I rescued it from a tiny little cup bowl, see above, so no idea about his previous tank. My tank is a 2.5 but he's all by himself. Anyway in the last two days he seems to have come back about half way to the happy way he was the first few days in the tank. Definitely coming back around. I dried out some frozen raw shrimp in the toaster oven and chopped it into very very fine bits and discovered he really gobbles that up vs. the fish flakes. I think he's going to make it after all. I swear a couple of days ago I checked him and moved the water around a little and was convinced he was stone-cold dead.

You don't have to dry out frozen food

Random question but do people put 3D printed stuff in aquariums now or is that toxic or bad for them?

I’ve got some 3D printed stuff in mine, exclusively PETG. I don’t know how PLA would hold up over the long term.

There’s already a lot of various plastics in aquariums, so as long as you stick to similar materials you should be fine.

Here’s a few of the fish in my 215G reef.

Orange shoulder tang
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Male Lamarck angel
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Copperband butterfly
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Nice fish in your saltwater reef. I bet the tank itself is as nice as it's occupants looking at your shots of the fish. Dedication and time for saltwater is big. Kudos to you and anybody else that does saltwater. I have had a tank of some type for the majority of 35-40 years with a few periods of no fish keeping, but probably no more than a stint of a year or two at a time with no fish. Pretty much have had a tank or two of some type most of the time.

I switch out whatever set up I have periodically, but find myself with African Cichlids a lot of the time. Have pretty much kept most type of freshwater fish at one time or another. I have done Angelfish a number of times, and some general community tank set ups a number of times. Believe it or not when I have had community fish I have never done a tank with live plants ! Maybe my next tank should be a community with nice live plants! Maybe when I retire and have more time.

Hat's off to you saltwater keeper's ! Admire your dedication to maintenance and all that goes with keeping a saltwater tank.

Reef peninsula waterbox

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Saltwater can be easy if you don’t get caught up in the modern insanity. You really don’t need most of the equipment being sold now. The most important things for me are good quality live rock, good flow, heavy feeding, big skimmer, and no sand. Just like I did in the 90s!

My lights are 8x80W T5. They will grow coral like weeds and are much cheaper than the new LED fixtures.

I also quarantine all my fish and coral. They are too expensive not to. Fish get treated with copper power (or chloroquine phosphate), metronidazole, and praziquantel. They spend at least six weeks in quarantine. Corals get dipped and remain in quarantine for at least 75 days before they can come in the house.

Main tank maintenance: change filter socks every three days, clean glass whenever, clean skimmer weekly, feed fish nightly. That’s it. If the system has coral I will usually do water changes but only to replace trace elements.

Simple is best!

and low bio load

My teenager decided to start a shrimp farm.

I would be curious to see if we can get them to breed.

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I built this little shelf unit to hold all my reef equipment. All the wiring is hidden in the top compartment.

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Very nice setup! Any reason you went for the Alkatronic over the Trident?

If nothing is there to pick off the fry, and you have enough of both genders to kick things off, shrimp can breed as prolifically as guppies. All you need is to have the shrimp in there .... once they start breeding you'll have the things everywhere. Nice thing is they don't increase the bio-load too much so a high number of shrimp won't negatively affect the tank.

If you look under the backsides of them eventually you'll see the female shrimp get 'berried', with eggs maturing. When you can start to see features such as eyes in the eggs, they're getting close to hatching. The first time they hatch you'll probably not see the fry, they're really hard to see until you know what to look for. I might suggest adding some java moss or christmas moss to the tank as it gives a very good hiding place for the fry where fish can't get to them. Most fish will eat the fry if given the opportunity.

One caveat with shrimp is that they tend to prefer a higher Gh/Kh as the minerals are needed for their carapace. If you're using RO water for topoff and water changes, you may want to look into a shrimp mineral supplement.

I need to get some fresh photos in here of my saltwater setup. Corals are finally starting to really thrive and color up again.

I love the 7,000 gallon flex. Looks great, btw.

It reminds me of this past Thanksgiving. I was out smoking my turkey when my neighbor approached me all pissed off. He wanted to know if my BIL's dog was mine.

Turned out my BIL let his normally old and calm goldendoodle out back unleashed and I don't have a fence. His dog was found in my neighbor's coi pond. Evidently the only thing that dog can't resist is water. Luckily my FIL calmed down my neighbor with his gift of gab.

I didn't even know my neighbor had a coi pond. He has a fountain on my side, but the coi pond was on the other side of his yard.

Reading this thread was making me want to get a starter tank. When I read the lava lamp thread I ended up with three. Then I read this post and remembered why I never got into aquariums. I can barely keep plants alive.

I had a roommate in college that had a saltwater tank. Every penny he made he put into it.

Thanks for the great info! We will definitely make use of it. I am so excited!

Office tank. Thinking about trying co2.?

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I had an Apex setup and it felt cheap, especially the accessories. Also saw the guts of the EB832s were cheap chinese trash components. Switched to GHL, which has really nice hardware but their software is pretty bad.

I liked the Alkatronic because the reagent is dirt cheap and its really easy to use (plus it looks cool). I use a calcium reactor and dose kalk, so I really just watch alkalinity and rarely check calcium and mag.

I'm just going to put this here.

I watched both episodes. It's mesmerizing.

Can you find live lobsters in the supermarket anymore? They used to have a tank in the Schnucks in my home town. I've never seen one in any major supermarket for a very long time.

I still see them at certain price chopper (aka market32) supermarkets.

ForceFlow, you don't have your location. Are you near the coast? I don't see it in MO anymore unless I go to Red Lobster.

Yeah, in the northeast.

That explains it. Love all the fish here though. Sorry, to derail. Seems like I'm only posting about fish these days. Aquariums, bate and fish, and FOF.

I had a 5 gallon tank for a few years, but eventually got tired of maintaining it since it became more of a chore than a fun activity. I still enjoy seeing other peoples tanks and going to aquariums, though.

I used to see lobster tanks at Kroger all the time when I was a kid, about 20 years ago. I haven't seen a live lobster tank in a grocery store in a very long time. Red Lobster still has them though.

Few years ago, a local bar had a lobster claw machine. Think it was a dollar and if you pulled out a lobster, the would steam it up for you.
Got removed pretty quickly. Think they had complaints about it.

My local grocery store has a tank of live lobsters next to the meat counter. I was looking at them yesterday

Gotta get a tank going again. Had a number of fresh water and one salt water tanks years ago, nothing huge. Lot of fun. I'd like to get one 125 or larger fresh water community tank going again.

If you are interested, long drive, but i have a whole 120 gal freshwater setup with fish i would really like to get rid of due to lack of time

hmmmm dang.

can you introduce a fish or two to keep the scud population in check?

Two latest additions.

The anthias is nearly 7” long, the pictures don’t do him justice. Eats everything. I’m feeding him four times a day with an Avast plank feeder, loves pellets.

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Anyone interested in a 120 gal freshwater setup? Make me an offer. Has stand with shelves, fish, everytging needed. I have no time for it anymore

Someone close please buy mine!

Ya, everyone interested either ghosts me or wants me to ship the fish across the state. Think i was trting to get 500 out of it, probably 2500 invested, so i dont think im priced to high

A couple of closeups from a 150 gallon reef tank that has since been sold.

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Not the greatest pics. But this is my post apocalyptic NYC themed tank.

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That is really expensive for Denison Barbs. You might want to shop around for future purchases.