In just a couple of days its done what took my butterfly two years to do. Yikes! What a ravenous fish... The good news is that FOWLR tanks infested with aptasia seem to be pretty common in the area. You shouldn't have a problem selling him if you decide to. Will it eat Acropora?

I have kept many of these fish. Problem is they don't completely eat the aiptasia it seems to come back much faster with these fellas than butterflys. They seem to only like the clams,zoas and lps from my experiences never them touch a acro in my tank. But as you stated Russell it is a very "ravenous" fish that seems to be driven by hunger anything is possible.

There's always a compromise. We're never able to keep absolutely everything that we want together in the same glass box... plus its highly unnatural in most cases to try to do so. :razz: Hopefully you can find some middle ground with the filefish. I think it will be worth it to be aptasia and flatworm free.

Ya I really cant complain on the progress. Hes doing his job and then some. Im not going to sell him. I told myself that I was getting him and if he happend to pick on some corals well, then I would have to work around this. I see a large FOWLR in the future with a few corals in it so I can keep my dream fish and he will be a good addition to that tank, I will keep a small reef, something like what I have now and maybe try something else, peppermints again maybe, to keep up with the problem. Not sure yet. No SPS picking yet, and not all LPS......Yet. Watching like a freakin hawk though.


And Im feeding twice a day. He eats mysis, pacifica plankton, and well anything that hits the tank really well. Just you can tell, the attitude and way he moves around the tank, hes constantly on the lookout for food so I dont think hunger really matters.


I agree. I think it might take some time and experimenting but I belive that him and I can come to a nice conclusion.

I've gone through two of these. In both cases lost them to jumping. So be wary of that, they do jump.

Both mine did some terrible damage to LPS in the end after the aiptasia was gone, although the bubble coral was never touched for some reason. But the acans and blastos sustained damage. Didn't seem to touch the couple SPS frags I had though.

Neither mine didn't touch them. I think cloves must taste terrible, I have a pair of ulietensis butterflies in another tank and they eat absolutely EVERYTHING ......... except cloves. Grrrr! It figures. :lol:

Thanks for the heads up, they are really slow till spooked so i can see that happening. Im ordering some netting for a screen top here soon as i would like to get the firefish but wont till theres a net. That and a coral goby will round out the fish for this tank. As I said before no ones perfect.

The minute my green coral goby starts bothering the elegance again you can have him. I was able to get him back into the toadstool by removing him to my QT for a few days and then returning him to the frag tank. But I'm not sure if the placement will last or not.

You never know, you may have given him a lesson. Im not in a huge panic. With a small system like this i want to take it slow to make sure the bio load doesnt go crazy. Thanks though.

Well at this rate it seems it would be better to set up another tank just for him as there wont be much left pretty soon. Favia seems to have a nip in it but doesnt seem too upset so im going to monitor, also the frogspawn doesnt seem to be fully expanded. Hmmmm.

Well with not being able to find a suitable solution with the filefish and funds not being available for a second tank, unfortunately we had to part ways. It wasn't what I wanted but I really had no choice. Luckily it didnt take long. The LFS actually bought him back quite eagerly to clean up all there liverock. So its a win win this time. On the upside all the corals are doing better but as BlueTang<3 noticed with his the same is happening with mine. The aiptasia are coming back quite quickly and with a vengeance. Im zapping what I can but hoping the peppermint shrimp I got for the tank will help me out. I know my last one I had in another tank ate them but it took them a while. Had to get comfy first. Tomorrows a water change and mow my xenia colony down to the rock again. Have to do it about once a month otherwise it gets a little crazy. Also noticing some sweet colors coming out of my acan. I have to figure this picture thing out. My montipora is getting some nice color in it but I couldn't take a picture of it to save my life. Oh and thanks to whatcaneyedo! A nice coral goby has made its way into my tank from him. Wouldn't leave his elegance alone as above noted. I've got the last rock I have planned for my aquascape in a tank right now going through a cycle. Im glad I did it this way as the water reeked and I can only guess as to what the ammonia level was. Hopefully that settles down soon so I can finish the rocks and start some permanent placement of a few things. I think i'm going to have to find me a wet tile saw soon as some corals are getting a little big already. 20gal worth of real estate is tough to work with. No more huge colonies for me. Im going to stare at a red scooter again tomorrow. Why oh why cant I just be that person and get it and ignore everything that is wrong with what I would be doing? Unnnllllesss someone has an objection from that statement????? hahaha... had to try.

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...DSC01600-1.jpg

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01602.jpg

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01585.jpg

Another pic of the coral goby. The picture doesnt do the monti justice, I dont know how to take a nice pic, its actually quite blue with close to red polyps.

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01611.jpg



Ive started a frag tank as well, now I know this may not be as fancy as other peoples on here and its not ideal but I really need a tank to put the cuttings and pieces that break off. Having a small tank really makes a person keep up on fragging. Anywho here it is, again nothing fancy, took a closet and "customized" it.


http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01614.jpg



The tank on the right is cycling a rock thats the last piece for my display, the one on the left, i know ghetto right?, is the frag tank. Have an aqua clear 30 with liverock rubble and carbon, and the aquac remora skimmer. Still need to put the overflow box on it though. Microbubble city. Im going to hopefully frag tomorrow night to let the frags heal up for the rest of the month and maybe bring a few to our local tank tour. We will see how things go.

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01612.jpg

Needs to get mowed!

So last night was a busy one for me. Few new things for the tank. Picked up a Bubble Magus NAC-QQ thanks to a good deal from lorenz0. Sooooo much better. Took nothing to dial it in and its skimming away. An ASM G3 on a 35 gal tank with some coral and a small goby may have been a little excessive. It was too hard to get it dialed in to skim anything. Anyways, happy I made the switch and now I have some room in the sump and may try some chaeto or some of the red stuff that has slipped my mind for the moment. Anywho. I also got the last rock into the display as it stopped spewing terrible things into the water and settled down. Its going through a bit of that diatom bloom but should clear. Hermits were busy on it today. New current FTS.

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01616.jpg

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01617.jpg


http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01618.jpg



What im having trouble with right now is as you can see in the front theres some algae growing on the rock. Now I feed about 4 small marine pellets a day and the goby swipes 2 of them, so im fairly certain im not overfeeding. I have some GFO in a TLF reactor in the sump and do weekly waterchanges (actually getting good at it as with it being upstairs now im always fiddling or looking for something to just wander about on and mixing water and such is filling this nicely) but still this stuff grows, pretty slowly but im wondering if the rocks got some nutrients in it thats feeding this stuff. Im not sure if growing some in the sump will offset this either. Ill keep pruneing and see what happends. I also busted out my wet tile saw last night. MAN russell was right, this does make a huge mess. I set it up in the basement as it cooled off last night and didnt want to do it outside. I did it in a large rubber tub sump I have laying around. It contained most of the spray. The rest was on me. Went well, stunk a bit but I might of been going too fast for it. The platygyra is still nice and puffy and not spewing anything or sliming bad. The pagoda is not so happy but still not receding or anything.

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01619.jpg



Frag tank is pretty full now. Things just need some time to heal now. I have a funny feeling im going to be looking for an upgrade on these bulbs soon though. Im not sure anything in the tank is impressed with them either. Otherwise everything appears to be doing well.


http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01626.jpg



I also managed to get a screen top built. Its not clear mesh but its really thin and I dont see any noticeable dim when I put it under the light or even a flicker. I just am happy I can get my firefish now and even though its not 100% I can still sleep better knowing I tried.


http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01625.jpg



Heres a random one of my acan, Im really enjoying watching this one as it keeps getting more and more green in it. Some of the smaller discs are all green.

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01620.jpg



This one is a rock I picked up from the LFS with some zoas on it. Ive been drooling over them for a while and picked them up.


http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01623.jpg



http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01621.jpg


So thats pretty much it for now. Im starting to think about accent lighting on this thing, I know I know. I really do like the color and am overwhelmed how much things look different and more colorful with a good light but am wondering if a couple t5's of the right color would just make it explode. I have to be careful because I dont want to go pink or blue but we will see.

So I took another pic of the coral goby but when I uploaded it, I looked at the one already in this thread and its basically identical so no reason to repost. Funny though. Anyways new addition today! With the addition of the screen top a lfs(well sort of) had some firefish brought in, I went with the purple firefish this time as I really am impressed with the color. Went for a lengthy acclimation and after about 2 hrs hes already scoping the tank for a better hiding spot then the one he went for when he first got in the tank.

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01638.jpg


http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01636.jpg


He looks really pink and blue in the pics but hes mostly some nice purples. I cant figure out the white balance on my camera to save my life so.... Ya now we have 2 of 3 fish slated for my tank. Im going to go with a tank bread bengaii I think. There not super active swimmers and one of my favorite fish. That will be it for fish in this tank, maybe one or two more shrimps but no more fish. Ive heard word of a group order to coral master here in the near future so im going to have to start saving my pennies. Looking forward to some nice sps and possible an acan or two. Very excited.

Nice firefish. I really want to get one, but I need to build my screen first. I really want to get some nice zoas like that too. Dang... I need to get out to the LFS... the only problem is the nearest one is an hour away! :) Nice tank!

Looks great Tyler.

Tank update. Ill post the pictures now and fill in later. Needless to say, the separate frag tank idea just didnt work. no nutrients and salinity was almost impossible to keep steady. As you can see I took a page from Whatcaneyedo. Found a sump of nice dimensions, lots more real estate and only 15 gal. Anyways got to run for now. will explain more later.


http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01668.jpg


http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01669.jpg


http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01670.jpg


http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01671.jpg

Some top down pics after building an acrylic box for pics. There still not great but better then the side shots for showing colors.

I still cant get my camera adjusted to show the real blue in this piece but oh well, I know its probably me, Ill keep fiddling.

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01687.jpg

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01686.jpg

Heres a some pics of a couple of the platygyra frags I cut a while back, should be ready for sale soon.

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01685.jpg

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01684.jpg

Heres the platygyra colony in my tank. Its definitly a slow grower but the green really pops nice.

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01689.jpg

My two monti caps.

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01688.jpg

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01690.jpg

Frag sump is filling nicely.

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...4/DSC01693.jpg


Going to look into maybe some supplemental light next or possibly a fixture change. Im not really sure yet, Im wondering if my lighting is almost too intense. I have a chalice coral thats recovering in my frag sump as it was bleaching on the bottom of my tank. Im curious if the light was the cause, moved it around in the tank a few times but it was never happy. I guess it could of been something else ****ing it off but my pagoda isnt super happy either compared to the piece in the frag sump and now that Ive pushed my ricordea under a rock ledge its splitting and growing, otherwise it was starting to shrink. I had some candy cane coral in the main tank but didnt seem to inflate much in the main tank, looks happier in the sump. Not sure what to make of all of it yet. Part of me is wondering if I should give the reef side up and get a nice large tank of angels next. There my favorite fish and are one of the main reasons I was drawn to salt. Unfortunately there not reef safe.

George is presently looking for a favia so I let him know about your platygyra. If you really want to set up a large angel fish tank... Lonnie is offering his 450gal for a great deal. :mrgreen:

Sounds good. I thought about lonnies tank but just am not ready for it. Im not saying im going to its just im pretty sure i saw an unfavorable worm a couple of days ago when my frogspawn was receded a bit on one head. I just dont know how to deal with all the crap to have corals as nice as they are. I guess thats the challange. Im sure the feeling will die off. Its also difficult with a small tank, no room for stuff and availability in this town is only going to get worse for fish and coral. I will say i am the happiest i have been with my tank so far, just maybe need that new coral or fish i have been after for a while.