Alex’s IM 150 EXT

[spuri87]

A bit of a risk, but a beautiful fish I was not planning to add to my tank.

I definitely didn’t see this coming haha.. I see you succumbed to it’s beauty just like me did you get her from HTA? For Aiptasia control?

My tank looks pretty similar right now with a CBB in a large acclimation box, yellows are minding their own business (for now).. only time will tell whether peace will prevail or not

 

[Alexander1312]

I definitely didn’t see this coming haha..

Neither did I.

I see you succumbed to it’s beauty just like me

Not really, we have been quite disciplined when it comes to fish thus far. See below.

did you get her from HTA?

No, I got him from Dan, who wanted to rehome his, and the whole thing only played out on Sunday, as I happened to be in the area (hike in Muir Woods).

For Aiptasia control?

Hopefully not. One of the issues I do not seem to have (fingers crossed).

My tank looks pretty similar right now with a CBB in a large acclimation box, yellows are minding their own business (for now).. only time will tell whether peace will prevail or not

I asked eatsbreakfast on Humblefish, and he seemed to confirm that tangs might become an issue, but the acclimation box is something he advocates (vs. a mirror). But it might take several days before things calm down. Probably a good sign that your tangs do not pay attention.

 

[Alexander1312]

Day 5 of Copperband Acclimation.

Unfortunately, it does not look like it is safe to release him, as per this new video.

And I am not sure if it ever will be.

There are apparently decoys such as this which work for some. And there is still the mirror, but eatsbreakfast previously mentioned it is not preferable (but probably neither is the use of a decoy).

Yellow Tang Fish Decoy by percula

Yellow Tang decoy fish to reduce aggression towards real fish. If you print these right, they'll float and you can attach a fishing line between the decoy fish and a rock to mimic the behavior of real fish, as shown in the animated gif. I just used sharpie to color in the eyes. Scale these up to...

www.thingiverse.com

 

[spuri87]

is it continuous stalking? or around the feeding time? acc box in my tank has all the attention coz of the different variety of food I am trying to feed the CBB right now.. but doesnt seem ominous at this point.. Last night, I saw a snail INSIDE the acc box while quite a few outside trying to get in.. the frozen feeder apparently had some leftover food that was grabbing all the attention.. maybe 1 Alpha in your tank vs divided aggression in mine is the difference? Did you use the mirror yet? It's a hit/miss honestly like everything else is, but fish dads can only try .. I tried it when my convict tang was after my yellow's life, but didnt seem to do any damage control.. had to rehome convict later.

Honestly, a part of me is happy that someone is going through the same experience as me at the same point in time

 

[Alexander1312]

is it continuous stalking? or around the feeding time? acc box in my tank has all the attention coz of the different variety of food I am trying to feed the CBB right now.. but doesnt seem ominous at this point.. Last night, I saw a snail INSIDE the acc box while quite a few outside trying to get in.. the frozen feeder apparently had some leftover food that was grabbing all the attention.. maybe 1 Alpha in your tank vs divided aggression in mine is the difference? Did you use the mirror yet? It's a hit/miss honestly like everything else is, but fish dads can only try .. I tried it when my convict tang was after my yellow's life, but didnt seem to do any damage control.. had to rehome convict later.

Honestly, a part of me is happy that someone is going through the same experience as me at the same point in time

.

Unfortunately, it is not only during feeding time.

And the mirror method - which worked well for me several times in the past - is my last resort, and I have therefore not tried it yet.

 

[Patio]

And the mirror method - which worked well for me several times in the past - is my last resort, and I have therefore not tried it yet.

That is good you are not out of options yet. Mirror has really helped me in the past. In my case, it was hard on the aggressive fish (I assume) because it would exhaust itself trying to fight its reflection. I wonder if that is eatbreakfest's rationale?

 

[Alexander1312]

That is good you are not out of options yet. Mirror has really helped me in the past. In my case, it was hard on the aggressive fish (I assume) because it would exhaust itself trying to fight its reflection. I wonder if that is eatbreakfest's rationale?

He is stating that it could increase aggression overall. But it might be the only way. He has not responded yet as the recommendation was to wait 5 days.

 

[Alexander1312]

Finally, the tank outlet got fixed after 6+ weeks extension cords throughout the house.

Replaced by a GFCI outlet.

Highly recommend the small business from Pinole who did the work: https://yelp.to/whLI8vRKLZ

 

[Alexander1312]

Looks like that the fish whisperer does not have any hope for a successful acclimation of the copperband .

I might need to look into a plan B.

 

[Alexander1312]

@Glob55 printed this decoy for me at short notice, which was great - thanks so much!

He printed a large number of them so if someone needs one, please reach out to me - I also am planning to setup a different post for this.

Interestingly though, the triggers appear to be more aggressive to the decoy than the yellow tang.

I was planning to release the copperband tonight but uncertain, and I have a large mirror ready too.

 

[Alexander1312]

Survived the night but both tangs are not happy with him.

 

[Alexander1312]

Copperband is still surviving. But I think he looks skinnier.

There seems to be visibly less aggression - but there is still aggression from the whitetail and yellow tang..

He is getting a large clam every other day.

And I just received the custom build acrylic feeder that Matt from Octo aquatics made for me to try out (for free!). Outstanding quality as all of his products.

I added a cube of mysis shrimp into it, and I like how it slowly releases little pieces just where he is located. Still, not sure if he will be eating it.

 

[Alexander1312]

I got my Fauna Marin ICP test back today. And for the first time, I seriously doubted the results. And I did escalate this accordingly - waiting for a response, but I do not anticipate this will go anywhere.

A perennial issue is the accuracy of the salinity. While I recognize that matching a high end conductivity meter is not always possible, the results were extremely far off this time.

They measured 37.9 PSU - after months of being close to their results, only deviating by 0.2 PSU. And I used the same calibration solution as in previous months.

Yet, I tried to see where my mistake was and used all 4 salinity measurements I still have, as below.

These were the results:

Veegee Refractometer - Fauna Marin Calibration: 34.5+ PSU

Milwaukee (PSU) - calibrated with distilled water: 35 PSU

Tropic Marin: 1.0272 rel density / temp: 78.5 F = 36.16 PSU temp adjusted

Arka: 1.0243 density / temp: 78.7 F = 36.63 PSU according to Aquacalculator

It is important to note that both Hydrometer were almost consistently off by 1+ PSU / ARKA 1.5 PSU in all previous ICP.

I did send out an Oceamo test now - lets see what they say.

 

[Darkxerox]

The tank sample from Fauna came back at 37.9? Wonder if it evaporated slightly.

 

[Royce023]

Could be an analytical error from the instrument they use or the water sample was compromised during shipping. These type of errors occur more frequently than you might think.

 

[Alexander1312]

The tank sample from Fauna came back at 37.9? Wonder if it evaporated slightly.

Could be an analytical error from the instrument they use or the water sample was compromised during shipping. These type of errors occur more frequently than you might think.

Interestingly, they did admit procedural errors in their result validation practices. Not instrument failures.

Apparently, one of the tubes I submitted had 37.9 PSU salinity, the others 35.8 PSU. Evaporation would be a reasonable explanation, but how could this have happened?

They use an algorithm to do plausibility checks of all results before they release them, not only salinity, and this was not properly called out.

To my surprise, they sent me now a revised ICP result, which looks better, but raises other questions as to why specifically dynamic and other elements (non salinity related) changed quite drastically from the previous test.

Also, the RODI analysis is crazy - but there is an explanation to this: I could have used the wastewater to fill the vial, not the filtered water. Never happened, but I was a bit stressed when I took that sample and it is not impossible I made that mistake. But a coincidence that I made a mistake and they did both at the same time?

Overall, I suggested to ignore this test now and I will just send out another one.

ICP is about trust.

I did trust them - I was in their lab, touched their machines (bias), there are a number of German speaking videos where they explain their process, and I know other folks who are not from their company who have insight into the quality of their lab work, which appears solid.

But everyone makes mistakes. Still, I might more lean into getting a second opinion more frequently going forward - still waiting for the OCEAMO results.

 

[Royce023]

ICP labs for testing salt water are still in their infancy in contrast to clinical labs used for testing human samples. I am not sure if these companies define salt water stability. For example, for clinical samples (blood, body fluids, urine) there are defined stability times for each analyte being tested. Ammonia and lactic acid has a short stability time compared to sodium, potassium, chloride, etc. I don’t think these ICP labs know the stability of these macro and trace elements. I am not sure how stable salinity is over time and how temperature affects salinity. Maybe one of your samples was exposed to a higher temperature. Conversely, there could have been a mislabel for your high salinity sample, meaning they tested someone else’s sample under your name. Mislabels occasionally occur in the clinical lab, so It wouldn’t be stretch to say it happens in the ICP labs.

 

[Alexander1312]

ICP labs for testing salt water are still in their infancy in contrast to clinical labs used for testing human samples. I am not sure if these companies define salt water stability. For example, for clinical samples (blood, body fluids, urine) there are defined stability times for each analyte being tested. Ammonia and lactic acid has a short stability time compared to sodium, potassium, chloride, etc. I don’t think these ICP labs know the stability of these macro and trace elements. I am not sure how stable salinity is over time and how temperature affects salinity. Maybe one of your samples was exposed to a higher temperature. Conversely, there could have been a mislabel for your high salinity sample, meaning they tested someone else’s sample under your name. Mislabels occasionally occur in the clinical lab, so It wouldn’t be stretch to say it happens in the ICP labs.

Very interesting, as some of this is what I also suspected, without knowing as much as you do.

I know that some parameters change quite a bit, per my own experiments depending on how long they travel.

For example, sending out the sample from the US with a travel time of approx 7-8 days, vs taking the sample with me to Germany and sending out locally where it arrives the next day (2-3 days lead time).

This particular sample was a 2 day FedEx pre printed label but it took 7 days to arrive at CoralVue in Louisiana, before it was shipped to Germany. Not sure why, but (hot) weather could be a likely reason, impacting the sample quality.

Great thoughts - thanks for sharing.

 

[grizfyrfyter]

testing really is the most frustrating part of this hobby. At this point, I will test once or twice a week but even if i get an abnormal result, i dont really trust it.
I stopped reacting to testing. I have caused more harm than good too many times reacting to faulty test results.

 

[Darkxerox]

Very interesting, as some of this is what I also suspected, without knowing as much as you do.

I know that some parameters change quite a bit, per my own experiments depending on how long they travel.

For example, sending out the sample from the US with a travel time of approx 7-8 days, vs taking the sample with me to Germany and sending out locally where it arrives the next day (2-3 days lead time).

This particular sample was a 2 day FedEx pre printed label but it took 7 days to arrive at CoralVue in Louisiana, before it was shipped to Germany. Not sure why, but (hot) weather could be a likely reason, impacting the sample quality.

Great thoughts - thanks for sharing.

If the tube was cracked or not sealed tightly (or was a defective tube) it could have evaporated during that time.