2/8/2021 Update (added link to the bottom of the original post):
Big Update Time (I'll talk abut the elephant in the room on the right side of the tank down below)!
Since my last update, quite a bit has happened with the tank. Towards the end of the year, my tank was quickly bombarded with a blanket of red cyanobacteria. With my nutrients low and flow high, I ended up going through a dose of ChemiClean, which quickly cleared up the slime after only a few days. My tank was full of microbubbles after the treatment and subsequent water change, but my skimmer calmed down after about a week.
Almost immediately after the cyano disappeared, dinoflagellates took over. In the following weeks, I began dosing Vibrant, raising Nitrates and Phosphates, refraining from cleaning the glass, and manually siphoning out the bulk of the dinos every few days. It took almost a month, but the dinos have subsided and have been replaced by microalgae and the beginnings of coralline algae growth on the rocks. For the past week or two, the tank has reached an equilibrium in terms of algae growth, where my inverts and Tomini tang are consuming the algae at approximately the same rate it grows. Oh yeah... some new fish!
I picked up both a Tomini tang as well as a High-fin Ray Goby on 1/9/2021 from TSMAquatics. My tomini tang is shy, but has been eating well, and is a model citizen in the tank. Both arrived healthy and happy, but my goby disappeared as quickly as he was added, and was missing from 1/10 until 1/25. Fortunately, he reappeared on the other side of the tank late one night, and to my surprise, he was paired up with the candy-cane pistol shrimp I had added a few months ago! He seems to be too spooked to come out during the day, but I have been target feeding frozen food into their burrow daily.
With the addition of a few new fish, I decided to revamp my sump area, and created a small DIY chaeo refugium with an old light fixture and PAR-38 bulb I had laying around.
Two weeks ago, I also picked up a large green bubble-tip anemone from my local fish store at a good price, and it has been thriving. It regularly accepts feeding, and has chosen a great spot on the back of the rock structure in the right side of the tank. He hasn't yet played host to either of my clownfish, but they don't mind staying close to it, so I assume they will be hosted in the coming weeks/months.
In addition, I set up a small 20 gallon long tank in my basement for growing out frags and to eventually house my Six-line wrasse if I ever manage to catch her.
Now, for the elephant in the room - my Orange spotted Filefish, named Phil.
First off, I wanted to explain that this was not an impulse purchase. I have been researching this fish for months, speaking to those experienced with keeping them, and acquiring all of the supplies and food necessary for keeping this species. Additionally, I have a backup plan set up in case he ends up taking a turn for the worse or stops eating - moving him to a much larger ~200g SPS dominated tank a friend of mine owns. I purchased this male filefish (2 5/8") from Diver's Den at Liveaquaria on 1/5/2021, and he arrived safely on 1/7. The folks at Divers den gave me specific information about how and what he is eating. At diver's den, he was previously eating bring and mysis shrimp, as well as Nutramar Ova frozen food a few times a day stuck in between the bristles of a toothbrush.
It has been over a month since I have received this fish, and he is happy, healthy, and eating several times per day. I feed a small amount of EasyReefs Masstick mixed with VitaChem in several places around the tank 3 times per day. He has no problem taking his time over the course of an hour and eating the bulk of the Masstick. Upon adding him to the tank, he made quick work of my monti cap, and started picking at my hammer coral, which I promptly traded to another reefer for some other corals. Since then, he has not touched any of the other corals. When I received this fish, he had one slightly foggy eye as well as a small white mark on his fin as seen in the picture above. I observed this over the course of the past month in case it was an infection or parasite, but it turns out it was likely some slight damage from shipping or netting. I added an acropora skeleton to the back of the tank in which I sometimes stick food to for him to eat. He normally sleeps in the corners of the tank, but has recently taken a liking to the acro skeleton as shown below, where you can see his camouflage coloring.
Phil is such a joy to watch swim around the tank as happy as can be, and interact with the other fish. He likes showing off the file on the top of his head, especially when my midas blenny moves near some of his masstick on the glass. Over the past month, Phil has been eating well, slowly gaining a bit of weight, and showing no signs of emaciation or any other health issues. I consider myself extremely lucky to have found a specimen that ate in my tank within 24 hours of adding him, and continues to accept multiple types of foods.
Below, I have added several other pictures of the tank and corals. I have added plenty of other photos of the tank and fish over at
@squidsreef on Instagram. I'm very happy with how the tank is maturing, and I look forward to its progress over the course of the next few years.
