I can't believe I haven't updated this thread since June. I've been too busy with job change and other tanks I guess!!
So since the last post, there was a rash of fish deaths since all the Chromies were eaten, first both of the clowns disappeared and reappeared as bones, then the Coral Beauty suffered the same fate. The Koran Angel got picked on by the Six-Line Wrasse of all fish, the Koran had little white growths on its fins (I can’t remember what they are called, but one
LFS said it was akin to a wart, started with an ‘L’) and the six-line picked at them and got a taste for it or something. He chased that big fish all over the place, then he faded out gray. I tried to get the six-line out with no luck and the Koran died the next day. Bummer. The last to go was the Diamond Watchman Goby, bones again.
So that left 3: the Niger Trigger, Kole Yellow-Eyed Tang, and Six-Line Wrasse. I let those guys it tight for about 2 months to make sure there was nothing else going on in the tank. The owners kept bugging me, saying they wanted more fish, and I just told them to sit tight.
Then the restaurant changed owners, the new owner is a relative of the old owner, a younger couple, and the guy understands more about saltwater, and understood why I wanted to go slow.
Things were fine for a couple weeks, then I got a call that they had a dying fish. Turns out that one of the waiters (who has a
SW tank of his own) decided that it was time to get some new fish, so he went to the
LFS and got a Rectagulus Trigger and a Lionfish! He probably didn’t acclimate them properly, and probably didn’t research very much, and surely didn’t tell me he was doing it. The Trigger ate the fins off the Lionfish and he was dead by the end of the day.
Cool looking trigger though!
The same employee also re-arranged all the rock, which was now precariously stacked for a crash, and took the return jets and pointed them straight down, thinking that would help with the algae problem on the substrate. Thankfully, they did not have a power outage, or else they would have 20+ gallons on the floor, or a rockslide and 200 gallons on the floor!!!
I got a steal of a deal on 9/26 from a guy taking his tank down and split the fish up into 2 tanks. This one got a beautiful Sailfin Tang
And a 6-8” Magnificent Fox Face (no pic yet). They did well, big enough to keep the R. Trig in his place, though he did chase the Sailfin around for a couple hours.
Then on 10/3, I found someone locally getting rid of what they thought was a Tomato Clown, and I thought great! He came with a Rose Bubble-Tip Amenome that he was hosting on. Turns out he was a Yellow Strip Maroon Clown, I was worried at first because I’ve heard these can be aggressive, but that turned out to be the opposite.
I got him acclimated and put in, and the R. Trig went right after him and continued for about 3 hours. I got an emergency call to take him out or ‘he would be dead by the next day’. I got there a few hours later and everything had calmed down, and now everyone is fine. The RBTA even opens up nicely under the actinics at night (only the 10,000Ks are on during lunch hours) and it’s not getting eaten by the other fish. The M. Clown sits there and hangs out in it most of the day.
3 and a half weeks later and everything is doing well. Now that Fall is finally here, the tank temp has cooled off to the point where I plugged one of the heaters back in and it’s staying around 75-78 and the algae growth has waned.
Nitrates vary up and down, I’ve tested as low as 5 and as high as 25 so not sure what all is going on there, but it’s not seriously out of whack. Phosphates spiked up to 2 or 3, then they ran out of flake food and it’s down to 0.5 to 1.0, if I can trust my test kit (getting odd results – have to get a new one).
pH is good, staying over 8 and lower than 8.2, I got a Hanna meter which rocks. API said 8.3+ all the time, I think their pH kit sucks now.
Slacked on topping off the tank, but had left
RO water for them and he did topped off after the pump sucked air overnight. Oops. Once in 6 months isn’t bad, is it?
I've done a few 40g PWCs but not that many as levels didn't mandate it. With the additional fish I'm thinking it will need more regular PWCs.
So the big news is that if you have been following my ATS thread, I pitched it to this customer and he gave me the go-ahead to write up a cost estimate and such to do it for his tank too. I’m thinking that will be several months down the road, as I am learning on the first one, still have a second one to modify from what I’ve learned from the first, and then I have to design a new one from the ground up for him.
Next I need to convince him to get a better light and GO REEF!!
Good to hear about those paras. 
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