Bali Brain

Hey BigBird, I note your old tank had Moorish Idols, They seemed to have morphed into Bannerfish. Did you have any luck with them, the former, I mean.

Bigbird As a matter of interest, how did your Queen die? The most difficult time is the initial period of getting the fish settled in. So, when your Angel which I presume has already settled in dies, we need to learn from you and others, who have the same problem, what is the cause and how best to avoid them. Incidently, can I learn from all you Angel lovers, what is your longest surviving Angel in your tank?

Bro, Admirable, but I am afraid that you may probably have to end up selling the fish. Firstly, to quote your analogy, if you take a rich child and feed him with just white rice only, and you put back the grown man in a room with abalone and other good stuff, the man will just chuck away the white rice he has been eating since he was a child and start feasting on the abalone. Unless you label it as poisonous. Secondly, talk about evolution and change through generations, I would think there is a chance of success. Only problem is that you would have to successfully breed generations of the fish. Thirdly, don't bother with one coral at a time. Just give him brain or elegant coral. If he can resist that, your experiment is a success. Good luck anyway. I would like to be proved wrong.

Weaning a Lionfish would take some time and requires patience. In my case, I used freshwater prawns. In the beginning the lionfish will ignore anything that doesn't move. Therefore you would have to offer something in front of him that moves. Using a pincer or clamp or whatever you need to clamp the live prawn and offer to him. It shouldn't take long for him to whack the prawn as soon as he sees that it is alive. After that, I'll offer the prawns in progressively less lively stages, i.e. wounded and dying prawns, with very little movements and barely alive. This it will still take as it can still detect movements. The difficult part is when you are offering dead prawns still using the clamp. If it doesn't work you have to go back to the dying prawns again, and then after some time, it should respond to the dead prawn. The next stage would be to offer fishmeat using the same clamps. If you can get the Lionfish to associate the clamp with food, then it will eventually respond to the fishmeat. After that, while holding the meat on the clamp, I will drop the fishmeat right in front of his mouth. It should after a while also respond to this. The final stage is when you can just drop the meat anywhere without using the clamp and the Lionfish will go for the food. Hope this helps.

You mentioned Ammonia 0, nitrate 0, did you test for nitrite? What is the state of your QT? Sometimes, if you keep a tank devoid of fishes for too long, the bacteria dies off, and although initially, the water is okay, the biological filtration fails. Did you test the water after the fish died?

Don't for a minute suppose that just because Damsels move so much faster than a Lion, it will never catch it. Lions hunt by stealth, and you can be sure that as long as the Damsel fits into the Lion's mouth it will catch and eat them. Here you have to measure the mouth from end to end (estimate lah, not put your hand in to measure) and that would roughly be the diameter) and judge if the Damsel can fit in. You'll be surprised how big the mouth can be. To be safe, I wouldn't put in any Damsel that's not at least more than half the size of the Lion (tail included).

If you can have Damsels dying on you, then obviously there is something seriously wrong with the water. You bought the Damsels after 1 week of cycling tank. That is clearly insufficient time for the build-up of nitrifying bacteria, and although they didn't die straight away, after 1-2 weeks, they must have died from ammonia poisoning. You didn't say how much LR you have. Perhaps you should read up more on how a tank is cycled to understand how it would affect your tank.The other thing is do you have test kits? You need to have them to make sure your water can sustain the fishes.

This is simply fantastic! Can we have a full frontal of your new tank with all the Angels? Do you know if other reefers in KL have just as great tanks? Would love to see them.

Are you happy with just Clownfishes? Cos that's about it for a tank of your size. I would advise not to jump the gun. Otherwise, you will be coming across many many beautiful fishes which you would be tempted to get. But alas, your tank's bioload cannot take it, and in the end, adding one more and one more after that...will end in failure. There's only one secret to keeping Marines - PATIENCE.

I get mine in JB IO bucket for RM170

More pics of my Angels

Zoos are definitely not safe. Mushrooms, maybe depending on the Angel. Surprisingly Hammers are okay. My 4 different Angels avoid them.

Give it a good burial Seriously, why don't you just buy live rock, since you are only talking about 2 pieces. Shouldn't be very ex. Even if you can seed, it's going to take ages and it will never house the many denizens that a live rock from the sea will have.

If you are intending to add a Mandarin later, then I wouldn't advise a six line wrasse. Cos mine attacked and killed a Mandarin.

One last time

Ooops, sorry. Here goes, hope it come out alright

Here's my Queen!

Coolguy, I don't suppose you can identify the gansta from the nerd? Davechee, my heart goes out to you. Just when you thought you have a healthy Angel, this happens... Believe me, all of us have gone through this. My Copperband was very healthy and active, and going after all kinds of food - frozen brine shrimp, bloodworms, pellets, and that stupid #@% killed it. For protection against Yellow Tang, imho it is advisable to provide protection on top, near the water surface, since the Tang seldom ventures to the top. Stick all types of boxes, plastic partitions and what have you, for the new fish to seek refuge. Hopefully, after a few weeks, the Tang will eventually accept the newcomer. PS would love to show a pic of my Queen but my Canon Ixus konked out, after only 2 years.

I finally took the plunge! I bought the Queen (a real beauty about 4 inches) despite the fact that I already have an Emperor (about 5"), a Blue face (about 7") and an Asfur (about 4.5") (in order of purchase). I also have a Yellow Tang (about 4"), which should be renamed Yellow Terror, as it is extremely territorial annd aggressive, being the longest resident, more than 3 years. I was rather apprehensive about the aggression in introducing a smaller Angel to the tank, and was resigned to a few flying scales, at the very least. Well, surprise, surprise! The Queen took to swimming with the rest of the fishes right from the start, with very little aggression from the other fishes. This really debunks the myth that Angels will always be aggressive against other Angels and conspecifics. My experience so far: 1. The Emperor and the Yellow Tang harrassed and attacked a new Copperband relentlessly and eventually killed it - all from different families, different colours. 2. When first introduced, the bigger Blueface swam around lazily and was not much bothered about the Emperor, only showing its irritability when they come close to each other. The smaller Emperor, though a more aggressive fish, avoided the bigger fish. 3. When the Asfur was introduced, the Yellow Tang kept harassing it and chasing it into a corner - again different family, different colours. Yet no Angel to Angel aggression shown by the other Angels. other than the occassional chasing as they would with any other fish. 4. And finally, the Queen which was also mainly ignored, other than the occassional chasing. Only the Asfur showed a flared fin aggressiveness but no real damage. The Yellow Tang did not show the same beligerence as it did with the Asfur. So how do you figure??? Nothing is as expected!

Wow, that's a lot of fishes in the video! Bioload must be very heavy. What's the tank size and what's the number of fishes? What's the size of your skimmer? I have a 5 by 2.5 by 2.5 and I have 18 fishes, including 4 larger ones ie Yellow Tang, Blueface, Emperor and Asfur. The rest are relatively small. I am rather hesitant about adding another Queen. What do you think?

Now that's not cool, man. The Angels will be very impressive when they get to a fair size, which is an achievement in itself as many people can testify that the larger sized Angels find it difficult to adapt in captivity, and very often perish. It will be a shame if you have to sell them. Work on your mother - maybe she'll change her mind and relent.

Does your Angels include any large Angels or are they all pygmy Angels? 3 feet is certainly undersized even if you have just 1 or 2 large Angels. For the latter, anything under 150 g is not recommended, unless of course you intend that this is shortterm, and that you will be upgrading to a larger tank once they get bigger.

Hey, the plastic box thing is exactly what I am doing! But I don't think I have the guts to do the hypo treatment and the freshwater dip. Wouldn't that give the fish more stress? And 2 days to acclimate? How do you do that? I normally take half a day, slowly mixing the tank water into the plastic bag (unless it's for shrimps in which case I'll take 3/4 day as they are very sensitive). You know, all that fuss about Wayne Shang and his ability to have so many Angels in his tank. Here you are, with as many Angels, and more than that, 2 same species for 3 types of Angels in the same tank. Is that an achievement or what!

Big Bird, you are one guy all Angel lovers would aspire to. As for luck, I think you are just too modest. Surely you must have done something? Care to share? Was there fighting or aggression in the beginning? How long did it take for the bigger Angels to accept a new smaller Angel? Any change in the rockscape when you introduce a new Angel?

It looks pretty healthy and is feeding. As you said, I would have no qualms about introducing the fish if the Queen is larger than the rest. But as it is , this one is pretty small. By the way, how do you guys rate the survivability of Queens - is it easy to keep? Some LFS claim that it is tougher than the local Angels to keep alive although based on the books I read, it is suppose to be quite easy to keep. But then these books are written by Americans and the Queen is local to them, and they do not suffer transport stress and all that, unlike the Queens that are imported here.