Everyone looks good, maybe a little questionable on the mandarin… Everyone seems alive and doing well as far as I can tell. There are now two little holes in the sand, so I assume the wrasse came out overnight and was doing her thing… Fed a little this morning, mandarin didn’t touch cyclops, bloodworms, or brine. Butterfly ate like a pig, and I think the goby was too scared to eat, he hid under a piece of pvc in the QT. No pictures of the leopard wrasse since I haven’t seen her since adding her
Nice looking group. Mandarin looks a little rough, but appears to be well fed.
Good luck with your new fish additions.
Try feeding the mandarin some mysis shrimp, they can be very finicky about their food.
You can try placing some mysis in a turkey baster or something smaller and drop the shrimp by the mandarin.
Yeah, the mandarin doesn’t have a pinched belly or anything, his fins just look a little rough. Thanks John, I went and bought the cyclops just for the mandarin since I read lots of people have luck with it. I’ll try mysis too. I thought about putting a glass jar in the tank with a bit of food in it and just cutting the lid like halfway off so the mandarin could scoot in there but the others would have difficulty. Giving him a readily accessible food supply. The goby is very small too, so he might appreciate that also.
Here’s the millie. I don’t know if its just mad that the nutrients are very low since it’s fishless currently or what. You can see it had some good growth in the beginning. Now it doesn’t seem so happy
My alk spike and then to much nutrients got added when I was trying to balance it out after a alk spike wiped my big piece of it out. My frag that I decided to keep is doing great with nice blues in all the growth tips.
With a ulns alk spikes seem to do more harm. I switched salts back to tropic Marin. Keep doing what you’re doing. Slow and steady.
The fish look good. Mandarins are hard to get to eat something other then copepods ime. But they usually fair well as long you have a nice fuge for the copepods to breed in. I would do 1 again but I rather have the wrasses.
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I’m culturing copepods because I want both :). I’ve been doing 12.5% water changes bi-weekly, but I did start using 50/50 old salt to new salt. I got a bag of the foster and smith salt and assumed I could mix half and half… but I wonder if it changed the alk. Everything else in the tank looks pretty happy though. I don’t really think I want to run an ULNS in the end. Hoping once I add fish I get some detectable nitrates again. Seems like ULNS leads to issues with SPS color etc etc… I don’t mind a bit of algae either… its fish food z<>z
Also, slightly concerned about the butterfly with corals. Seems they are hit and miss, with the Forcipiger being “safer”. He is pretty small though, so as long as I keep him well fed I’m hopeful that he doesn’t nip!
This little fella from you looks just fine though! Here’s a full tank shot too since l haven’t provided one in a while. Took these pictures sideways so they show up normal.
Tank is looking great! I really like your stand.
Thanks Adam. It was a DIY 
Wish i knew more about those butterfly fish. They are pretty cool looking and I rarely see anyone with one.
Going through your build I almost want to update my build.
l can tell you I’m being a bit naughty by getting him. There are mixed tank size tecommendations for them ranging from 55g-125g minimum. The little guy l got is quite small and l do plan on upgrading in a year or so to a larger tank. Just haven’t told the girlfriend… The yellow longnose and then there’s one wth a longer nose (like a very long nose yellow butterfly lol) are considered to be basically the second safest family of butterflies for reefs due to their specialized mouths. The only butterfly that l have seen ranked safer is a copperband (Edit: and pyramid butterflies but they’re ugly 100% reef safe). And l don’t find them nearly as pretty. From what I’ve read there is a small risk of them nipping at clam mantles as well as fleshy LPS. I’m hoping by getting him young and keeping him well fed he will keep these behaviors to a minimum. l did quite a lot of reading before buying him. Even read a few people who said tbey have multiple species of butterfly, and they may nip at polyps, but don’t kill corals.
If you look through this thread, it’s a girl who lives in Singapore and keeps a reef tank that’s primarily stocked with a variety of butterflies. Interesting read about how she believes many are much safer for corals than the horror stories you hear
Mandarin started eating cyclops this morning :
:
Anyone know of a lfs that carries black worms?
Greenbank
They were suggested to me to get the wrasse to eat on R2R. Came home and found the mandarin dead 
don’t know why, everyone else looks good. Took him out and did a FW dip…no flukes or anything came off. :-("
Damn…
Yeah… don’t know what the problem was. Donavon suggested next time to try an ORA mandarin next time.