120 Build
- Thread starter rajah
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Thanks! SCA didn't do anything and stopped responding. I was left with the two tanks and ended up selling the 150 to a member on here for a good deal. Kept the other one. So I did end up recouping a bit of the money... turned out OK in the end. I do think their build quality is pretty decent and their prices are below most custom tanks, but as others noted... don't expect any customer service.
New tanks are up and running. Added live rock from KP aquatics and from my existing system. Bit of an ugly phase but not too bad really. Some stringy stuff that appeared to be dinos, but that is dying back. Trying bare bottom on the bigger tank for now, not sure if I'll keep it that way long term or not.
Set up dosing with three part and have a kalkwasser reservoir ready when demand increases. Corals are doing fine so far and coralline is popping up.
Set up dosing with three part and have a kalkwasser reservoir ready when demand increases. Corals are doing fine so far and coralline is popping up.
Took awhile to decide on the main fish for the 120, but decided to go with a yellow tang, purple tang, gold lined rabbit, and the indian gold ring bristletooth from my old system. Finally added them all together to the 120 today and so far so good. The yellow tang has shown a bit of agression towards the purple, but nothing much. They're all still pretty small.
Also added 3 yellow-tailed damsels, a spotted hawkfish, and a tail spot blenny. Probably going to wait while before adding any more fish. These all had a long observation period in other tanks before I put them together, to minimize changes of introducing disease. Gonna let it chill for a few weeks and then add acros and more sensitive corals if all looks good. Still dialing in the dosing.
I picked up a pair of black clarkii clowns about two weeks ago, with the hopes that they would live in my green haddoni carpet anemone. Tonight they finally dove in. Stoked about that. You can also see a little bit of a porcelain crab at the bottom of the photo. Curious if the fish kick it out or all three are able to share the anemone. Also pretty amazed how these fish can swim in the anemone without getting stung. The nem is so sticky that I've accidentally ripped off tentacles when the stick to my hand. These are eventually going to be moved into the 40 breeder that is plumbed to the 120, once that system is a bit more stable. The clarkii while probably be the only fish in that tank, as I know they get super mean when they're bigger.
The clowns usually have to acclimate slowly so that their slime coat can build up. Even clowns and other damsels (same fish with different costumes) can get captured and eaten if they just dive in without making changes to their bodies first. This is likely why it took a while. You can sometimes see the clowns dive bombing for a few weeks until they decide to move in full time. There are stories online of people forcing clowns into their Haddoni too quickly in small acclimation boxes/tanks and getting captured and eaten.
I had a trio of Semilarvatus once that could hang nearly in a Haddoni sometimes without getting eaten. I have no idea why, but when taking with Fenner about it once, he wondered if they could also develop more slime since Haddoni were native to the Red Sea too.
I had a trio of Semilarvatus once that could hang nearly in a Haddoni sometimes without getting eaten. I have no idea why, but when taking with Fenner about it once, he wondered if they could also develop more slime since Haddoni were native to the Red Sea too.
Yeah, I think you are totally correct about that, regarding the slime coat. I actually had a pink skunk clown swim into this carpet nem a few months ago and it was nearly killed / eaten. Had been hosting in bubble tips and obviously wasn't ready for the carpet nem. Not sure if he was kind of sussing it out, or just accidentally swam into it.
This old research study did a lot of experiments to try and understand the details of how the clowns avoid being stung. Indeed the slime coat is the answer, and non-symbiotic fish have much different / thinner slime coats.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.1980.0013
That doesn't explain to me how the porcelain crab walks all over the haddoni without getting stuck however.... not sure how he manages that.
This old research study did a lot of experiments to try and understand the details of how the clowns avoid being stung. Indeed the slime coat is the answer, and non-symbiotic fish have much different / thinner slime coats.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.1980.0013
That doesn't explain to me how the porcelain crab walks all over the haddoni without getting stuck however.... not sure how he manages that.