My First Tang
I've been making preps for my new tank (It's down to an SCA 75 gallon or a Custom Aquariums with same dimensions - 36L/24W/20ishH but that'll be another thread) and saw that White Tail Bristletooth tangs were available. This is one of the fish I had planned on but one the benefits of having a system already is that you don't have to wait if you see something available. It's a juvenile of course, maybe 3 1/2" currently with a max of 6-6 1/2" full grown in a year or two. Beautiful fish! It initially 'paced' back and forth but it was wild caught so I simply (and hopefully) felt an adjustment period was all that was required. It has settled down very nicely, gets along with current inhabitants (more on that below), roams the tank very naturally, tanks full advantage of caves and tunnels and loves the nori I feed it every other day. Simply a joy to have in my tank.
When I initially got it (gender neutral because I really can't tell) on Feb 10 things were a bit more stressful. The following day my clownfish decided to do what I feel all clownfish will do at some point...be a complete jerk. It started nip at the sides of the tang taking pieces out and severely stressing out the tang.
I had really thought that getting a known 'peaceful' clownfish (ocellaris - captive bred) and only a single one to reduce mating/breeding aggression would prevent all that. To be honest, it did for quite some time. I've added two new fish since the clownfish matured into female as evidenced by the size increase and it got along fine. Probably just something about the size/color of the tang that triggered aggression.
So seeing my new beautiful $300.00 tang getting destroyed by a $15.00 clownfish that I only got mainly because my wife wanted one did not exactly illicit a mature response from me. If that orange and white little devil had found it's way into my net over the next 15 min very likely the world would have been down one clownfish and I'd have been fine, even delighted, at that result.
Luckily for the clownfish, my wife came home from her errands to find me in quite the state. I had given up on catching the little bugger (you can't catch a fish when you're stressed out and supremely ticked off, don't even try) and was watching the new tang getting destroyed.
She immediately agreed that $300 beats $15 and that the clown had to go, but unlike me she remembered something else, "Don't you have a bunch of tanks in the garage just sitting there?". Oh yeah, brilliant!
So here's the part where "lizard brain" went back to making sure I eat and drink and making sure I don't soil myself and not drive the emergency response systems and I got to being a reef keeper again.
In less than an hour, I had a fully cycled (with no additives, thank you very much) tank with new saltwater up and running. A couple things allowed me to get this done. One is having a great wife who went out an got a light for the tank (tanks I got, lights I seem to have a habit of dropping into water). She also has some fish whisperer thing going on in getting fish to almost jump into little nets. Took her about 90 seconds and she goes "Here ya go!" She's the best (and now the designated fish catcher). The other was having a mature tank up and running. There is just no substitute for having a bag of pond matrix in your sump and an extra rock with some big fat softies on it to make sure you don't have an ammonia problem. I checked ammonia a few times and it never moved off 0.
If you're a beginning reefer and this happens to you, make sure you have a bottle of Dr Tims and a bag of Polyfilter on hand and be ready for 50% water changes for a while.
Temp home for clownfish - matrix bag in back. Using Aquaclear 50 (or 70).
This has been setup for over a month now and I'm actually very proud of it. Not because it's gorgeous but because it runs so darn well. Nitrates never got above 3 ppm. PO4 hit .1 ppm but I put two drops of PhosphateRx to knock it down to about .08, added bit of Phosguard to keep it there and them some sea lettuce (thanks for the quick shipment Algaebarn) to do it all naturally. Worked like a charm. PO4 is now .04 and dropping, NO3 still 3, no algae other than some film and a bit of diatoms and I haven't done any water changes since I set it up. Setting up a tank this fast and having it run this well has made me feel more like a reefer than anything else over the last 3+ years. I even felt confident enough to drop one of my BTA small divisions in here (it's behind the xenia).
Few notes: picked sea lettuce in hopes tang would like it (it doesn't...at all) and because I want to setup algae display tank. Also using GAC. Put a couple tablespoons each GAC and Phosguard in a small media bag in the filter.
So plans are to let the clownfish continue to serve time while new tank gets setup. Once I have that done and fish transferred/purchased I want (assuming I'm not getting any more aggressive fish like a dwarf angel) I'll put clown back in main display and hopefully she'll behave. if not, I'll have that other algae tank (thinking 29 gallon) for her. I'm afraid that if I move back to old system now, the behavior will just repeat.
So back to planning new tank. I've got everything decided except the actual tank. The SCA is a pretty tank and pretty good deal with shipping, but it's a rimless and the one thing I really dislike about the RSR 170 are the drips down the side every time I touch anything. But we all make compromises at least those of us without a bunch of extra space for the hobby.
Later - Qm
