Feelin salty...

[Backfromthedead]

Total bummer. This guy has been great for a month, eating and swimming, looked healthy imo. Yesterday he hid all day, and today I come home and find him prostrate on the bottom, bucket thoroughly kicked.

The only thing noticeable is that he appears to have partially expelled his swim bladder, other than that I'm clueless. I had seen bickering with the angel, but the tusk appears uninjured. Cant rule out some sort of parasite but nothing I can see.

 

[Backfromthedead]

For whatever reason my normally invisible cleaning crew was out and about today in daylight, they've all gotten bigger in the months since I've seen them:




Fish slowly growing, bicolor just a smidge and the CT maybe an inch these last 3 months, both are fatter though:




I'd like to point out that I've observed literally no asterinia in the angel tank in recent months. If you look back a couple pages you can see I had dozens at a time. Their disappearance seems to have coincided with the arrival of the emerald crabs and blenny, so one of them must have a taste for starfish.

I've shelved all further personal tank projects indefinitely. I had intended to make a few smaller tanks for a rack or something, but have realized that im only really interested in going bigger, so I'll be scrounging for resources to get that moving by the end of this year hopefully.

 

[Deadeye]

For whatever reason my normally invisible cleaning crew was out and about today in daylight, they've all gotten bigger in the months since I've seen them:
View attachment 1468703
View attachment 1468702
View attachment 1468701

Fish slowly growing, bicolor just a smidge and the CT maybe an inch these last 3 months, both are fatter though:
View attachment 1468705
View attachment 1468704
View attachment 1468706

I'd like to point out that I've observed literally no asterinia in the angel tank in recent months. If you look back a couple pages you can see I had dozens at a time. Their disappearance seems to have coincided with the arrival of the emerald crabs and blenny, so one of them must have a taste for starfish.

I've shelved all further personal tank projects indefinitely. I had intended to make a few smaller tanks for a rack or something, but have realized that im only really interested in going bigger, so I'll be scrounging for resources to get that moving by the end of this year hopefully.

I’d bet on the emerald. Mine has a taste for flesh, including brittle stars.

 

[jjohnwm]

Great thread, nice builds. I appreciate "builds" where the aquarist actually builds the tank; buying a few bags of gravel and a couple of rocks and setting them into a commercially-produced tank is by no means a "build", although many aquarists seem to like to use that term for it.

Shame about the tuskfish; back when I had marines that was a Grail Fish for me, one that I never actually acquired. I had a Clown Trigger for a few years but would have swapped it for a Tusk in a heartbeat if given the chance. Magnificent critters.

Is the hair-algae-looking stuff what you mean when you refer to "macros"? It's got a great look, especially in a tank equipped with those wonderful RFG nozzles. Looks like freshwater Black Beard algae but in a nice green colour. My stone-age tanks were full of Caulerpa macro-algae, which could be harvested by the fistful every few days. I recall buying a small "starter" culture, introducing it and then watching it quickly disintegrate and disappear. Then, a couple weeks later, it sprouted all over the rockwork in the tank, and by the 2-month mark I was forced to start pulling handfuls out. Looked a bit like small green grape clusters; I used it as food for some herbivores, added it to my home-made gel foods and traded a crapload in to my LFS at the time. Everybody who bought it had the same story: the stuff vanished within a couple days...but then in about half the cases it came back with a vengeance.

 

[Backfromthedead]

Great thread, nice builds. I appreciate "builds" where the aquarist actually builds the tank; buying a few bags of gravel and a couple of rocks and setting them into a commercially-produced tank is by no means a "build", although many aquarists seem to like to use that term for it.

Shame about the tuskfish; back when I had marines that was a Grail Fish for me, one that I never actually acquired. I had a Clown Trigger for a few years but would have swapped it for a Tusk in a heartbeat if given the chance. Magnificent critters.

Is the hair-algae-looking stuff what you mean when you refer to "macros"? It's got a great look, especially in a tank equipped with those wonderful RFG nozzles. Looks like freshwater Black Beard algae but in a nice green colour. My stone-age tanks were full of Caulerpa macro-algae, which could be harvested by the fistful every few days. I recall buying a small "starter" culture, introducing it and then watching it quickly disintegrate and disappear. Then, a couple weeks later, it sprouted all over the rockwork in the tank, and by the 2-month mark I was forced to start pulling handfuls out. Looked a bit like small green grape clusters; I used it as food for some herbivores, added it to my home-made gel foods and traded a crapload in to my LFS at the time. Everybody who bought it had the same story: the stuff vanished within a couple days...but then in about half the cases it came back with a vengeance.

Many thanks. Yes lately I've been annoying right many MFKers by constantly pushing for tank rebuilds and reseals when I can tell all they want is a magic band-aid for whatever problem. Aiming for something impressive with my next tank, XXL rimless design. I've spoiled myself building rimless lately....love the simplicity, hate designing canopies...despise the price of thick glass these days lol.

I cant say for sure what happened to the tusk, but the more I've read I'm leaning into either cyanide poisoning or my use of tap(nonRODI) water (unlikely imo). I've read they're a common target for cyanide fishing, and he displayed the odd behavior at times which is indicative of it. The thing is, I had some other tusk owners telling me their whimsical behavior is somewhat normal, so then I'm left with was mine just normal, or is everyone else's tusk also poisoned...anyway, I took notes, filed it away, may try again one day.

I actually never procured any macro, that stuff started growing once the tank matured, hiked in on the arag-alive I'm betting. If I let nitrates rise to 20ppm+ for a week or two it will coat the entire bottom, but after a couple big wc it will effectively trim itself back down to whatever nutrient level is available. Pretty cool stuff and looks fantastic, but I dont think I could ever eradicate it from the tank if I tried at this point.

The RFGs are the coolest thing since water conditioner. Check out vivid creative aquatics next time you want to try some new gadgets on your tanks. Neat little company.

 

[Backfromthedead]

I’d bet on the emerald. Mine has a taste for flesh, including brittle stars.

Good bet. There are four of them in there and they've done nothing with the algae problem so maybe they're full of starfish lol.

 

[mattybecks]

For whatever reason my normally invisible cleaning crew was out and about today in daylight, they've all gotten bigger in the months since I've seen them:
View attachment 1468703
View attachment 1468702
View attachment 1468701

Fish slowly growing, bicolor just a smidge and the CT maybe an inch these last 3 months, both are fatter though:
View attachment 1468705
View attachment 1468704
View attachment 1468706

I'd like to point out that I've observed literally no asterinia in the angel tank in recent months. If you look back a couple pages you can see I had dozens at a time. Their disappearance seems to have coincided with the arrival of the emerald crabs and blenny, so one of them must have a taste for starfish.

I've shelved all further personal tank projects indefinitely. I had intended to make a few smaller tanks for a rack or something, but have realized that im only really interested in going bigger, so I'll be scrounging for resources to get that moving by the end of this year hopefully.

Absolutely loving this algae!

 

[Backfromthedead]

Absolutely loving this algae!

Thanks! It does clog up the works in the small tank sometimes so it must be the work of removing it that bothers a lot of people.

 

[Deadeye]

Thanks! It does clog up the works in the small tank sometimes so it must be the work of removing it that bothers a lot of people.

View attachment 1468859

Green hair algae is definitely attractive. Only way to get rid of it is manual removal it seems...which isn’t fun.
I’d have expected it to die off by now though, as it is a part of the new tank ugly stages.

 

[Backfromthedead]

Green hair algae is definitely attractive. Only way to get rid of it is manual removal it seems...which isn’t fun.
I’d have expected it to die off by now though, as it is a part of the new tank ugly stages.

Word. I find it relatively easy to suck it off during water changes in the small tank. Going from this:

To this, usually in less than 5 minutes:

A lot of it did die off when I changed around 90% over the course of a week. I hope it doesnt go away. I would really like the whole back wall covered. I really want to acquire some red dragons tongue macro to contrast the green.