50ish gallon shallow reef build

[Skimmer Juice]

Just picked up my new aquarium from concepts today . Very happy with the finished tank . Going to be replacing my current tank 36x20x20 with my new dimensions 36x24x14 , never used the top half of my tank so figured to make a shallow reef. Starfire side front panels , black bottom back wall so nice to have the black wall no plumbing in sight .Only have a few fish so decided to go rimless and building the stand lower so it can be viewed top down as that is my favorite view .
Going to build a stand out of wood and use magnets to skin the outside . So my next step is going to be stand and plumbing. Going to be plumbing it into my current system and avoid a cycle and if Im happy with the dimensions Im going to build a twin and take my current tank offline. My current tank has been running going on 8 years so I figured time to replace it instead of waiting for it to split a seem or something. Debating adding black sand , have been running bare bottom since the start
Have a couple pics of the tank will update as I get stuff going with better pics .

Stock list :
2 onyx picasso clowns
1 firefish
1 target madrin
1 dragonface pipefish
1 harlequin shrimp
2 anemone glass shrimp
2 halloween hermit crabs
1 bumble bee shrimp (lives in my urchin)
1 pistol shrimp
a ton of corals , rock flowers, mini max nems
Planning on getting a male dragonface for the female I have , I have no luck finding males I only ever see females. A pair of blue strip pipefish , a female harliquin shrimp for the male I have. Want to get some ultra rfa , and that will most likely be it for livestock . I like to keep it light for livestock .

Equiptment :
Skimmer vertex omega 150
Pump Mag drive 18 (love mag pumps)
Lighting Kessil 360w on one tank tek light 6 bulb hot5 on the other when I get the other tank .
No power heads do not like having them with pipefish and small shrimp


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[Skimmer Juice]

Also since Im going to be building the exact replica of this tank and they will both be running on the same sump/skimmer . I figured it would be a cool idea to run the tanks on different lighting just to see what types of differences I get from the same corals . Will be splitting my zoas and fragging certain corals and keeping them in the 2 different tanks . One tank will be running a kessil a360w maybe 2 , and the other tank will be running with a 6 bulb tek light hot5 . I will mount lights at the same height and take pics once a week to see differences in growth/color .

[Myka]

I just hunted down your 36x20x20" tank journal...you never did show pics with it up and running! I hope this thread gets more pics. :p

[Skimmer Juice]

I just hunted down your 36x20x20" tank journal...you never did show pics with it up and running! I hope this thread gets more pics. :p

yeah right when I set that tank up I took a break from canreef for some reason
so it never got pic updates. However I will update this thread with some pics of that tank and the new tank . I had sea horses originally for a couple years in that tank then turned it into my reef . This new build I will take pics of the whole shabang stand build, plumbing set up , aquascaping , and of course the livestock as it gets moved over .

[Myka]

Still not enough pics. :(

[Skimmer Juice]

yes I will update this weekend I actually have corals in it already

[Janeallisonn]

Yup - Definitely need more photos Asap

[Skimmer Juice]

update still working on capturing good/accurate color pics . Got a new sump just need to build a stand for it and then re-plumb , then the skimmer will not be in the frag tank . Have the system running 1 kessil a360we does the job perfectly, just got the vertex 150 a week ago with a sump . Got to say I love having the vinyl black bottom and black acrylic back wall , can't see no plumbing and the lighting looks much better . Have the frag tank and my display plumbed to the same sump right beside each other and the difference in lighting is crazy. The blacked out tank has way more shimmer and it holds the light in much better , where as my display is full starfire and light spills out a lot . So now I must build a duplicate tank and replace my beloved 8 year old tank. Here are some pics of some of the corals , just got my first scolly . Have always wanted one just never really see them around the lfs and when I do see one they are 400 usually . Got my scolly from Colby at bayside corals for a steal he has some really cool stuff would be so poor if that was my lfs .
Added a yellow/red banded pipe today will get some pics when the lights are on. And got a swallsi basslett ( I think) he literally just stays in and out of the rockwork so hard to get a pic . Also set up a qt so I can start buying some fish again . Going to give a black and blue boxfish another shot or 2 before I rule the fish impossible to keep , going to try a pair to see if the survival rate is better as they are always paired up in the ocean , honestly bugs me they still stock those fish , I have never seen anybody with one .
Have had success with the yellow boxfish witch I will be getting as well. But the blue and the black spotted I have yet to see a healthy one in anybody's aquarium .


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[Skimmer Juice]

just picked up a b-day present for myself . Will be going in the reef after he is finished in the qt , he is super bright . Also have got a new sump and running my omega 150 love this skimmer . My banded pipe's have now started breeding in the system , added a yellow/red banded pipe put it in with my white banded pair and they were having none of it lol. As soon as I put the little red guy in the other 2 just cornered it and chased it around relentlessly so had to separate them unfortunately . Also bought some auto elements amino acid tabs going to see how those work out got them locally at Wai's if anybody is looking for them . Wais has been getting in some really cool uncommon fish and inverts , he also seems to stay on top of new products I have been shopping there a lot more lately . And last but not least I ended up trading the kessil a360we I was using for a vertex sr260 2ft fixture should have it next week , I always wanted to try that light so if I end up not liking it as much as the kessil I will sell it and go back to kessil . Anybody use the vertex lights care to share your thoughts ?


my b-day present :
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll28/commancel/348416dc-a19f-4785-9cd3-82f822c9befb_zpsnocywq55.jpg (http://s284.photobucket.com/user/commancel/media/348416dc-a19f-4785-9cd3-82f822c9befb_zpsnocywq55.jpg.html)

[Slyguy00]

Lookin good. You have some nice coral hiding in there:mrgreen:

[Skimmer Juice]

Lookin good. You have some nice coral hiding in there:mrgreen:

thank you wish I had a better came so I could show some of them off.

[Skimmer Juice]

small update , had bought 3 green banded goby's and 3 barnacle blennys a few months back . Bought them all together had them in quarantine for about 2-3 months they all got along fine in the 16g qt tank. Bought a boxfish for my birthday brought him home , so I decided the other 6 fish were all healthy never had any signs of anything they all ate the same day I got them so I moved them from the qt into this system as I needed the qt for the boxfish .
SO everything is fine the boxfish is doing great eating, no ich ever on him . Went to feed my tank and noticed the greenbanded goby's were beat up all 3 of them when I first got them I thought I had 2 males and 1 female by looking at the dorsal fins the males are suppose to have a tall fin with a longer point and females have no point , so I rolled the dice and kept them together as the males are suppose to not get along . There is not a ton of info on the green banded goby's but I figured with the bigger tank and they are small fish they might co-exist . Apparently not so I tore my tank apart to catch all three they have what looks like nipped fins , bite marks on the body and white specs on there fins . Now when I look at them I cant tell if I have 3 males or 2 males and a female so going to keep them seperated until I can for sure tell.

Next thing I catch my boxfish in the qt he had been in there since oct 16 so almost a month he was in perfect health so I have him floating in a bucket of water . Put the 3 green banded goby's back into qt in breeding containers to seperate them until they heal up they are all still eating and almost back to normal . However The next morning turn my lights on and my boxfish is now covered in ich his tank mates include my Clowns , a mandarin , the 3 barnacle blenny's , a red/yellow banded pipe and thats it for fish and my old reef is still plumbed into the same sump as the tank with my boxfish but it only houses a candy basslett and 2 mated black/white banded pipes . None of the other fish are effected by the ich just the boxfish I may have seen a couple specs on the barnacle blennys but they are clean now. SO I decided to ride it out as I dont like using treatments I always believed the fish will pull through if its healthy . I have had my clowns for about 8 years and they never got anything on them and they are my main concern as I have had them for so long . The Boxfish never quit eating and its about the 4th day since this happened and he is clearing up nice and Im not worried about anything dying just more wanted to share the experience as even with the qt process the fish still got ich I assume its from fighting and then they got it . Before that I have not added any fish for for over 5 years as I never wanted to jeopardize the health of the fish I had been keeping for a long period I always knew I needed another boxfish and always wanted some barnacle blennys so I took the chance having set up a nice little qt figured I would add the remaining fish I wanted . Plus I want a qt for my corals as well.

I always dip my new corals in rx and look over them with a mag glass as I know zoa eating nudis can survive the dip and I fought them off about a year ago lost some expensive zoa's. I had bought a blasto colony form a lfs here it looked in decent health it had a couple dead skeletons on the piece but figured there was enough that it would be alright and it was a really nice blasto . Put it in my tank after a dip and it was doing fine for a week or so and then I noticed a bit of damage starting and next thing you now my other blast colony I grew out for over a year just starting dying nothing else in the tank was effected so I was reading about infections and Im putting the problem on an infection as nothing else was effected and nothing else had been added . So now Im leaving my corals in qt for a month minimum . On the good side I still have my original colony of blasto's and there are some small baby plyps and a big one that is healing so the piece should survive and the piece I added has 1 small remaining polyp so hopefully I can at least get them growing again but even after 12 years reefing you can still get owned by the fish god's .

Im in no way saying not to use a qt, I will still continuing to qt all fish and corals but you can still get ich even without it coming in on a fish , my fish fought and were damaged and ended up with it I should have moved the box into my fowlr tank when I removed the GB gobys but I never thought it was ich I just thought it was damage from fighting . I dont think any deaths will result from this KNOCK ON WOOD but its still scary when you have 5+ year old fish you have been caring for .

[AquaAddict]

Congrats for getting your fish thru the ich and surviving. In my experience, a marine fish is either healthy or dead.

AquaAddict