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Brown Jelly finished off the mystic monti and the baliensis overnight, got what was left and as much of the gunk out of the tank as I could.
Hopefully it doesn't spread, but it was there for at least a few hours in heavy-flow and my removal-job wasn't the cleanest.

Decided since the proverbial-rug's already been pulled out I may as well make some major changes in the tank; I'm going to be re-constructing the rock on the left and have set up my 270gph nano-pump as a tidal-bore, it points directly at the wall-corner in the front of the tank and provides some pretty-intense (but kind of indirect from the deflection?) flow for around 2 hours 4 times a day on a simple on-off timer. Supposedly the sicce powerheads handle being toggled on-and-off better than most, guess we'll see. For now the remaining euphyllia actually seem to appreciate the increased-flow, just about blew the alveopora over though lol, hopefully didn't cause any microtears with the brown jelly in the tank...

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Tank is still in mend-mode, haven't lost anything else yet.

The frogspawn is deep into polyp-bailout and I routinely see mesenterial-filaments from the controlled cell-death at the base of the animal, the same goes for the small long-stemmed black hammer. However the yellow-hammer, while always scrunched and pissy, otherwise seems unfazed by much of anything thrown at it.
On the bright side the blasto's have no idea anything happened and have started growing new heads and the stn seems to have stopped on the FF monti which I accidentally-fragged when transferring onto the rockwork.

Speaking of Monti's I went ahead and grabbed a really-cheap nub of a plating-monti just to be certain there isn't anything in the water, perhaps from my DIY job with tank-itself, causing the animals issues.

So far, so good on that front, fingers-crossed things stay on the mend for a little-while.

Dorkfish got spooked when my wife walked into the kitchen and swam into a rock, it now has a damaged scale above its' eye *eyeroll*.


There are TONS of deep-caves on the left now and random currents are generated by the KPS wavemaker (set to wave-pulse or smooth (smooth has random-intervals and durations)) blowing into the return-stream to be deflected by the wall of the tank, both pumps are pretty-steeply angled. As the wavemaker's flow changes so does the flow going essentially-everywhere in the tank. The sicc voyager 270 you can see in the reflection comes on for 30 minutes, 4 times a day just to blow settling-debris back into the water-column.


Oh and the snails will not stop spawning lol, astrea, dwarf cerith, florida cerith, trochus...
 

Here are a few non-white balanced, morning shots showing-off my DIY random-flow generator on the left and the tidal-cleanup pump on the right alongside the serious-rock-redesigning.

 

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Livestock plans for the future:
I have no idea

 

I would love to try a second damselfish; either a Chrys Rex, or Chrys Tracey's but it's a total diceroll as to whether they would get along with the springer's (even with all the caves)

My wife fell in love with the extra-fancy Sustainable aquatic's clownfish we grabbed before, but might like a blood-orange (too big and aggressive likely), or a pair of gladiators/suitably-fancy-percs. I'm not sure if I want the extra-aggression and mischief a pair brings to the table over an individual, that said (a) clownfish are definitely-happening at some point.

 

  • My wife and I both love the pygmy spotted filefish from ORA but I would really like to get fish which will utilize my rockwork
  • I'm a big fan of reticulated-perchlets but supposedly they'll eat anything smaller or their size as adults, so the porcelain crabs and possibly the damselfish too
  • The springers is tough enough on my pod population and I don't think I want to have a wrasse or hogfish which might zero it out
  • Chalk Bass might work but I reached out to @StinkyBunny and was advised the tank was likely too-small since they do better as a pair or more
  • Green banded gobies are awesome but, for some reason, impossible to find; though a pair would be fantastic
  • My wife thinks cardinals and grammas are fugly, swales basslets also functionally don't-exist XD



Would love to hear other folk's ideas because I'm fresh-out.

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Update, it turns out the springer's damselfish was actively nipping-at and eating coral polyps, he had been ripping at a dying monti and stylo during the crash and I assumed it was just opportunism at-work. Caught the bugger ripping tentacles off a fully-extended and healthy alveopora and frogspawn today, took a little bit of work to net the sucker but its' out of the tank now.
That makes stocking a bit easier I guess.

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1 hour ago, Wonderboy said:

I was trying to think of something too in my free time - this definitely opens up options haha

It certainly does, though the size of the tank still leaves things a bit constrained. I'm hesitant to leave the tank empty for too long after the dino's, we'll see what I stumble-into when I trade the damsel in for credit tomorrow, preliminary-results point towards clowns and basslets. Though I do love the filefish idea haha.
Updated the Poll with some new ideas.

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Pair of clowns, pair of pygmy filefish, pair of green banded gobies...and a pair of cleaner shrimp or a pair of sexy shrimp? 😄  I have all of these fish and they are wonderful, my aggressive meany 5 yr old female clown does not bully the pygmys at all.. or the gobies. She chases the wrasses, grammas, and damsels. 

 

I think the filefish and gobies are just too different looking for her to see them as competition. Just a guess. 

 

ALL PAIRS TANK! 🙂

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Love that idea, you think that wouldn't be overdoing the bioload in a 20Long? ( I would probably wait a few months before adding the second pair- then a few more until the third - of either fish and maybe go with perc (or stubby?) clowns since they tend to stay a touch smaller.)

 

Added your idea to the Poll, gotta say I'm a fan of everything but the potential waterchanges XD Maybe I have enough rockwork that, with some softies and macro, I won't run into too many issues lol.

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52 minutes ago, Amphrites said:

Love that idea, you think that wouldn't be overdoing the bioload in a 20Long? ( I would probably wait a few months before adding the second pair- then a few more until the third - of either fish and maybe go with perc (or stubby?) clowns since they tend to stay a touch smaller.)

 

Added your idea to the Poll, gotta say I'm a fan of everything but the potential waterchanges XD Maybe I have enough rockwork that, with some softies and macro, I won't run into too many issues lol.

 

Nah, the greenbanded gobies are fairly small - nothing like a watchmen or something and the pygmys stay pretty tiny too. 

 

They are all very easy to feed fish, so nothing should go wasted which makes feeding easier since you are not trying to convince a picky fish or a shy one to eat by overfeeding. 

 

I can't change my vote from the 2nd option 😛

 

 

 

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I tend to lean towards less fish, being more of an invert guy... so I voted for the plain-old pair of clownfish. 😅 Sure it's been done a hundred thousand times before... but that's because it is pretty cool! Everybody loves a good Nemo or two.

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I voted for @Tamberav's matchmaker list lol - those filefish sound fun - I voted for more fish because my understanding is that the more fish you can successfully keep healthy and pooping from frequent feeding in these closed environments, the less you have to feed the corals for good growth - I tend to run "over-stocked" systems for this reason - consistent abundance of nutrient availablilty to provide for large amounts of nutrient recycling. With little systems, a little WC is pretty quick to fix occasional offsets.

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On 11/16/2019 at 1:38 AM, Tamberav said:

 

Nah, the greenbanded gobies are fairly small - nothing like a watchmen or something and the pygmys stay pretty tiny too. 

 

They are all very easy to feed fish, so nothing should go wasted which makes feeding easier since you are not trying to convince a picky fish or a shy one to eat by overfeeding. 

 

I can't change my vote from the 2nd option 😛

 

 

 

Oh, I don't suppose you might have any experience or information concerning the lifespan of those pygmy filefish? I can't seem to dig up much of anything, I might email ORA and see what their experience has been with their breeding-pairs.

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1 hour ago, Matteo said:

treat yourself to a REALLY NICE designer clown pair. No regrets 

Well, designer is a stretch but I'm currently prophylactically-treating a pretty-nice pair of Percs ^_^
Here's a video of a free-floating hydroid in the tank this morning with a quick sneak-peak at the pair, yes I'm treating them in the display tank since there are no other fish. 
Gameplan is to just treat everyone with general-cure medicated-food when I add new fish and to be exceedingly-careful about vetting-purchases and spacing things out a few months at a time, I had a quarantine-tank set up for a while but it's too much right now during my condition's bad season and with the apartment being as small as it is (technically we're not allotted enough gallons in our space for the QT tank anyway...).

For some reason the video isn't available in full 1080, hopefully it's a time-thing. *Fixed it *
https://photos.app.goo.gl/uEJuGdX4HmkQrNAt8

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1 hour ago, Amphrites said:

Oh, I don't suppose you might have any experience or information concerning the lifespan of those pygmy filefish? I can't seem to dig up much of anything, I might email ORA and see what their experience has been with their breeding-pairs.

 

Not sure but i am sure they have a decent life span. 

 

Great looking pair of clowns! 

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Well ORA said at least 3 years, apparently they're a temperate-water species whose-metabolism is kind of thrown-off in our tanks. I run colder, around 75, so maybe they would stick around a while longer but they're accustomed to 50 degree winters, rough decision as larger wild specimens seem to live closer to 6-10 years...
Also baby trochus/astrea?

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Small low-quality photodump, the grain is due to high-shutter-speed, 1x digital zoom and the high-iso required to compensate. Should have grabbed the better camera XD sorry, I'll upload some better photos soon.

And for anyone who was worried I think I got a pretty-healthy pair of clowns, they've already adapted to the pretty-potent sting offered by the power head in the top-left giving it no choice but to host them.
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The percs weren't a pair or mated lol; the smaller one has started picking fights and getting fairly aggressive. It routinely-divebombs the larger and has mapped out a territory it constantly scuffles or swipes the other away from with its' fins. Every time they lock jaws it gets tossed-around like a ragdoll, but after pretending to go-submissive it will take a swipe at the body or fins of the larger clown.
 

Sigh* Sometimes fish just aren't compatible in a new environment, I get it, but man what a bugger. The aggression has only been going on a week or so, but I'm already starting to see minor damage to the clear and outermost portions of the large one's fins and they're sleeping on opposite sides of the tank now.
I'm thinking I'll likely have to remove the smaller, more aggressive one if things keep up at this pace much longer.

I could try dividing the tank in two with the net I made, but I don't see that having too much of an impact - though they may stay separate and develop their own territories if there's no interaction, but if I ever separate or intervene, even accidentally, in their fights the larger one mopes and then immediately swims over the the smaller fish to coax it back out into the open and try to school with it. As soon as they return to their preferred spot the smaller-one gets aggressive again...

On the bright side the tank seems to be back on its' feet and some exceptional-deals from locals have helped me breathe a little life back into the tank without putting much of a dent into money that's honestly-better saved elsewhere right now XD
I'll have some new shots up once things settle in.

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I promised some decent shots of the new livestock, I lied, sorry but these pics are the best I've got =p

Metallic Branching GSP
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Crayola Plana 

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Lower-Res Crop

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Apparently I put the Setosa in an impossible to photograph location.
The Forest Fire in the background looks like it might survive.

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Dragons Breath, the weirdest Frogspawn Morph I've ever seen, and the bicolor indo frogspawn which may or may not survive
In the background are the chalice and remaining mushroom

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Shoddy Photography Exhibit Pt. 2

 

 

Grumpy new Stylocoenella and a bronze-colored Litho chalice
On the far-left is an accidental frag of the forest fire, on the right the quite-fluffy stylocenella and blasto

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Purple Stylophora and another shot of what's left of the Forest Fire Digi

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Blastos, grumpy indo frogspawn, grumpy stylo, fluffy stylo, I cannot get this Duncan to open up

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Purple Stylo

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Weird pho-artsy shot of the stylo and Crayola

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Alveopora

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Sorry to hear about the unpaired "pair" of percs. Fish aggression is the worst, especially when you've already been through so many other hassles recently! But it's great to see that the tank is starting to bounce back and recover from the crash. With some time and careful attention I have no doubt that it will be back up to speed in no time. Keep us posted on those frags as they begin to encrust!

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So the little clown spent the night in marriage-counseling (the overflow chamber) and is now behaving much, much better. The two are back to swimming out in the open, there are still little aggressive space-control posturing and stare-downs, but the small one is back to submitting and not taking cheap shots and thankfully the feeding aggression seems to be gone. The smaller is still a little confused by the tank-transfer I think, it wants to swim with the larger fish be submissive but also roam around singly. It also routinely-dashes at the larger to stare it down, expecting it to submit, before swimming off to its' corner/territory.

Hopefully I didn't end up with two females, percs are so mild-mannered I probably wouldn't know until one jumped or died, heck they may even just pick different spots and get along. I doubt it, mostly due to the smaller-one's more aggressive disposition, but I can hope right?
 /facepalm.
 

Anyway maybe if I get lucky things will stay a bit more low-key for now, though I certainly expect there to be some more squabbling down-the-line.

 

Glad I made sure the two Chambers in the back of the tank were large enough to hold problem fish if need be (4*5*12, and 6*5*12 not ideal but hardly cruel for a small-animal overnight-stay).

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The smaller perc is going back to the lfs Sunday.

 

The interactions they're having are getting further and further away from anything resembling pairing squabbles and, on the part of the smaller, rapidly-approaching dangerous levels of aggression.

At this point they're no longer just having issues at night, during the day the smaller much more actively crowds-out the larger in an effort to push it to the other side of the tank. It has also taken to biting and swiping at it when they're being fed.

 

To top it all off nights have just been getting progressively worse, the smaller fish slowly laps the larger around the surface of the tank, not locking mouths but instead going for fins, gills, etc; it tail-slaps and crowds out the other in the same way proper damselfish do when competing for bedding-terratory at night.

Tonight when I finally decided to pull the smaller fish out for the last time, it was only after watching it slowly wear the larger to the point it was just floating sideways at the surface exhausted, the smaller was still biting at it. (Which made it easy to catch at least)

 

The larger perc's mouth is trashed, fins are frayed, tail is damaged, possibly its' gillplates too... The bit which actually concerns me is the apparent attachment the larger has - it seemingly only wanted to be close to the other during the day and night and showed no interest in competition, it would attack the net or swim between the smaller and my hand every time I was getting it out, barely eats -instead swimming belly-against the side of the tank- when it isn't around, and constantly drew it out of hiding if it got spooked.

 

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So this morning the new setosa colony is exhibiting the same strange-behavior which afflicted previously-healthy sps after my tank-transfer. It is missing a single-polyp from near-center in the colony. There are no rasping or grazing trails to speak of, and no tissue is missing besides the polyp and a small circle of tissue around it. 

My milka stylo was slowly stripped of its' polyps after the tank transfer and my forest-fire digi has been slowly-suffering the same fate, now it seems whatever pest may be causing all this trouble has moved on or spread. I've spent dozens of hours staring at the tank both during the day and with a flashlight at night and have seen nothing but little white, maybe orange-tinted round-pods on the monti-digi. 
I figured it was the transfer and the crash, but with rock-solid params and 15% weekly waterchanges, coupled by the abnormal-pattern of tissue loss I'm rapidly losing faith in that comparatively-comforting theory.

I'm stumped, the eunicid worm I had on the old mushroom rock hasn't been sighted and seemed to prefer softies anyway, the damselfish is gone (though it too preferred lps)...

I'm considering getting a yellow/blue coral-banded shrimp and a pest-eating fish like a pink-streak wrasse, but I'm open to trying most appropriately-sized animals if anyone has had similar-experiences. I'm suspecting some kind of polychaete worm, but at this point I'm reaching out and hoping to touch, via PM's or this journal, someone who might have encountered something similar.

Here's a shot, I can't find anything out there which leaves damage like this apart from non-reef safe fish with small mouths lol.
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