The WB's 70g Custom Acrylic Supersized AIO

TheWB · Jun 15, 2024

I ordered a Sand and Rox Box Treasure Chest from Tampa Bay Saltwater today.
3 pounds of premium live rock and 9 pounds of live sand. That ought to bump up the biodiversity considerably. I may get another one later that is just live rock rubble for the fuge area. Have to see how it goes with this first order but I can’t imagine not being happy with it.

TheWB · Jun 18, 2024

Sad news today. The Flame Angel and the Royal Gramma both passed. I noticed the Flame had some white growth on one side near its gills yesterday. The Gramma looked fine but was listless and just kinda sitting on a rock under a ledge. I knew I had trouble. It didn’t take long and now they’re both gone.
I’ve been meaning to order medicated food from Everything Aquatic for some time but kept forgetting. I remedied that yesterday but it’s too late for those two fish.
I believe the white growth was a bacterial infection so I’ll be feeding the remaining fish medicated food called General Trio Flake that is good for both gram positive and negative bacterial infections. I’ve had good luck with Everything Aquatic medicated foods in the past and I should have had some on hand before I started stocking new fish. Totally my fault and will not happen again. None of the other fish show any outward signs of an infection so I’m hoping they are strong enough to ward it off until I can treat them.

navada718 · Jun 18, 2024

TheWB said:
Sad news today. The Flame Angel and the Royal Gramma both passed. I noticed the Flame had some white growth on one side near its gills yesterday. The Gramma looked fine but was listless and just kinda sitting on a rock under a ledge. I knew I had trouble. It didn’t take long and now they’re both gone.
I’ve been meaning to order medicated food from Everything Aquatic for some time but kept forgetting. I remedied that yesterday but it’s too late for those two fish.
I believe the white growth was a bacterial infection so I’ll be feeding the remaining fish medicated food called General Trio Flake that is good for both gram positive and negative bacterial infections. I’ve had good luck with Everything Aquatic medicated foods in the past and I should have had some on hand before I started stocking new fish. Totally my fault and will not happen again. None of the other fish show any outward signs of an infection so I’m hoping they are strong enough to ward it off until I can treat them.

I'm sorry to hear that. I just set up a qt tank for this exact reason. Following humble.fish qt guidelines to the T.
We shall preserve.

TheWB · Jun 18, 2024

navada718 said:
I'm sorry to hear that. I just set up a qt tank for this exact reason. Following humble.fish qt guidelines to the T.
We shall preserve.

Thanks. I got complacent, it’s the only explanation. I’ve never quarantined. I’ve been very lucky with fish from two different lfs that have been healthy and I usually feed them the medicated food at the first sign of any problem. It’s served me well. But this time I didn’t have any of the food on hand and the fish came from a different lfs than I usually use. There’s been other variables. I’ve added rubble and substrate from two different sources and also copopods from two different sources and some phyto. Lot of stuff has gone into this tank besides new fish recently. Not sure if it was the Angel or something that came in some other way. Nothing to do now but watch the fish closely and wait for the medicated food to show up. You’re right, we shall persevere but it’s always such a bummer to lose a fish.

TheWB · Jun 21, 2024

Started feeding this today based on the flame angel having some white growth around its gills before it passed.

Also have these which have both served me well in the past.

I’m going to do the full ten days with the first one assuming nothing else happens that warrants a change and as long as the fish are eating it, and then follow with the quad flakes just to be safe. I did dose the tank with prazi in case the problem was internal parasites or that and a bacterial infection. I think I’m covered both ways now. The yellow wrasse and the dottyback look a little skinny and have flashed from time to time but are still active. Not showing great appetite but they are still eating. The other four fish are eating and are pretty robust looking, not skinny. Not attacking food like you’d expect but definitely eating. No outward signs of white growth on the gills like the Flame Angel had. I’m hopeful that there will be signs of increased appetite and weight gain over the next few days.

tharbin · Jun 22, 2024

TheWB said:
Started feeding this today based on the flame angel having some white growth around its gills before it passed.

Also have these which have both served me well in the past.

I’m going to do the full ten days with the first one assuming nothing else happens that warrants a change and as long as the fish are eating it, and then follow with the quad flakes just to be safe. I did dose the tank with prazi in case the problem was internal parasites or that and a bacterial infection. I think I’m covered both ways now. The yellow wrasse and the dottyback look a little skinny and have flashed from time to time but are still active. Not showing great appetite but they are still eating. The other for fish are eating and are pretty robust looking, not skinny. Not attacking food like you’d expect but definitely eating. No outward signs of white growth on the gills like the Flame Angel had. I’m hopeful that there will be signs of increased appetite and weight gain over the next few days.

I never heard of these treatments before, very interesting.

TheWB · Jun 22, 2024

tharbin said:
I never heard of these treatments before, very interesting.

Yeah, I’m not sure how I found them but I’ve had good luck. Back when I started the lagoon 50 my clowns had stringy white poop and I always found it to be kind of a pain to mix medication into frozen food with focus. This was much easier and the Quad Flake cleared up the white stringy poop so I just started keeping some of it on hand. They make it in pellet form as well but I don’t like how pellets always end up on the bottom of the tank. The flake stays suspended so the fish can eat it more easily. I should have just got the 1oz bags though. The 2 oz is kind of a lot and I feel like this should be replaced periodically. Next time I’ll go smaller.

tharbin · Jun 22, 2024

TheWB said:
Yeah, I’m not sure how I found them but I’ve had good luck. Back when I started the lagoon 50 my clowns had stringy white poop and I always found it to be kind of a pain to mix medication into frozen food with focus. This was much easier and the Quad Flake cleared up the white stringy poop so I just started keeping some of it on hand. They make it in pellet form as well but I didn’t like how pellets always end up on the bottom of the tank. The flake stays suspended so the fish can eat it more easily. I should have just got the 1oz bags though. The 2 oz is kind of a lot and I feel like this should be replaced periodically. Next time I’ll go smaller.

Disease treatment is one of those areas that are better by leaps and bounds from when I started in the hobby.

TheWB · Jun 25, 2024

I just received and added my Sand and Rox box treasure chest from @LiverockRocks and I’m pleased with what I got. Everything was well packaged with double/triple bags and very wet as advertised.

I got 4 nano sized rocks and 9# of live sand. I just watched the filefish eat something out of the sand so there’s something in there it liked. There’s a little bit of macro algae on the rocks and I’m hoping that several hours a day of natural sunlight will keep it alive until I turn on the lights full time.

I did see one small hairy looking crab that jumped out of one of the rocks before I could nab it. There may be a baby gorilla crab on the loose I’ll have to deal with later. Not a big deal. I’m excited to see what else might show up in the coming days. I’ll definitely be adding more from @LiverockRocks in the future.

tharbin · Jun 26, 2024

TheWB said:
I just received and added my Sand and Rox box treasure chest from @LiverockRocks and I’m pleased with what I got. Everything was well packaged with double/triple bags and very wet as advertised.

I got 4 nano sized rocks and 9# of live sand. I just watched the filefish eat something out of the sand so there’s something in there it liked. There’s a little bit of macro algae on the rocks and I’m hoping that several hours a day of natural sunlight will keep it alive until I turn on the lights full time.

I did see one small hairy looking crab that jumped out of one of the rocks before I could nab it. There may be a baby gorilla crab on the loose I’ll have to deal with later. Not a big deal. I’m excited to see what else might show up in the coming days. I’ll definitely be adding more from @LiverockRocks in the future.

That looks really nice. Please document the progress. Using your post as a in-house sales aid

TheWB · Jun 26, 2024

tharbin said:
That looks really nice. Please document the progress. Using your post as a in-house sales aid

Here’s some close ups for your file, lol.

tharbin · Jun 26, 2024

TheWB said:
Here’s some close ups for your file, lol.

They look even better close up.

TheWB · Jun 26, 2024

tharbin said:
They look even better close up.

I feel like I got some value out of this little package. Too bad the shipping is spendy but ya gotta do what ya gotta do if you want it right out of the ocean. I’m glad I did it. Next time probably a box of rubble for the fuge.

TheWB · Jul 9, 2024

Some updates.

On 6/23 I dosed another round of Prazi and started to feed the Anti Parasite Quad Flakes instead of the General Trio Flake. This was based on none of the other fish except for the Flame Angel that died showing any signs of a bacterial infection. The Lubbock's Wrasse had some white poop and there was also some flashing by the yellow wrasse and blue damsel but not a lot. none of the remaining fish were eating aggressively at all.

On 6/25 the McCosker's Wrasse and Neon Dottyback both died. There were no signs of a bacterial infection that I could see. Flukes or another internal parasite seems more likely.

On 6/28 I dosed Prazi again. No other losses and still no normal feeding responses.

After 10 days of the Anti Parasite Quad Flakes I started feeding regular food again on 7/3. Again, nobody is eating aggressively but there is no more flashing and things seem to have stabilized.

On 7/4 I did a water change and turned the skimmer back on. The water has been cloudy for a day or two, not sure why. Possible bacteria bloom. Turned on the UV for the first time to see if that helps clear the water.

7/8. the water has cleared. I used a turkey baster to stir things up again and that also cleared pretty quickly. Not sure if to was the uv or not but figured turning it on couldn't hurt at this point.

I may have caused the cloudy water by stirring up the detritus that's in the fleece roller. I've been letting it sit to see how long it would take to clog enough to trigger the automatic advancement of the fleece. It was finally starting to back up enough to do that but the sensor is slightly higher than the emergency overflow for the chamber its in so the water can't get high enough to trigger the advance. I think a lot of detritus had built up in there and at one point I had tried to reposition the filter roller body to make sure there wasn't any bypass going on. The sump chambers got real dirty right after I did that so I think I knocked a bunch of detritus loose instead of manually advancing the roller to remove it from the tank. I'm going to try two things with the filter roller. First I'm going to have a custom 3d printed collar made that fits the sock opening better. Right now the ones that came with the roller are either slightly too large or too small to fit the opening. I'm using the slightly larger one and it makes he unit sit up a little too high for the sensor to get triggered. If that doesn't solve the problem then I'll get the upgrade kit from Coralvue that allows the sensor to be magnet mounted to the baffle wall instead of attached to the body of the fleece roller. This will allow me to choose the water height that triggers the sensor and advances the fleece. One for both of those things should solve that problem.

As of today things seem better. The fish are eating a little bit better. Still not attacking food the way I like to see them do it but better than a few days ago. No signs of flashing, white poop or white blotches. The yellow wrasse picks at the sand a lot so it may be snacking on pods that I just can't see. It has grown a little in the last few weeks. The Lubbock's wrasse seems less lethargic than it was looking a week ago. The filefish and the blue damsel just keep doing their thing and have mostly seemed unaffected by whatever was going on that killed the other fish. If things keep going in this direction I will move the Tomini Tang over within the next 7-10 days and get the Clown and leftover corals in the Lagoon 50 moved down to the garage tank. Once I clear the Lagoon 50 I can move the Apex and ATO over to the new tank and then finish off the wire management. It will be good to get that done so I can get the old tank out of the room and start really whipping my office into shape.

Lastly, the macro and sponges on the live rock are hanging in there but not thriving.

This was to be expected since I'm just using natural sunlight and ambient room light right now. This tank does not yet have the Neptune Sky's turned on and won't for a while. I just want to let the rocks mature and keep the uglies to a minimum if I can. So far there has been some build up on the side panels but not much. I've only scraped them once or twice since the tank got wet. There are no signs of diatoms or anything else on the Stax Rocks that make up most of the scape yet, they are still lilly white. The tank is pretty clean and there have been no nutrient spikes.

tharbin · Jul 9, 2024

Good to see this coming together. Sorry for the loses though. It seems you have it under control. I may look into those medicated foods as I had not heard of them before. My medications supply is very limited right now so I actually need to pick up a few for 'just in case'.

TheWB · Jul 9, 2024

tharbin said:
Good to see this coming together. Sorry for the loses though. It seems you have it under control. I may look into those medicated foods as I had not heard of them before. My medications supply is very limited right now so I actually need to pick up a few for 'just in case'.

Go to everythingaquatic.net
To see the medicated foods I believe you have to sign up for the website and then they give you the proper permission. Otherwise you can see the meds in bulk form but not the medicated foods. I don't know why.

navada718 · Jul 10, 2024

What a way to start a new tank. I had a velvet Wipeout when I upgraded my tank in 2023, not long after. I happy to see you have a handle on things & didn't have a complete Wipeout. Hang in there.

TheWB · Jul 10, 2024

navada718 said:
What a way to start a new tank. I had a velvet Wipeout when I upgraded my tank in 2023, not long after. I happy to see you have a handle on things & didn't have a complete Wipeout. Hang in there.

Thanks. I'm, not sure I've got a complete handle on it yet but hopefully. We'll see how things are looking in another week or two.

TheWB · Jul 11, 2024

I officially have a 1 micro hermit crab clean up crew.

Must have arrived with my Tampa Bay order. Too bad there’s not more as I am starting to see some brown hair algae around the tank. Funny how it sneaks up on you. I just grabbed a couple of snails out of the Lagoon 50 and set them down on the rocks to get started on it. There’s still 2-3 hermit crabs in there as as well so I’ll catch them as I see them and move them over too. That won’t be enough but with the high temps around here lately I’m not ordering any livestock online so I’ll have to get more cc from the lfs.

TheWB · Jul 18, 2024

I had to do something with a clean up crew so I went ahead and ordered the 50 gallon package from saltwateraquarium.com. I’ve ordered from reefcleaners.com several times with varying degrees of success, mostly because I’ve always been too cheap to pay for overnight shipping. I’ll take the blame and really I don’t think anything alive should be shipped in any way other than overnight so in a couple of cases I got what I paid for, dead snail soup. This time I paid for the overnight shipping and I went with saltwateraquarium.com because they touted larger sized livestock. I wanted to try something different. So far I’m very pleased, here’s what I got and what the packaging looked like.

This is far and away the best packaging I’ve ever had for livestock. The bags were very well sealed and full of water and air. No baggies with wet paper towels.