Christys 180gallon build

Congrats on the baby boy!!!! And great to hear from you Christy. Your tank still looks great. No one would ever know youve been slacking off on it

Wow, I wish my tank looked that good when I neglected it! Congrats on your new baby boy. He is a cutie.

Is that a Naso Tang?

the first one is a powder blue tang and the other is an orange shoulder tang

Thanks guys! The tank basically gets fed and a waterchange when I have time. Thank god for automation (dosing ca, mg, alk, etc). I'm determined to get back to my weekly waterchanges though.

Some more pics

Hey Christy

The new addition is a real cutie!!!!

Tank looks great!!

Nice pics!!

So, how long have you had the filefish?? I've been looking and thinking about one at the LFS, but not sure I want to take a chance on it eating my polyps... Has he been behaving for you???

I've had the filefish for about a month now, so far he's been a model citizen and done exactly what I bought him for. I've never had a fish do that before I can't vouch for his future behavior because with my luck he'll start eating all my LPS and zoas or something. I think basically its a crapshoot with these fish but for the most part, the majority of people I talked to before buying it, didn't have any problems with them but I had seen a couple reviews where people had to remove them from their tank because they snacked on everything.

Originally Posted by ento_reefer

Wow, I wish my tank looked that good when I neglected it!

I know, tell me about it. Christy has a wet thumb

LOL, you just can't see the uglies in the pics I posted

Christy, hows the tank treating you these days?

Hey there, the tank is doing well and growing like crazy. I've actually removed a few colonies (mostly brown ones or ones that didn't do what I wanted them to) because they were growing into each other. Thats what I get for mounting them as frags too close together.

I've lost most of my clams to various issues, a couple just declined, one had some crappy hydroid like things growing on the outside stinging the mantle and by the time I got to it the clam was pretty much done. I lost about 6 clams in total from the beginning of this year and am down to a single blue maxima. It wasn't faring so well either, gaping and the lower part of its mantle was kind of wrinkly looking (not pinched though). It did that for about 3-4 weeks and then slowly turned around and was fine. Not sure if something stung it or what. I constantly kept trying to move it away from potential stinging things but would always find it snugged up against some coral or mushroom the next day. Anyway, I'm glad its doing okay now. I hate losing clams, probably more than fish. I'm not sure why that is

I've been having problems with tip burn the past couple of weeks. Tonight I finally had some time to get on the computer and do some research and it turns out I've been dosing potassium and its the culprit. Bloody hell, what a pain. Here I am dosing it to get my colors up and its the thing doing the damage. Anyway, I did a water change today (and dosed the stupid potassium right after) but I'll probably do another water change tomorrow if I can find the time and hopefully things turn around. The tip burn isn't hugely bad, it is on quite a few colonies but hasn't progressed more than a few millimeters on the tips.

Other than that things are surprisingly good for the little time I spend actually dealing with the tank. I spend about 5 minutes twice a day feeding the fish and making sure nothing died and a water change/skimmer clean on the weekend if I can get to it (bi-weekly most of the time). I was hoping life would have slowed a bit by now but seems that isn't the case. Oh well, the tank seems to be carrying on well enough without me so at least there is that

Interesting the potassium is causing the tips to burn. Have you been testing the potassium levels or just adding X amount from time to time?

Hey Christy

Sorry to hear about the clams and the coral issues.