Hi all!
I've been lurking around for a month or so, and have really enjoyed following the conversations on the site! I stumbled upon the MASC forums from a Mind Blowing Corals live sale ad posted on Craigslist...so glad I did, too!
My family and I have had a 72 gallon bow front (with a 40 gallon sump/refugium) for just a few weeks shy of a year now, and have absolutely loved it (me, my wife, and two kids, ages 6 and 8)!
My youngest loves it so much, he decided he wanted a Sargassum Angler (frogfish) for his upcoming birthday during one of our trips to the LFS. After he agreed to pay for the fish and his food, as well as care for the tank (with my help), we looked into what it would take. Given that an angler would have a field day in our 72 with our other fish, we knew that this would mean getting another tank - oh darn, the horror ;-)
We found a 29 gallon tank (Oceanic, 1st gen) on Craigslist for $80...not bad at all, but it was several months into a green hair algae outbreak and needed some TLC (still, not bad!). It came with stock PC lighting, heater, biocube protein skimmer, live rock with red star polyp coral, a few mushrooms, live sand, several bottles of reef stuff (not sure what to do with it all at this time), and a yellowtail blue damsel...did I mention the basketball sized ball of green hair algae that the damsel called home?
I told my son that I'd go in half on the tank if he let me keep coral in it, and he agreed. Here's a pic from the day we brought it home:
Not very pretty, even with most of the algae removed...
We got it cleaned up, filled with new salt water, and started the waiting game.
I put in a piece of silverside to help get the nitrogen cycle going.
My mother was coming into town, so we had a QT tank setup to be ready to hold the angler so that we could get him when she came to visit (the fish was her early present to my son). Since the qt was up and running and we had a few weeks before my mom's visit, we put the damsel that came with the biocube in there. Unfortunately, he didn't make it through the night (missed the huge hunk o' algae that he called home, I suppose). However, once we got the angler, he did great in the qt:
Thanks to the live rock and sand, everything went relatively smooth with the cycle in the biocube. As of this past weekend, the angler is in the biocube and is living it up. He loves to "ride" the return flow, and he has made his new home inside of a somewhat tacky pot from petco...I thought my son was nuts for wanting it, but turns out he was right - the angler loves it (in the background of this pic)!
The angler has no name at the moment, although my son is considering "laser", because he says the only way the fish could be more of a beast would be if it had a laser on its head!
"Laser" was fed various live fish and ghost shrimp in the store over a period of almost two months. We've kept him on that diet since we've had him (about two weeks now). Here's a short video of a ghost shrimp trying to escape from the belly of the beast:
https://vimeo.com/104362153
He just took his first piece of silverside tonight...I figure frozen silverside is more nutritious than freshwater feeder fish or ghost shrimp. We'll try some other frozen food as time goes by, but I'm stoked he took the silverside.
We're researching potential tank mates at the moment. He has two turbo snails in the tank with him now, but they are big enough that he has not tried to eat them (no interest at all). We know fish are out of the question...maybe a tuxedo urchin or sea cucumber? We will see...more google-fu to do. I will give him and the tank a good month or two before we add any new critters, and given the size of the tank, we won't be adding much.
Well, that's all for now. I have a few mods in mind for the tank (these cubes seem to end up being heavily modified) and I need to replace the fans in the hood. Nothing big, but I would be happy to document things as we go along.
Thanks for reading, and hello!
Sean
I've been lurking around for a month or so, and have really enjoyed following the conversations on the site! I stumbled upon the MASC forums from a Mind Blowing Corals live sale ad posted on Craigslist...so glad I did, too!
My family and I have had a 72 gallon bow front (with a 40 gallon sump/refugium) for just a few weeks shy of a year now, and have absolutely loved it (me, my wife, and two kids, ages 6 and 8)!
My youngest loves it so much, he decided he wanted a Sargassum Angler (frogfish) for his upcoming birthday during one of our trips to the LFS. After he agreed to pay for the fish and his food, as well as care for the tank (with my help), we looked into what it would take. Given that an angler would have a field day in our 72 with our other fish, we knew that this would mean getting another tank - oh darn, the horror ;-)
We found a 29 gallon tank (Oceanic, 1st gen) on Craigslist for $80...not bad at all, but it was several months into a green hair algae outbreak and needed some TLC (still, not bad!). It came with stock PC lighting, heater, biocube protein skimmer, live rock with red star polyp coral, a few mushrooms, live sand, several bottles of reef stuff (not sure what to do with it all at this time), and a yellowtail blue damsel...did I mention the basketball sized ball of green hair algae that the damsel called home?
I told my son that I'd go in half on the tank if he let me keep coral in it, and he agreed. Here's a pic from the day we brought it home:
Not very pretty, even with most of the algae removed...
We got it cleaned up, filled with new salt water, and started the waiting game.
I put in a piece of silverside to help get the nitrogen cycle going.
My mother was coming into town, so we had a QT tank setup to be ready to hold the angler so that we could get him when she came to visit (the fish was her early present to my son). Since the qt was up and running and we had a few weeks before my mom's visit, we put the damsel that came with the biocube in there. Unfortunately, he didn't make it through the night (missed the huge hunk o' algae that he called home, I suppose). However, once we got the angler, he did great in the qt:
Thanks to the live rock and sand, everything went relatively smooth with the cycle in the biocube. As of this past weekend, the angler is in the biocube and is living it up. He loves to "ride" the return flow, and he has made his new home inside of a somewhat tacky pot from petco...I thought my son was nuts for wanting it, but turns out he was right - the angler loves it (in the background of this pic)!
The angler has no name at the moment, although my son is considering "laser", because he says the only way the fish could be more of a beast would be if it had a laser on its head!
"Laser" was fed various live fish and ghost shrimp in the store over a period of almost two months. We've kept him on that diet since we've had him (about two weeks now). Here's a short video of a ghost shrimp trying to escape from the belly of the beast:
https://vimeo.com/104362153
He just took his first piece of silverside tonight...I figure frozen silverside is more nutritious than freshwater feeder fish or ghost shrimp. We'll try some other frozen food as time goes by, but I'm stoked he took the silverside.
We're researching potential tank mates at the moment. He has two turbo snails in the tank with him now, but they are big enough that he has not tried to eat them (no interest at all). We know fish are out of the question...maybe a tuxedo urchin or sea cucumber? We will see...more google-fu to do. I will give him and the tank a good month or two before we add any new critters, and given the size of the tank, we won't be adding much.
Well, that's all for now. I have a few mods in mind for the tank (these cubes seem to end up being heavily modified) and I need to replace the fans in the hood. Nothing big, but I would be happy to document things as we go along.
Thanks for reading, and hello!
Sean
agree the angler would be well served by some more live rock. there is a surprising amount of fish that go with this guy as long as they are bigger then him you should be good. Other cleanup crews that might work too would be some larger brittle/serpant stars
