I decided to stick it out, Eric.
I've been away for the best part of two weeks. When I came home, two fish and my last blob of coral were dead. I was thrilled.
I have a huge red algae bloom going, I've hooked up my diatom filter, and I've started scraping glass.
I just got home from running around and now I'm going to clean filters and skimmers. Then I think I'll take the lights off and hold my head under water till I drown. :-)
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Stained and sealed.
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I am dealing with a first....Aiptasia. I read warnings of a type of live rock having aiptasia problems, and
I just ignored them. To my own peril it seems. They are sprouting up everywhere and apparently not all
peppermint shrimp will eat them. So I am guessing Joe's Juice is next. But they went from being on the rocks to
being all up in various corals. Not happy.
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There are two different kinds of pest anemones. Aiptasia are translucent, fast and fragile, with long delicate tentacles. Majano are more opaque, slow and more stubby and cylindrical.
Peppermint shrimp will not eat majano. Joe's juice has a low kill rate. I pick them out by hand and just hope to keep the population in control. Aiptasia, by comparison, are easy to kill, they are just hard to completely eliminate. Peppermint shrimp only eat the smaller ones.
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use aptasia X it makes the guys implode.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo3DZ...eature=related
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Although delicate to keep, longnose butterfly will do a good job on aptasia.

Get a needle and shoot them with a dosage of calcium, directly into them. That wipes them out the quickest.

On a sad note, over the weekend, lost my friend of nearly 13 years. Had him nearly as long as my dog Champ. He was around 18" long. I figured him to be well over 20 years old when he passed.

He was a very, very, very rare New Caledonia Emperor. Nothing much seems to come from that part of the world any more. What made him unique from New Caledonia was the deepness of the blue color and the streamer on his tail.

Will miss my buddy and his grunting.

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Lemon juice, vinegar, kalkwasser, calcium chloride, and almost anything else kills Aiptasia easily. Majano are tough and resilient. Youtube showed someone with a filefish the he says wiped out all his Majano. I think I will try this.
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I have to move my tank to Ohio soon. In the middle of the winter, yet. I had thought about giving all my rock and stock to the kid who has a fish store a few miles from home, but when I went by the other day I saw he's closed down.
I guess I'll just haul a bunch of buckets and do the best I can. I'm not looking forward to it at all.
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I am sorry for your loss -- a lot of my friends used think I was crazy when I told them about hurting over the loss of a fish, but fish do have personalities and if you have them for any length of time it is easy to get attached. If I anthropomorphize more than I should, so what...

Anyway, he was a beautiful fish!
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+1 on the sentiment.
My sailfin tang is very smart and has a distinct personality and moods. All the other fish in my tank are very simplistic. We call it "she" even though there is no way to really know just because of her behavior. We would miss her when she goes and probably get another one. We got her when she was an inch and a half triangle. "Penelope". She like me the best.
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I got my 90 gallon all set up here in the office, It looks great. :-)
I got some fish, crabs and snails, they're all doing great. I tested my water the other night and it's perfect.
I checked Craigslist and found a guy with some live rock that looks nice. I'm going to go see him and see how it looks. He also has a top skimming protein skimmer I'd like to have, because one of mine finally gave up the ghost.

I miraculously found a brand new Vortex Diatom XL at a fish store the other day. Paid almost 200 bucks for it, but my last one kept me in business for 20 years. 10 bucks a year for crystal clear water ain't a bad deal.
Turns out the factory burned down awhile back, which is why I've had such a hard time finding one. I was surprised how little the design has changed over the years. I suppose if it ain't broke, ya don't fix it. :-)

If I get some new rock, I'll give it time to settle in. After that, I'm going to get rid of my old starfish, Patrick, and start growing corals. Turns out he's the culprit that ate all my frags last time. I just need to find someone who's willing to take him, then get to gathering. I've found tons of guys here in the Cleveland area that keep reefs, and tons of frags are available. I just want to have the tank slap full of rock before I get started.
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Always love looking through this thread....

Impressed with all your set ups....


That is too bad, beautiful fish.....:-)
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Haven't gotten back to salt yet, but the wife and I did get a (basic) 55 last month and set it up for freshwater. She wants discus. :-) Either way, it's good to at least have a toe in the water again. :-)
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We've been waiting for our pink spotted watchman goby to come out of hiding.
He did that this morning, he's the featured guest at a hermit crab party.
It's kind of comical. He's a four inch long dead fish with three big crabs hanging on his head. Those three hermits are about the size of jack balls, I didn't even think those little blue legged hermits got that big.
I'm gonna let them party a little bit and then get him out of there. Apparently the eyeballs are the best part. Blech.
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:-)
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I'll text you a video that Lisa just sent to the kids. pm me your number. :-)
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I haven't has time to do major cleaning in my tank, so the Xenia and Rhodactis are dividing all over, the weedy Majano anemones are spreading, the faces of the tank have little windows cleaned through so I can see in and the fish are doing just great. When I get home I will have to take a picture so people can see how bad these tanks can get.
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Well, another 400 bucks down the tube. :-)
I got 50 pounds of live rock that turned out to easily be 100, and it's absolutely gorgeous. Completely full of life. It's covered with mushrooms and other nummies. I also got a bunch of great big corals, hammer, frogspawn, and a big tongue coral, among them. I don't know the rest of the names, but I'll post pics and ask later.
I also got two hydor koralia 1400 gph powerheads (there's 100 bucks right there, I paid 40).
I also got a yellow eyed tang who didn't make it. Suited us fine because we didn't like him. I also got two five gallon buckets full of sand that I desperately needed. It's slap full of big worms, copepods, shrimp and stuff.
I also got a bucket of reef additves and food. A gallon jug of calcium a and b buffer, some reef crystals, some frozen food, garlic extract, lugol's solution, essential elements, iodide, purpleup, strontium and molybdenum, probuffer, liquid calcium, seaweed and some clips.
It appears I am now officially in the coral killing business. :-)
I'll post some pics when I get the rock and corals and powerheads all situated. Everything is in the tank and doing great, I just need to move stuff and get stung some more. (I can't find my neoprene diving gloves, or I'd go ahead and put them on and save some bleeding and burning.)
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Welcome back.
All my fishies are doing great but my tank is getting filled with the strongest, toughest inverts. This seems to be a fight between the hairy Rhodactis, the Majano anemones, and the Xenia. There is this one pineapple coral that nothing can get close to which is slowly growing out over it's surroundings. I'll have to get some pictures the next time I'm home and clean the glass enough.
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Sounds like some great deals Scott:-)

I'm officially out of the hobby and saving at least $100 on electric/food/salt per month. I miss it a little bit, but not much. Now if I could just get rid of my last setup. Anyone looking for a corner pentagon tank with stand and canopy/lights:-)
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