I use to have a Harlequin Tusk that was cool to watch with snails.
He would flip them over and nail them with those tusks.
I wish I could say they lasted a day.:-)
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Great fun to have a "violent" tank. You could have your mantis shrimp fight with lobsters and see which one the trigger got first, etc. :-)
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I want an Aussie tusk. Correct me if im wrong but arent tusks semi reef safe only because thye will eat inverts not so much coral. I sure do want one.

Would it be a problem with any of my stock?

Maroon Clown
Kole Tang
Flame angel
Zebra Moray
Clown Goby
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Not at all a problem.
They are quite safe for reefs as long as you don't have crabs/snails. Man do they love that stuff.
They have a tendency to go blind with time. I saw that in at least 10 in various tanks. However, the ones in reefs faired much, much better and remained more vibrant in color.
It is well worth the money to find a New Caledonian one. Much deeper color than the Aussies. Their teeth are also a deep bluish color. Really, really cool looking with more of a maroon color rather than the more common orange like.
Had one for about 5 yrs. before he went blind. Hand fed him for about another year and then ended up losing him. Miss that fish. Loved the way he would run from my big angels and at a certain point, he would do a sudden stop, turn around and open his mouth huge wide to scare the crap out of them with his teeth. Very docile overall although I would occasionally find one of his teeth embedded in one of my angels. They deserved it.:-) Would fall off them. He would grow another. They would do it all over again.
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Thats what I thought. The Aussies are ~$200 I ant imagine what a Caledonia would cost. Im a collage student lol. Ill probally settle for the more common one anyways. But that will be a while since Ive already added too many fish this month. Gottle let everything stabilize then WC then Ill think about one of those guys and that would be My final addition. Much prettier than a Hippo Tang :-)
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Sand in! Water in! Whoo...

Image

Cycling the sand

Cure tank:

Ammonia 0.25
Nitrites 2
Nitrates 5
PH 8.4
Salinity 1.023

Thats it for now. Oh and walking out of meijers with 30 gallons of water gets you massive funny looks.

Brad
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Looks Awesome! Congrats on the setup! Let me know if you would liek to upgrade the lighting.

Im looking to sell my 20" sunpod will accommodate up to a 24" tank. 150watt 14k Halide. New bulb. Asking $200. Used less than 6 months.

Reason for selling: Upgraded from the 24 gallon tank to a 90 gallon tank. Tearing down the 24 gallon.

PM if interested.
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waters clear! :-) Got a bunch of bubbles on the side, but the flow with out my Powerhead in there is a bit lack luster with the stock pump. rated for 250GPH but i doubt its pushing 100GPH. but I have a Koralia 1 so that issue will be fixed! :-)


on another note, does anyone have a powerhead they want to get rid of? I need one more for my cure/quarentine/hospital tanks, doesnt need to be fancy or pretty looking but just need one, if you have one PM me!

Thanks

:-)
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Use to have a bunch of them.
You are about 9 months or so too late as I cleaned out and threw out.
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PMed
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I'm impressed with myself.
This whole thread has only cost me a mere $20 so far. :-)
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I just looked over and my buddies are hungry. They're all up at the top of the tank looking over the chair so they can see me.
That's their "feed me alarm". They're a trip. :-)
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That is what they do 24/7, eat.
I don't think they know what it is like to be full.
If there is food, they will eat.
Signs of healthy fish.
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I've been picking anemones out of my tank at about 50 to 100 per day since that last picture and it's starting to make a difference. I take out a rock or coral, hold it it a bucket of water and go at it with a plastic picking tool I made. The problem is that there are over 1000 in there and they divide rapidly. If I don't pick for a month they repopulate. There are some I will never get.
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Remember me complaining about that Lunare Wrasse throwing water out of the tank? I fixed that and didn't have to flush him down the toilet.
Instead of throwing the food on top of the water, I pinch it between my fingers and soak it, then let it go below the water level so it sinks.
End of problem. :-)
I'm glad cause Kerri didn't want me to get rid of that fish.
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I have just a few tiny brown anemones on my live rock. They must not be the same kind because they don't spread.
What does spread at an alarming rate are the little with tubeworm fans. I have literally thousands of them in my tank and everything is covered with the little curlique calcium larvae thingies.
They're cool, so I'm okay with it, but they'd easily qualify as a scourge. :-)
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My anemones started out as a couple of innocent little things. At first I thought they were cool, as they were not aiptasia. Aiptasia are slender funnel shaped and semi transparent with delicate tentacles. Majano are button shaped with more stubby bi-colored tentacles. Aiptasia will spread quickly from small pieces if you disturb them but die easily from injection. Majano divide readily but do not spread from pieces, They are resilient against injection. If you think you have majano I would get rid of them asap.
The little tubeworms stay in dark placed in my tank, like in the plumbing.
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Mine are tiny and they've stayed tiny. I just went and looked and couldn't even find one, but I remember them being the same as the Majano's you described.
A bonus is that I found a coral that I thought was lost. It's a blue one, one that Steve (Fissure) sent me. I was really bummed about it cause I thought it was dead.
I'm going to the store right now to buy super glue gel.
I had been using the two-part epoxy and although I got some of the corals to stay put, it really sucks for the most part.
I have two corals that need stuck good and tight, and then this whole recent coral gathering adventure will be all done.

Hey, what are the little string fingers called that come out of my live rock everywhere?
They're real long, thin and spooky. They stick way out, feel around, and then disappear back into the hole in the live rock.
There are so many things on my rock that I could go on an expedition for a year and never identify them all. Just noticed a whole colony of tiny red centered fans, too.
I'm almost scared to let the corals grow for fear they'll cover up all the cool stuff. :-)
Oh, I found another big orange sponge and a new yellow sponge that'd starting, too. :-)
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If they are more wormlike they are probable just borrowing worms that live in the rock and unroll like socks to eat detritus when it's quiet.

Sometimes it's good to trade some of your live rock in for new pieces just to get some new critters. You just have to be careful not to get any baddies. I have lots of bristle worms so I don't care about them, unless I find one by accident. Never seen a mantis shrimp, yet. I got a drilling snail once. It drilled holes in the shells of other mollusks to eat their insides.
I keep a flashlight and magnifier on the tank for exploring.
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I have zillions of bristle worms. They eat all the detritus and keep my tank nice and clean. I have tons of tiny shrimp, too. Don't know what they are.
When the lights go out the tank becomes a whole new world. Crabs and hermits and worms and shrimp are all over the place. It's incredible. Fun to watch, too. :-)
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