Guy3103
Community Member
Hi Everyone,
I just joined R2R and decided to right away write what's on my mind.
I was discussing the possibility of adding a Purple Tang today with the guy maintaining my tank . He meant my tank is a bit too small for adding another tang. So I Googled how many Tang's in a 110g tank (which is my size) and saw that most of the people had only 2 Tang's with such a size.
A bit of History...
I have my Saltwater tank for 18 months now. It was set up by perhaps the largest Aquarium shop in Moscow, called 'Morskoy Aquarium'. The first 12 months were quite boring as there were a lot of problems and there wasn't too much happening. The guys maintaining my tank back then couldn't come up with the reason behind there not being any real growth and why all the soft corals we were adding ended up dead. No new fish were added during this period of time as they were against it and basically throughout this first year I was "housing" the following:
1 Blue Tang
1 Yellow Tang
2 Clown Fish (Amphiprion Percula)
1 Pseudochromis Paccagnellae (Died)
4 Yellowtail Damselfish (1 Died)
1 Pterapogon kauderni (Died)
Coral wise,
1 Rhodactis Inchoata Green
1 Rhodactis Mussoides Green
3 Other Soft Corals
Zoanthids, Anemon, Sarcophyton, Xenia and some other soft stuff didn't last very long.
In the past 6 months ever since I have this new guy Igor maintaining my tank things became much more interesting and slowly, slowly a slight addiction is starting to show up from my side. We added a lot of stuff to my tank during this time and i'll try and list it all.
In the beginning everything was added through Igor and his company and meaningly:
1 Zebrasoma desjardinii
1 Valenciennea puellaris (Died)
3 Nemateleotris magnifica (1 managed to jump out of my tank and end up in the filtration system - Died)
3 Nemateleotris decora (1 is still alive, not sure about the other 2)
5 large soft corals
1 Rhodactis Inchoata Green
1 Rhodactis Inchoata Red
1 Rhodactis Mussoides Green
1 Amplexidiscus fenestrafer
1 Trachyphyllia Geoffroyi (Died)
1 Lobophyllia corymbosa
Zoantharia (Large stone with different Zoa's, most of them closed)
3 Lysmata debelius
2 Mespilia globulus (Both died within a week)
1 Macrodactyla doreensis (Died after about a month)
1 Entacmaea quadricolor Tiger (Has both Clowns living in it)
As soon as they stopped providing me with interesting additions, I decided to finally drive by myself to a fish shop and buy some stuff. This was about 2-3 months ago, and this is when I was first introduced to LPS corals.
I will go by chronological order here:
In that first visit to 'Morskoy Aquarium' I ended up buying:
1 Pink Scolymia (Probably the most beautiful coral in my tank)
1 Euphyllia Parancora L size (This coral never stood a chance since it first of all was too big for my tank and secondly i didn't place it well. It dies after a week or so)
4 Clibanarius tricolor
3 Dispar Anthias
That was the first time I was adding stuff to my tank by myself and although tricky at first it sure is exciting. Since the Anthias fish were doing well, I was suggested by Igor to add a few more of the same fish to create a reef like picture of them Anthias fish swimming in a large group.
Here you can the stunning Pink Scoly:
My second visit to this ship ended up with the following financial damage:
4 Dispar Anthias
1 Light Green/Orange Scolymia
1 Blue Heliofungia M size (Died after 2-3 weeks)
1 Red/Green Stony Coral (Died after 2-3 weeks)
1 Pink Stony Coral
2 Clibanarius tricolor
After putting all this stuff in my tank started to get an impressive look with them Anthias swimming around and the new colorful... it all looked very nice!
Regarding feeding, in order the keep the Anthias fish happy, and since my water condition was pretty much perfect, Igor recommended to increase to feeding 3 times per day 3 cubes of Artemia. It was all going well until I left for a week and asked someone to feed my fish for me. When I was back there were only 5 Anthias left with 1 being on the verge of being a goner. Today there must be 2 or 3 of them left and they only come out to eat. So in order not to overfeed all the other fish I have reduced to feeding twice a day 3 cubes of Artemia.
Here's my tank when all 7 Anthias Dispar were still going well. Also the HelioFungia is seen on the left side... it was a really nice one.
At this point I started looking for other shops in Moscow offering fish and corals and that's when I found Central Reef. I think they are the only guys propagating corals and selling them in small pieces and they really have a great selection of corals.
In a matter of 3 weeks I had 2 orders delivered from them, and drove for over an hour to visit their shop and choose some stuff by myself for new years.
1st order:
1 Blastomussa Wellsi Red Ultra
1 Chalice Desert Sunset
1 Favia Deep Red
1 Lithophyllon Honeysickle
1 Acanthastrea Echinata
4 Clibanarius tricolor
All these corals are small size and are doing pretty well besides for the Honeysickle. More details about that in the Q part of the thread.
It was after receiving this order that I found this dead Gentleman in the front of my tank just laying there. I had no clue where'd he came from and when asking Igor he said he's an Illegal and probably was hiding in one of the rocks when the tank was set up. He also said i'm lucky he died because of his nasty claws and that most probably he was harassing most of my residents during night time when all were asleep
2nd order:
1 Acanthurus Leucosternon M size
1 Fungia Red/Blue/Green Mouth
1 Tridacna Maxima (Died after a week)
1 Euphyllia paraancora Green 1 Head
For a long time I was debating whether to add a Purple Tang or a Powder Blue. I then found an article about how aggressive Purple Tangs tend to be. So since I find the Powder Blue more attractive I told to myself that if i will find a good one I will most probably take it. I was lucky that Central Reef were keeping a Powder Blue M size for over a month. They sent me a video of how it feeds and plays around and I just fell in love with it through that short video and decided it's mine!
Central Reef recommended to Quarantine it in a separate tank before putting it inside my main tank but since I don't have such a possibility I put it inside my main tank late in the evening about 30 min before lights go off. The second it landed in the water it was chased around by my Yellow Tang. The second day the aggression continued with my Desjardini joining in on attacking the young Powder Blue.
Igor said I should put a mirror in front of the aquarium in order to stop the aggression and it seemed to help. With every day the Powder Blue feels more and more comfortable and covers more and more space in my tank. Aggression still appears towards him from all the 3 other Tang's but he seems to be dealing with it quite well. He eats the Artemia and the Nori I'm feeding very nicely. I was told that there is a 99% chance that he will develop some kind of parasite. It's been with me for 10 days now and there is nothing there. I very much hope it will stay this way.
3rd order:
1 Rhodactis Marbled Khaki
1 Favia Light Green
1 Leptastrea Orange/Green
1 Euphyllia Gold Torch 1 Head
1 Cladiella Purple
1 Synchiropus Splendidus (Female)
All these Corals are also small sized. The Mandarin fish was mostly hiding since Monday I added this bunch to my tank. But today it was out in the blue waters for a large part of the evening and obviously i'm very happy about that.
There was one more small purchase a few days before that 3rd order from a different shop called Mos Corals:
1 Diadema antillarum S size
1 Blastomussa Wellsi M size
1 Yellow Sarcophyton L size
That's pretty much all there is. Here's my tank today:
I know this thread is very long but I thought it's best to put it all in one thread rather than spread it out. I'm completely new to the aqua world (I'm it tells) so I wonder what you guys think about where i am with my tank?
I finally want to post a couple of question I have.
1. Tang's - after reading about the amount of Tang's in people tanks according to size, I noticed I'm above average. So I don't think I will add the Purple Tang nor any other tangs no more. The question is whether you guys think I should remove one of my Tang's?
Ever since I put the Powder Blue in all the Tang's started behaving differently. If in the beginning they were only aggressive towards the Powder Blue, they now started to show some aggression between themselves. I don't think it's anything too serious but quite constant and it doesn't look as if it's about to stop. How long should I wait before making a move? Is there a chance the aggression will stop and all 4 Tang's will be able to live together in my tank?
The Blue Tang is the biggest of them all, the Yellow Tang the most aggressive, and the Desjardini although probably the least attractive he is sure the most human friendly and probably my favorite. The Powder Blue i'm just in love with and since it's so rare to find a good one as I was lucky to... I would hate removing him. I love all of them very much.
Hope you guys can help.
2. Lithophyllon Honeysickle - This coral as well as all the other small ones I got from Central Reef were placed on the bottom sand in the beginning. Then together with Igor we decided to put some of them on the rocks. A couple of days ago I woke up and saw that this coral and another small one were on the sand upside down. The other Coral was just the same but the Honeysickle completely lost it's coloring. It used to be Yellow but now it's like dark Grey.
Does anyone have experience with such a coral? Any chance it might get it's color back or should I get rid of it?
3. 90% of the Zoa's I have in my tank are closed. Is there anyway I can somehow get them to open up?
4. Igor suggests I get a male Mandarin fish for my female so that they can live together. Would you guys recommend that as well?
Thank you all for taking the time to read my thread and a special thanks to this forum for providing me with a friendly place where I can share all this.
Apologies for the poor quality pictures.
Guy.
I just joined R2R and decided to right away write what's on my mind.
I was discussing the possibility of adding a Purple Tang today with the guy maintaining my tank . He meant my tank is a bit too small for adding another tang. So I Googled how many Tang's in a 110g tank (which is my size) and saw that most of the people had only 2 Tang's with such a size.
A bit of History...
I have my Saltwater tank for 18 months now. It was set up by perhaps the largest Aquarium shop in Moscow, called 'Morskoy Aquarium'. The first 12 months were quite boring as there were a lot of problems and there wasn't too much happening. The guys maintaining my tank back then couldn't come up with the reason behind there not being any real growth and why all the soft corals we were adding ended up dead. No new fish were added during this period of time as they were against it and basically throughout this first year I was "housing" the following:
1 Blue Tang
1 Yellow Tang
2 Clown Fish (Amphiprion Percula)
1 Pseudochromis Paccagnellae (Died)
4 Yellowtail Damselfish (1 Died)
1 Pterapogon kauderni (Died)
Coral wise,
1 Rhodactis Inchoata Green
1 Rhodactis Mussoides Green
3 Other Soft Corals
Zoanthids, Anemon, Sarcophyton, Xenia and some other soft stuff didn't last very long.
In the past 6 months ever since I have this new guy Igor maintaining my tank things became much more interesting and slowly, slowly a slight addiction is starting to show up from my side. We added a lot of stuff to my tank during this time and i'll try and list it all.
In the beginning everything was added through Igor and his company and meaningly:
1 Zebrasoma desjardinii
1 Valenciennea puellaris (Died)
3 Nemateleotris magnifica (1 managed to jump out of my tank and end up in the filtration system - Died)
3 Nemateleotris decora (1 is still alive, not sure about the other 2)
5 large soft corals
1 Rhodactis Inchoata Green
1 Rhodactis Inchoata Red
1 Rhodactis Mussoides Green
1 Amplexidiscus fenestrafer
1 Trachyphyllia Geoffroyi (Died)
1 Lobophyllia corymbosa
Zoantharia (Large stone with different Zoa's, most of them closed)
3 Lysmata debelius
2 Mespilia globulus (Both died within a week)
1 Macrodactyla doreensis (Died after about a month)
1 Entacmaea quadricolor Tiger (Has both Clowns living in it)
As soon as they stopped providing me with interesting additions, I decided to finally drive by myself to a fish shop and buy some stuff. This was about 2-3 months ago, and this is when I was first introduced to LPS corals.
I will go by chronological order here:
In that first visit to 'Morskoy Aquarium' I ended up buying:
1 Pink Scolymia (Probably the most beautiful coral in my tank)
1 Euphyllia Parancora L size (This coral never stood a chance since it first of all was too big for my tank and secondly i didn't place it well. It dies after a week or so)
4 Clibanarius tricolor
3 Dispar Anthias
That was the first time I was adding stuff to my tank by myself and although tricky at first it sure is exciting. Since the Anthias fish were doing well, I was suggested by Igor to add a few more of the same fish to create a reef like picture of them Anthias fish swimming in a large group.
Here you can the stunning Pink Scoly:
My second visit to this ship ended up with the following financial damage:
4 Dispar Anthias
1 Light Green/Orange Scolymia
1 Blue Heliofungia M size (Died after 2-3 weeks)
1 Red/Green Stony Coral (Died after 2-3 weeks)
1 Pink Stony Coral
2 Clibanarius tricolor
After putting all this stuff in my tank started to get an impressive look with them Anthias swimming around and the new colorful... it all looked very nice!
Regarding feeding, in order the keep the Anthias fish happy, and since my water condition was pretty much perfect, Igor recommended to increase to feeding 3 times per day 3 cubes of Artemia. It was all going well until I left for a week and asked someone to feed my fish for me. When I was back there were only 5 Anthias left with 1 being on the verge of being a goner. Today there must be 2 or 3 of them left and they only come out to eat. So in order not to overfeed all the other fish I have reduced to feeding twice a day 3 cubes of Artemia.
Here's my tank when all 7 Anthias Dispar were still going well. Also the HelioFungia is seen on the left side... it was a really nice one.
At this point I started looking for other shops in Moscow offering fish and corals and that's when I found Central Reef. I think they are the only guys propagating corals and selling them in small pieces and they really have a great selection of corals.
In a matter of 3 weeks I had 2 orders delivered from them, and drove for over an hour to visit their shop and choose some stuff by myself for new years.
1st order:
1 Blastomussa Wellsi Red Ultra
1 Chalice Desert Sunset
1 Favia Deep Red
1 Lithophyllon Honeysickle
1 Acanthastrea Echinata
4 Clibanarius tricolor
All these corals are small size and are doing pretty well besides for the Honeysickle. More details about that in the Q part of the thread.
It was after receiving this order that I found this dead Gentleman in the front of my tank just laying there. I had no clue where'd he came from and when asking Igor he said he's an Illegal and probably was hiding in one of the rocks when the tank was set up. He also said i'm lucky he died because of his nasty claws and that most probably he was harassing most of my residents during night time when all were asleep
2nd order:
1 Acanthurus Leucosternon M size
1 Fungia Red/Blue/Green Mouth
1 Tridacna Maxima (Died after a week)
1 Euphyllia paraancora Green 1 Head
For a long time I was debating whether to add a Purple Tang or a Powder Blue. I then found an article about how aggressive Purple Tangs tend to be. So since I find the Powder Blue more attractive I told to myself that if i will find a good one I will most probably take it. I was lucky that Central Reef were keeping a Powder Blue M size for over a month. They sent me a video of how it feeds and plays around and I just fell in love with it through that short video and decided it's mine!
Central Reef recommended to Quarantine it in a separate tank before putting it inside my main tank but since I don't have such a possibility I put it inside my main tank late in the evening about 30 min before lights go off. The second it landed in the water it was chased around by my Yellow Tang. The second day the aggression continued with my Desjardini joining in on attacking the young Powder Blue.
Igor said I should put a mirror in front of the aquarium in order to stop the aggression and it seemed to help. With every day the Powder Blue feels more and more comfortable and covers more and more space in my tank. Aggression still appears towards him from all the 3 other Tang's but he seems to be dealing with it quite well. He eats the Artemia and the Nori I'm feeding very nicely. I was told that there is a 99% chance that he will develop some kind of parasite. It's been with me for 10 days now and there is nothing there. I very much hope it will stay this way.
3rd order:
1 Rhodactis Marbled Khaki
1 Favia Light Green
1 Leptastrea Orange/Green
1 Euphyllia Gold Torch 1 Head
1 Cladiella Purple
1 Synchiropus Splendidus (Female)
All these Corals are also small sized. The Mandarin fish was mostly hiding since Monday I added this bunch to my tank. But today it was out in the blue waters for a large part of the evening and obviously i'm very happy about that.
There was one more small purchase a few days before that 3rd order from a different shop called Mos Corals:
1 Diadema antillarum S size
1 Blastomussa Wellsi M size
1 Yellow Sarcophyton L size
That's pretty much all there is. Here's my tank today:
I know this thread is very long but I thought it's best to put it all in one thread rather than spread it out. I'm completely new to the aqua world (I'm it tells) so I wonder what you guys think about where i am with my tank?
I finally want to post a couple of question I have.
1. Tang's - after reading about the amount of Tang's in people tanks according to size, I noticed I'm above average. So I don't think I will add the Purple Tang nor any other tangs no more. The question is whether you guys think I should remove one of my Tang's?
Ever since I put the Powder Blue in all the Tang's started behaving differently. If in the beginning they were only aggressive towards the Powder Blue, they now started to show some aggression between themselves. I don't think it's anything too serious but quite constant and it doesn't look as if it's about to stop. How long should I wait before making a move? Is there a chance the aggression will stop and all 4 Tang's will be able to live together in my tank?
The Blue Tang is the biggest of them all, the Yellow Tang the most aggressive, and the Desjardini although probably the least attractive he is sure the most human friendly and probably my favorite. The Powder Blue i'm just in love with and since it's so rare to find a good one as I was lucky to... I would hate removing him. I love all of them very much.
Hope you guys can help.
2. Lithophyllon Honeysickle - This coral as well as all the other small ones I got from Central Reef were placed on the bottom sand in the beginning. Then together with Igor we decided to put some of them on the rocks. A couple of days ago I woke up and saw that this coral and another small one were on the sand upside down. The other Coral was just the same but the Honeysickle completely lost it's coloring. It used to be Yellow but now it's like dark Grey.
Does anyone have experience with such a coral? Any chance it might get it's color back or should I get rid of it?
3. 90% of the Zoa's I have in my tank are closed. Is there anyway I can somehow get them to open up?
4. Igor suggests I get a male Mandarin fish for my female so that they can live together. Would you guys recommend that as well?
Thank you all for taking the time to read my thread and a special thanks to this forum for providing me with a friendly place where I can share all this.
Apologies for the poor quality pictures.
Guy.
