Angels and Demons

[JoeDigiorgio]

I give in! I'm doing a tank thread....with a twist!

 

I have affectionately been calling these two tanks, both Aqueon 15gal columns, the twins but lately I've taken a closer look at the themes I created in each tank and they remind me of the old ACME cartoons with the angel on one shoulder and the demon on the other lol

 

FTS of each:

 

This is the Angelic Twin:

 

Specs:

15gal column tank

15lbs crushed coral

12lbs live rock

DeepBlueProfessional 15watt nano LED

Koralia Nano 240gph

 

Most Current Livestock:

Spotted Mandarin Female (Synchiropus picturatus)

True Percula Male (Amphiprion percula)

Darwin Black Ocellaris Female (Amphiprion ocellaris var.black)

Matted Filefish Pair (Acreicthys tomentosus)

Blade Caulerpa (Caulerpa prolifera)

Dragon's Breath (Halymenia sp)

Red Bubble algae (Botryocladia skottsbergii)???

Red Stripe Turbo Snails (Trochus sp)

 

 

And this is the Demonic Twin:

 

Specs:

15gal column tank

18lbs live rock

10lbs Crushed Coral

2 TrueLumen LED strips, Reef Fusion

Koralia Nano 425

 

Most Current Livestock:

Royal gramma harem of 5 (Gramma loreto)

Black Ray Prawn Goby Pair (Stonogobiops nematodes)

2 unpaired Striped Pistol Shrimp (Alpheus randalli)

Various corals including: Caulastrea sp, Nepthea sp, Euphyllia sp, Zoanthus sp, Rhodactus sp, Discosoma sp, Favia sp, Clavularia sp

[FlowerMama]

Interesting concept- are they side by side? or one above each other? I am surprised at the # of fish in each tank though, seems like too much to me.

[AMAYEU]

Thanks for starting a thread and sharing!

[FlowerMama]

I love the macros. I'm gonna start some for my 20long in Jan, some in the tank and some for the refugium.

[metrokat]

following!

[JoeDigiorgio]

Ok so I've compiled enough pics to back date these tanks enough to get everybody caught up.

 

We'll start with the older, angelic twin

 

She actually started as a 10gal desktop macro tank but quickly got upgraded. Couldn't find pics of that tank...probably deleted them because they were ugly lol

 

Here she is the day we brought her home, still naked

 

And here with her favorite little black dress

 

To be continued!

[JoeDigiorgio]

Once all the rock and Caulerpa was moved over from the 10gal, plus a little dry lace rock for volume. Stock lighting...gross!

 

That t5 had to go, replaced by a DB 15 watt LED strip, 2x3watt 10K, 2x3watt 6700K, 1x3watt actinic

 

The after shot:

 

In this last pic you can see the HOB filter still on there. That only lasted like a month to help with the initial cycle then was removed. The heater too..

 

TBC!

[JoeDigiorgio]

Here are a couple of pics from the first couple of months, some macro growth, addition of dragons breath, and the addition of some fish.

 

 

 

Basically in the first couple of months, the mandarins were moved in along with the angels and cardinals. A total of 8 fish (4 mandarins)

 

One pair of mandarins was given to a friend for his 80gal mixed reef. He'd been eyeing them for some time and his birthday came around, plus the other pair started spawning so it was an excuse to give the lovebirds a little space lol (pics of an egg cluster to come)

 

The cardinals went to another friend as a broodstock pair for his breeding project since they'd been showing spawning behavior with me for a few weeks.

 

The angel pair mysteriously died together on the same day before the cards were given away. No clue what happened. Came home to 2 dead angels and the rest of the tank and water params perfect looking. To this day I'm at a loss and still upset at losing them.

 

By my rough estimate the tank is about 5 months old at this point plus like 4 months before the move into the column from the 10gal.

 

TBC

[JoeDigiorgio]

How many people have seen one of these? It's about 300 spotted mandarin eggs

 

At this point not much is changing in the tank aside from extreme macro growth and trimming. The tank is fed at least three times a day, usually more, so you can imagine the available nutrients.

 

 

The tank goes from trimmed and pretty to that jungle in about a month now. By this point there has been more going on by way of the second twin being born but well get to that soon. This post more or less represents being caught up to today's date in terms of major tank events. Next few posts will profile the evil twin

 

More to come!!! Sorry for all the posts, I can only upload so many pics to a post lol

[JoeDigiorgio]

Now somewhere along the lines, like a month or 2 ago, we brought home our second baby...completing the look and bringing a whole new dimension to the apartment

 

Basically I have a obsession with pairs, as you can tell by my livestock choices. Now since last August I've been running a little acrylic desk top reef but with the addition of the first of the twins, you can imagine my urge to match started really giving me an itch.

 

This is the precursor to the evil twin...not a bad looking tank if I do say so myself

 

 

Anyway I digress, here she is on her first day home, getting dressed up

 

 

After a few hours of tinkering and fiddling, she was filled and the original reef inhabitants were moved into their new home. This included a pair of clowns, a pair of prawn gobies and 2 pistol shrimps, along with a good bit of corals. I did however underestimate my rock requirements for the tank lol

 

Pics to come, bear with me here lol

[JoeDigiorgio]

Here is the reef with not enough rock, not enough light and, in my opinion, a below par scape. I am not happy at this point in this twin's life. So much so that I've actually removed the clown pair to the macro tank in absence of the former livestock in there and left only corals and the prawn gobies.

 

 

So I bought some more rock and formulated a stocking plan. Royal Grammas baby!!! The #1 Most Underrated Fish Ever!

 

 

Keep reading you're almost there!

[JoeDigiorgio]

Here she is, scape complete but waiting for more light and corals

 

 

That shadow up top makes me sick even though its gone now lol

 

And last but not least...an up to date FTS!!!

 

 

Excuse the pissy looking corals, this pick was taken just after moving stuff around. A couple of corals moved around in respect to increased lighting and room made for some easy sps and likely a clam. And now...finally...I'm going to bed. The thread is caught up and now I can just plug along as we go. I hope you're enjoying up to this point thanks for following so far!

 

Joe

[JoeDigiorgio]

Today I came across probably the most perfect spotted mandarin male I've ever had the opportunity to buy...so I did. My little girl finally has a mate again

 

 

 

And I picked up a couple of frags while I was at it. About an inch each of red montipora and a greenish acropora sp.

 

[JoeDigiorgio]

Disaster!!!!! All of the Grammas have come down with ick. I've already lost two in two days :,(

 

This is what I get for throwing caution to the wind I guess. I bought half of this group from an LFS that has a below par reputation for livestock health. There's no way I can catch these remaining 3 fish to treat them. I'm going to raise the temp and lower salinity and wait it out.

 

 

On a brighter note, my new male mandarin ate some mysis tonight. Took him three whole days to figure it out lol

[metrokat]

Sorry to hear about the ich but glad that the mandarin is eating.

[JoeDigiorgio]

Thanks Kat

 

I picked up the A/B by Continuum today. I figured if I'm going to get my feet wet with SPS, I might a well start dabbling in some dosing, huh? The only reason I picked up Continuum's A and B is that we just got it in my store recently and I had been hearing good feedback from customers and coworkers. Any input?

 

I know you have some very nice SPS Kat

[FlowerMama]

Disaster!!!!! All of the Grammas have come down with ick. I've already lost two in two days :,(

 

This is what I get for throwing caution to the wind I guess. I bought half of this group from an LFS that has a below par reputation for livestock health. There's no way I can catch these remaining 3 fish to treat them. I'm going to raise the temp and lower salinity and wait it out.

 

 

On a brighter note, my new male mandarin ate some mysis tonight. Took him three whole days to figure it out lol

 

Sorry to hear about your fish loss.

 

Were all the fish in the same tank? You've lost 2 in two days and you have 3 remaining fish to treat. If they're all in a 15 gallon, which really turns out being more like 10 after LR, that's too many fish, stressful environment thus exacerbating ich , bringing it to the surface. You shouldn't have more than 2 fish.

 

As far as dabbling in dosing, if you're doing water changes you'll get all the calcium, magnesium, etc vital elements replenished. Don't try to do so much. If everything comes out fine in weekly testing, then don't add things. Those folks you hear at the lfs may have much larger scale tanks which may be a completely different story. Be careful. They're beautiful tanks.

[JoeDigiorgio]

I've been using reef crystals for a while now and I'm not happy with my calcium, alk or pH with it. I know stability is way more important than the exact values themselves but I always like trying new things. I think the easy of tweaking is one of the draws these small tanks have had on me over the years. With diligence, there is so much more fine tune controllability in nanos and for me the work is the fun, not the downside.

 

As for the origin of the ick, I'm not in the least bit interested in debating the relationship between stocking, stress and disease here but I think we are past the days of believing that ick is always present in a system and that stocking levels can magically bring about the presence of pathogenic organisms. They're either there or they're not there and I think we can all agree that there are a lot more important factors contributing to stress than stocking.

[JoeDigiorgio]

Ugh. This is why I never started a tank thread. I'm so bad at keeping up with them.

 

Anyway, to sum up the past couple of weeks, I lost all the Grammas to ick. The stonogobiops pair on the other hand is completely impervious to all forms of disease apparently as they haven't stopped spawning regularly in a few months. They've lived in tanks with velvet, brook and ick so far with no symptoms. These two need to be DNA tested for super powers or something. Picks of their latest spawn to come. The sps frags I picked up have all begun to encrust since my last post which was 3 weeks ago so I'm happy with that growth.

 

In other news over in the macro tank, not much has changed aside from my pickup of a pair of splendidus mandarins. They are very young and took a while to settle in. I have no decent picks of them yet but they've tentatively begun eating frozen.

 

I finally gave in and spent the $6 on Ova by Nutramar. I think part of me wanted to hold on to the idea that this stuff couldn't possibly be all it was cracked up to be. Well, I'm not going to say its the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I will say I'm actually pretty impressed by the response it got from the dragonet family as a whole. They really do like it. Of course so do the files and clowns.

 

My latest plan is to eventually move the clown pair to the reef, with the stonogobiops pair and leave the macro tank with the dragonets, files and eventually a pair of Doryrhamphus excisus. Look those up, everyone .

 

Right now I'm playing with the idea of trading in the splendidus pair for an excisus pair but I may keep both. Idk yet. I don't honestly feel the macro tank is overstocked because of the way the fish have divided themselves into niches but I don't want to play with fire either and I'd like to get back to the original micro predator theme it was meant for. We shall see how this works out.

 

Pics of all the above to come thanks for reading!

[Tamberav]

ha!.. you FINALLY got ova. Your fish were missing out If a new fish won't eat.. I offer him ova and then he'll eat anything from then on.

[JoeDigiorgio]

Yea yea. Listen, I said I was impressed with it alright!? Nice build btw. Looks like yours and mine are going to be in competition for sickest dragonet setup on N-R which means I gotta stay on top of this thread better

 

 

[Tamberav]

Yea yea. Listen, I said I was impressed with it alright!? Nice build btw. Looks like yours and mine are going to be in competition for sickest dragonet setup on N-R which means I gotta stay on top of this thread better

 

Lol, no fair.. you have a head start!

 

What light do you have on your macro tank?

[JoeDigiorgio]

On the macro tank I have one of those cheapo deep blue 15watt LED goosenecks. It's got 2 10000K, 2 6700K and 1 actinic diode. Each is 3 watts. I was able to get it super cheap. They retail for like $60-70 and I got it for like $35 so I couldn't pass it up. It was supposed to be temporary but I actually really like it.

 

I picked up a few coral frags today too. I really gotta get some picks going lol

 

Lol, no fair.. you have a head start!

 

What light do you have on your macro tank?

 

As for our little competition, I may have a head start but your tank is a little bigger and I really like the layout so far. Keep the picks coming on your thread and I promise I'll keep them coming on mine lol

[Deleted User 4]

Whoa 5 royal grammas??? They don't fight?

[JoeDigiorgio]

Everybody says that! My theory is that when you add say 3 of a species to a tank, you get a pair and a loner. And as a result, there is a lack of actual hierarchy and instead you get a dominant pair and a subordinate individual that gets double teamed all day. Now scale that up in number of fish related to space and you get several fish in a relatively large tank and each fish thinks he's king of his own little castle and again you get constant battles for turf. This is the unfortunate situation many run into with clown fish. There is just enough room that everybody has a reason to fight.

 

Now my approach to 'harem style' fish keeping is this:

 

I play on the natural instinct NOT to fight. Fighting is not only dangerous, but its a waste of energy. In the wild you don't know when your next meal is. In the wild, fish avoid confrontation at all costs. This is true of any species of any animal actually. In the wild even a small injury may reduce your ability to feed or breed.

 

Now this brings me to my husbandry. I don't want to write a book here but in essence, my fish are all 'over fed' by the standards of many and 'overcrowded' by those same standards. I'm not one to follow conventional wisdom but I am one to learn from the mistakes and successes of others.

 

What I've found is that there is actually a fine line between crowded and grouped. I take away variables like hunger and open space to reduce violence and what I get is a group of fish that gets along great and forms an actual functioning hierarchy as opposed to constantly battling for space, food or dominance. Those grammas were a great example of that until they came down with ick (and don't even try telling me that ick just magically appears because fish are stressed even though they're completely colorful, active and eating). I've also kept cherub angels this way very successfully.

 

It's all a balancing act between space, food and water quality. I can go on for hours and literally will write a husbandry book one day but ill end with this: If you're afraid to do water changes you need to get out of this hobby lol