New 33 Gallon Reef

[Moogled]

Hi everyone! I humbly present my 33 gallon which I hope will become a full blown reef tank. The specs are as follow:

Eqiupment

1x 33 Gallon Hagen tank
2x double Coralife Aqualight T5 light strips
1x Seio 620 Powerhead
1x Remora Skimmer
1x AquaClear 300

Livestock

2x Amphiprion Ocellaris
1x Merulina Coral
1x Brown Zooanthids Colony
1x Devil's Hand
1x Torch Coral (I woke up last night and found it toppled, I probably didn't place it securely when I brought it home and now the side where it's crushed is a bit f'ed up. :( )
1x GSP frag

I started cycling the tank about 2 months ago after adding the LR. After the water tests showed that I was good to go, I went out and got the Merulina and Zoos from Gold Aquariums. Soon after I added the other corals. Diatoms have begun to set in and give the tank a brownish look. Thus far, the tank has been successul but I have barely touched the tip of this amazing hobby.

Any comments and suggestions are strongly welcome and I hope that I may borrow your guys' experience and advice in the coming future :D.

http://www.canreef.com/photopost/data/500/medium/DSCF0155.JPG

http://www.canreef.com/photopost/data/500/DSC01570.JPG

http://www.canreef.com/photopost/data/500/DSCF0184.JPG

[albert_dao]

Yeah, I have an awesome suggestion:

Spray paint the back of your tank white.

[Kabong]

Yeah, I have an awesome suggestion:

Spray paint the back of your tank white.

White?
Dont you mean black?

[albert_dao]

Nope, white.

[Kabong]

Hmmm Ya know that's the first time ive ever seen the back done white.
Look's pretty good though.

[TheReefGeek]

I would also try to hide the heater, run it horizontally along the bottom behind the rock maybe?

And why do you have the Aquaclear? What are you running in it? You could probably take it off, and that would clean up the look of the tank too.

[TheReefGeek]

Eeverything is looking really good, I like the aquascaping you have.

Maybe the seio could be hidden behind the rockwork a bit too.

If you want to stay skimmerless on this tank, you will have to keep on top of water changes.

[Moogled]

Hey guys, thanks for the responses. I will try to reposition all the equipment so that it won't show as much. As for the Aquaclear, it's just there for carbon, nothing else.

Update: I woke up this morning to find the stressed half of the Torch coral eaten, leaving the skeleton only. I am now sure that whatever ate the coral was also the perp that knocked it over in the first place.

Any ideas on which little bugger did this?

[TheReefGeek]

It might not have been eaten, could be that it just bleached, leaving the skeleton. Which would be a water qualit / light issue.

If it was knocked over, a fish COULD do it, or crabs/snails.

You could have some nasty hitchhiker crabs too.

[Moogled]

Here are the before/after photos. The top was taken last night, when all the tentacles were still retracted. The bottom picture I took about 10 minutes ago.

This happened within a 5 hour timeframe too, so my best guess is that a crab/invert of some sort did this. At the same time, I don't know if it's a brown jelly infection.

Before

http://www.canreef.com/photopost/data/500/DSC01568.JPG

After

http://www.canreef.com/photopost/data/500/DSC01573.JPG

[OCDP]

It just looks damaged to me... like it has taken a beating from falling and what not... then the die off just looks like die off to me... looks like it kicked the bucket on those heads or whatever... doesn't look like a fish or invert did that.

JMO