Ray Laneville
Active Member
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2018
- Messages
- 215
- Reaction score
- 103
- Location
- New Bern, NC
- What state or country do you live in
- North Carolina
Hello.
I have a 90 gal that's been running a little over a year. I had in it the following:
2 pajama cardinals
1 pair of clowns
1 scooter blenny
watchman goby and randall's pistol shrimp
1 blue damsel
2 firefish
2 peppermint shrimp
1 brittle starfish
2 emerald crab
2 porcelain crab
assorted snails
zoa frags
Duncan frag
a couple mushroom frags.
(just starting with the corals)
had a nice bta but one night I left my RO water on topping off and overflowed fuge resulting in terrible salinity drop. The bta never recovered and since then the clown pair has been attempting to host in the Duncan. A strange side effect of this was before this I had been battling GHA something awful; after the mishap the GHA was GONE, and in it's place - Dinos. Somehow this knocked my phosphates to zero. I have been overfeeding and got the phosphates back in line and the dinos are diminishing.
Anyway, my son is moving to NYC and could not bring his reef and brought me his whole stock yesterday. Lots of beautiful corals which I am grateful for. The issue is his fish.
He gave me:
1 clownfish
1 watchman goby
1 pajama cardinal
1 mandarin goby.
well, the pajama cardinal got right in with the 2 I already had.
my watchman goby has been on the other side of the tank from his burrow with the pistol shrimp for about a week now, don't know if they lost each other, had a spat or what but the new watchman goby paired right up with the shrimp - looking happy.
The issue is my clowns. The clown my son gave me is much bigger and we thought he would bully the others, but just the opposite - My pair both went after him fiercely. Antwhere he tried to hide they searched him out and attacked. he lost several chunks of fin and tail. I managed to catch him and removed him to the fuge. My clown pair also mercilessly attacked the mandarin. Bit half his tail off before I could catch him and moved to fuge as well.
So - What to do now? After running this through my brain all night and morning, the best idea I have is to set up a second tank and move my clown pair into it and get them a new BTA. I could then put my son's clown and mandarin back to my tank and everyone should be OK. I want to do this fairly quickly because I just got a nice stable pod population in my fuge and I'm sure the mandarin will wipe them out.
I'm about to search online for tanks, hopefully I can find a pre-drilled one.
Another question I have is, If I set up a new tank next to my existing one, Would it be a good idea to share the fuge? It's big enough I think, Would be able to use existing skimmer, heater, macros in fuge for both tanks that way, I would just have to pipe the overflow lines together and either get another return pump or get a bigger one to share and control flow with valves to each. The only drawback I can think of is cross-contamination of any disease or bad hitchhikers.
A positive might be that it might eliminate the cycling wait for the new tank? any ammonia would be mixed between the whole new larger system and taken care of by existing bacteria and stuff. Of course I would start the new tank with all live sand and live rock.
Sorry this is so long, but I've been thinking about this all night and this morning and my brain was full. My son was very attached to his fish and was very distraught at the attacks.
Thanks for taking the time to readthis and for any advice/suggestions
I have a 90 gal that's been running a little over a year. I had in it the following:
2 pajama cardinals
1 pair of clowns
1 scooter blenny
watchman goby and randall's pistol shrimp
1 blue damsel
2 firefish
2 peppermint shrimp
1 brittle starfish
2 emerald crab
2 porcelain crab
assorted snails
zoa frags
Duncan frag
a couple mushroom frags.
(just starting with the corals)
had a nice bta but one night I left my RO water on topping off and overflowed fuge resulting in terrible salinity drop. The bta never recovered and since then the clown pair has been attempting to host in the Duncan. A strange side effect of this was before this I had been battling GHA something awful; after the mishap the GHA was GONE, and in it's place - Dinos. Somehow this knocked my phosphates to zero. I have been overfeeding and got the phosphates back in line and the dinos are diminishing.
Anyway, my son is moving to NYC and could not bring his reef and brought me his whole stock yesterday. Lots of beautiful corals which I am grateful for. The issue is his fish.
He gave me:
1 clownfish
1 watchman goby
1 pajama cardinal
1 mandarin goby.
well, the pajama cardinal got right in with the 2 I already had.
my watchman goby has been on the other side of the tank from his burrow with the pistol shrimp for about a week now, don't know if they lost each other, had a spat or what but the new watchman goby paired right up with the shrimp - looking happy.
The issue is my clowns. The clown my son gave me is much bigger and we thought he would bully the others, but just the opposite - My pair both went after him fiercely. Antwhere he tried to hide they searched him out and attacked. he lost several chunks of fin and tail. I managed to catch him and removed him to the fuge. My clown pair also mercilessly attacked the mandarin. Bit half his tail off before I could catch him and moved to fuge as well.
So - What to do now? After running this through my brain all night and morning, the best idea I have is to set up a second tank and move my clown pair into it and get them a new BTA. I could then put my son's clown and mandarin back to my tank and everyone should be OK. I want to do this fairly quickly because I just got a nice stable pod population in my fuge and I'm sure the mandarin will wipe them out.
I'm about to search online for tanks, hopefully I can find a pre-drilled one.
Another question I have is, If I set up a new tank next to my existing one, Would it be a good idea to share the fuge? It's big enough I think, Would be able to use existing skimmer, heater, macros in fuge for both tanks that way, I would just have to pipe the overflow lines together and either get another return pump or get a bigger one to share and control flow with valves to each. The only drawback I can think of is cross-contamination of any disease or bad hitchhikers.
A positive might be that it might eliminate the cycling wait for the new tank? any ammonia would be mixed between the whole new larger system and taken care of by existing bacteria and stuff. Of course I would start the new tank with all live sand and live rock.
Sorry this is so long, but I've been thinking about this all night and this morning and my brain was full. My son was very attached to his fish and was very distraught at the attacks.
Thanks for taking the time to readthis and for any advice/suggestions
