The inwall 380 starfire reborn

[tomasz]

Tom

How is the Potters Leopard doing?

[Sparkss]

Eileen

It has become a very manual process. I tried nuking a bunch of them during the aquascape changes this past weekend. There were a couple that I missed, and I am not holding my breathe just yet that the nuked ones will stay nuked. The pyramids have not touched any that I have seen.

invincible569

Thanks !!!!

tomasz

Not so good. They have all passed or simply gone missing . I decided not to try any more on this next shipment but to wait until next year and wait for some smaller ones, which are supposed to ship and acclimate better than the larger ones. The area where the smaller ones are collected is undiveable due to seasonal issues, hence the waiting until next year.. likely around Spring.

[Sparkss]

On a separate note (and so I wanted a separate post) I am still on the fence about the flame wrasses. I have heard that on occassion they can disappear for days only to show back up later in the tank. Goodness knows our tank has many places for a fish to hide out (and still get food), but I am unsure if this is what became of our female flame wrasse.

Does anyone have any opinions one way or the other about our picking up a quartet of flames this week ?

[raddogz]

I've had wrasses disappear into the overflow and jump back in.

The female exquisite has a bad tendency to disappear and reappear much to my chagrin as it has killed three wrasses already one of them being a lineatus.

[africangrey]

Tom, your pm box is full, please clear some space.
I send you a email regards to the bartlett's
Spencer

[Sparkss]

Sorry bout that Spencer. PM box all clear, and I replied to your Email and voice mail

not much of an update these days. I swapped out the AquaBlue Plus T5s for Blue Plus bulbs. (the two 3' and two 2' bulbs) and am going to be switching back to the AquaBlue bulbs today. The Blue Plus are just way too blue for what we were using them for. But I do admit that I liked how the zoas and what not "popped" under them . I may work out adding some back for "pop" supplementation over the zoas, etc. I didn't feel that the majority of the other corals benefitted, color wise, from the Blue Plus bulbs (by themselves).

Still working on trying to get a wave out of our Vortecs, now experiencing some wet end issues, but then again ours are alm,ost a year old now. I don't so much mind that they are wearing out as I mind that there doesn't seem to be a well defined path to acquiring the refurbishment parts to rebuild/refresh our wet end. I mean Tunze's wear out and need to have parts replaced over time, so it is not really a negative (in my mind) that Vortecs have the same reality. But then again there may be an easy path for getting the "refresh" parts and I just don't know yet because I haven't gone looking

[mrcrab]

Contact Dave at Icecap for replacement parts.

[Sparkss]

I sent an Email to them, we will see how that all turns out

Have you had issues with noisy pumps also ?

Out of 4 pumps, 2 are pretty much dead silent (that is until I just jinxed myself), 1 is moderately noisy and 1 is just flat out obnoxious. Hopefully Dave/IC/ETM will be able to get this all sorted out for us

[jnarowe]

I had this problem in spades during the first few months of ownership, but it all got worked out with changing out washers.

[mrcrab]

Dave's good people. he should be able to get you sorted out. He's helped me a number of times.

Have you been following Jonathan's thread?

[Sparkss]

Yes I have been following Jonathans thread. Luckily our tank is glass, but it is still disheartening to read about it happening to anyone

I did exchange Emails with Dave yesterday and replacement parts are enroute. Hopefully that will resolve my issues

On the lighting front I put the Blue Plus bulbs back into the front two 2' T5s (since those are mainly over the LPS and Zoas). I had felt that the AquaBlue was perhaps a bit too much PAR for the zoas, etc, and the Blue Plus does give them a good bit more "pop". Since the other AquaBlue bulbs and MHs are on at the same time the BluePlus ones don't overload the front of the tank with Blue and even add a bit of actinic pop to some of the back corals (although just a small bit).

On the topic of our flame wrasse loss, we have a small harem coming in today so I wanted to close any loops on items that may have led to the loss of our first flame. Since I had found one of our gobies in the sump I know that some of the fish are making their way into our overflows. The mesh top does sit approx 3/4" above the top of the overflow teeth. I intend to make an acrilc "lid" to fit over the euro bracing and extend down to inside top of the overflow teeth (but still not interfere with the flow), but that project is a way off (especially since my table saw for the acrylic is buried in the garage *sigh*). So I pulled out some intake/drain "screens" that we had and put them on our 2" dursos. I marked the water level in the overflows both before and after and at least for now the screens are not interfering with the drains at all. This is a crappy picture, but it will give a rough idea of what I am talking about. I had to connect it to the dursos w/ 2" flex since the overflows were not large enough to house the screen hanging straight down from the durso. Again, hard to explain and see, but I will try for a better, non-flash pitcure later on (and I am ticked at myself for not taking a picture before I put them in.. but hindsight is a beautiful thing , plus I was not 100% sure they were going to work, or stay in, until I had tested them).




They have been running since late yesterday afternoon. I wholly expect them to be a maintenance nightmare to keep clean/clear, but they are only a temporary measure until I can get the overflow lids made. Even then I will likely leave the screens on for a month or so to make sure the lids are doing with job also .

[tomasz]

Tom howmany Flames are you getting.

BTW I got my Leopard Potters in today.

[Sparkss]

we actually ordered 5, but one arrived DOA , so we ended up with 4. Congrats on the potters leopard too. Definitely post your success, etc and any observations you have.

Here is what we added today :

4 Female Flame Wrasses
4 Dispar Antias
2 Potters Leopards





We went with all female flames for a variety of reasons... firstly we heard that the males have been mysteriously dieing after 4 - 6 months, and no one knows why.. it doesn't seem to happen to females that turn into males in captivity. It is speculated to be parasitic, but there is absolutely no fact to back that up that I am aware of. Second, one of the females will eventually turn into a male.. better to let nature select the male than to mix an existing male in with "strange" females or subdominant males (just my opinion, again, no facts to back it up ). And lastly, the females cost usually less than half what a male costs

The Dispars are 1 male and 3 females. We picked those up because they are known to school with Bartletts in the wild. We have already seen them hanging out with our little Bartlett shoal

The potters were small. We had been told that the smaller ones seemed to have a better survival rate, again, no real data as to why. So we took a chance with a pair of smaller (much smaller than before) potters. We also felt that their smaller size would benefit them with our ornate wrasse as we hoped they would be small enough not to be seen as a threat or competition by the ornate. That and being less than half his size, they could fit into and scoot through places he could not, so they would have alot more hiding and sanctuary places

[Sparkss]

I also went through and trimmed out alot from our fuge/sump. Just take a look at the critters that didn't shake out of the macro that were trimming out :








We did try to save an many pods and stars as possible before chucking the excess macro, but I was still shocked by just how much life there was literally clinging to the macro. There was quite a bit that fell off when I shook it.. these are the ones that managed to hang on

[africangrey]

I can't see any pictures, is it just me.
I realy want to see your potter wrasse, good luck with them.

[jnarowe]

dude, how about that ISP??? I am having the same problem. got to talk when you get a chance.

[mrcrab]

Originally posted by jnarowe
dude, how about that ISP??? I am having the same problem. got to talk when you get a chance.

Jonathan, don't come over here and start trouble, I can see them just fine.

Might have something to do with the 14 beers and 8 shots that's effected your vision.

[tomasz]

Tom what camera and lens are you using to take your pictures?

I will give you an update on the potters, so far the good sign was that they were in the open for several hours when introduced to the tank. Wish you and me luck on those.

[Sparkss]

it is not our ISP but a separate web hosting company that we have used for a couple of years now (Midphase). Their uptime is usually pretty good, but maybre you caught them during a maintenance window last night ?

Those last couple of pictures were taken w/ our old canon powershot camera (w/ builtin lens). I don't recall the model # but it is approx 3+ yrs old. A lot of the tank shots and what not were taken w/ a canon 30D w/ a 100mm fixed focal point lens. I forget the model # for that also, but it is a "fast" lens, helping us to avoid using the flash.

[jnarowe]

me start trouble? I see them now Tom.

[mrcrab]

Originally posted by jnarowe
I see them now Tom.

Must have sobered up!

Most people see things when they're drunk...Jonathan doesn't see things.

[jnarowe]

I didn't say I was drunk. I said Sherman was drunk.

[chris wright]

Those fish will certainly be nice additions. Good luck with them, looking forward to the pics with them in your tank.

Cheers

Chris

[mrcrab]

Originally posted by jnarowe
I didn't say I was drunk. I said Sherman was drunk.

Knowing you...if Sherman had 14 + 8...you weren't very far behind!

BTW...I was drinking Patrone Platinum tonight!

and nortibe nof one smellinh misrake!

[jnarowe]

I just got back from a buddy's place and he had the Platinum too. I couldn't even look at the bottle. And I offered to drive Sherman home, so clearly I was fine.