illumnae's 422 adventure

[illumnae]

Thanks! I hope he makes it through qt

[illumnae]

Added Seachem Stability to the bacteria dosing regime today... Hope to have diversity in seeding bacteria. Hopefully it hastens the cycle too!

[kenyee]

Bro, any pic of ur sump n setup?

[illumnae]

Will try and remember to get a picture of it tonight.

Cycle is complete! Just 4 days to get 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and 2-5 nitrate since throwing in a 2+ inch huge ass prawn (that is now covered in 1 inch thick biofilm!). I guess dosing several different cultures of bacteria works well

[Siowaro]

Wow!!! That's fast!!!

[illumnae]

I dosed 1 entire bottle of ATM colony at the start, with daily dosing of Prodibio Biodigest, Brightwell Aquatics Microbacter7, Microbe-Life Nite Out II and Seachem Stability. Was trying to establish different strains of bacteria, and I guess the copious dosing (each brand alone is supposed to be enough, so I was dosing 5x the required amount of bacteria) helped to establish the bacteria colony much more quickly! Will continue daily dosing for another 1-2 weeks just in case.

[illumnae]

Now that the tank is cycled, I've added in my first CUC - 15 fenestratus snails, 10 nassarius snails and 5 cerith snails. Will add more in future as required. Now that it's time to stock the tank I'm in a little bit of a dilemma. Should I do a lionfish reef with clams, LPS and NPS or a full FOWLR with beautiful non reef safe butterfly fish and wrasses? I wish I could do SPS, but I suspect nutrient levels will be high. Reef would look much nicer and less boring, but I'm scared I may get poked by the lions if I have to maintain corals and stick my hands in often. In other news, the bubble magus NAC 9 is hard to tune I keep lowering the adjustment knob by 0.5 and still no skimmate! At least it's not overflowing anymore though.

[ASHWIN]

Now that the tank is cycled, I've added in my first CUC - 15 fenestratus snails, 10 nassarius snails and 5 cerith snails. Will add more in future as required. Now that it's time to stock the tank I'm in a little bit of a dilemma. Should I do a lionfish reef with clams, LPS and NPS or a full FOWLR with beautiful non reef safe butterfly fish and wrasses? I wish I could do SPS, but I suspect nutrient levels will be high. Reef would look much nicer and less boring, but I'm scared I may get poked by the lions if I have to maintain corals and stick my hands in often. In other news, the bubble magus NAC 9 is hard to tune I keep lowering the adjustment knob by 0.5 and still no skimmate! At least it's not overflowing anymore though.

Hi Bro Your System Is new so is your skimmer..Normaly skimmers Have a Period called "Break In" simple explanation Is that viscosity of salt water is affected by many things, oil being the big one, I have a large beckett style Skimz skimmer, if I feed or put my hand in the tank the head collapses the bubbles back up and start going out the return instead of staying in the riser IN Your case Various oils,silicon and who knows what is present in a new plastic skimmer that alone will restrict foam production, after a short while this is cleansed by the salt water and a slime coating is deposited, the bubbles get finer taking longer to climb the tower, picking up waste and creating foam. Once the "cleansing ritual" has been performed the skimmer people will no longer wish to escape into the tank but rejoice, join together and arise to the great brown goodness they alone can make..Hope this helps

I Would say go for a mix reef with angel"s..A Mixreef with a lion is just plain wrong..you will have difficulti doing maintainence +lions need a good volume or space to sleep..There are also A Handfull of Angel species that are reef safe..i feel you should get them as you get the best of both worlds!

Cheers!

Rgds Ash!

[illumnae]

Good news! The lions in QT have started eating frozen ghost shrimp using a stealth stick (ref: http://www.lionfishlair.com/feedingtechniques/toolsofthetrade.shtml)! The Fu Manchu ate 2 small shrimp, and the Mombassa ate 1 big one. The hardest part of the battle is over and now I just need to wean them onto other frozen foods before they're ready for life in the main tank!

Bro, any pic of ur sump n setup?

Here's a picture of the sump, sorry it took so long! Behind the refugium area and blocked by the lights are the 2 drain pipes. Each drains into a 7" filter sock and there's an acrylic cover to prevent splashing. Not a very efficient use of space I know, as 1 filter sock only would give me much more room to play with. Just hope I won't need to add much more equipment!

Hi Bro Your System Is new so is your skimmer..Normaly skimmers Have a Period called "Break In" simple explanation Is that viscosity of salt water is affected by many things, oil being the big one, I have a large beckett style Skimz skimmer, if I feed or put my hand in the tank the head collapses the bubbles back up and start going out the return instead of staying in the riser IN Your case Various oils,silicon and who knows what is present in a new plastic skimmer that alone will restrict foam production, after a short while this is cleansed by the salt water and a slime coating is deposited, the bubbles get finer taking longer to climb the tower, picking up waste and creating foam. Once the "cleansing ritual" has been performed the skimmer people will no longer wish to escape into the tank but rejoice, join together and arise to the great brown goodness they alone can make..Hope this helps

I Would say go for a mix reef with angel"s..A Mixreef with a lion is just plain wrong..you will have difficulti doing maintainence +lions need a good volume or space to sleep..There are also A Handfull of Angel species that are reef safe..i feel you should get them as you get the best of both worlds!

Cheers!

Rgds Ash!

Thanks bro Ashwin! I'm aware of the skimmer break in period, I've kept reef tanks before It's past that stage and it's now a matter of tuning which is unfortunately rather frustrating as I've not been free at home lately to tune and observe, so I just do a daily adjustment every morning before I head off to work and observe the next morning before tuning again. Had very good experience with Bubble Magus previously when I had time to do proper tuning over 1 day in 3 previous setups, so I'll just hang in there I guess.

A non-lionfish setup is not an option for this tank As mentioned, I've already dabbled in reef setups before so I want to do something fresh, plus my wife already has a reef tank in another room. 2 reef tanks in the house is just boring. In terms of space, I'm not keeping volitans or any of the other large lions, but a mix of the dwarf and medium size species. As you would notice, my scape is done up with lots of ledges for them to perch on/under and rest. I've checked my stocking plan with lionfish/scorpionfish pros on international forums and it's ok. They also encourage mixed reef setup (LPS/NPS/Softies) with lionfish as lions are definitely reef safe, so I wouldn't say that it's "plain wrong". The only real valid concern is maintenance with the lions in the tank. I'll have to make sure that the corals are glued properly so they won't fall, and maneuver around the tank using long tongs and turkey baster if I do end up doing it.

Besides, I already have a number of lions in QT and waiting to go into the main tank

[tofubox]

Very interesting read on the stealth feed Link. Thanks for sharing! Interested to see more pics of ur lion's den! Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

[MarcoVan]

Very interesting read on the stealth feed Link. Thanks for sharing! Interested to see more pics of ur lion's den! Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

Agree! Good read (:

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[Hairul Hakim]

Can't wait to see the yellowssss coming in :-)

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[illumnae]

Getting ready for 2 new inhabitants to go into the tank...

[reefaquaria]

Nice fish!

[illumnae]

Let's play spot the lions! How many do you see?

[tofubox]

I see 3!!! am i right? lol

[illumnae]

Yup you're right! 3 dwarf species that survived QT so far

[illumnae]

Some new media shot by my wife! Video of the Fu Manchu Lion begging and pictures of the Dwarf Zebra Lion

http://youtu.be/gaS0eUY1Mvo

[tofubox]

That fu manchu lion is absolutely stunning. When it grows, it will look even better!

[illumnae]

http://youtu.be/2TbIWnaNd8s

[illumnae]

FTS from last night. Mostly LPS with a few SPS frags from my wife's tank

[illumnae]

I'm facing a problem now. My golden angel has been caught pecking on 2 of my 3 open brains, and they are starting to show their skeleton. I don't think they will make it. This is very unfortunate as I had just gotten rid of my SPS frags in this tank and decided for this tank to be primarily an LPS tank with a few NPS and soft corals. My wife loves the golden, so it has to stay even if I manage to catch it.

So far, the golden angel hasn't picked on any of the Euphyllia sp. LPS like the torch, hammers, frogspawn etc. It hasn't harassed the super suns either. Do you think it will be fine for me to continue my LPS tank without the corals like brains, prata, cynarina, plate etc.? Or would I need to relocate and save all my other LPS asap and switch to SPS instead? According to LemonLemon's article, SPS are OK even with a little harassing from angels and butterflies.

The Potteri angel has been a model citizen though.

[rudy17]

Euphyllia sp are generally safe from angels.. But definitely not brains (all time fav) and almost all other LPS.. Sps are not 100% safe either unless they are super healthy and able to withstand constant nipping.

Here's a good post that u can read:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/10/fish

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[illumnae]

Thanks bro!

[illumnae]

My new toy!