nate.hobart.1

He's pretty nocturnal at this point. I feel that in a month or two he'll probably be out and about more during the day- but right now I see him the most when the tank lights are off. I took this shot while feeding him a piece of table shrimp.

First salt tank I had was dwarf seahorses. Such awesome, very tiny little creatures. I sometimes wish I still had them. Maybe I should start another dwarf seahorse tank [emoji848]

10 day update. Chumley hasn't hurt a thing in the tank. I've seen the coral banded shrimp right up next to him and have witnessed no aggression and today at feeding time my cherub angelfish (who could very easily fit in his mouth) actually swam right up and across his face almost swatting him with his tail. Totally reef safe Eel.

Looks like sponges

Euro braced- I just think it's better. Stronger, less likelihood of things jumping out if you aren't running a canopy or screen top- you can set stuff down on it when doing maintenance...

Best bet = blue throat

Yes. Blue throat triggers, sargassum triggers (aka red tail triggers) and the lesser seen and far more expensive crosshatch and gold back triggers are all reef safe. Of course all fish have personalities and triggers in general have lots - so... some individuals might go 'bad'. However from my experience they are wonderful and docile. Additionally, Niger triggers and Pink Tail triggers are also considered by some to be reef safe. I personally have a rather large Niger trigger in my mixed reef and he's boisterous but has never harmed anything as far as I can tell. I got him when he was about the size of a half dollar piece- and I feed him well- so he pretty much spends his time digging in his cave in the sand and swimming around the algae clip. Honestly triggers have the most personality of any aquarium fish I've owned.

That thing is pretty dinky and no amount of zoom would make it very cool looking [emoji6]

I don't really have anything of note in the category then... [emoji21]

I'm no photographer, but most of my tank capsule be described as encrusted. [emoji6]

Hah. Yep, as expected, last night he must have found himself a cave I can't see him in at all. I was worried he'd found some hole or some such in my elaborate eel proofed tank top. Friggan eels. I have a screen top that extends over my overflows and an elaborate if janky working of plastic and tape covering the small gaps around my return pump hoses and various wires. When I got my golden dwarf a while back I didn't see him for almost two weeks. To answer the questions above- their aren't really any non coral safe eels. Eels don't ever pick at corals- they are just messy eaters which can stress finicky corals in systems lacking the filtration- like any predator in a reef tank. That and depending on the species they can be large and clumsy and knock over rockwork and such. Mostly eels are known for eating fish and inverts. Zebra Morays are crustacean eaters - so fish are relatively safe- crabs and shrimps- maybe not. I suspect my coral banded shrimps gonna be alright. Many eels tolerate or even seek out cleanings from cleaner shrimp if they were already established in the system. Zebra morays can reach 5 ft in length. He most likely will not get that large however. My system is large enough for him. Eels aren't active swimmers they prefer hanging out in a cave, [emoji41] chillin. Thanks about the bubble coral. It's one of my OG corals got it as a n itty bitty colony years ago.

Dunno if this photo upload will work- but he arrived yesterday- well packed and very healthy. He quickly found a cave to hide in and was quietly resting there all day. I put a large krill on the feeding stick near him last night and he took it after a minute or two. And today he's out a bit- checking things out. I named him Chumley.

I'm interested in a BTA

Diggity dang. I was actually thinking ammonia - but because of some random fish or critter die off. You could almost make this a point for using straight city water rather than rodi.

Blue and black ribbon eels are very difficult to keep alive. I put them in kinda the same camp as flame scallops- they look cool and you don't see why they'd be difficult and yet they are. One of the guys who works at OIAB kept a blue ribbon for a few weeks. He said it ate a bunch of his inverts and then died. I finally broke down and ordered a zebra Moray. He arrives Tuesday. I'm excited. Zebras seem to be pretty widely regarded as the chillest of the big morays. The are pebble toothed, get pretty big, are blind as bats and IMO are pretty dopey looking. I love em.

Not equipment failure. Not nutrient swings. No fish or critters died off. Did some cleaning product end up in the tank? I'm really curious...

I typically leave sponge alone- lots of fishes love to nibble on the stuff and it's indicative of a healthy reef. Unless you can't stand the look of it, or it's pushing out corals or something. When I went snorkeling in St Thomas one thing I really noticed was how much sponge was really everywhere in the reef. IMO it's a great barometer of a healthy system.

Maybe sponge?

I keep my thermopen from my cooking days next to my tank. Instant read and incredibly accurate.

lol - yeah that'd be eight hours of driving...

Bit the bullet and ordered a reefkeeper lite plus last night.

I have a pretty nice fish trap if you need to borrow it in the future... and you aren't too far away.

I never realized yellow tangs had such issues with CBBs. I introduced a CBB to my tank last week and I've had nothing but minor posturing for a few minutes through out the day. That said I feed my fish a whole lot - I mean they are fat. I buy my fish as small as I can get them and feed them a lot. It seems to really mitigate aggression for me. You could always attempt multiple algae clips around the tank. In the wild I feel like most territory squabbling stems from food.

I think I'm gonna look for a mid level controller that will record my temps thru the day so I can at least know if my temps are getting too high when I'm not around. In case it turns out that the fans aren't cutting it...

I wish ac was an option. Maybe someday... I think I'm going to finally invest in a controller and I'm gonna buy one of those four fan clip on tank fan things that are all over eBay. Tank hit 82.3 yesterday. I put a large on the stand next to the water surface and the temp stabilized and came down once the sun started dropping. Ugh