My 15 gallons of the ocean!

[ralquist]

I’m very sorry about you poor experience, don’t know if you can contact someone above that employee. Thru email at minimum, or ask to be called. Def at least work with you a little. I’ve experienced issues with some of my local LFS in the past, unfortunately the solution was to stop going there. But understand depending on your location that’s not always possible. Keep your chin up, this is just an infuriating bump in the road. Try and remember you have 2 happy fish at home!

 

[WalkerLovesTheOcean]

Yeah, unfortunately it's the only lfs near me, but I just picked up corals from the coral research place that I talked about earlier, and he said he would order me a fish he thought would do well in my tank. I will be picking it up in about 2 weeks.

I picked up a clove polyps, and a mushroom coral, for 60 bucks. I will post pictures once I get home, but the mushroom was 45, and the clove polyps was 15. I don't know if those are good prices, but at my lfs they had a clove polyps roughly the same size and was selling it for 50 I think, so I was happy with the price, but I am not to sure about the mushroom coral...

 

[jabberwock]

What kind of fish is dude ordering for you? Prices depend on regionality, size, demand and abundance.

My best advice is to slow down a lot. Your tank is still very new. Adding multiple things at a time is probably not the best idea. Wait a couple weeks in between additions and see how the system reacts.

 

[jabberwock]

Well, I brought a water sample from my tank, the fish and the receipt. I got the same person as last time, who admitted to me that she was still learning about saltwater tanks. She instantly asked me how long I acclimated it for, and I said about an hour, and she said right off the bat that an ammonia spike happened in the bag, stressing out the fish, and she said I should have acclimated the fish for less than half an hour. I was acclimating them to .005 higher salinity!! I should have done it for a few hours, so I thought I did it fast. The other clown goby was in that exact bag with him, and he is doing really good, so that's not what killed him. I got a sample of the water and tested everything that they would test for. The parameters were perfect. Note that there was NO ammonia in the water. I drove a half hour to get there, and they took my fish and water. She came back and said my pH was low, around 7.8, but she said it's most not likely what killed him. Now this bothers me. She then said I had .25 ammonia in the bag. I did not. Like I said before, I tested the water, and had no ammonia. She did that just to say she couldn't give me a refund. Unbelievable.

Some LFS operate this way. Don't let them "help" you. Investigate what you want. When they say, "can I help you?" You say, "no thanks, I'm just looking."

If they don't have what you specifically came for, have the discipline to leave empty handed.

This LFS obviously does not have your best interests in mind.

 

[WalkerLovesTheOcean]

What kind of fish is dude ordering for you? Prices depend on regionality, size, demand and abundance.

My best advice is to slow down a lot. Your tank is still very new. Adding multiple things at a time is probably not the best idea. Wait a couple weeks in between additions and see how the system reacts.

I will be picking up the fish in 2 weeks, so I think that's enough time, right? He said he's going to be ordering a lot of smaller fish, so he said I can pick from whatever he orders.

 

[Ollie67]

Well, I brought a water sample from my tank, the fish and the receipt. I got the same person as last time, who admitted to me that she was still learning about saltwater tanks. She instantly asked me how long I acclimated it for, and I said about an hour, and she said right off the bat that an ammonia spike happened in the bag, stressing out the fish, and she said I should have acclimated the fish for less than half an hour. I was acclimating them to .005 higher salinity!! I should have done it for a few hours, so I thought I did it fast. The other clown goby was in that exact bag with him, and he is doing really good, so that's not what killed him. I got a sample of the water and tested everything that they would test for. The parameters were perfect. Note that there was NO ammonia in the water. I drove a half hour to get there, and they took my fish and water. She came back and said my pH was low, around 7.8, but she said it's most not likely what killed him. Now this bothers me. She then said I had .25 ammonia in the bag. I did not. Like I said before, I tested the water, and had no ammonia. She did that just to say she couldn't give me a refund. Unbelievable.

Wow, that's not a great experience. Can't believe they didn't get you a refund of some sort, most likely came up with a bad excuse to avoid a refund. I feel like you did a good job acclimating, like you said your other fish are fine. I feel like maybe next time you don't need to acclimate as long, as you have a 30-minute trip where the fish is already in the bag. My trip is also 30-35 minutes so I only acclimated for 15 minutes by just floating the bad, I didn't drip acclimate. But again, there's nothing wrong with drip acclimation.

 

[Ollie67]

Yeah, unfortunately it's the only lfs near me, but I just picked up corals from the coral research place that I talked about earlier, and he said he would order me a fish he thought would do well in my tank. I will be picking it up in about 2 weeks.

I picked up a clove polyps, and a mushroom coral, for 60 bucks. I will post pictures once I get home, but the mushroom was 45, and the clove polyps was 15. I don't know if those are good prices, but at my lfs they had a clove polyps roughly the same size and was selling it for 50 I think, so I was happy with the price, but I am not to sure about the mushroom coral...

Those sound like some nice corals, I'm excited to see! I think that's a fair price, it honestly depends on the type of mushroom.

 

[Ollie67]

I will be picking up the fish in 2 weeks, so I think that's enough time, right? He said he's going to be ordering a lot of smaller fish, so he said I can pick from whatever he orders.

That should be fine. Just keep an eye on how everything is doing and your parameters. And that's good that you'll have some choices! Did you let him know what fish you currently have?

 

[WalkerLovesTheOcean]

Those sound like some nice corals, I'm excited to see! I think that's a fair price, it honestly depends on the type of mushroom.

Here's the mushroom.

 

[WalkerLovesTheOcean]

That should be fine. Just keep an eye on how everything is doing and your parameters. And that's good that you'll have some choices! Did you let him know what fish you currently have?

Yes!

 

[ralquist]

Here's the mushroom.

Congrats!!!!!

 

[Ollie67]

Here's the mushroom.

Looks awesome!!

 

[WalkerLovesTheOcean]

Looks awesome!!

Congrats!!!!!

Thank you!!!

I will post clove polyps once it opens, right now, it looks very sad lol.

 

[Ollie67]

Thank you!!!

I will post clove polyps once it opens, right now, it looks very sad lol.

Yeah... polyps might take a few hours if not a day or two to get settled and open up. Mine took a few hours to open and are doing great. I'm sure in a week or so, if it is happy with lighting and flow, it will be doing great! If you notice it's not, you can try and move it around.

How are your fishies doing?

 

[WalkerLovesTheOcean]

Yeah... polyps might take a few hours if not a day or two to get settled and open up. Mine took a few hours to open and are doing great. I'm sure in a week or so, if it is happy with lighting and flow, it will be doing great! If you notice it's not, you can try and move it around.

How are your fishies doing?

The 2 others are doing wonderful! I got my firefish to come out from his cave that he's been hiding in all day, and I got him to eat 2 pieces of mysis shrimp!!! The other clown goby is doing great, he hasn't eaten anything yet today, but food was all around him and he decided not to eat it, so he's probably not hungry. But he's swimming around a lot, and after I got my firefish to eat, he swam around for awhile! I think he is still stressed from jumping lol...

 

[jabberwock]

The 2 others are doing wonderful! I got my firefish to come out from his cave that he's been hiding in all day, and I got him to eat 2 pieces of mysis shrimp!!! The other clown goby is doing great, he hasn't eaten anything yet today, but food was all around him and he decided not to eat it, so he's probably not hungry. But he's swimming around a lot, and after I got my firefish to eat, he swam around for awhile! I think he is still stressed from jumping lol...

That clown goby has a tiny mouth and a tiny stomach. Try crushing up some flakes and turn off your pumps and flow and spot feed the food right on his head.

 

[WalkerLovesTheOcean]

That clown goby has a tiny mouth and a tiny stomach. Try crushing up some flakes and turn off your pumps and flow and spot feed the food right on his head.

That's what I did, just without the flakes. When I try feeding him again later, I will try to find smaller shrimp. Yesterday, he put some mysis shrimp in his mouth, but then spit it out. Is this cause it was to big or because he just didn't want to eat it?

 

[WalkerLovesTheOcean]

Wow , the corals are looking very good. The polyps have opened up, and I believe it's a yellow tip? At first when it was opening I thought maybe it was a firework polyp... Lol. Right now I have both the frags in the sand, just so I could get them in the tank as I figured out where I want to out them. I heard you have to isolate the polyps, because they can take over?

I will post a full tank shot at the end, so if you have any recommendations, they will be greatly appreciated!

Anyways, here's the polyps:

Then, here's the before and after of the mushroom puffing back up.

Before:

After:

Then here's the full tank shot for any recommendations on where to put them:

Some view from left:

Some view from right, and sorry for the bad picture, it's hard to get to.

And also, I don't use that sticker to measure the temp, it's there for if some reason the thermometer breaks, I have a general idea, as it's roughly 2 degrees cooler than the actual water temp.

 

[Ollie67]

Wow , the corals are looking very good. The polyps have opened up, and I believe it's a yellow tip? At first when it was opening I thought maybe it was a firework polyp... Lol. Right now I have both the frags in the sand, just so I could get them in the tank as I figured out where I want to out them. I heard you have to isolate the polyps, because they can take over?

I will post a full tank shot at the end, so if you have any recommendations, they will be greatly appreciated!

Anyways, here's the polyps:

Then, here's the before and after of the mushroom puffing back up.

Before:

After:

Then here's the full tank shot for any recommendations on where to put them:

Some view from left:

Some view from right, and sorry for the bad picture, it's hard to get to.

And also, I don't use that sticker to measure the temp, it's there for if some reason the thermometer breaks, I have a general idea, as it's roughly 2 degrees cooler than the actual water temp.

Looking good!! I like how it's coming along, and the corals look great! Glad they're doing good. I mean if you want to isolate the polyps, you can probably just get a spare small rock and make an island for it. You can go on google and see what some sources say on how much it spreads or I like to watch a video or find a picture of a matured piece and see how it spreads in another person's tank! That's what I did with my Xenia, and there are plenty on GSP growth.

 

[WalkerLovesTheOcean]

Here's todays update.

Nothing much really happened, though I did freak out because my API test kit read .25 ammonia, but a few hours later I did a test and the results were 0. My guess was that there was some ammonia present, but the test kit had a false positive reading .25ppm. I have one of those seachem badges coming tomorrow, just so I am always aware of the ammonia levels in the tank without testing for it. I am still going to test for ammonia everyday for at least 2 more weeks.

The firefish ate a lot today. The clown goby, not so much... He puts stuff in his mouth, but then spits it out. If he doesn't eating tomorrow then I am going to start getting concerned. There are plenty of tiny shrimp that I put in, so it's not like the food I am feeding is to big for him.

Then clove polyp has opened all the way, and is gorgeous.

The mushroom, this morning when the lights turned on, looked weird. The sides were folded into the center, but when I turned the lights on, it flattened out. Pretty cool to see, and I believe this is normal behaviour, right?

Anyways, it's Sunday night. Ugh. I can't wait for Friday!!