dandelions that had gone to seed or something similar.

I wouldn't say that my mushrooms change color based on how you look at them... though I've never really paid much attention to them. Yeah, I know it sounds weird to have something you're only mildly interested in, but I mostly wanted them for nostalgic reasons. I remember reading articles back in the late 80s early 90s about "Coral you can actually keep!" What I have noticed is they change color based on how much light they are getting. The less light they get, the more they seem to expand, when they expand the amount of pigment is spread out causing them to change color. I'll try to get some pics of what they look like when they are closed up (where they are almost a "pepsi" blue, but the biggest ones shrink to the size of a dime) vs what they look like without the MH's kicking in (deep bruise purple, almost red and probably 2 inches across).

I'm still trying to convince my LFS to put in a display tank because right now they only have their livestock tanks. It fluctuates between beautiful and down right sad depending on how recently they've put in an order. Thats the problem with a small town pet store, they can't keep stuff on hand that isn't for sale so they rarely even have any live rock in their tanks.

 

[austinsdad]

Yep. Correction, Flake foods = phosphates.

Also, I strongly recommend going with the 95% who rinse their frozen food cubes.

On the xenia, if your tank likes it, Try to make sure it is situated high in the tank. It'll spread like crazy and grow straight up and encroach on your other corals if you've got it low. I prefer the pom pom since it does not grow and spread VERY quickly like the elongata (more brownish) variety.

 

[Ratrik13]

Finally managed to snag a couple of pics of the flashers, well, at least the one I think is a male.

Lost a lot of the color on the second pic, but it took almost 2 hours to get one that was more than a really pretty blur. For all I know it's just a yawn cause most of the time the color really is much brighter. It may also have to do with the fact I'm having to use the "sports" setting on my camera to get any kind of a pic of the fish.

 

[austinsdad]

Carpenter's Flasher Wrasse
Carpenter's Flasher Wrasse

A couple of write-ups for you to read. Interesting that if you buy a group of females, the dominant one likely turns inito a male. Your pic still looks like a female to me, but I'm not sure. Looks like the carpenter's flasher wrasse you have. I'm used to the males having more of a spike in that top fin. Awesome color when he's excited.

 

[thincat]

Nice fish..Not bad pictures either...

 

[Mitchell0605]

Nice Flashers. My 6-Line does that too. Kinda raises it's fins and opens it mouth. Looks cool.

 

[Ratrik13]

Ok, minor update time... mostly cause I'm bored at work atm. Today makes about 4 weeks that I've had the flasher's with no signs of anything odd, so I guess I may have dodged a bullet on them.

I've lost my first coral though, the acro died out. Went from normal to totally white in 3 days. The purple Monti hasn't been looking to good lately, so I moved it back to it's old spot once the acro was toast. The orange monti is still about the same, the only difference is that the tips don't seem to be as white anymore. The Monti caps not been looking so good lately so i'll probably try moving that around. The pavona is anyone's guess, it looks like it might have lost a little color (it's more of a light neon green", but it seems to be a little "furrier" with more of the little green "nubs" I've still not seen anything that I was absolutely sure was a polyp though. Guess that's what happens when you try your luck with stonies before you're really truely ready.

The zoa's, nephthea, mushrooms, and the xenia's are all doing well. The xenia's actually split up into about 5 colonies. I think the zoa's are starting to spread more since I had to break up the colonie. As for the mushrooms... I saw one behaving really weird the other night, for lack of a better explination, it looked like it had expelled it's "guts" which were waving from it's mouth. Only one's done this and only once. My only thought was that it could be because I was feeding the tank at the time and I hadn't bothered to check things out first. The nephthea's doing better than expected even though I found it had been shoved off the rocks by one of the hermits. I was mildly annoied to find this out because that's one of the only frags I'd epoxied to the rock, so I guess it didn't stick.

The green star polyps gave me no end of trouble a few weeks back. They went from lush open lawn to closed with no polyps showing in 2 days. After watching it for another day I found a nudi on it. Pulled the colony out, pulled the nudi off and nuked it. Took about another week and a half before the colony started to open again, but now it's back to it's good old self.

Anyway, that's about all thats gone on... I'll try to post pics soon if anyone's still following this thread.

 

[thominil]

Good to hear that most things are doing fine. Try sticking the monti's about 1/2 way-3/4 of the way up the rock and see if you get better results. Check the water params to see if they are the problem.

 

[FishEggs]

some of us are still following it, if only just to see the pics

 

[Ratrik13]

OK time for pics.
First off, FTS

The orange Montipora digitata

The Green Zoa's (not actually sure if that's growth, or if they've gotten moved around a bit since the last pic.

I moved the purple Montipora digitata cause it wasn't looking so hot. It's now a little higher and a little more under the MHs

The Xenia's happy as ever, it's now split into 4 colonies on the main rock and 1 still on the frag plug. Hoping to yank the plug this weekend to give to one of the guys at my LFS who got me started with Saltwater.

The Nephthea (Neon Green Palau), this corals kind of odd, it takes a long time to "wake up", but once the lights have been on for an hour or two it kicks in and looks a lot better than it does in this pic.

The big pink zoas look pretty good, they are eatting hearty when I feed the tank and look like they have sprouted a few new polyps, but they are in places that are hard to photograph.

The little pink zoas have done well too. They get fed about once a week + any little bits of flake they can catch. I think the "fragging" to get the mantis shrimp out helped to spur their growth.

 

[Ratrik13]

I didn't get a pic of the Monti Cap cause when i pulled off the PC fixture to add some top off water I realized that it was almost totally outside the range of the MH bulbs, so I cut off the stem of the frag plug and moved it to a better spot.

The odd thing is the Pavona maldivensis. It also is totally out of the range of the MH bulbs as well as being down at the bottom of the tank. That being said, it almost looks like it might actually be doing "better" than when I got it. You be the judge though.
Before:

Now:

Dr's F&S has this to say about it:
"These unusual Pavona Corals are a rarely seen encrusting type of Pavona. The parent colony of these coral frags was collected in Fiji on the outside of the reef at a depth of about 100 feet and then quarantined and given a health inspection before being propagated. These Pavona Corals prefer a low to moderate light level. Placement under an overhang is recommended if metal halide lighting is used. The Sunburst Pavona will turn a bright orange to red coloration if put low in the tank under 20k metal halide lighting. The Screamin Green Pavona will turn a bright green if put low in the tank under 20k metal halide lighting. Strong intermittent water current within the aquarium is needed. For continued good health, it will also require the addition of a two part calcium and buffer supplement in order to maintain a calcium level of 400-450 ppm and dKH of 8-12. It will benefit from the addition of zooplankton."


All in all, I'm hoping my stonies make it since I'm now realizing that what I thought was coralline growth before was just the coralline growing back on the rock. NOW I'm seeing the rampant coralline on anything and everything plastic. I now understand why I read a guide about DIY liverock that recommended to cover the still wet rocks with some kind of inert plastic shavings as well as sand. While I wouldn't do it... it makes more sense now.

Also, any recomendations on 150 watt double ended MH bulbs, I can't make heads or tails out of Sanjay's info because I'm honestly not sure how to read the data. I heard someone recommend the 14,000K Pheonix 150watts as having some of the highest PAR values for a 150 HQI double end bulb, but just curious if anyone can give me any input on this as I just got my PFD money so I've gotta little extra to spend.

Thanks for the input guys!

<edit> Forgot to add in a pic of my accidental frag. When I ordered the orange monti from Dr's F&S I was actually really disappointed in it's packaging. Unlike ever other coral I'd ordered from them, it didn't come banded to a block of foam and floating in the water. Instead it was just placed loose in the bag of water. Well, one of the fingers had broken off and was loose in the bag. Not being one to just waste a free "frag" I dripped it with the rest of the corals and placed it in a safe spot till i could get some super glue. Unfortunately, I forgot about it for a few days. When I did remember I actually had to hunt around the LR looking for it cause the current and the crabs had moved it. So I got some gel super glue (hate this stuff), broke off a piece of the dry rock I still had laying around, glued it up, and had myself a nice looking frag... that I was sure would most likely be dead any day now. Well, that was 3 weeks ago, and as of right now, its looking like this.

 

[thincat]

"Pavona maldivensis, found at an outside reef at a depth of about 100 feet". That would make it a deep water coral and having it down in your tank makes sense.