Tank Build - 120 Starphire Rimless

[Big_Pun]

wow great tank glad it worked out, i want a rimless tank when i finally move on from my biocube stage lol

[Kristy]

Ok, I read that whole post, but please realize that most people won't read a post that long, so you will miss out on a lot of valuable input.

I am sure that it was a painful lesson for you to save a little money on that barrel, then end up losing so much money and heartache in all that livestock. I hope that lesson has taken root, because it symbolizes so much in this hobby. Most attempts to cut corners end up biting you tenfold in the end.

I have a couple of concerns about your current setup. It is very new for a mandarin. If this fish is not eating frozen food, it will probably only last a few weeks to a few months until it has depleted your entire copepod population and will starve to death. Please keep a close eye on the fish's eating and its belly. It might be better to offer this fish to someone else. The VERY least you can be doing is ordering a couple of bottles of copepods a month to supplement and give it a fighting chance.

Also, your flame scallop and flower pot coral will probably not live. Very few do. I hope that you are doing a lot of reading and planning before you purchase livestock. It will save you from making other painful and expensive mistakes.

You have a beautiful tank and I really wish you all the best with it. Hope my post has not sounded discouraging, just trying to help you out. Best of luck and let us know if you have any questions or future concerns. If you had posted your plans about that toxic barrel, I'm pretty sure some of the veterans on here would have steered you away from it.

[Noober]

Thanks a lot kristy, Your input is very much appricated as your nice comments are. You are right, my tank used to be booming with hundreds to thousands of copopods... the last manderian cleaned up almost all of them. I do have a 12 gallon nano tank that is loaded with them and occasionally I toss a rock from there into my refuge to get the population going again. I watch him eat very small things off the rocks and I hope he's getting enough. But I think I will invest in buying a bunch of them just to make sure. The flame scallop I had no Idea about, it was very cheap at the store and I impulse bought it. In one of my first tanks I bought a goniopora and it lasted about 9 months before the polyps wouldnt extend, it was a green one, I dont know its full name. I learned then about how hard they are to keep, and bought this one at the pet shop for pretty cheap... I figured since I have a new tank with much more stable conditions then it might make it with some feeding. I also have hurd that they survive better in a skimmerless tank and a bunch of other stuff, which is wierd because i think my original one did better when I didnt have a skimmer and was using some dimmer lighting off a 250 watt MH xm20k bulb with less flow. I dont know I'd hate to lose it but I guess all I can do is try. Once again thanks a lot for the comments and advice!