yikai

after close to 2 years of searching, i finally saw one with my own 2 eyes today. a Chaetodon semeion at CF. at 6 inch, too big for me *sob* an uncommon fish in the wild, covers a wide range but with sporadic populations, mostly living individually and occasionally in pairs. even rarer in the trade and my first time seeing one after hunting for sooo long!! in fact i would not have saw it until CF aunty told me they had a "golden butterfly". don't recall them having red sea shipments. one look at the bright blue forehead gave it away. till now i'm still thinking about it.

dying after a month is not good at all. a reasonable length of success will be 6 months or more IMO. but bear in mind these fishes live for decades in the wild. to survive 6 months in our tank is miserable. i think this log is very useful for people who want to try colini and golden. read through and learn from my mistakes as well as others. sure there are many people succeeding with golden angels. in singapore, off hand i know only 1-2. there could be more that are low profile. i still think colini and golden are much harder than multibar and venustus.

if you want to keep a pair of flame angels, here's how to differentiate them. first picture is the male and second is female. notice the edge of the an@l and dorsal fins. the males are pointed while females are very rounded. and compare the blue colouration. in very very young females, the blue colouration can be reduced to almost nothing. males are also usually bigger.

it's best to just keep one or none at all. for flame angels, you can pair them based on pattern. males have more blue on their fins and their dorsal and @nal fins are more elongated. female flame angels have reduced blue pigments with very rounded fins. powder blue tangs cannot be sexed based on colour or size. they are neither sexually dimorphic no dichromatic. as for dottyback, i'm not sure. i don't suggest keeping bicolour dottyback. it's very aggressive. If you want something with purple and yellow, get a royal gramma instead. the colour combination is same but they are much much better looking and very much more peaceful. powder blue tangs are very territorial when established, and so are flame angels

water and rocks are coming next friday. this leaves me 1 whole week to do my necessary shopping. - sand - extra wavemakers - test kits - other marine related barang barang. things still on my agenda - Calcium reactor 2nd hand from one of the bros here. waiting for him to release it as he's caught up with something at the moment. Not a problem since i won't need 1 for cycling. - My lights. 2x 250W MH, 10k BLV bulbs. To counter it with blue, 4x tubes of 39W T5, 2 at the front 2 at the back. Lights are being done now. Not a hurry, no need lights for cycling. - Compressor. Coil is ready, only need to source a new compressor. Again, not an issue. No need compressor for cycling. That being said, everything is ready for cycling by the end of next week. Can't wait to get blisters, splinters, backache, fatigue and can't wait to complain. But at the end of the day, i can't wait to sit back and look at it thinking it was all well worth it.

lol.

you're welcome. looking at your tank makes me itchy. next week can do rockscape liao yay

it's hard to say for sure. if it's internal, there might be chance of curing but usually it's too late by the time they decide to start feeding... there's a chance it's cyanide also. this one there's totally no way for human intervention. feeding is definitely not a win with them. look at mine. all 4 were feeding. yet how many going to make it? to be honest, i will be surprised if even ONE makes it.. as for availability, yeah could be seasonal. but just put our names on LFS "alert" list and we should be fine. If you want lah. i think for colini and golden, best is to get healthy ones right from the start. this is one fish that must be handled properly since collection to your tank. sealife and coral farm usually have very good specimens from the way they handle. coral farm's golden angel is one of the healthiest i've seen. actively pecking on liverock in a tank full of anthias, mystery wrasses and multicolour angel. i think the most important step is to secure a healthy individual. next, bring home, acclimate and straight away into a tank with plenty of liverock. we don't know how long they have been kept with the oversea supplier and how long they have been not-feeding. liverock straight after purchase will help stimulate a feeding response ASAP. then, keep them in dimly lit areas to reduce stress for the first few days. flood tank with brine shrimp and slowly wean onto other foods. i think my approach with them is too aggressive. I should never have put them under such strict quarantine protocols since the beginning. after this batch if all don't make it, i will stop quarantining them. From next time on, straight into liverock tank and feed feed feed. Like all reports on colinis and golden angels around the world, nothing but complete luxury will spell doom for this fish. so far they're right. that's just my take on the situation. so far how many people succeed with golden and colini in singapore. less than 4? in the U.S although they are strict with QT, most of them skip QT for goldens and colinis. really, they don't take QT very well... mine is a classic example.

that's because the easy and common ones no need to try. i've tried EVERYTHING with them. it always starts out with not feeding > live brine > mysis > pellets > not feeding > die horrible cycle. i think if all these die i stop and wait for both our tanks to finish cycling then try again. afterall, it's not a terribly rare fish.

balanophyllia

all of them are fine. but i'm getting very discouraged. when they feed, they don't feed much. then they give problems by rejecting food all of a sudden. freaking finicky and just difficult altogether. if all of them die, i'm going to stop awhile until my tank finish cycling. then maybe try again. this time just skipping QT altogether and dumping them into my sump and train them to feed from there. golden and colinis are really just too difficult...

good luck. just be aware that for these fishes, feeding does not mean win. in most fishes, they say, if it's feeding, half the battle is won. for these fishes, (golden and colini), if it's feeding, there's a chance that the battle has not even started yet... But if it's feeding, it's still a good sign.

the true percs at iwarna were packed individually in plastic bags. size around 2 inch +? never really took a close look

Off topic posts moved here

and water returns through the sump via this pipe.

Picked up my second hand FR today.

the overflow box where the two eheim 1264 outlets are. overflow teeth is done but i'm not liking the colour <.<

these are the pipes that connect the sump to the tank

ok. here's the picture of the completed sump with skimmer and the two return pumps. on the left, you can see the section in which the experimenting of funny things will be done. the overflow teeth has been done for that section to prevent adventurous livestock from swimming out.

all the angels from the 2nd batch did not have ich in the first place. Only the bennett's butterfly had slight ich, which is still in the hypo qt. the angels have finished their close to 2 week hypo treatment with no ich. Like i said, if you've kept them before, you would know that they fare poorly in QT. i wanted to get them into normal seawater with liverocks and macroalgae and out of qt ASAP. If the angels were in the QT longer without liverocks and something to feel comfortable in, they would probably be stressed even furthur. they're all alive after the transfer anyway. besides, i believe you did this to a batch of your clowns without even acclimating them?

not reef safe as will eat small shrimps and fish that can fit into it's mouth.

The 2nd colini pair has been an up and down experience..... one of the two stopped eating while in hypo, as usual. typical with this difficult species. the other one has been extremely well behaved and have been feeding very well on everything including pellets. yesterday i transferred both into normal strength seawater of sg 1.025, as their 2 week hyposalinity treatment is over and there is no more ich. both were transferred into the normal strength seawater over 6 hours acclimation. too short, but what the heck... Now i have liverock in the holding tub where both of them can graze. here's the annoying part. Colini 1 - has not been feeding even in hyposalinity QT. Colini 2 - has been feeding very well but stopped all of a sudden when transferred into normal strength seawater. Super frustrating. Took me 1 week to get it feeding very well and then it just stopped in a new environment. It's actually very common for the touchier dwarf angels to exhibit this behavior when placed in a new environment. the training will have to start all over again. Dwarf angels will exhibit this apparent feeding amnesia when undergoing copper treatment too. They just forget how to feed and you have to try again. I'm not giving up though. This pair of colinis are holding up pretty well, although i'm beginning to see a little sunken belly which worries me a little.. And as if the colinis weren't difficult enough, here's a new pair of dwarves. A "pair" of Centropyge aurantius, the golden angelfish. One was from ah beng and the other from CF. They're not killing each other, but there is some chasing, albeit nothing serious. If everything goes well, over the next 1 or 2 days, they will pair up with no problems. If they were incompatible, one of them will be dead by now. both were aquired at different times and i skipped hyposalinity for these two completely. Golden angels require nothing but luxury and hyposalinity QT is not luxurious. Although my simple holding tub is not really reef-standard, it has liverocks and macroalgae for them to feel at home. Here's the BEAUTIFUL part. both are feeding on live brine shrimp. They pick and sample but that's good enough for me. A feeding golden is a home run anyday. Congratulations lemon, you officially have two of the world's most challenging dwarf angels in your holding tub. No pressure. Touch wood but if the colinis were to die on me, i will stop my attempt with this species for awhile. If you have been reading my log diligently since the beginning, you will soon realise this is one of the toughest dwarf angels around. My future attempts with colinis and golden will be straight into liverock filled tanks with no quarantine. As proven, these fishes fare ridiculously poorly in quarantine.

coral farm has a very very rare chaetodon semeion aka semeion butterflyfish/dotted butterflyfish. i've been looking for this rare beauty for almost 2 years! too bad it's too big at 6 inch anyone interested in the beauty please go look at it. the blue patch on the forehead is almost fully developed. CF also has - multicolour angels - venustus angels - alpha male rhomboid wrasse + female - a pair of liopropoma swalesi - centropyge heraldi x nox hybrids - joculator angelfish - mystery wrasse - 4 line wrasse - pyramid butterflies - red head wrasse - many helfrichi firefishes - twin spot blennies - tail spot blenny - Burgess butterfly - Earspot angels

yashas are still available at ahbeng. iwarna still have flame angels, lemonpeel angels, yellow tangs, bartlett anthias. also healthy and good looking powder blue tangs. true perculas

rb phillipines shipment.. - grey belly regals - flagfin angels - blue fin - emperor - singapore angels - clowns. - copperband the usual phillipine stuff