3ft shallow fowlr log

[diki88]

Paiseh i just realized that my gramma is still alive!! Saw it being attacked by the six line and went disappearing for days.. then appear for a short while and went into hiding again.. definitely unusual behavior

Thats good news! At least still alive lol. Actually bro, grammas quite the scaredy cat. All the more nw ur sixline terrorising it. That aside, I got a new toy today from bro blueclown. Nice friendly bro. All the best for his new house. Will post a pic of the new toy later. Its actually shopping therapy to make up for the fact both my multibars passed within a day of one another. I solemnly swear to not try another one and kill this beautiful fish. Im of the opinion no matter what collection method was used, its my personal responsibility to keep it alive once it enters my tank and I failed. Haizzz. And I need to offload my 3 yellowtail tangs and spotfin pair.

[diki88]

To bro Zender, SunkistC and Vtech,any one of u guys want a spotfin butterfly pair?

Gona give it away cause now im moving slowly to corals,both butterfly whacked the mushroom i bought to test test water.

I can see some mushroom half gone le. I dont dare put rics if cheap mushroom they whack until like that haha.

If none of u guys want, ill put it in the pasar malam.Same goes for the yellowtail tang.

[SunkistC]

Thanks for the offer bro bombom.. i got a Pakistan Butterfly and large angels in tank and no chiller.. so cannot take

Sorry for your losts of the multibars.. initially wanted to keep one but now i think better to leave this beautiful fish in the ocean..

Shall get 1 more Queen Angel and complete my stock list

[diki88]

Ahh alright bro no problem.

Yep a queen will be a nice showpiece to ur tank

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[diki88]

Btw a picture of my tank with the new toy

As much as some don't like the shadowing effect, im digging it.

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[[V]tEc]

Moving to corals meaning queen has to go too bro....u sure abt it?

[diki88]

Hahahahah walao bro dont make me think twice again leh. :ph34r:

Im keeping the queen. The blue in the queen coming back also. Cross fingers see how the queen got taste for corals not. So far, only the spotfin pair keep sampling the corals.

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[Zender]

To bro Zender, SunkistC and Vtech,any one of u guys want a spotfin butterfly pair?

Gona give it away cause now im moving slowly to corals,both butterfly whacked the mushroom i bought to test test water.

I can see some mushroom half gone le. I dont dare put rics if cheap mushroom they whack until like that haha.

If none of u guys want, ill put it in the pasar malam.Same goes for the yellowtail tang.

Haha.. Thanks for e Gesture but I'll pass cos reserving my Bioload for a few more angels I eyeing like the scribble.

BUT I wouldnt mind your Belize Queen if it starts to eat your corals too... keke

[I love angel]

Btw a picture of my tank with the new toy uploadfromtaptalk1378090232681.jpg

As much as some don't like the shadowing effect, im digging it.

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The water looks cloudy. Is it due to bio-pellet? How long you are running bio-pellet?

[diki88]

The water looks cloudy. Is it due to bio-pellet? How long you are running bio-pellet?

About one month le bro. Actually the water now quite clear. Before this quite jialat. I think cloudy abit cause I took the pic after feeding it.

[diki88]

Haha.. Thanks for e Gesture but I'll pass cos reserving my Bioload for a few more angels I eyeing like the scribble. BUT I wouldnt mind your Belize Queen if it starts to eat your corals too... keke

Lol alright then. I hope the queen behaves since I use john copp's tank as a reference to keeping angels in a reef tank. And I will never give my queen away hahaha. Yellow or blue its very special to me hahahha.

[diki88]

Here's a little story that made me frustrated and also funny at the same time.

First I managed to trap both butterflies inside the holding box very easily before I left home at 3pm. Using white clams, it was easier than taking candy from a baby.

When I came home, one butterfly(lets call it A) escaped. It was again freely sampling the corals again.

So I put white clams again, A fell for it again, joining the other butterfly (let's call it along with another pig.

So I decided to lower the trap to allow the rock beauty to swim to freedom, but A showing the agility of ninja, escaped, AGAIN. When A left, ms semifasciatus joined the party.

Lowered the trap again, rock beauty swam out, in came little ms semifasciatus.

I was going crazy this time round as A was playing with me pecking at the coral then swimming away when I wanted to catch it. In this frustration, I didnt realise I accidentally lowered the trap, and B escaped its jail. >_>

leaving the trap open, these 3 stooges came in.

So after 30 mins putting my hand in water, being played by A & B, I achieved success, finally.

This is the reason why sometimes I need to lie down and count to 10 to calm myself down. Yet this is also the reason why i continue to be fascinated by this hobby.

THE END.

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[spgohjc]

Water a bit blur probably due to high bio load and heavy feeding. How is your razor nano lightings? Light seems very directional on your tank.

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[diki88]

Yep lots of small particles floating about. I think the cloudiness makes the lights coverage more obvious. The shadowing is not as bad in real life actually. Im using the 120w one. 160w would be more ideal but I felt I didnt need it as I planned to keep not so light demanding corals. Sent from my GT-I8190N using Tapatalk 2

[spgohjc]

Should have a video how you trap the fishes, should be quite funny. Haha. Very easy to add fishes but very very difficult to catch them among the rocks especially shrimps.

[diki88]

Should have a video how you trap the fishes, should be quite funny. Haha. Very easy to add fishes but very very difficult to catch them among the rocks especially shrimps.

Yeah tell me about it bro. On a side note, my bta split today. Must be stress induced. Hopefully it recovers well.

[Zender]

With all the Angels in my tank, adding any softies in my tank is practically suicide...

[diki88]

With all the Angels in my tank, adding any softies in my tank is practically suicide...

So far for mine, quite okay leh bro. Xenia, cabbage, mushroom and gsp they never touch. I will try a cheap lps to test some more. If they never touch, then ill go for duncan coral shopping le cause duncans are my favourite haha.

[diki88]

Cool fact : my harlequin filefish cleaning other fishes when the cleaner wrasse is too fat to bother anymore.

[diki88]

September proves to be a bad month. My coral adventure was shortlived as the parasite named Ich decided to break loose and I didnt do anything about it hoping the fishes would develop some kind of immunity and fight it off. Plus I didn't want to dump my corals. With that moment of stupidity, I lost a couple of fishes.

Namely, 1. Venustus 2.Small Semifasciatus 3. Shepardi 4. Both Multibars

Secondly, the moment I decided enough is enough, I took out the corals and dumped cupramine. And so its dictated in my fate of fish keeping, my copper test kit is finished.

It's okay I said, im experienced enough to play by eye and gauge without a test kit. I would know whether the fish is getting better just like how an sps keeper would know something is wrong by looking at their corals.

Dump cupramine day 1, day 2 another dose, day 3 fishes still not looking good, another small dose.Most fishes got better but appetite dropped drastically. Some fishes stopped eating. So I came to terms with basic common sense and got the test kit. 0.8 almost 1. So much for playing by eye and being experienced enough. By now some fishes got burnt with reddish markings on their faces and fins. Change water throw carbon. And thus Cu lvls dropped but damage is done.

The fishes I listed above either died of ich or made worse by my stupid decision to blindly dump cupramine thus making them weaker and more subceptible to ich.

Learning point : dont be overconfident in ur abilities. Do not assume things are gonna sort itself out when it comes to keeping fishes. Corals may also contain ich esp if there's a rock attached, thousands of tomont lay waiting to release their ten thousands of tomites.

2. When aquascaping, always be careful for those passive fishes. In my urge to move some rocks and avoid my rock beauty and queen from pecking my hand begging for food, I dropped a rock quickly without checking.It took me a few hours later to realise the harlequin filefish was trapped by it. By then, too late. Another stupid mistake.

Moving forward, a couple of people have been asking me on how I get some fishes to eat and eat well or how to keep a harem of flame and all. I think it was plain luck and choosing the right fishes at the lfs. Im of the opinion when a fish enters ur tank, it's ur responsibility to keep it alive. If it dies, its ur fault. Not the collectors fault not cyanide not the lfs. The moment u buy a fish, the burden is on u to keep it alive. Everytime a fish dies, I think I take it too personally.

Other than that, from a practical point of view, dither fishes works great on shy fishes to come out and eat. I noticed my fishes give off this vibe when they are eating. I could drop a clam at one corner of the tank, without any other fishes seeing it except one. Within seconds, the rest would rush over to whack the clam.

Second, cyclopeeze and white clams is the sex. If the fishes dont take cyclopeeze at first, white clams go in and that's that. Problem solved.

I feel like going on and on but im starting to sound incoherent now. Maybe some other time. Till then rip my fishes. And hello new ones.

[ACCK]

You said u would share n u did;) thanks for ur unselfish sharing . 1) I'm surprised u went into corals from FO. I think there's really no two ways about it. Either u value the fish or coral. To co-exist a la copps ,rare fish+ rare corals, to say u must stick to a strict quarantine protocol is understated. 2) it was the venustuses n multibars that got me excited about ur tank. 3) the dither fishes is really great advice n observation. I do find too more fishes encourage shy fish to come out n play 4) white clams? Where to get n how to process it, if any? 5) I too fight the urge to keep dumping cupramine before. But now I realize 0.25-0.3 suffices. If my fish were breathing heavy , I d dump more n more cupramine. Only to realize that it's flukes , not ick. Prazi goes in, problem solved. Keep us posted on the recovery !

[diki88]

Hi bro. Thanks for the words of encouragement. actually the best advice is to read and read. I google everything everytime haha. I simply type my question or topic then put reefcentral at the end of the sentence. To get a local context, put sgreef instead lor haha. For sure got something to learn one.

Anyways, 1. I could not resist the swaying motion of soft corals to make my tank look more natural. It was also a little bit of my adventurous/egoistic side to prove the notion wrong that a coppered tank, after pulling all the copper out cant keep corals. I managed to.keep them but I overlooked the fish aspect.

2. Tbh, i was more excited the filefish was actually thriving and getting fat. After reading and reading about Matt Pedersen's success, how he said those who managed to keep them had 10 years of exp behind them, I was skeptical initially that I could even get it to feed but eventually I managed. I was reading so much about the filefish till sexing them was quite easy.

And I loved the venustus haha. The blue area around its eyes were fading and turning yellow which was unique. I think if its small, alert at the lfs ur chances are very high actually. U quote John Copps, I believe venustus is in the group where he always say difficult to adapt, easy to keep.

For the multibar, I give up. Not even my confident nature can take it. I added the second one in hope the first one would come out more and eat more. This tactic learned from Kevin Kohen when he wanted the narcosis angel to be more energetic. Heres the link.

reefbuilders.com/2013/01/19/rapture-deep-elusive-narcosis-angelfish/

BUT what I overlooked was the multicolor was super stable and could take a beating but my new multibar was rather skittish. I ended up losing both, and as much as I like to say its cause of the method of collection, I cant cause it's my own doing.

3. For the dither fishes advice, I think its been around for ages haha. But to push it abit, I find fishes "monkey see monkey do" fishes of the same shape better. For eg. my new tangs learn faster by looking at the older ones eat as opposed to noticing what the angels/chromis eat. But this is just my observation hahaha.

4. Its those normal white clams u can get at Giant or Sheng Shiong. But sometimes will be out of stock. Alot of people underestimate the power of white clams. Here's a link on a Japanese legend aquarist, Mr Takama keeping corallivores with white clams.

glassbox-design.com/2010/obligate-corallivore-captivity/

5. Fishes need to be QTed, period. But I don't actively say it so much cause I understand how excited and scared we all feel. Plus most of us live in small flats. Plus we are impatient as singaporeans. Im just lucky to be running a fowlr and it has become a hospital tank now lol.

To add just another point, compatibility really plays a part with fishes. Again John Copps quote, "not what u mix, but how u mix". However, no matter how I mix,my queen will always be super fierce hahahah.

Hope u get a bigger tank and join the club man. Time to push the limits of ur abilities and knowledge. Thats what I always tell myself when im skeptical about a supposed difficult fish. Back to my first point, read up alot. Read fish primers, read people's tank thread, read how they run their system. I think ive spent more time reading up than actually spending time in front of my tank.

Just an example, the following three threads are the many ive read or reading up on to know more about my two new fishes and maybe one incoming one. Its not just about getting them to feed actually but more of knowing the fish better, their pattern, their temperament.

www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1867984

www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1492655

reefcentral.com/forums//showthread.php?t=2268893

[ACCK]

1) yes the filefish is eye catching too. U really hv a way with " difficult"fish.

2)I think ur determination in caring for the fish is v evident . U belong to a rare breed that actually reads up everything on a fish to make it succeed.

It's called responsible fish keeping

I need to get those white clams tomorrow !

Camping here for ur new fishes n future ones .

[yikai]

i like you and your conscientious reef keeping. very well informed.

your copper experience proved to be a unfortunate mistake. copper should always be tested with test kit. never by ear. it's too risky even with a test kit, let alone free hand.

it's best to use copper as a last resort. smaller angels don't take too well to copper, and prolonged copper usage will cause loss of color in fish. after copper treatment, fish may forget how to eat and have to be trained all over again.

there will be a brighter tomorrow, don't be disheartened! more reefers should learn from you.

[ACCK]

i like you and your conscientious reef keeping. very well informed.

your copper experience proved to be a unfortunate mistake. copper should always be tested with test kit. never by ear. it's too risky even with a test kit, let alone free hand.

it's best to use copper as a last resort. smaller angels don't take too well to copper, and prolonged copper usage will cause loss of color in fish. after copper treatment, fish may forget how to eat and have to be trained all over again.

there will be a brighter tomorrow, don't be disheartened! more reefers should learn from you.

I use cupramine as a first line of defense. I hear its rough on dwarf angels, but it seems cupramine is uniquely safe here. My 1" flames n joc underwent it v well in fact.

I like what many bros espouse in building up immunity thru non copper use, but I don't dare to risk it, especially in a nano tank. I might try that approach later on..

Bom , thanks for all the links. Like I said , u are not selfish in ur sharing at all, good or bad.