Guess it was my time

I have had some great success with my Reef system. I started out with no loss of any life which for me was a good start. Being a new system I was expecting some die off but I've had none. I put a few fish in,, Reef friendly fish, I was looking for fish that had some color and found a Magenta Dottyback,, a.k.a. Strawberry Fish. I talked to my LFS guy who could not of been over 18 yrs old and swore to me that this fish would not have any problems with the fish, so I bought it.

To make a long story short I had to pull my system down to get that sucker out which in return killed one of my clams and 1 fish. Not counting my awesome Spotted Goby that would clean CC like a Heavy weight champion. Man,, I was so upset over it all, I never knew I had such deep feelings for my Reef LOLOL!!! So now I have 2 Damsel's, 1 Bleny, 1 star fish So it's time to get a few more fish.

Also I have noticed that a couple of spots on my CC and a rock have red alge. The alge is very ealsy removed by sucking it off with a hose. Would the alge be from disturbing the rock and CC?

 

Sorry to hear about the event. I had to take my whole tank down to remove a dead damsel once. Putting it back together the same way was incredibly difficult. I am not sure abotu the algae question, hopefully now that the thread was bumped up someone will answer it for you better than i could.

 

Sounds like some kind of cyano to me... maybe your lights are on too long during the day? Sorry to hear about your loss, but every fish has their personal space and their personal agenda. I had a clown take down some of my reef and try feeding it to his anemone.. ended up killing th ecoral and the anemone and i'm sure more people would say clown fish are reef safe GL with your new fish choices.

 

Please, please, pretty please... research first, and make your own educated decisions.

Whether their intentions are good or not, I am continuously let down most LFS advice... and I've even gotten disapproving looks from some of them if I make a decision against their beliefs. I don't care buddy, it's MY money and tank. Some of these guys get few weeks of training, get an ego going because they 'know better' than newbies, then carry that same ego to people who actually do know better. It's a shame because there are a few good seeds among many bad... but even so your best knowing independently what you're getting yourself into before you buy, just as a fail safe.

I don't mean to lecture, but it will undoubtedly save you aggravation and money in the future. I've been in the hobby for 10 years and I can admit I have P-L-E-N-T-Y left to learn... so an 18 year old getting part time work netting fish out of a tank, I'm sorry... just can't place my trust in them for advice.

Bottom line, I don't mean to sound anti-LFS... they're just little guys and I like to support them whenever possible. Some are really good, but you can't know that unless you research your purchases before you step in their store. ...even if you want to just run pass your desired fish selections by people here on the board for opinions. Knowledge is power!

Happy reefing and good luck


PS - I can tell you with relative certainty... there's not much of anything you can add to your tank that the Damsels will not harass. Their territories are undoubtedly established and will defend their turf adamantly. I love damsels myself, beautiful fish, but unfortunately they're aggressive little bastards across the board. :-/