wasp

A backup pipe is best. The guy who origionally introduced us to the "Cracker Pipe" started out using a filter to prevent blockages, but eventually discarded it as over time it caused as many problems as it solved. Having had a flood myself caused by a snail blocking the overflow pipe, and knowing of others who have had floods from various blockages, trust me, a back up spare pipe will give piece of mind, I just would not have a set up like yours without one. Using the tap restrictor method like yours, you are trading off some safety, to gain quieter operation. This is simply because the tap restrictor method does have a smaller hole than a durso. Smaller hole = less needed to block it. A back up pipe can resolve the safety problem.

A night time reading of 7.8 is fairly common. Shouldn't be that low during the day though. My own tank was getting that low at night so I took steps to ensure it never went below 8.0. This resulted in noticeably better coral growth. Main thing make sure you have plenty of aeration, as pH is a function of alkalinity against Co2, so you need the aeration to keep the Co2 in the tank as low as possible.

What fresh water food was it raeh1?

Very possible it will be either Oodinium, or Brooklynella. These are different to the more common form of ich ( irritans ), and unfortunately more deadly. If it is either of these your clowns chances of survival by now are low, however I would suggest doing a google on them and see if you can diagnose. Problem is treat, or not treat, you may save, or may lose, the fish. Treatments are harsh and sometimes it is the treatment that kills the fish. As others have said DO NOT copper treat the tank, hard as it may sound you are better off losing the clown.

That's a nice one!

The percs & shrimp would be a great start. My tank is also a 200 litre no sump & deltec HOB skimmer, you can see the fish in it here, which are a good mix for a tank this size. Only the yellow tang is quite small & will have to be sold when he gets bigger. There are also 4 cardinal fish that i haven't got pics of yet. http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/wasps- ... 10027.html

The presence of nitrate shows that your cycle is "complete", ie at least some ammonia is making it right through to the nitrate stage. The presence of ammonia is troubling though, but it is suspicious your reading on this has not changed. Also two months cooking plus 3 weeks should be plenty to get rid of the ammonia, unless you've been feeding way too much. You should double check your ammonia reading, your lfs may be prepared to do a test for you. My suspicion your kit is lying to you about the ammonia, your cycle is just about done & you can start cautiously adding some more livestock. But do double check that ammonia first, it must be zero, anything more is a problem. DON'T add anything if you do have any ammonia.

It's in a "refugium" with mysid shrimps floating around? If there are no other fish to gobble them up he should catch on, specially if it was already eating in the shop. To turn mussell into bite size bits for it you shell then freeze a couple of raw mussels, then grate them with a fine cheese grater. This is then kept in the deep freeze for use as required. Once the copperband is eating frozen mysis the next step is get it eating the grated frozen mussel, much cheaper plus you can mix in flake & hopefully teach it to eat flake. If you live near a sheltered estuary, it is glass shrimp breeding time now, in some sheltered shallow spots there are millions of baby glass shrimps, just 2 or 3 mls long. If you can catch some they will really titilate a copperbands appetite they love them.

A useful read, you'll need some spare time though! http://www.zeovit.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3900

If they were not fertilized properly they dissapear in a few days. Any left at all? How old is your male?

Yes they are a very difficult fish raeh1. In the wild they pick over rocks for small polyps & crustaceans so most of them are very ready to eat small live shrimp such as mysis. From this they can, as has already been stated, be shown to eat frozen ones, but they can be slow learners and the huge majority of them do not keep up with the other fish & end up starving. My own one started out eating live shrimp only which I caught in an estuary, he lived in a tank by himself so I could float a few dead ones around without them getting picked off by other fish, eventually the copperband caught on to eating them. Then he went on to shredded mussell and then I started blending flake & pellets in with the mussell so now he eats everything & lives in the main tank with the other fish. It was a long and time consuming process though took about 6 months till it was ready to live with other fish. Just to show what a hard fish they are though, another member recently asked me if I could train 2 copperbands for him, so I put them in their own tank & started them on live baby shrimps, all went well for a few weeks & then I went to the tank one day & they were both dead of mystery causes . So sad to see such pretty fish dead. Anyhow the other member decided to try again, bought another 2 copperbands & put them in the tank, again all went well for a while and got them started eating frozen food, then one of them got a bacterial infection which slowly spread over a few days, then the other one got it, & eventually lost both of them . So the other poor guy had paid for 4 copperbands, with none surviving. At this point I was feeling pretty bad myself over the whole thing and we decided not to try again. :oops: . I don't think any of these deaths were feeding related though, progress was being made but other problems struck. My own copperband recently went a bit ratty looking but I realised I've been pretty lazy lately and just been feeding it flake for quite a while. I varied the diet giving it some fresh shredded mussell and other goodies & he is now back to his usual self . Some people have success with copperbands and they are certainly a beautiful addition to a tank but they have to be regarded as one of the hardest fish.

This is quite a valuable read for those wanting ultimate results, here is the link. Whole thing takes a while to wade through, but correct flow is often what distinguishes great tanks from the others. http://zeovit.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6691

How's it going? This guy has a pretty nice small tank http://www.zeovit.com/forums/member.php?u=2254

How did the corals react to the red slime remover?

Be interested to hear how it goes!

A fetish Layton? :lol:

Yes it can be a good idea in fuges, there are both pros and cons though so some research is a good idea first. Done right it will not get into the main tank.

He He! A common story! Even removing the rock you will find it a lot harder than you think to get every last bit. Luckily you have a small tank, my suggestion would be to remove the rock and meticulously clean, put back in the tank, then have a jug and turkey baster near the tank. Each time you see a little caulerpa sprout, boil the jug and zap the caulerpa with a turkey baster of boiling water, ensuring to get a little penetration into the rock to kill roots. Doing this you should eventually be able to eradicate it.

Any joy yet with the cyano?

Very interesting. What a weird looking thing! Just wonder if it always looks like that, or if it is severely malnourished?

Yes, I noticed that, there has been a whole new tone to the place over the last few weeks. Much nicer!

Well must be doing something right, it's certainly a clean as tank!

If he is upside down on the sand it wouldn't hurt to gently turn him over.

OK I'll call him tommorrow, I didn't ask him cos I thought he had something that ate aptaisia.