ETA: I am so sorry this is a book. If you like to read, stick with me!
Okay ya'll, we came across this deal last night on CL. A guy who is moving was selling his 55 gallon tank, 70lbs of rock, 100 pounds of live (really live!) sand, and all his fish (entirely too many). Now, we've been talking about ordering a "package" from TampaBaySaltwater, but no way can I afford to order the one for my size tank - 105g. But, I can put in my base rock, this guy's 70lbs of live rock, which he actually ordered from a LFS who gets their rock from India (really?). It's nice looking rock, lots of coralline growth and I noticed even some small, what looks to me like star coral growth. But his PH was low (7.8) and so was his SG (1.017 - I was freaking! :eek3
. Then I can top off my tank with the "package" from TBS in about the 40 pound range. Anyhoo, moving this story along...
Okay, so we brought everything home. ALL his water, some 50 gallons, all the rocks and sand and all the fish. Lemme tell ya about the fish:
1 Lunare Wrasse
1 Foxface Rabbit Fish (not sure which variety)
5 (yes, really, FIVE!) Domino Damsels ranging from 1" to 2"+
2 Three Stripe Damsels
1 Blue Damsel (devil maybe?)
1 Sergeant Major
Not sure how many, but there are crabs and snails and things in the rocks and sand, we saw movement and the guy actually told us that he'd been bitten on more than one occasion by something in his sand. LOL Not bad, but enough to let him know something's there, I guess.
My first thought and what I told the DH that we should do was to take all the fish in to our favorite LFS and get store credit. I mean, I wanted a 6 stripe or flame wrasse, so those are out if I keep this guy. And a fish that has poisonous spines on it's fin?!
Then the damsels, I don't want any of those guys, except maybe the little blue one. I don't want a black & white tank for one thing and for another, HELLOOOO, FIVE fish that grow to 6 inches and become grouchier with age??? NO thank you!
However, upon seeing the Poison Dart Fish (aka foxface) & Mr. Most Beautiful Fish Ever (aka Lunare Wrasse), I began to wonder if I shouldn't try to hang on to at least those two. They're SO pretty! Poison Dart is even cooler than a yellow tang, IMHO, and so similar in shape with the bright yellow coloration. I'm tempted to hang on to him. Especially since he's apparently quite peaceful and only has the poisonous fins to protect himself from meaner fish. The Lunare Wrasse is about 4" long and is easily the coolest looking fish I've ever laid eyes on. Not to mention, he's got personality!
Okay, back to the story, sorry! So we've got everything home, but we were having to suck out the majority of our water, scoop out our sand, remove some of our base rock and rearrange it a bit, then put in the water from other guy's tank, put in his sand, put his live rock in and then add back in new water to fill it up. During all this, I was keeping an eye on the fish in their bucket, with the bubbler going and was getting quite panicky. The wrasse and the foxface were lying on their sides in the bottom and not moving much. So we were trying to hurry along the resetup of our tank, and pouring a bit of our water in here and there to acclimate them too our water. Remember, the PH they were in was only 7.4. Ours is consistently 8.4. I was running out of time to take the fish to the LFS, but I'd decided I wanted to at least try to keep the poison fish and the wrasse. And maybe the damsels would have been alright overnight in the bucket and I'd take them in tomorrow.
Then I had to run make an appearance at a party my friend was having. She'd totally have kicked my booty if I ditched her for fish. :silly: Luckily, she's in the neighborhood, so I ran home in the middle for a few minutes to check on things. The hubby tells me he had checked the SG in the bucket o' fish and it "wasn't even in the range" and I'm like, what do you mean? He says it had fallen somewhere in the 1.017 -1.015 range! I was freaking out at that point. I mean, it was already too late in the day to try to get the fish to the LFS and it seemed that no matter what I did at that point, there was a chance they could die. SO, we rushed them all into their new home. I wasn't 100% sure about it, but it didn't seem good to me that their SG had fallen that much (how could that even happen?!) and them lying on the bottom of the bucket was worrying me too much.
SO now, to the point finally. Hehehe I've now got ALL those fish in my tank settling in and looking happy about it. My SG is 1.025, PH 8.2 (after mixing with the other water). Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 1-5, something in there. We put a filter sponge of the other guy's in our wet/dry on top of our sponge that sits over the live rock rubble. I also ran out tonight and bought 9 little hermits and 5 turbo snails and errr, couldn't resist him, I bought a coral banded shrimp. Not sure if he's going to make it though, it appears that the wrasse thinks I've brought him takeout. So that'll be $17 well spent. :wall:
I've asked hubby to help me get all the little damsels out tomorrow. I don't know what else I could have done. I didn't have a small tank on hand to throw them in, which would have been a smart thing, so of course, it wasn't something I thought to do. I know getting them out of a 105 gallon tall tank isn't going to be easy. I plan to reaquascape anyway, because hubby didn't really do such a great job since he was hurrying. I've got to run out and buy a good powerhead. The pump in there now is great, lots of water movement you can see when I put in food tonight, it blows it all over the place, but I want another powerhead to aim down on the rock and blow all the dust off them that's settled. So maybe when I'm moving rocks, somehow I'll manage to catch them. SIGH
What about the wrasse? What would you do? I know I want to eventually have some corals and I want loads of inverts and a few smaller species like a goby or two and maybe a royal gramma, maybe a yellowhead jawfish. Can I try to keep him and see how he does? Or do you think I should just take him in? (DH may not let me, he's all for big tough fish:shakehead
And the poison fish, would you keep him, or do you think he's dangerous?
What about the Sarge, is he okay? The little black & white stripe damsels I kindof like, what about them? And the blue one?
It's mainly the Dominos I want gone.
Also, I have a chance to take a really happy healthy snowflake eel from a girl who's giving him up so she can go to a smaller tank. I read up on them and it seems he's reef safe, but he'll eat crabs and shrimp. SIGH I probably should pass on him, but if I got him, are there any cleanup critters I'd be able to keep? I have a good tight top on the tank, so I don't think he could get out. (Seriously :22_yikes He's just sooooo cool.
Ya'll can be honest with me, did I do the right thing with the fishies? They do seem really happy in there. If they were stressed because of the PH change or anything else, they'd act stressed right? I was standing in front of the tank looking at them for a while tonight and they all came over to check me out and were hanging out and I thought maybe they were begging, so I fed them frozen (thawed in a cup of tank water) baby brine and spirulina brine shrimps and they went nuts over that! So that's a good sign, right, being out and about, exploring the tank and eating? They even came and hung out in the bottom of the tank and watched me while I was sitting in the floor by the wet/dry doing water tests! SO cute!
Ohmygosh, I can't believe I almost forgot. This collection O critters also included two chocolate chip starfish, which the hubby and kiddos LOVE. But they mow thru corals,right?
What do I do??????????????????????? :1zhelp:
Okay ya'll, we came across this deal last night on CL. A guy who is moving was selling his 55 gallon tank, 70lbs of rock, 100 pounds of live (really live!) sand, and all his fish (entirely too many). Now, we've been talking about ordering a "package" from TampaBaySaltwater, but no way can I afford to order the one for my size tank - 105g. But, I can put in my base rock, this guy's 70lbs of live rock, which he actually ordered from a LFS who gets their rock from India (really?). It's nice looking rock, lots of coralline growth and I noticed even some small, what looks to me like star coral growth. But his PH was low (7.8) and so was his SG (1.017 - I was freaking! :eek3
. Then I can top off my tank with the "package" from TBS in about the 40 pound range. Anyhoo, moving this story along...Okay, so we brought everything home. ALL his water, some 50 gallons, all the rocks and sand and all the fish. Lemme tell ya about the fish:
1 Lunare Wrasse
1 Foxface Rabbit Fish (not sure which variety)
5 (yes, really, FIVE!) Domino Damsels ranging from 1" to 2"+
2 Three Stripe Damsels
1 Blue Damsel (devil maybe?)
1 Sergeant Major
Not sure how many, but there are crabs and snails and things in the rocks and sand, we saw movement and the guy actually told us that he'd been bitten on more than one occasion by something in his sand. LOL Not bad, but enough to let him know something's there, I guess.
My first thought and what I told the DH that we should do was to take all the fish in to our favorite LFS and get store credit. I mean, I wanted a 6 stripe or flame wrasse, so those are out if I keep this guy. And a fish that has poisonous spines on it's fin?!
Then the damsels, I don't want any of those guys, except maybe the little blue one. I don't want a black & white tank for one thing and for another, HELLOOOO, FIVE fish that grow to 6 inches and become grouchier with age??? NO thank you! However, upon seeing the Poison Dart Fish (aka foxface) & Mr. Most Beautiful Fish Ever (aka Lunare Wrasse), I began to wonder if I shouldn't try to hang on to at least those two. They're SO pretty! Poison Dart is even cooler than a yellow tang, IMHO, and so similar in shape with the bright yellow coloration. I'm tempted to hang on to him. Especially since he's apparently quite peaceful and only has the poisonous fins to protect himself from meaner fish. The Lunare Wrasse is about 4" long and is easily the coolest looking fish I've ever laid eyes on. Not to mention, he's got personality!
Okay, back to the story, sorry! So we've got everything home, but we were having to suck out the majority of our water, scoop out our sand, remove some of our base rock and rearrange it a bit, then put in the water from other guy's tank, put in his sand, put his live rock in and then add back in new water to fill it up. During all this, I was keeping an eye on the fish in their bucket, with the bubbler going and was getting quite panicky. The wrasse and the foxface were lying on their sides in the bottom and not moving much. So we were trying to hurry along the resetup of our tank, and pouring a bit of our water in here and there to acclimate them too our water. Remember, the PH they were in was only 7.4. Ours is consistently 8.4. I was running out of time to take the fish to the LFS, but I'd decided I wanted to at least try to keep the poison fish and the wrasse. And maybe the damsels would have been alright overnight in the bucket and I'd take them in tomorrow.
Then I had to run make an appearance at a party my friend was having. She'd totally have kicked my booty if I ditched her for fish. :silly: Luckily, she's in the neighborhood, so I ran home in the middle for a few minutes to check on things. The hubby tells me he had checked the SG in the bucket o' fish and it "wasn't even in the range" and I'm like, what do you mean? He says it had fallen somewhere in the 1.017 -1.015 range! I was freaking out at that point. I mean, it was already too late in the day to try to get the fish to the LFS and it seemed that no matter what I did at that point, there was a chance they could die. SO, we rushed them all into their new home. I wasn't 100% sure about it, but it didn't seem good to me that their SG had fallen that much (how could that even happen?!) and them lying on the bottom of the bucket was worrying me too much.
SO now, to the point finally. Hehehe I've now got ALL those fish in my tank settling in and looking happy about it. My SG is 1.025, PH 8.2 (after mixing with the other water). Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 1-5, something in there. We put a filter sponge of the other guy's in our wet/dry on top of our sponge that sits over the live rock rubble. I also ran out tonight and bought 9 little hermits and 5 turbo snails and errr, couldn't resist him, I bought a coral banded shrimp. Not sure if he's going to make it though, it appears that the wrasse thinks I've brought him takeout. So that'll be $17 well spent. :wall:
I've asked hubby to help me get all the little damsels out tomorrow. I don't know what else I could have done. I didn't have a small tank on hand to throw them in, which would have been a smart thing, so of course, it wasn't something I thought to do. I know getting them out of a 105 gallon tall tank isn't going to be easy. I plan to reaquascape anyway, because hubby didn't really do such a great job since he was hurrying. I've got to run out and buy a good powerhead. The pump in there now is great, lots of water movement you can see when I put in food tonight, it blows it all over the place, but I want another powerhead to aim down on the rock and blow all the dust off them that's settled. So maybe when I'm moving rocks, somehow I'll manage to catch them. SIGH
What about the wrasse? What would you do? I know I want to eventually have some corals and I want loads of inverts and a few smaller species like a goby or two and maybe a royal gramma, maybe a yellowhead jawfish. Can I try to keep him and see how he does? Or do you think I should just take him in? (DH may not let me, he's all for big tough fish:shakehead
And the poison fish, would you keep him, or do you think he's dangerous?
What about the Sarge, is he okay? The little black & white stripe damsels I kindof like, what about them? And the blue one?
It's mainly the Dominos I want gone.
Also, I have a chance to take a really happy healthy snowflake eel from a girl who's giving him up so she can go to a smaller tank. I read up on them and it seems he's reef safe, but he'll eat crabs and shrimp. SIGH I probably should pass on him, but if I got him, are there any cleanup critters I'd be able to keep? I have a good tight top on the tank, so I don't think he could get out. (Seriously :22_yikes
He's just sooooo cool. Ya'll can be honest with me, did I do the right thing with the fishies? They do seem really happy in there. If they were stressed because of the PH change or anything else, they'd act stressed right? I was standing in front of the tank looking at them for a while tonight and they all came over to check me out and were hanging out and I thought maybe they were begging, so I fed them frozen (thawed in a cup of tank water) baby brine and spirulina brine shrimps and they went nuts over that! So that's a good sign, right, being out and about, exploring the tank and eating? They even came and hung out in the bottom of the tank and watched me while I was sitting in the floor by the wet/dry doing water tests! SO cute!
Ohmygosh, I can't believe I almost forgot. This collection O critters also included two chocolate chip starfish, which the hubby and kiddos LOVE. But they mow thru corals,right?
What do I do??????????????????????? :1zhelp:
