melbell86 Posted March 27, 2011 Share Posted March 27, 2011 NEW FTS 11/15/2011 FTS 10/21/2011 FTS 7/25/2011 FTS 7/10/2011 first FTS 3/27/2011 Hey all! I am pretty new to the saltwater hobby, i have had a saltwater tank up and running since september 2010 (about 6 months). I had a crash and lost all my fish, due to my lack of knowledge. I guess you learn the hard way in this hobby. Long story short, i was running two HOB filters and took one off to use for a quarantine tank. I lost my green spotted puffer, clown goby and filefish I really wanted to throw in the towel. Well as of a few days ago, my parameters are back to normal ( ammonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates <5) and everything is running smoothly (thanks to an expensive protein skimmer purchase). My plan for this nano tank now is to have a coral and frogfish tank. I have never had corals but have been doing tons of research to get started. I mostly want zoas to start, i really love their look. I also picked up a few corals today from my LFS that i was told are good for beginners and were at a good price. I only paid $14.99 for some dragon-eye zoas! Anyways here is what im working with. I have ordered an assorted angler, Antennarius sp from liveaquaria that will be here on tuesday. I fell in love with these little fatties the moment i laid eyes on one at my LFS when i first got into the hobby about 6 months ago. I watched this little yellow sponge-looking creature for what seemed like forever and couldnt stop thinking about how much i wished i could bring him home! Now that my tank is cycled and healthy and without fish i figured i would get myself one of these cuties. I have been doing tons of research on care and feeding techniques so I am hoping things will go smoothly when he arrives. EQUIPMENT 27 Gallon Bowfront AquaticLife 2x24W T5 HO Linkable Light Fixture 24" 1 24" T5 HO 24W 10,000K Lamp 1 24" T5 HO 24W Actinic 420/460 Lamp Homemade LED fixture CPR AeroForce Recirculating Protein Skimmer Eheim JAGER Heater 9" 75 Watt Koralia Hydor water flow pump 750 Koralia Hydor water flow pump 240 Aquaclear 30 HOB filter running carbon INVERTEBRATES emerald crab 3 blue legged hermit crabs 1 electric blue hermit crab 3 turbo snails many nerite snails 2 nassarius snails 1 coral banded shrimp 1 blue tuxedo urchin 1 large featherduster worm 1 lettuce Nudibranch 1 scarlet reef hermit crab 1 zebra hermit crab 1 halloween hermit crab CORALS Green Dragon-eye Zoas Green Striped Mushroom Green montipora frag pink zoas Radioactive dragon-eye zoa polyps Blue Xenia Yellow Zoa Polyps Toadstool Leather pink millepora ricordea ORA purple maxima clam Now, on to the pictures! Dragon-eye Zoas Ball sponge, hitchhiker on my liverock Green Striped Mushroom unknown zoa polyp hitchhikers Any advice/comments/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I am pretty new to corals and frogfish! Thanks! Melanie Link to comment
Mini-Dude Posted March 27, 2011 Share Posted March 27, 2011 I love the scape!!!! Way cool!!! So are those dragon eyes!! Great job!! Link to comment
melbell86 Posted March 27, 2011 Author Share Posted March 27, 2011 I love the scape!!!! Way cool!!! So are those dragon eyes!! Great job!! thanks! It took me forever to set up the rocks in a way that i liked but im happy with how it turned out! I love the color of the dragon eyes, i think there are two different colors in there, green and red! Link to comment
GOODgREEF Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 cool welcome to the bowfront club! Link to comment
melbell86 Posted March 30, 2011 Author Share Posted March 30, 2011 My frogfish has arrived! He arrived today and he is so adorable I have named him Bowser, and he seems to be adjusting well. After acclimation he sat on the bottom and opened his mouth real big a few times, then moved around a little bit till he found a nice comfy spot under one of my rocks. I will be trying to feed him tomorrow with some ghost shrimp and maybe some frozen silversides. I believe he is an Antennarius pictus, but if someone else could confirm his ID that would be great. I moved the rocks around a tiny bit yesterday, and im completely happy with the layout and ready to add some more corals eventually. After looking around online for hours last night, I really want to get my hands on some Pink Zoas! Here are some pictures I took today. Enjoy. Bowser after he first arrived, acclimating with the tank lights off A few hours later, with the tank lights on. A face only a mother could love, and I do! The white coloration on his mouth makes it look like he has a little bucked tooth FTS Bowsers new home Link to comment
melbell86 Posted March 31, 2011 Author Share Posted March 31, 2011 bowser ate one ghost shrimp today, and didnt seem interested in the silversides. Going to try again tomorrow. Link to comment
Rinehart77 Posted March 31, 2011 Share Posted March 31, 2011 That scape is awesome! Good luck with Bowser, he is a mighty cool fish. I've always wanted a frogfish. I really like your Zoas too. Keep things nice and stable and they'll fill in that arch nicely. Thing I've noticed with Zoanthids, is that it takes them a while to get goin, but once they do, they REALLY take off. Unless they are the ugly brown ones nobody wants Good luck with everything! EDIT: One suggestion, if you can, pick up a stealth style / unbreakable heater. Very early on I lost a full tank of inhabitants due to a glass heater breaking. You might also want to hide it behind your rockwork. Link to comment
melbell86 Posted March 31, 2011 Author Share Posted March 31, 2011 thank you for the suggestions! i am going to try to hide the heater. the eheim one i has come highly recommended, but that does worry me about the glass breaking. Which heater do you use? I made a few videos last night of Bowser! He was swimming around so i shot a few videos and put them on youtube. He was "surfing" the powerhead it was so cute! Click my youtube link below i have posted three videos of him! http://www.youtube.com/user/meldav86 Link to comment
Bamato Posted March 31, 2011 Share Posted March 31, 2011 Awesome Pictus! Painted anglers are very cool. I've had a few of them. How often are you feeding? It's usually not very hard to wean a frog onto anything that resembles food. Fill him up on ghost shrimp, then starve him for 3-5 days. Try silversides again. If no luck, you can visit www.lionfishlair.com for some great feeding tips (it's for lion fish but the technique is the same). Keep us updated on how he does! Link to comment
Rinehart77 Posted March 31, 2011 Share Posted March 31, 2011 thank you for the suggestions! i am going to try to hide the heater. Marineland has a line called "Stealth" that are decent and not too much money. Any of the titanium ones are good too. Those are sweet vids of Bowser. He's awesome. Link to comment
Bamato Posted March 31, 2011 Share Posted March 31, 2011 The music in the first vid is priceless... lol Link to comment
melbell86 Posted March 31, 2011 Author Share Posted March 31, 2011 Marineland has a line called "Stealth" that are decent and not too much money. Any of the titanium ones are good too. Those are sweet vids of Bowser. He's awesome. yeah i know one of the stealth heaters we had got recalled so we exchanged it. i will have to check out the titanium. The music in the first vid is priceless... lol the mario 64 music brings back memories! glad you guys like. Link to comment
Rinehart77 Posted April 1, 2011 Share Posted April 1, 2011 yeah i know one of the stealth heaters we had got recalled so we exchanged it. i will have to check out the titanium. Crap! I just read about the Stealth recall, I've had them for a couple of years now. Thanks for the heads-up. Mine will be coming out over lunch! BTW, I finally put together a build thread for my tank. Check it out and feel free to comment if you'd like! http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=267701 Link to comment
melbell86 Posted April 2, 2011 Author Share Posted April 2, 2011 glad i could help! Yeah we just took ours back last month, we got a notice from petsmart in the mail. You can just take the heater to any petsmart and they will give you cash or you can exchange it for a like heater. They gave us $40 for ours because that was the medium value of the watt heater we had. I guess they were exploding or something scary! gonna check out your thread now Link to comment
melbell86 Posted April 5, 2011 Author Share Posted April 5, 2011 Well, i still cant seem to get Bowser to eat frozen silversides or shrimp. He just doesnt care about it at all. I did get him to eat a ghost shrimp today, so at least he is eating. Link to comment
megability Posted April 5, 2011 Share Posted April 5, 2011 Cool Aquascape and cute Frogfish! Great videos too, good luck with your tank... Link to comment
melbell86 Posted April 5, 2011 Author Share Posted April 5, 2011 Cool Aquascape and cute Frogfish! Great videos too, good luck with your tank... thank you so much!!!! Link to comment
melbell86 Posted April 10, 2011 Author Share Posted April 10, 2011 Bowser is now eating regularly. I have been feeding him 2 ghost shrimp about 3 times a week. He is starting to seem a bit interested in frozen silversides now as well! He hasnt eat one yet but he tries to "lure" it when i drop it in front of him. I think i am going to go a few days without feeding and then try it again. Anyways, here are some new pictures and a Video of bowser eating a ghost shrimp! Enjoy! My boyfriend and I also ordered a TON of various snails for clean up crews in both our tanks. We got about double of everything we ordered which seems to be a common trend when ordering from this place. It was fast, and free shipping when you spend $50. We also got some chaeto, mangroves and ulva, and for 1cent he will send you a random macro algae! Here is a link to the site http://reefcleaners.org/ Cleaners for my tank Cleaners for my boyfriends 55 gallon Nassarius feeding frenzy! Here is the video of bowser eating! Link to comment
melbell86 Posted April 28, 2011 Author Share Posted April 28, 2011 Its been a little while since i have updated. Bowser is doing great! I have gotten him to eat frozen krill which makes me very happy! I have also added some corals to my tank and things are starting to look great! Coral Additions: Yellow Polyp Zoas Toadstool Leather Blue Xenia Here are some pictures. Enjoy. FULL TANK SHOT 4/27/2011 Link to comment
melbell86 Posted April 28, 2011 Author Share Posted April 28, 2011 i like your rock work. thank you so much! it took me a long time to get it to how i liked it, but im happy with how it turned out Link to comment
clowe18 Posted April 28, 2011 Share Posted April 28, 2011 i really like your frog fish! makes me wanna get one, to bed my tanks to small... oh well keep up the work tanks looks really nice. Link to comment
Weetabix7 Posted April 28, 2011 Share Posted April 28, 2011 Excellent job training him onto frozen. I absolutely LOVE Frogfish. Haven't had one in a while, hopefully I will again someday. Link to comment
melbell86 Posted April 28, 2011 Author Share Posted April 28, 2011 Excellent job training him onto frozen. I absolutely LOVE Frogfish. Haven't had one in a while, hopefully I will again someday. it took him about a month. He is still a bit iffy sometimes, but if he goes 2-3 days without eating he takes the krill. I just made the krill "walk" along the bottom with the tongs and chase his lure when it was out so he must have thought it was alive and ate it! then he ate another one! Its expensive to feed 2 ghost shrimp every other day so i am happy to move onto frozen. Frogfish are very unique and thats what i like about them the most! You should get another one, they are so great i really like your frog fish! makes me wanna get one, to bed my tanks to small... oh well keep up the work tanks looks really nice. Thank you! how big is your tank? Some of them can go in 20 gallons, they dont really swim much either BUT they cant be with other fish cause they will surely be dinner, hehe. Link to comment
melbell86 Posted May 24, 2011 Author Share Posted May 24, 2011 Bowser is finally fully eating frozen silversides and shrimp without hesitation. This makes life so much easier, and he is getting a more nutritious diet! I am also looking into getting another frogfish of the same species as a tank mate for him. Been doing a little research and hopefully some time in the future i can get another! I saw the CUTEST quarter sized bright red pictus at my LFS. I wanted him so badly, but i knew bowser would probably eat him so i resisted the urge. Link to comment
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