It begins - first coral is in

[mr_X]

clowns do not need anemones, and any clown can choose a coral as a host. i like the percula and ocellaris clowns because they don't get large. plus, they come in multiple colors, and everyone recognizes them. just personal preference though.

what do you have in there now? any shrimp or crabs? plan on it? have you looked at the flame hawk? they are pretty cool fish if you don't have a lot of small inverts.

 

[bighabeeb]

I have a scarlet shrimp, a few peps, and a ton of hermits/snails

Happy Turkey Day all!

 

[mr_X]

a flame hawk may eat your shrimp and crabs.

 

[bighabeeb]

Just put in a firefish today - want to keep the tank with SOMETHING swimming around in it while I make the rest of my plans. They stay small and are peaceful, so it shouldn't eliminate a whole lot from the list of possible livestock.

My family have voted against any clowns at this point: we had an occelaris in there before, but they don't want the standard tank fish in there this time around....so basically, if it was in finding nemo, its most likely out

I talked my wife out of the tomato clown based upon the aggression factor, and the fact that he'll get big enough to do some real damage on corals (occelaris took out a mushroom that I had at one point by rubbing on it so much).

So...other suggestions for relatively small but colorful fishes? I'm hoping to pick up a bi-color dottyback, if I can ever find one locally...though liveaquaria says they may eat ornamental shrimp...think they stay small enough that they won't mess with my pepps?

I'm a huge fan of the wrasses...anybody have specific suggestions for ones that won't mess with inverts and will remain small enough for my tank (72 gallon)? I'm sure I can find this info on liveaquaria, but there's a but-ton of em to look through!

 

[bighabeeb]

Maybe intstead of the dottyback something like the royal gramma?
Saltwater Aquarium Fish for Marine Reef Aquariums: Royal Gramma Basslet

What I'm thinking now is instead of having a very few larger fishes, I may just stock the thing with a bunch of little guys...2-3 firefish, 4 or so chromis, the basslet...

Suggestions for others? Something that'll dig my sandbed would be good since it's the only thing that really gets nasty quickly

 

[kurtyboh]

Fairy wrasses are very colorful, all kinds of them.

 

[mr_X]

any of the fairy wrasses would be a good addition. i don't like the dottybacks and pseudochromis. the ones i have kept have turned out to be territorial and quite nasty despite their size. they do get big enough ti kill shrimp, though i never witnessed that. i saw them pick at larger fish.

 

[bighabeeb]

Yea, I was thinking royal gramma instead of the DB - seems like they stay about the same size, but don't have any of the aggression issues...

 

[bighabeeb]

Added a sleeper goby this afternoon on my LFS's advice. We'll see how he does since, from what I read, without a refugium they won't do terribly well...but as I've said before, I trust live advice over what I read on the interwebz generally (no offense).

Also went to war with my aiptasia with some aip. x. Was surprisingly satisfying to watch the little buggers wither up. Hope they stay dead.

 

[kurtyboh]

Omly one thing to keep in mind... Our wallets arent affected with this advice, however a fish that wont last long, although longer than the return period seems like great advice to give by someone whos wallet is affected by your choices

 

[bighabeeb]

Absolutely! That wasns't meant against you folks, more against the general descriptions at liveaquaria

Guy at the LFS is a pretty stand up dude. He issued me a credit for over half the value of the copper banded, even though he ided after the return period...lord knows I spend enough time and money there (between the fish tank, dogs, cats, bunny etc) - he def. doesn't want to lose me as a customer.

I may not have spent as many as most in terms of fish tank spending...but you add in all that other stuff...well...he likes my wallet

 

[mr_X]

agreed. i would never take the advice of a LFS over folks that are helping with no strings attached. truthfully, they shouldn't even be buying copper banded butterflies due to their mortality rate.

 

[Gboy66]

Added a sleeper goby this afternoon on my LFS's advice. We'll see how he does since, from what I read, without a refugium they won't do terribly well...but as I've said before, I trust live advice over what I read on the interwebz generally (no offense).

Also went to war with my aiptasia with some aip. x. Was surprisingly satisfying to watch the little buggers wither up. Hope they stay dead.

Live advice? Were not trying to cheat you here. What motive do people on the internet have to lie to you? Im not offended at all, just wondering.

 

[bighabeeb]

Gboy - there's not necessarily any motive: people on the interwebz tend to be a-holes simply because its the internet.

I'll tell you a brief, off topic story, to depict said point. I recently listed an ipad for sale on craigslist. This means that I was trying to sell said device to the open public with no real punishment for poor behavior. On ebay, your reputation can at least take a ding, or paypal can pull back money etc...but CL? Its the worst of the worst.

So I'm selling this thing at what I considered a very reasonable price: around 50 bucks less then what apple would have charged for a refurbished but identical model...and I was throwing in a case. Had a buyer all lined up, we'd negotiated etc. Guy shows up and says "Ok great...but I only have *amount we'd agreed upon minus $150)". Needless to say I walked away with ipad still in tow, and pretty pissed off - but there's no way for me to "get back" at the dude.

Same thing with taking advice on the internet - someone could tell me that I could keep a bamboo shark in my 72. Now odds are good that 50 other people would jump in yelling "dont do it, that guy is a moron" - but there's no culpability when the internet is involved.

I used to be a very active member of a few usenet groups (rec.sports.paintball in particular) and just like craigslist the number of total jerks that you would run into there were staggering. I had lined up an internet team at one point to play a paintball event, using that group - and guess what? After driving to toronto, one of the guys "couldnt make it". Same thing - the dude was an a-hole, but at the end of the day I couldn't do much to him apart from posting to the same group that Dude XYZ screwed me over.

Anyway, that's all I'm saying: and while normally I wouldn't trust LFS, this particular one has helped me out a ton, thrown me free help when I've needed it, and hasn't really led me wrong. The CBB situation sucked, and it's always miserable when a fish dies, but at least he made it right by me.

In other news, I dove in with that aiptasia X - my son got a real kick out of watching it go on. Zapped about 10 of the buggers...couple more on the underside of the rock that I'll try to get to after I see how effective the stuff was on the ones I nailed. There was something incredibly cathartic about zapping the little buggers

 

[kurtyboh]

Anyway, that's all I'm saying: and while normally I wouldn't trust LFS, this particular one has helped me out a ton, thrown me free help when I've needed it, and hasn't really led me wrong. The CBB situation sucked, and it's always miserable when a fish dies, but at least he made it right by me.

Except sell you a copperband which has at least 9/10 mortality rate

 

[bighabeeb]

Again, I don't think that this was intentional screw-jobbery. THe fish was given to me with the intent of using it to clear some aiptasia and then bring back - if anything it was my bad for leaving it in there too **** long, despite it not really doing the job.

But I do see your point

 

[bighabeeb]

Alright so we seem to have attained stability for the moment. The zoa I added a couple weeks ago is doing well (though one of the polyps appears to have passed on - it seems some of the aiptasia X landed in it and took it out) - the rest are flourishing, open all day etc

Big sale at the LFS this Friday night...nothing like a midnight madness rush to keep things interesting. I'm going to scope it out on Thursday night and lay dibs on a couple of pieces.

I'm thinking ricordea or a bubble coral would be nice, and maybe a couple of frags of zoas.

Current fish load: 1 firefish, 1 tiny sleeper goby. Hoping to add to this as well...potentially another firefish and/or purple firefish, and a royal gramma. I'm looking to use mostly small fish so that I can have a tank that will look "busy", as opposed to my past build where it was 4 or 5 "larger" fish who, while entertaining, made the tank feel very empty even though I knew it was at or close to max bioload.

Suggestions for other fishes? I love bengai cards, but my wife detests them unfortunately. Something about their eyes and the way they float creeps her out. I'm looking to keep as many peaceful fishes as possible, staying away from anything aggro. May eventually add an ocellaris as my last add-in, but that's a ways down the road.

As a reminder, I'm currently using T5HO lighting, so if anyone has suggestions or comments on coral selection speak now please

One other thing I should mention, I was right, the last thermometer I had was wonky. Current thermometer shows a steady 78 degrees day or night.

 

[bighabeeb]

Alright so I hit the LFS tonight since he was having a late night sale - didn't have a lot available in terms of livestock, as the event was mostly to sell tanks/pre order lighting etc. Did pick up a second firefish and a small leather - going to need to wait to the morning to get some pictures since by the time I got home I was down to the moon lamps...but I'm pretty excited about the new addition of the leather. Going to need to adjut the powerheads tomorrow to make sure I get a good solid flow going his way.

Tank seems to be doing well - rolling along just as it should be. So I now have 3 fish in there and 2 corals (some zoas and the leather) - I feel comfortable with the pace I'm going at, and I'm resisting the urge to go crazy, so I guess I'm doing it right.

Any suggestions for next moves?

 

[bighabeeb]

Got a new coral in there today - its purty

 

[Gboy66]

Got a new coral in there today - its purty

Definatly purty!! What type, open brain?