Hattinkies 400l cube.

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Hattinkie

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Hi Guys,

So to start of this thread, I've been in fresh water for a few year but watching @SFlow get into marine made it impossible to not get excited with him. As a kid my family spent a few year in Egypt, that allowed us to go on some awesome holidays at the beach. The opportunity to swim in the red sea with all those amazing marine fish was truly magical. Walking around fish stores many years later and seeing these fish that I saw in the wild is a really cool experience.

So I'm starting this new tank because I got tired of @SFlow telling me NO to half the stuff I want to add to his tank. We have been going back and forth for a while and finally found a solution, I will set up a smaller tank next to his tank and connect the two tanks to the same sump.

I already have the tank (still need an over flow box and to drill the wholes bigger), the rock is curing and I have the lights / power heads. We decided to go bare bottom with this tank to compare it to the one with sand.

To get to what is going in the tank, I have always been fascinated by the predators so for me it was only natural to want an eel or a lion fish. Of course that is not something that you can add to just any DT. Since @SFlow has multiple small fish that was a no go until now :).

Before Christmas we were pet shop hopping and came across a small white eel. My natural reaction is always to look at @SFlow and ask him what it is and would it work in his tank. He called on google and talked to the store assistant and established that it is a ghost ribbon eel. That got us super excited because of how small they stay, the little guy did not want to eat in store so we decided to go home and talk about it before making a hasty decision. The next day @SFlow went back and bought the little guy, who then became my Christmas / birthday present. We ended up calling him Eli :). So far he is doing really well in QT, eating lancefish every other day (has not turned down a meal so far).

The other addition that is waiting in QT for the tank is a Tomini Tang. We really like the different tangs but knew it would not be safe to add this little guy (named Tommy, yes very original) into the main display because there are already 2 tangs in and the purple is a bit of a bully.

The next addition would be a dwarf fuzzy lion (I have talked @SFlow out of getting a Fu Manchu lion because of how rare they are, I'm also not very patient).

Those are the planned additions so far, will have to see if I can persuade @SFlow to add anything else after these guys have settled in.

That's it for now, will keep you guys updated as we make progress with this tank.

To see @SFlows tank go to: His thread

For some videos of Eli eating: See his thread
 
Tank at the moment and a pic of Eli in QT

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Hello and welcome @Hattinkie

Hattinkie said:
We have been going back and forth for a while and finally found a solution, I will set up a smaller tank next to his tank and connect the two tanks to the same sump.
Click to expand...
Especially if the smaller tank would be a predator tank this is a great idea. My son got a very modified TL550 housing a Snowflake eel. It is drilled and connected up to my main system. No worries about filtration and basically no equipment other than one small powerhead and the feeder pump. OK, obviously got a light unit. Due to its size it does not need a heater either. Your tank, being bigger, watch the tank temperature and confirm if you really need one in the tank. Most likely not if feeder pump is big enough.
 
RiaanP said:
Hello and welcome @Hattinkie


Especially if the smaller tank would be a predator tank this is a great idea. My son got a very modified TL550 housing a Snowflake eel. It is drilled and connected up to my main system. No worries about filtration and basically no equipment other than one small powerhead and the feeder pump. OK, obviously got a light unit. Due to its size it does not need a heater either. Your tank, being bigger, watch the tank temperature and confirm if you really need one in the tank. Most likely not if feeder pump is big enough.
Click to expand...

Hi @RiaanP ,

My tank is actually the smaller one, @Sflows is just under 500l with the sump included (i think). We will definitely keep an eye on the temp but I think it should be fine in the summer, might have to add another heater in the winter.

The two tanks on one sump was always an option so he got a bigger feeder pump from the beginning so that is not an issue.
 
Ensure your tank is covered. Eels are escape artists.

My sons eel cannot escape, or so we thought. The overflow got a net that he can not go through. Or over. Yet he disappeared shortly after getting him. Found him weeks later in my sump. Only explanation is that when we had a power outage, he somehow found the return inlet. Went into that and down to the pump and through the pump, escaping into the skimmer chamber. OK, he was a lot smaller then.
 
We have a net but the squares are 1cm by 1cm and at his current size Eli will easily fit through that. So we are waiting for RBM Aquatics to get back to us with a finer net. Will definitely keep the power outage in mind. We are busy designing an overflow box / return with Eli in mind. Will have to wait and see if it is Eli proof or not :)
 
Welcome to the forum, nice to see something different. Are you in South Africa?
 
So it has been a few days since I have posted, no real progress on the tank with work / exams keeping us busy. Eli is still doing really well, eating every second day. We tried shrimp yesterday and muscles today but the second he takes it he lets it go again. Not so sure he likes the texture, but he is eating his lancefish really well so we are not too worried. Will keep trying the different frozen to see if he will take it.

One last thing...

So on Thursday I came out of a meeting to about 10 messages on my phone from @SFlow, after responding he replies with "I did a thing" (he only ever says that if he bought something that might be a bit impulsive). So my response was "What did you buy?". He then sent me a picture of a yellow dwarf fuzzy lionfish. Turns out he found one for sale and instantly reserved it.
We went to go pick it up at the airport yesterday morning.
Getting home we were super excited about unpacking it. Once I opened the bag and looked in I burst out laughing, I was expecting a half size dwarf and looked at a tiny guy that maybe just over 5cm.

He does not have a name yet. (We are still arguing about it :) )
Here is a picture of him and once of him and Tomy the Tomini looking at each other.

For more on his feeding attempts see here:

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Last night was feeding time again. Eli was not impressed with the white shrimp at all so we gave him a small piece of lancefish which he instantly took. Will keep trying different frozen, hopefully he becomes less picky.

Ryan the lion fish (Yes, very original :) ) was also not very impressed with his white shrimp, he looked very interested and went as far as to take a shrimp on two different occasions but spat it back out 30 seconds later. Tommy the Tomini was trying very hard to get to Ryans white shrimp so that could also have been a bit of a distraction.

Tommy is done with his 5 weeks of QT so just waiting for his tank to be ready. He eats just about anything you give him and is really interested in everything going on outside his little QT tank.

No new pictures of Eli but here are some of Ryan and Tommy:

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Hi Guys,

No progress on the tank this week, hopefully from next weekend things will start happening :)
Eli is still eating his lancefish every other day. He has not refused it once, however still no luck on other types of frozen.

Tommy is doing well and still eating pretty much everything.

Little Ryan is quickly wiping out our fresh water shrimp supply. Since the first feeding he hasn't put his mouth on any frozen again (he took the frozen shrimp then spat it out again) :( . We feed the live shrimp with the tongs and he is more than happy to grab them right of, even tried a live shrimp with a frozen shrimp on the tong at the same time... He just took the live shrimp and ignored the frozen one. I am hopeful though because he is always very interest in the frozen, just not taking it. He also clearly already knows where his food comes from, when we open the lid to his little transfer container he comes right up to the water and ever starts going upside down to see what we have for him.
 
Hi Guys,

So this morning I got a massive shock when I came into the fish room to check on everyone like every other morning. Peering into Eli's little QT tank he wasn't swimming around like normal when I turn on the room light, on closer inspection he was no where to be seen. Its a bare bottom tank with very little in there with no where for him to hide where I can't at least see part of him. Looking down, there he was curled up in a little ball on the carpet looking very dead, I removed the glass covering his tank and picked him up (he must have squeezed through the gap where the heater cable and air line goes), very shocked to see him move in my hand. After putting him back he curled up in a corner breathing rapidly. I had to wash my hand because it was so sticky after touching him.
I asked for hourly updates through the day and 14 hours later he seems to be doing okay. I was afraid he might have gotten hurt by the fall since his tank is 1.5 meters of the ground on a rack (he seems to swim / move fine).
He has completely shed the slime layer and is moving around again, he did however not want any food this evening. Will try and feed him again tomorrow.

In other news little Ryan's tank transfer is over so he joined Tommie in his QT tank. Hoping that might help ryan get use to eating frozen since he is still only taking live fresh water shrimp.
 
Wow these eels look like lots of work, will be following the journey good luck!
 
After going back and forth on how to drill the predator tank we have decided it is going to be very difficult to get this tank drilled the way we want with the location of the current holes. So we have decided to sell the tank and look for something that will work better with what we have in mind. Now to just find something...

The 3 inhabitants are all through QT and ready for their new tank.

Eli is doing well after his carpet experience, he is swimming around again as per normal. He did not want to eat last night but he has been eating every second day for the past 2 months so not too worried.

Tommie and Ryan are getting along great / enjoying not being alone anymore. They show no interest in each others food so feeding them in the same tank is super easy. Tommie did have a blast chasing the fresh waster shrimp around the tank when Ryan missed it but had no interest in it once he found it. For an ambush predator Ryan sure can swim fast when chasing down his little shrimps.
 
Last night was frozen shrimp night for Ryan and Tommie. Both came to the water surface and Tommy got the first piece, as soon as the second piece touched the water Ryan gulped it up so that Tommie wouldn't get it. He quickly realised that he had just eaten frozen (pretty sure I saw disgust on his face :)) so he didn't take any more after that. He just kept swimming at the surface spitting water at us. Must say he has a really cool personality for a fish. Really excited that it was the first piece of frozen he has eaten and kept down so a major win for us. Will see if we can keep tricking him to take frozen with the help of Tommie.
 
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