Odyssey's 40 Breeder

[Odyssey350kc]

Ok I need Help. I got home tonight from my business trip. My girlfriend stated to me that she had still not seen my melanurus wrasse (which means no signs of him in 4 days). So I decided to rip apart the tank and see if i could find a dead fish. To my surprise however after moving 2 rocks what do i see - THE Wrasse! alive!

 

So I decide to move a few more rocks to see if i can find the yellow wrasse which has now been missing for 10 days now. What do i find now? The pistol shrimp and hifin goby (who hasn't been seen in 10 days)chilling together under a rock!

 

Finished moving all the rocks - Final result Chromis is definetly long gone, and no sign of yellow wrasse either.

 

What do I do now?

 

I don't want the melanurus to starve or just dissapear like the other fish. He seemed a little slow when I exposed him.

 

1. Should I catch him and put him in a secure area of the sump?

2. Should I leave him be?

 

I feel like something is definetly wrong. Why would he act perfectly fine for 4 days. Then dissapear for 4 days.

 

Obviously I have a problem if the chromis died. and most likely the yellow wrasse. But the clownfish and anthia are doing great and even seem to get along.

 

My only idea is that the wrasse cant take the clownfish picking on him. In the 20 minutes it took me to rearrange all the rocks in the tank the female clown attacked my hand the ENTIRE time. No exaggeration it must have bitten me over 100 times.

 

Problem with that theory is that the chromis dissapeared 2 days before the clowns were released from their breeder net, so they could not have caused his death.

 

 

Any and all suggestions are appreciated.

[ajmckay]

Hmm... I don't think the clowns are at fault regarding the wrasses. If there's one thing I've learned from researching and keeping wrasses is that they almost always come in with parasites such as crypto or probably even more commonly with flukes. They can cause symptoms such as hiding a lot and not eating. Even if it were eating it could suddenly stop as the infestation gets worse.

 

Do you have any Praziquantel (or similar like Prazi-pro) on hand? If not I suggest you pick some up quick and treat the tank. IMO doing it in QT is advisable, however, prazi has a very good reputation of being one of the few medications that can reasonably be dosed in the display tank dosed properly. I wouldn't chance it if I had a huge tank with a bunch of show corals, but except for affecting some worms and such it shouldn't harm anything. Another thing you can do (probably in addition to the prazi) is combine metronidazole with focus powder (both seachem products) and soak your food in it. The focus binds the medication to the food so when the fish eat it they get treated directly with the metronidazole which is a pretty decent medication effective against internal parasites and some bacterial infections. The combination would be quite effective, however, if you only choose 1 I would go with the prazi.

 

I'll bet that if you looked at the wrasse carefully you would see small mostly translucent raised bumps on the fish. If you see them on the outside they're probably burrowed under scales and/or in the gills also. Sometimes you can only see them when the fish is oriented a certain way (such as pointed toward you) but I'll bet they're there. Since wrasses are so hardy and mostly wild caught they commonly come in with these things. The good news is that the medication takes effect pretty quick, and should any of your other fish have them also it should work there also. Some other signs of a parasite are clamped or droopy fins, missing scales or little spots where there's damage to the scales, sometimes little bumps and cuts from rubbing up against stuff, shuttering, flashing against rocks, irregular gill movement, physically seeing a parasite, etc...

[Odyssey350kc]

Thank you. I'll definitely give those med a try.

[Odyssey350kc]

So I got a video of the wrasse today. I saw his head poking out of the sand so i put some mysis in the tank to try and lure him out. It didnt do much until I used some long tweesers to put it less than an inch from his mouth.

 

http://i682.photobucket.com/albums/vv187/odyssey350kc/Mobile%20Uploads/th_20150425_124028_zps23qvs68g.mp4

 

Im not sure now, I just feel like I'm being paranoid. He seemed fine, yet after this video he dissapeared for the rest of the day.

[Odyssey350kc]

On a happier note, I was able to go to the local reef store today and pick up some new frags.

 

zoanthids $10

 

Acans $20 - Terrible photo, there actually really cool purple and green

 

Also picked up an Acro $10 - good size - looks bleached out though, still some blue on it, we'll see if it colors up. Good size too, close to 2" long. Couldn't get a good shot of it, I'll have to post a pic tomorrow.

 

Full tank shot

[Odyssey350kc]

So its officially been 2 weeks since I saw the melanurus wrasse.

 

So that brings the dead fish total to:

 

2 - blue green chromis

1.- yellow coris wrasse

1 - melanurus wrasse

 

Still doing great however are the:

 

2 - clowns

1 - barttlets anthia

1 - hifin yellow rose goby

 

I want another active / colorful fish in this tank. The 2 clowns and anthia are like a trio never leaving eachothers side. The three of them all stay right near the frogspawn on the far left of the tank, and I have never seen any of them venture to the other half of the tank.

 

I would love to get another chromis or melanarus wrasse, however I am a bit turned off from these two fish right now. The chromis because I went through 2 with no explanation for their death, which I have had several people tell me is quite common. And the melanurus because I feel like he was probably sick, which I don't want to happen again either.

 

The only other fish that I would really love is a flame angel. I am nervous of it picking at corals though. Is this really common, I feed the fish twice a day, i would think that would be enough to keep the angel full enough not to eat coral. Am I right?

 

 

[Odyssey350kc]

I feel like I havent done an update in a while, It kind of feels useless without a proper camera. So I went and took a few pics of my water production center, which i recently finished up.

 

From the top down

 

1. BRS RODI filter (filthy sediment filter used for less than 6 months already need a new one)

2. Roughly 35 gallon brute square container for DI water with auto shut off float.

3. Exactly 8 gallon white mixing container with built in drain (free)

4.Clean 5 gallon bucket used to fill tank

 

 

 

I also saw this little guy at my lfs today. Took me a minute to realize it was a little octopus. That whole mass of legs was only about 2 inches across. I had never actually seen one in person, pretty cool

I did not buy him, just posting the pic because i thought it was cool.

[Odyssey350kc]

So I went and picked up another melanurus wrasse. I really want this fish to make it. Good news is hes doing great. The difference in temperament between the first one i had is incredible. The first one i got slowly swam around the bottom of the tank and hid. This one zooms across the top of the tank all day in and out of the return streams. Yay

 

But I guess i cant be that lucky.

 

Now my anthia hides all day until the wrasse goes to bed! aaaaah

 

Tonight when the anthia came out it had a frayed tail.

 

The wrasse has been in the tank 3 days, and if the anthia does happen to venture out (usually at feeding) if it sees the wrasse it immediately hides.

 

What do i do?

 

[Cencalfishguy56]

So I went and picked up another melanurus wrasse. I really want this fish to make it. Good news is hes doing great. The difference in temperament between the first one i had is incredible. The first one i got slowly swam around the bottom of the tank and hid. This one zooms across the top of the tank all day in and out of the return streams. Yay

 

But I guess i cant be that lucky.

 

Now my anthia hides all day until the wrasse goes to bed! aaaaah

 

Tonight when the anthia came out it had a frayed tail.

 

The wrasse has been in the tank 3 days, and if the anthia does happen to venture out (usually at feeding) if it sees the wrasse it immediately hides.

 

What do i do?

 

By far one of my favorite wrasses! And the octopus is siiiick! My LFS gets them every so often, I was just there an hour ago to be honest and he had a ton of different wrasses

[Odyssey350kc]

Its been a long time since an update on the tank. I let things slide a bit, started waiting 2 weeks between water changes, and stopped dosing. So needless to say the tank wasn't doing too hot. But all of the fish are doing great and very happy. They always get fed twice a day so my anthia stays fat.

 

But i finally got up the energy to start working on it again.

 

- I removed the steel stand that was holding up the skimmer and made a custom one out of stuff i had lying around which was a piece of plexiglass and pvc pipe

 

But when I came home today I see this - my mp10 had slid down the side of the tank and blown sand over the whole tank all over all of the corals

 

This gave me an excuse to move some corals around, turkey baste all of the rocks and a piece of dry rock i have had lying around for the past few months. - End result looks pretty good in my opinion.

 

[Odyssey350kc]

I seem to go through alkalinity. Loose about .5 to 1dkh per day, but my calcium pretty much stays at a constant 450. I havent dosed calcium in 2 weeks. Has this happened to anyone else?

[Odyssey350kc]

Ordering corals while looking at corals

[Odyssey350kc]

Just have to say my first live coral sale was a blast. I had no intention of spending 6 hours on my couch, but there i was. Luckily i think I made it worth it. 16 new corals, essentially doubling the number i have in my tank. should be interesting, I made a couple collages so i wouldnt have to upload 16 pics.

[Odyssey350kc]

Caught my anthia today. Looking to get a new fish. All the anthia did was hide all day. I want an active swimmer. I was thinking of a flame angel, but heard I am taking a risk with my clam and sps.

 

Any other suggestions. - I would just get 3 chromis but i didn't have much luck with them when i set up the tank.

[Odyssey350kc]

I decided what to get for new fish. 3 yellowstripe cardinalfish. I had seen these guys before and not given them much thought, but the more I look at them the more they grow on me.

 

 

[Odyssey350kc]

I have been contemplating adding chaeto to my sump because I have a bit of hair algae and red slime algae, but...

 

I already have a protein skimmer, 2 filter socks, and a reactor with carbon and GFO

 

What's your opinions? Is it worth buying a bulb and sectioning off part of the sump or do I already have enough filtration?

[Odyssey350kc]

I got myself the new Galaxy S7 edge, and can I say it takes some good pictures! probably even better if I knew what I was doing.

[Odyssey350kc]

 

 

 

[jedimasterben]

Chaetomorpha definitely isn't going to lower nutrients to put compete cyanobacteria unless you have more than your tank volume and an immense amount of light to keep it going, so I wouldn't worry about it. Time is the fix for cyano IMHO.

 

I guess that was from December and you probably figured it out lol. Tank is lookin good, love that leather! Mine used to be that green, maybe one day it will go back to that

[Odyssey350kc]

Chaetomorpha definitely isn't going to lower nutrients to put compete cyanobacteria unless you have more than your tank volume and an immense amount of light to keep it going, so I wouldn't worry about it. Time is the fix for cyano IMHO.

 

I guess that was from December and you probably figured it out lol. Tank is lookin good, love that leather! Mine used to be that green, maybe one day it will go back to that

Thanks, yeah I got the cyano pretty well under control. The only problem I seem to be having now is the mushrooms in my tank aren't doing great, my only thought is maybe they are getting too much light, Your the expert on lights, what do you think. Here is a pic of it. Its been in the same spot since i put it there 5 months ago, and doesn't seem to grow or extend at all. The only place I think I could do less light is in the shaded area under my montipora.

[jedimasterben]

Yeah, it is bleached out. Mushrooms can move like nems can, but sometimes they're idiots and just don't lol. I would relocate it

[Odyssey350kc]

 

Little video I took using my new phone.

Yeah, it is bleached out. Mushrooms can move like nems can, but sometimes they're idiots and just don't lol. I would relocate it

Thanks

[Roshan8768]

Tank looks good! Sorry to hear about your difficulty stocking, I remember commenting way back when you were planning the fish list haha. My 40 now has a Tomini Tang, yellow tail blue damsel, royal gramma, maroon clown, and a female leopard wrasse which is my favorite if that gives you any ideas haha

[Odyssey350kc]

Tank looks good! Sorry to hear about your difficulty stocking, I remember commenting way back when you were planning the fish list haha. My 40 now has a Tomini Tang, yellow tail blue damsel, royal gramma, maroon clown, and a female leopard wrasse which is my favorite if that gives you any ideas haha

I am actually very happy with the crew I have in there now. The orange stripe Cardinals really made a difference. They stay out in the open right in the main part of the tank which is exactly what I wanted. My wrasse is probably my favorite fish as well, so colorful. I hadn't heard of the type of tang you have, looks like a cool fish though, at least what I googled.

[Odyssey350kc]

I moved that bleaching mushroom to the farthest corner of the tank, along with a few zooanthids I think I had a little to high up. My cat hardly ever notices the tank, but for some reason the new frag rack really sparked his interest