Happy Halloween Sale Starts Tonight at Midnight!

[ReefChasers]

Wish I knew I wouldn't kill another orange octospawn or I'd buy the one yall have! Killed the wife's by dropping the alk alittle too fast and he just never recovered. Our matching orange hammer seems to be doing great but going to wait to see some growth out of him then we will try again hopefully he's still available!

Sorry to hear that. Sometimes it is the way with Euphyllia, when they take a turn it can be difficult to recover.

One thing we have learned to do is give them a cipro bath (antibiotic) when receiving, and also at any signs of trouble. A cipro + iodine dip can sometimes really turn it around. Not all the time. It probably isn't your fault as much as you think it is. Not every specimen taken from the ocean can survive long term in the aquarium and everyone's definition of long term is different (3-6months, 1-2 years, 3years+?)

Euphyllia is not often aquacultured simply due to their slow growth and space requirements, and wild caught specimens will either adapt to aquarium life well and make it long term or they wont. Just being real about that one!

For the most part, if the specimen survives for it's first 2-3 months of tank life, it's probably going to be a keeper as long as proper stability/parameters etc are provided. That said, we have had these octos in our systems for a couple months now and they are doing wonderful!

On the other hand, we brought 14 frogs in from Australia and about 5 of them took a turn within the first 8 weeks. We do not sell those ones, we try our best to do right by folks as we feel that's paramount to our companies success in the long term.

 

[ReefChasers]

That blueberry shortcake acro is beatiful!

Oh yeah. We love us some shortcakes. I need new photos of that one i dont like how overly colored it looks. Its true to eye coloration under moderate blue (which we are always striving for) is far superior in my opinion.

The shortcakes do really, really well for us in our systems we have had these same colonies for well over 6 months. Hoping to keep them around permanently.

 

[ReefChasers]

Dang... some pretty nice colonies on there.

Thanks. Yeah we tend to sell some bigger pieces than other folks... but we are learning to frag more too in the future and offer more, smaller, less expensive variety to attract a wider range of coral enthusiasts.

 

[ReefChasers]

Nice stuff but $$$. I'm use to buying cheaper smaller frags for my nano.

Dont worry we are gonna get there, we are coming up on our first year soon and most of the free time we have had has been spent grueling on getting new systems online, expanding our inventory, and shipping out orders.

It hasnt left a ton of free time for fragging and cataloging. But we recognize our own deficiencies in this area and we know we need to do a better job of catering to all (not just big tanks) so we are definitely going to rapidly increase that selection in the next few months.

We just brought our sixth and final planned system online yesterday (woooo hoooo) things have been going well for us so I am sure we will have more systems to build out in the future. But also an extra employee or two should help us along now that we are starting to get on a roll.

 

[ReefChasers]

I do like those teal green with peach tips torch corals.

They are really pretty. Australian variety!

 

[ReefChasers]

A sale makes the Blue Dot Jawfish even more appealing!

We always try to bring in interesting fish with each new purchase order. Just couldn't resist those guys.. they are really beautiful. Need a solid 3" substrate though. Fish offerings are a big part of Reef Chasers and will continue to be! We have two large identical systems each one is around 1000 gallons, we affectionately refer to them as the twin towers (they are 3 levels each, stacked vertically. 4 levels if you count the sump). We have dividers that we can slide in and out to make custom-sized chambers on demand, although we don't keep every single fish in tiny quarters by themselves, sometimes it is necessary to divide a level into 6 units to split the conspecifics up, but we like to keep it community containment for the most part the fish seem to do better that way. We could theoretically split each level into 24 tiny individual units but don't really see the benefit of it.

We bring all new arrivals into the first system which is run at slightly lower salinity with a therapeutic level of copper for quarantine, inspection, observation and treatment. When they are ready for sale and we're confident in their health we move them over to a second, identical system. This process has worked well for us so far and we plan to keep it going!

We also have a series of 40 gallon individual breeders for housing either very tiny fish (that we're afraid of losing track of in the big systems) or fish that need specialized isolation -- some fish do not handle copper well and shouldn't be treated with copper, others are aggressive and need more solitary confinement, some have substrate requirements which we don't like to keep in the large systems. We also have 40 gallon breeders for specialized medical treatments on fish that show specific needs or require further observation or specialized baths.

 

[ReefChasers]

Love the two options for bonded clownfish!

Yeah we like to keep a healthy supply of designer clowns! My wife has been working on breeding some for around 6 months. We set up dual 200 gal breeding systems in "the brood room" Each breeding system contains 2x 40 gallon brood stock tanks which house a single pair of clowns, and underneath those we have 8x 10 gallon fry tanks connected with a 50 gallon sump. We have the ability to isolate the fry tanks and run them on their own at any time (sponge/air/hob) when we put the tiny fry in there that will be important we don't want them getting sucked up into the filtration! It takes 6 months to a year for clowns to hit breeding age, and we'll have a bit of a learning curve with breeding them I am sure.

We'll definitely be posting some videos of that when the time comes. We have a pair of orange storms (wowzers - one of them is particularly stunning), mocha gladiators, snow flakes, and two different kinds of picasso. Hopefully they will be ready to breed soooooon

 

[ReefChasers]

giveaway thread sent me. whoever makes your splash art is incredibly talented!

Yes hi! I am the resident designer, photographer, tech junky, customer support, sales, forum stalker, systems and maintenance, purchasing manager, fish specialist, coral care manager, photographer... Dang we need to hire some help lol I'm kidding (only just a little) there are about 4 of us running this operation but we all have to wear a lot of hats.

All kidding aside, I am the one that primarily handles the website, forums, sales, photography, cataloging and purchase ordering but I have a good partner who helps me with all of it, especially managing the systems, taking care of the corals and fish, receiving the stock, and shipping it out. We also have an engineer who helps us build out our systems and make large things fit in tight spaces. No job is impossible for him he even built from scratch our first 2 acrylic 8'x4' tanks including custom weir. He is a master!

My wife helps a lot with the coral and fish care guides but she's also not afraid to get her hands in the tanks when needed. She has been writing and writing and writing the guides all year long -- she goes back often to expand on existing care guides or add interesting tidbits that we learn along the way. She's built up quite the collection of resources for reef enthusiasts to rely on, heck she is always telling me a tidbit here or there that she's picked up while researching/writing and it usually surprises me how often I am learning something new. I don't think we're ever experts in any of this there is always more to learn!

We also have a few employees who help us test all the parameters each day for our coral systems, clean tanks / powerheads / glass and generally take care of anything else we need as well as helping us to pack the orders which is sometimes a full time ordeal for all of us especially on Mondays!

We'll have to get a picture of our team some day soon that would be fun!

 

[ReefChasers]

Awesome, I might have to snag that strawberry shortcake

Its the best one of the acros not going to lie. My favorite corals are the ones that do really well in aquarium life. It helps when they are also stunners!!

 

[ReefChasers]

Loving that RCC Blueberry Yum Yum!

At first I didnt think much of that coral.. but after caring for it for months and months and watching it really color up, its up there on my list of favorites. Plus I love the blue/purple color even though it's best viewed in a whiter spectrum it still shines under blues.

 

[Dustinjw18]

Sorry to hear that. Sometimes it is the way with Euphyllia, when they take a turn it can be difficult to recover.

One thing we have learned to do is give them a cipro bath (antibiotic) when receiving, and also at any signs of trouble. A cipro + iodine dip can sometimes really turn it around. Not all the time. It probably isn't your fault as much as you think it is. Not every specimen taken from the ocean can survive long term in the aquarium and everyone's definition of long term is different (3-6months, 1-2 years, 3years+?)

Euphyllia is not often aquacultured simply due to their slow growth and space requirements, and wild caught specimens will either adapt to aquarium life well and make it long term or they wont. Just being real about that one!

For the most part, if the specimen survives for it's first 2-3 months of tank life, it's probably going to be a keeper as long as proper stability/parameters etc are provided. That said, we have had these octos in our systems for a couple months now and they are doing wonderful!

On the other hand, we brought 14 frogs in from Australia and about 5 of them took a turn within the first 8 weeks. We do not sell those ones, we try our best to do right by folks as we feel that's paramount to our companies success in the long term.

Is there a pre made dip that contains both or is it using the pills and dissolving them and mixing in iodine? I did a quick search on it didn't notice any did come across some for fish.

 

[ReefChasers]

Is there a pre made dip that contains both or is it using the pills and dissolving them and mixing in iodine? I did a quick search on it didn't notice any did come across some for fish.

Fish Ciprofloxacin : Trusted Pet Pharmacy | Thefishaid

Fish Ciprofloxacin is a Pharmaceutical Grade Fish Antibiotics , It's the same grade and quality as Thomas Labs .They come in fish ciprofloxacin 250 mg and fish ciprofloxacin 500 mg.

thefishaid.com

Cipro is an antibiotic pill you got to crush it up and add to water (small container doesnt need a full pill so you can save the rest in a ziplock).

If using a 3 gal container i use half a pill. Use a mortar and pestle easiest way to crush it up but a hammer in a ziplock will work in a pinch.

For iodine use some lugols you can find on amazon add until water turns a nice yellow color.

Cipro is also useful for anemones but I dont really use it on other corals besides euphyllia / anemones.

 

[Dustinjw18]

Fish Ciprofloxacin : Trusted Pet Pharmacy | Thefishaid

Fish Ciprofloxacin is a Pharmaceutical Grade Fish Antibiotics , It's the same grade and quality as Thomas Labs .They come in fish ciprofloxacin 250 mg and fish ciprofloxacin 500 mg.

thefishaid.com

Cipro is an antibiotic pill you got to crush it up and add to water (small container doesnt need a full pill so you can save the rest in a ziplock).

If using a 3 gal container i use half a pill. Use a mortar and pestle easiest way to crush it up but a hammer in a ziplock will work in a pinch.

For iodine use some lugols you can find on amazon add until water turns a nice yellow color.

Cipro is also useful for anemones but I dont really use it on other corals besides euphyllia / anemones.

Awesome thanks!

 

[ReefChasers]

I should add iodine dip is useful for everything LPS/SPS -- but i dont use iodine on anemones. Not saying iodine would hurt anemones ive just never used it on soft corals or nems.

So to clarify:

Cipro only used for Euphyllia/Anemone.

Iodine for all SPS/LPS corals that look like they could use a dip or after a fresh fragging (dont see need for use on anemones or softies and have no data to support its use so would not recommend)