120gal mixed predatory reef tank

[whatcaneyedo]

Here is my tank that I have been running for a little more than 2 years.

The display tank is 2'x2'x4' 120gal, the sump is a 140gal stock trough, and I have a 50 gal frag tank running off of that as well. Total system has about 270 gal of water less what is taken up by the 200 lbs of liverock.

Equipment:
AquaMedic Oceanlight 36" 2x250W 13K Giesemann HQI and 2x39W T5 Giesemann Actinic+
Precision Marine Bullet 2 Skimmer with Iwaki 55 pump
Precision Marine 422 Calcium Reactor with aquariumplants.com CO2 Regulator and Milwaukee pH controller
Oceans Motions SS Compact with Little Giant 1300gph return pump
Mag 12 running a spray bar behind the rocks
Phosban reactor for carbon
DSB in a bucket in sump
20gal fuge in sump with various macro algae
Tunze Osmolator for auto top off and DIY Kalk reactor

Livestock:
Volitan Lionfish
Snowflake Moray Eel
Purple Tang
Copperbanded Butterfly
Tomatoe Clown

big Sebae anemone
5 Tridacnid clams
Green Death Brittle Star
Tiger Tail cucumber
12 SPS
11 LPS
6 Softies

Before anyone else does I'll say it: the lionfish could use a little more swimming room and my sump looks like Frankenstiens creation.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/pic039-2.jpg

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[whatcaneyedo]

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/pic001-3.jpg

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[mseepman]

Wow, great looking tank. Glad you decided to share this with us.

[Lance]

That is one fine lookin' tank. Corals and fish look healthy and happy. Have you had any trouble with any fish picking at your clams, or do they mostly leave them alone?

[whatcaneyedo]

I've had problems with my Purple Tang nipping a clam at least twice but he usually leaves them alone. I've had to move several corals into another tank or just to a different location in the main tank because of the Tang picking on them. I've seen him bite at one of my acan, an open brain, some yellow zoanthus, anthelia, kenya tree coral, and an oulophyllia... I also blame him for the recent decline in health of a wall hammer. My frag tank is full of coral that I cant keep in my main tank because of the tang... Oh and my tomatoe clown hates xenia. If there is any xenia in my main tank she will shred it so I only have it growing in the frag tank.

[tlo]

Wow, that lion fish is HUGE. Did you have him since he was a baby?

[Snappy]

Sweet!

[Chaloupa]

VERY cool tank!!! GORGEOUS! That lion fish is a giant!

[Jason McK]

Holly Crap look at the Lion!!!!

Great looking tank!

J

[christyf5]

Wow that is one big lionfish! Love the tank, esp the caps, that green is gorgeous! :cool:

[Myka]

Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!! Love the Lion in the reef!!!

[JDigital]

Wow... that lionfish is massive.. :biggrin: Very clean, mature looking tank!

[whatcaneyedo]

I've had the lion for nearly 3 years. The oldest picture I could find of him was from September 2005. Here you can see him with a ~1" astrea snail for scale. I feed him selcon and vita chem soaked silversides, krill, or sometimes clam every second day.

I had a really hard time getting him to eat frozen food at first. I think he nearly died of malnutrition feeding on guppies before I succeeded.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/tank050.jpg

[whatcaneyedo]

Well this is the Tank Journal forum so I guess I should keep this up to date. I've made some changes to the equipment I'm using, and to the general contents of the tank.

Right now I'm in the middle of cooking most of my liverock in batches to rid my tank of caulerpa, hair algae, GSP and anthelia so things are a bit of a disaster at the moment. I'll post pictures again when I've got everything cleaned up. I'm also reducing the size of my aquascape, removing some of my sand and cutting back on the number of corals to allow for more swimming space for my lionfish and tang. :biggrin:

Equipment:
new Neptune Aquacontroller III
new Two Sunlight Supply Lumenmax 3 pendants with Phoenix 14K and Blue Wave 7 ballast
Precision Marine Bullet 2 Skimmer with Iwaki 55 pump
new Precision Marine 622 Calcium Reactor with aquariumplants.com CO2 Regulator
Oceans Motions SS Compact
new Sequence Dart return pump
Mag 12 running a spray bar behind the rocks
one new Two Phosban reactor, one for carbon and another for rowaphos
new DSB in rubbermaid tub in sump
20gal fuge in sump with Gracillaria
Tunze Osmolator for auto top off and DIY Kalk reactor


Livestock:
Volitan Lionfish
Snowflake Moray Eel
Purple Tang
Copperbanded Butterfly
Tomatoe Clown

big Sebae anemone
5 Tridacnid clams
Green Death Brittle Star
Tiger Tail cucumber
9 SPS
11 LPS
5 Softies

[Keri]

That's one big surly looking tomato you've got in there!! Gorgeous tank!!

[whatcaneyedo]

Here are some newer pictures from December. Notice all of the anthelia and caulerpa trying to take over? I'll post new pictures when I'm done killing it off.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture020.jpg

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[Rbacchiega]

great looking tank....I used to have a black Voltan Lion...rad RAD fish

[untamed]

Very nice! You know, there is 'sump'thing to be said for a sump that just allows you to get at everything. It may not be pretty, but it is very manageable and effective.

I love how you have some clams imbedded in the rockwork. That's a very natural setting for them.

I have found a few lionfish while snorkelling. (NOT, where they are supposed to be...but that is another story) Typically, they seem to just hang out under crevices...sometimes upsidedown. My point is, they aren't big swimmers. I doubt your tank size bothers him much.

Are you still fighting red flatworms? I was never able to beat those in my previous tank.

[whatcaneyedo]

The sump is visible beside the tank for now. Eventually I'll make this an in-wall tank so that I can hide all of the equipment in a fish room.

I've had those flatworms for 4 years now and I just dont care anymore. I see them in a large cluster in one spot in my frag tank but everywhere else in the system its just a few here and there. I hit them with Flatworm Exit once and the treatment process killed my last lionfish so I'll just be leaving them alone for now.

[fishytime]

Great tank man. That has to be one of the healthiest, most beautiful lionfish I have ever seen.

[whatcaneyedo]

My display tank is a bit of a work in progress right now so here are some new pictures of my ever changing equipment.

Precision Marine Bullet 3 Skimmer installed
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture017-2.jpg

My new bigger and 'better' DIY kalkwasser reactor
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture030-2.jpg

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[whatcaneyedo]

The first two pictures were taken yesterday after I spent a few hours re-aquascaping.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture243.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture248.jpg


I had to sell 2 of my big montipora colonys in order to be able to re-aquascape. I kept small frags of each so that I can start them over again.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture236.jpg

[MikeP]

Great looking tank! Awesome SPS colony's and clams you have there :)

I like the new more 'open' aquascape, too bad you had to get rid of those caps though. I've had to give up some nice pieces to re-work my tank too.

[lastlight]

I've been through a lot of threads since I became interested in reefs. Never once seen a Lionfish in one of them I don't think and it's incredible! Having the Lionfish poses no risk to your corals but means you can't really keep shrimp, crabs or small fish correct?

Loved those caps too. Thanks for sharing.

[whatcaneyedo]

The lionfish is only half the story... somewhere hiding in the rocks is a 26" snowflake moray eel. I just realized I dont have a picture of the eel anywhere in this thread. This picture is from last November so a few things in the tank have changed. I've never seen a lionfish in any other reef tank either so I guess mine is a little unique.

Every once and a while one of them will knock a coral or something else over but I'm getting better at anchoring it all down. I've never put any shrimp in there but I'm sure they would get eaten as would any fish under 2" or 3" if they're really narrow. However Copperbanded Butterfly isnt very big yet its been in the tank for over a year now and has never been bothered. I bet I still have a few hitch hiker crabs living in there somewhere as well... The lion and eel are too fat and lazy to do any real hunting I guess.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture021-1.jpg

[lastlight]

Holy CRAP!

This reminds me of Sphelps' tank (I think). Like a reef tank of misfits and oddballs. Something about that is really appealing to me...

[parkinsn]

Thats a bad @$$ tank you have there. Very nice!

[banditpowdercoat]

AWESOME tank. Any chance of gettin a frag or 2 of them monti's? They are wicked. I'll be in PG Wed afternoon/evening. Doin some shopping before I head home.

[whatcaneyedo]

AWESOME tank. Any chance of gettin a frag or 2 of them monti's? They are wicked. I'll be in PG Wed afternoon/evening. Doin some shopping before I head home.

Sure I'll give you my contact info in a PM. However all of the montipora colonies that I have are pretty small now so I cant do big frags like I used to... I sold all three and started them over because they were getting so big and I wanted to move some things around.

I do lots of fragging (by Prince George standards) so there might be some other stuff you'd be interested in too.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture314.jpg

[PoonTang]

LOL. Frag on a rope. Thats cool, never seen that done before.

[whatcaneyedo]

LOL. Frag on a rope. Thats cool, never seen that done before.

Anthony Calfo talks about it in his Book of Coral Propagation as well as in this article: Coral Culture in Suspension http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-05/ac/feature/index.php

[BlueAbyss]

I've read about people doing this while collecting frags... and then they were shipped damp, without water. 100% success rate... but can the frag be grown out while suspended like that? I'm very curious now...

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-11/eb/index.php

[whatcaneyedo]

I've read about people doing this while collecting frags... and then they were shipped damp, without water. 100% success rate... but can the frag be grown out while suspended like that? I'm very curious now...

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-11/eb/index.php

I've had really good results with most of the stuff I hang. Corals like seriatopora grow into twisted spiked balls which are pretty neat. I'll try to find some before and after shots to show the growth. I grow a lot of SPS in general on the lines and then most of my LPS sits on the bottom slightly shaded. lol Then the soft coral grow up the sides and back of the tank! By doing this I can really pack a lot of frags into a standard 50gal.

However I do have problems with algae growing on the fishing line or growing on sections of dead coral skeleton. I dont have any swimming herbivores in my frag tank so nothing can eat it off. I also find water flow to be a bit tricky, if I have too much everything blows around and smacks into each other. Currently there is 30x per hour in that tank and I dont know if I could do much more. Also as everything grows larger the coral starts to weigh down the acrylic rods and bow them in.

[whatcaneyedo]

I couldnt find any decent 'before' shots showing how small these were so you'll just have to take my word for it. All of these frags have been hanging a year or less.

I've had mixed results with hanging some of the acropora, I think a few of them prefer the bottom where the light isnt as intense. Seriatopora, pociliopora, montipora digitata, hydnophora and pavona have all been doing very well on the stings.

This was about 2" and only 3 spikes and now is more like 4" and many more spikes.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture315.jpg

The pociliopora was an odd shape 1" frag and is now circular and 2" in diameter. The little acro is still pretty small but nearly double what it was. It seems to be very interested in encrusting the fishing line.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture317.jpg

This acro was a single 1" stick on a frag plug that I hung.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture081-2.jpg

The green montipora digi has tripled in size since the winter but I fragged it in half for someone not too long ago so it only looks double in size now. The Acro I got last July, it was under 2" and is now over 4".
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture321.jpg

[busypencil]

loved your tank . would love to get some montipora , green red or blue. Do you ship and what would you be asking for a frag?. I am new and am anxious to get going. Busypencil

[whatcaneyedo]

I'd love to sell you some frags but at the moment I'm only dealing in drop-ins and pick-ups. :sad: However I have been stockpiling used coolers and boxes so I think I may soon give shipping a try but its more stress than I need at the moment. What I sell locally I generally sell for pretty cheep too. $5 1" or $5 a head depending on the type of coral, sometimes more and sometimes less.

For you I'd recommend having a look at www.coralmaster.com hes located in Calgary and was fantastic to deal with in our group order a little while back.

[whatcaneyedo]

A little update. At the beginning of August my (5 year old) volitan lionfish went on a hunger strike and lost all of its appetite. By the end of the month it was dead... I looked around on reefcentral to try and find answers but the best thing anyone could come up with was spontaneous fish anorexia. So I'm swearing off big lions for a while until I have a chance to upgrade to a larger tank in a few years.

In the mean time our LFS has had this little fu manchu for months and they've weaned it over to frozen food. It takes both frozen silversides and krill off of the end of a feeding stick and is almost always out and viewable.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture007-1.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture028.jpg

[lastlight]

Ok that tomato is just MASSIVE. I sure hope the FU doesn't wander to close to his new. I saw one of these lions in person at Pisces here in town and I was fascinated by it. Seemed like a very shy fish tho so I'm not sure I'd get one. You say yours is out a lot...what's the norm for these guys?

[BlueAbyss]

Looks great! Your Fu Manchu is beautiful, I love those little guys. Glad you got one that's eating, I've heard they are difficult to get to eat sometimes.

[whatcaneyedo]

Ok that tomato is just MASSIVE. I sure hope the FU doesn't wander to close to his new. I saw one of these lions in person at Pisces here in town and I was fascinated by it. Seemed like a very shy fish tho so I'm not sure I'd get one. You say yours is out a lot...what's the norm for these guys?

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-11/fm/feature/index.php

This article regards the Fu Manchu as being one of the most difficult lionfish to keep because they ship poorly, wont often eat frozen, are quite shy, and are easily out competed for food.

[BlueAbyss]

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-11/fm/feature/index.php

This article regards the Fu Manchu as being one of the most difficult lionfish to keep because they ship poorly, wont often eat frozen, are quite shy, and are easily out competed for food.

Thanks for the link, very informative.

[whatcaneyedo]

New pictures.

I cleaned off all of the coraline from the back glass of my frag tank to give it a cleaner look. Now you can really see the frags hanging there.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture059.jpg

I've also re-organized my power bar and spider web of wires to lesson the amount of a fire hazard that it is.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture057-1.jpg

I'm too broke to buy one so I built this DIY waste collector for my skimmer out of donated acrylic. The sticker is from a record label. I think it makes it look name-brand. lol

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture065.jpg

I've been wanting more flow for a while so earlier this summer when I saw an opportunity to upgrade my OM SS Compact to a 4-Way I took it. I'm still running a Sequence Dart but with the larger plumbing I'm getting roughly 1000gph more flow through it.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture486.jpg

Heres a pic of the gear that sits under the tank. Ca reactor, DIY effluent chamber, DIY kalk reactor, CO2 cylinder, battery backup, and Neptune DC8.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture064-1.jpg

[whatcaneyedo]

More new pics.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture138.jpg

I nearly killed this bubble two years ago but after moving it to this shaded and protected corner it has made a steady recovery.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture130.jpg

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Why does it have to grow so SLOW! I love this frag.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture102.jpg

[freezetyle]

Beautiful colours on your lion fish!

[lastlight]

Everything looks really healthy. Seems your pictures are very true to life as far as white balance goes etc. What's your secret?

[whatcaneyedo]

Everything looks really healthy. Seems your pictures are very true to life as far as white balance goes etc. What's your secret?

No secret really. I'm just using a Canon PowerShot in manual mode. To adjust the white balance I just change the ISO value in the Function menu... I never read the instructions for the camera so I dont truly know what I'm doing but it seems to work well enough.


About a week ago my plate coral spawned. It was about two hours before the lights shut off and it just started puffing clouds of white liquid. I wish I could have taken a picture but I wasnt prepared. Heres a picture of it today, acting normal.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture101.jpg

[Reefer Rob]

Do I see some Acans in your frag tank? *wink wink, nudge nudge*

[Dez]

Wow, I just read through this whole tank journal and I am very impressed. I love the mature and "clean" look to your tank with lots of open water. Very very nice build. Out of curiosity, what pump are you running with your Bullet 3? I'm running one of those. Thinking about maybe adding a pump to it. Where do you have your water level in the skimmer? Thanks again.

[whatcaneyedo]

Do I see some Acans in your frag tank? *wink wink, nudge nudge*

My poor four acans have to be separated from my main tank because the Copperbanded Butterfly will eat them. So I frag them a lot to keep them small so that they dont take up very much space and to get back the money I spent on them. Does this mean you're going to keep your tank running for a few more years?



Wow, I just read through this whole tank journal and I am very impressed. I love the mature and "clean" look to your tank with lots of open water. Very very nice build. Out of curiosity, what pump are you running with your Bullet 3? I'm running one of those. Thinking about maybe adding a pump to it. Where do you have your water level in the skimmer? Thanks again.

The pump is an Iwaki 55 although the owners manual recommended the 70 as being slightly better for the Bullet 3 so if I see a used one for sale I might take it. The water level is roughly 1" above the box but its hard to tell because I have a lot of coraline algae growing inside the first riser tube in that area. Here is what the bubbles in the two risers look like. I find that set like this I get some pretty dark skimmate (one weeks worth pictured above). The skimmer never overflows but it often crashes if I feed oily food. I cleaned out the collection cup and air intake last night.

Elos NO3 <1
Elos PO4 .01

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture150.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture149.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture155.jpg

[whatcaneyedo]

I cant get over the growth of this acro I bought as a frag from Ottawa Inverts in a group order we did back in March of this year. It was about 1/5" on a plug at the time.

May 17:
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture288.jpg
October 16:
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture417.jpg
November 14:
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture231.jpg
January 13
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture672.jpg

[manaf]

wowow i hate you, ur tank makes mine look bad lol

[whatcaneyedo]

I was trying to take some good close up shots of various acros that I have for sale this evening. Unfortunately I succeeded and as a result I discovered that I have F@#$%^G Red Bugs again! I wiped all of these little bastards out over a year ago and now they're back. I've given every new SPS purchase I've made an overnight interceptor bath but it seems that wasn't enough. So once again I have to treat the tank... I'll be following Melev's system again for this one and starting my first treatment tonight. http://www.melevsreef.com/redbugs.html

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/redbugs.jpg

[busypencil]

thanks for replying.
My situation has changed and I am off work for medical reasons, NO INCOME
till U.I. cuts in. Bad time of year will have to put off buying for a few months
Linda

[whatcaneyedo]

The redbugs are gone once more and everything seems to be as it should. I've upgraded the overflow plumbing from 1-1/2" to 2" in order to quite it down a bit. I still run the small risk of an overflow because I only have the single drain so I've mounted a water level sensor to the top rim of the tank and connected it to my controller. If the water rises too high because something is blocking the overflow the alarm will sound, I'll get a text message and the return pump will shut off. This saved me from a potential disaster over the christmas holiday. Learn from my mistake folks... drill your tank for TWO overflows.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture678.jpg

My skimmer is running a little bit better now with this Iwaki 70 pump which replaced the Iwaki 55 that I was using. It ran well before switching but now its able to process even more water.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture680.jpg

The coral keeps growing and thankfully the bryosis is receding. Unfortunately most of my fish are the hiding sort (unless its feeding time). In there somewhere is a tomato clown, purple tang, mandarin dragonet, fu manchu lionfish, snowflake moray eel, and copperbanded butterfly.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture674.jpg

The frag tank is where I spend most of my time. Sawing and snipping, tethering and gluing... I bought that big elegance a month ago. What I ordered was a frag of an Australian elegance and what I received was a large colony instead. I'm hoping that my purchase and placement was educated enough and that I will be successful. This is the second (and the last) elegance that I will buy. The first one was an Indonesian a few years ago that died within a week. If I'm successful with this Australian I plan to try fragging it in a years time.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture682.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture516.jpg

[whatcaneyedo]

Look who came out to pose for the camera!

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture686.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture683.jpg

[whatcaneyedo]

Not a lot to report on. I lost my big golden tear drop maxima clam last week. On the Monday its mantle looked pinched in one spot so I moved it to my frag tank because I though it may have been nipped by one of the fish. By Wednesday it looked pretty bad so I gave it a fresh water dip. By Friday it was dead. I guess I waited too long to dip but I'm not sure. I had the clam for 5 years and it died in 5 days... sucks.

Here is a picture of how the maxima looked on the Wednesday before the dip. Normally the mantle would be very well extended. Theres probably a regular picture of it in this thread.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture750.jpg

Most of the other 6 clams are doing fine and havent had any problems. However I did freshwater dip my squamosa about 3 weeks ago when it started exhibiting signs of pinch mantle. The squamosa recovered without incident. Ironically I've never had any problems with the 'difficult' to keep crocea clams. Just the 'easier' maxima, squamosa and derasa...

March 19 FTS

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture778.jpg

[neoh]

Read the whole thread, very inspiring! That Fu Manchu is awesome. I saw one at the LFS a couple weeks ago and have vouched to get one when I can house it properly.

Very nice work.

And for the record, I too am a sawdust sweeping degree holding metalhead ;D

[whatcaneyedo]

Here are a few new interesting pictures. The small green coral is a tiny little trachyphyllia frag that accidentally came off of the larger colony that I recently sold. I've added an arrow to point to a pod for size reference. It started out as a little chunk of skeleton with some tissue attached that fell off the side after I did some cutting and has grown into a mini colony with its own mouth and feeder tentacles.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1215.jpg

This just looks cool...

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1208.jpg

FTS May 14. I'm feeling pretty lucky these days. My only real problem is the red slime that still wont go away.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1219.jpg

Here are a few pictures of my Australian elegance coral that I got back in December. This is a picture from the first day. Notice the location of the tissue on the skeleton...

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture349.jpg

... Here is a picture of the elegance at night all closed up. You can see here how much it has grown in the past 6 months! *note: I cut 1" of old skeleton off of the bottom so that it wouldnt sit so tall.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1200.jpg

Here is a day time shot with the tissue fully expanded. I'm pretty excited about my success so far. The only other elegance I've tried was an Indo and it was dead within a week. If this Australian continues to thrive and grow for another six months I'll try fragging it.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1223.jpg

[Sebae again]

Awesome colour and shot of the open brain coral.

[whatcaneyedo]

I haven't posted anything here in over a month so here are some updates on the world within my tank. Shortly after my FTOTM release the yellow coris wrasse disappeared. I suspect my eel may have eaten it but I'm not sure. I had had it for over two years and it was 3" long... There was no trace of it inside or outside of the tank so maybe I'll never know.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Wrasse.jpg

It seems like every month comes with a new problem/challenge and I think I may have solved this one. My beautiful blue and pink chalice has recently been showing some recession while the other chalice frag I have under identical conditions continues to grow very well. They are both in my frag tank which does not contain any fish, crabs, shrimp or anything else that could pick on them... or at least that is what I thought until I found a crab molt the other day. So I did some exploring and found a little gorilla crab hiding under a large coral that was very close to where I kept this chalice. The crab has since been removed to a fish bowl in my sump so hopefully that solves the mystery.

Before
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture697.jpg

After
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1238.jpg

Red circled crab in exile
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1276.jpg

Some good news... This coral continues to grow at an exponential rate. Here are two pictures taken one year apart.

May 2009
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture288.jpg

May 2010
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Acropora2.jpg

I did a little system tweaking this month too and added this solenoid to my fresh water reservoir. I bought the valve on ebay from valvesforprojects and wired it to a 12VDC adapter from an old internet router that doesn't work anymore. It is on a timer to turn the flow on for an hour each day. This way my RO/DI filter doesn't have to turn on and off 40+ times a day whenever the Tunze top-off system replenishes some evaporated water.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1271.jpg

[silentcivilian]

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture021-1.jpg

Thank you for that wonderful photo. I read this whole thread start to finish, and I love those two fish, and one day want to start a tank dedicated to this style of fish. I currently read about them all the time and just love everything about them.

Also, love your setup, looks wonderful and everything looks so clean and thought out.

[whatcaneyedo]

I've spend a considerable amount of time inside of the tank staging my rockwork and planning for how my coral will grow in but that is about as thought out as it gets. The rest of my system is the result of endless fiddling and bandaid solutions... which works. But I'm not overly proud of it.

Over the last month I tried out a Prodibio Biokit http://www.prodibio.fr/index.php?file=produits&fc=detail&eau_id=2&id=14 complements of Progressive Reef. I didn't follow the instructions to the word because I have a fairly large system and would have used some of the vials up entirely the very first time I dosed. So instead I just used a row each week for simplicity's sake.

Before dosing I already had undetectable levels of nitrate and phosphate (according to elos kits), good color and growth and I do plenty of trace element replenishing through weekly water changes so I didn't expect to see any improvements. However I was surprised when nearly all of the cyanobacteria in my sandbed cleared up almost immediately. Maybe this was a direct result of supplementing or maybe it was just its time to go as it has typically done so in cycles before. Aside from the cyano I noticed a slight improvement in one acro that had recently recovered after bleaching a bit earlier last winter. But thats about all.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1329.jpg

I've made two other system changes this month as well. I'm curious to try out some solid organic carbon dosing so I've switched out the maxijet pump on my phosban reactors for this mag 3.5. When the pellets arrive I'll swap out the GFO for them in one and continue to run carbon in the other. I also traded out the mag 9.5 for a mag 12 for the frag tanks return because I figured it could benefit from a little more flow. Ironically I don't really like mag pumps, but to a certain limit I can get them for free so I tend to use a lot of them.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1331.jpg

This month I also had a lot of clam spawning... which put me a bit on edge but everything seems to have gone fine. I was able to photograph the derasa pushing out some white fluid for an hour but I didn't capture the maxima clams doing it. The derasa begun doing it just before lights out a few weeks ago and the maxima clams followed about a week later at around the same time. All are still alive and looking healthy today. I attribute these spawning events to the Neptune controller's seasonal temperature and lighting variations my tank follows.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1291.jpg

[Greenmaster]

That looks so cool I want an eel now :D

[Doug]

Beautiful pics. Man those caps are nice. :thumb:

[whatcaneyedo]

Its been a few weeks since I ran out of the probio kit stuff and it seems like some of my cyano is returning a bit. But that is the only noticeable difference that I can see.

This time I'm experimenting with some Vertex Pro-Bio Pellets. My hopes is that I'll be able to use them in place of GFO which I've been running steady for about two years now to keep the phosphate levels in my tank undetectable. The GFO from BRS has been great and I've been able to bring the phosphate down to 0 from .75 and keep it there by changing out 1 cup each month. But this solid organic carbon system appears to be much less expensive and a little less maintenance so I've been wanting to give it a try. At this time both phosphate and nitrate in my system are undetectable so I'm curious to see if the phosphate starts to creep back up or not and whether or not anything looks visually different in the tank over time.

I was able to get about 300ml of pellets to completely fit and liquidize in a TLF Reactor powered with a Mag 3 pump. My net system water volume is probably a little over 200gal so according to their directions I should minimally have 400ml of pellets running. But most of my system is empty water space and contains just 6 fish so we'll see.

EDIT: I removed the sponges and replaced them with some of that craft store plastic mesh. By doing so I was able to fit some more pellets in and now I'm pretty close to 400ml.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1398.jpg

[whatcaneyedo]

I'm only on day two of the pellet experiment. My tank looks quite a bit cloudier than normal and the skimmer is pulling more than it generally does. Some of the coral look a bit off while others look perfectly normal.

On a side note my Seachem KH test kit ran out today so I switched to a new Elos one. On my Seachem kit I was told that my tanks alkalinity was 8 dkh. On the Elos one it says 12.5 dkh! I don't know about you but that is a huge difference in my opinion. So I'm shutting off the flow of CO2 to my calcium reactor until it comes down to at least 10 dkh. In the mean time I'm going to try and find someone else in town with a test kit that I can reference mine against.

[trilinearmipmap]

OK here are a couple of ideas regarding the lack of reliability of kH test kits.

My Salifert kH test kit came with a reference standard to check the kH test results against. If no one in town has a reference standard to lend you, I can bring one out next time I am in town.

The other idea is to use a pH monitor (recently calibrated against known standards) to measure the pH of a sample of tank water that has been aerated outdoors for a few hours. By aerating the water sample, the concentration of CO2 in the water will be equal to the concentration in the atmosphere. Since carbonate/bicarbonate is the predominant buffer system in seawater, you can take the pH and the concentration of CO2, and calculate the kH.

By using both these methods you should be able to come to some approximation of how accurate your kH test kit is.

[whatcaneyedo]

A lot of coral looks ****ed off this morning and some of the fish aren't breathing right so I'm going to take some of the pellets out so that I only have 250ml running and do a water change.

I dont think I'll have a problem finding someone in town with a KH kit that I can try but thanks for the idea.

[globaldesigns]

Hey, I haven't used the Vertex Pellets, but with NP BioPellets they need to be tumbling very aggressively... I may be incorrect, but doesn't the Vertex ones need to be used in the same way? I see that you have your reactor stuffed, with no room to move.

If the Vertex are on the same principle as NP BioPellets, then the reactor is just going to get bunged up with mulm and garbage... I would suggest removing half of them and get them really moving around.

This is way I use 3 reactors in my setup, with about 1 litre in each, and have them going crazy (tumbling and whipping around).

I hope this helps, If the vertex pellets are different, please enlighten us all.

Thanks.

[whatcaneyedo]

No they all tubling. I posted a picture and not a video so its hard to tell. I guess I could take a snap of them with the pump off and then with the pump on so that you could see... But I've already made some changes and removed a lot so there isn't really any point now. With the amount that was in there the reactor was about 2/3 full with the pump off. With the pump on it looks like its completely full.

[globaldesigns]

No they all tubling. I posted a picture and not a video so its hard to tell. I guess I could take a snap of them with the pump off and then with the pump on so that you could see... But I've already made some changes and removed a lot so there isn't really any point now. With the amount that was in there the reactor was about 2/3 full with the pump off. With the pump on it looks like its completely full.

Ah cool, pic is very decieving.

Not saying you have to do this, but I run 3 liters on my system (180G, with 100G sump/refuge) How much are you running, maybe run more.

I know I run alot for my system, but I have researched that it is quite hard to overdose on these, and since I have a big bioload, I found what I run to be working well.

[whatcaneyedo]

I had posted that I was running the minimum recommended amount for my systems net water volume which was 400ml. However I just removed some this morning because some things in the tank didn't look so good. So now there is just 250ml. Yes I'm kind of paranoid but I think that trait has helped me to avoid a lot of disasters already. If everything starts looking better I'll go back up to 400ml eventually. If I try to fit any more I'll need another reactor. And since Nitrate and Phosphate are already undetectable in my system and my bioload isn't too bad I don't think I'll be doing that.

[whatcaneyedo]

I'm having a pretty busy week. The tank finally settled down after a few days of bacteria bloom from the pellets. The water is looking clear again and the coral and fish are no longer oxygen deprived and distressed. Here is how the reactor looks at the moment with just 250ml inside. It is tumbling, its just hard to tell because it is just a picture.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1405.jpg

As I think I mentioned the skimmer was pulling quite a bit out for the last few days. Here is how it looked and underneath is how it normally looks.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1403.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture155.jpg

I've got big plans for my frankensump tomorrow (note: I just fed the fish so my foam head has collapsed, this is normal). I've decided to tear down my 50gal frag tank and convert the sump into a frag trough. I'm going to remove the 50gal's return and overflow and the area where I've been trying to grow macro algae. Then I'm going to move the skimmer to the left outside of the sump and part all of the rocks to the sides as well. Once everything has been moved out of the way I'll put all of the coral that is in the 50gal in the middle and hang one of my Lumenmax pendants above.

For some extra flow in the sump I've picked up two Hydor Koralia Evolution 1400 powerheads. I may leave them to run constantly or I may plug them into the controller and have them alternate... I haven't decided yet. (EDIT: after reading some reviews I'll just leave these to run constant and not on a wave maker) I'll post some more pictures tomorrow when the dust clears.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1404.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1386.jpg

[whatcaneyedo]

After about 5 hours of setting up and then cleaning up here is how frankensump looks this evening.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1432.jpg

[MitchM]

That is a lot of work and it looks much better. You can enjoy watching what's going on in frankensump.
I like the price tag idea of labelling plug-ins.

Mitch

[whatcaneyedo]

I'm into the second week of pellet usage now. All of the tank inhabitants seem to be growing and looking the same as they always have. The skimmer has settled down a little bit although its still producing more than it would in the past. The cyano in the sand is back... perhaps in time it will go away as the tank adjusts to the pellets.

I received two new additions this week from Tang Daddy. The first is 3/4" of a Hawkins Enchinata and the other is 5/8" of some kind of blue tort. They certainly don't look like much now but hopefully if I'm careful with them they will grow into nice colonies in a few years.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1499.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1498.jpg

[zum14]

Hey. Nice job on the sump. So was there any reason behind the downsize?

[whatcaneyedo]

Growing out frags in the sump provides me with more space than the 50gal. More space equals more frags. Also, because its in the sump there is no glass or fishing line to clean. While suspending frags has some advantages, the fishing line was an algae magnet requiring constant tedious cleaning because no herbivorous invertebrates could service it. I also expect that downsizing to less system volume will improve the skimmer's performance as there is now less water to process.

[abcha0s]

Your tank is spectacular. Sump looks much better :smile:

[whatcaneyedo]

I'm into the 4th week of Vertex bio pellets. I've noticed a few changes but nothing too spectacular. My bubble coral seems to be inflating larger than normal and the polyps on my gorgonian extend out more than they used to. The skimmer also produces slightly more foam than it was. Other than that the tank seems to be functioning the same as it has been which is great. Nitrate and phosphate continue to be undetectable even though I'm not using GFO anymore and I've cut back to only 5-10gal weekly water changes. My whole objective behind trying this new product was to find something that would save me money on GFO and salt and they seem to be doing the trick.

I'm now growing this macro algae in my frag area under the MH. I used to have it under 16W 6.5K CF bulbs and it barely did anything (I also used to run GFO...). But now its growing at an exponential rate.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1527.jpg

There is still just 400ml in the reactor but I've had to turn up the flow to try and keep the pellets from binding together.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1530.jpg

[whatcaneyedo]

Saturday night, girlfriend is working, might as well take some more pictures of the fish.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1334.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1338.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1586.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1592.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1591.jpg

[whatcaneyedo]

I've decided to go back to GFO and take the Vertex pellets out at least for now. Some combination of their use and my tank getting a little bit too warm (83ºF to 84ºF) for a week around the beginning of the month has caused all of my soft coral to bleach. I'm mostly blaming the pellets as my nano where I keep the mother colonies of my soft coral has been sitting at those high temperatures (and perhaps higher) for longer and the coral in there are coping much better. Also, I've found several posts from others using these products who have experienced the same. Apart from the bleaching and some slightly increased skimmer production I didn't notice any change in my system for better or worse during my month long trial.

Heres how my toadstool frags look at the moment. A sinularia and capnella look similar.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1619.jpg

[skabooya]

Too bad about the coral but on the bright side is that they will colour up again just fine :)
Nice looking tank btw. Love your fu manchu and eel.

[whatcaneyedo]

The frags from Tang Daddy didn't make it but we were able to resolve that peacefully. So I placed an order with Oceanic Corals last week and got these three. We had a slight problem with the high school drop-outs who work at Greyhound but everything arrived alive and in good shape. These pictures were taken today. There's a Hawkins Enchinata, Pearlberry and Mellon Berry Chalice. I'm especially pleased with the chalice as I didn't have to break the bank on it, its a good 2" square and its one of the bluest LPS I've ever seen.


http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1666.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1669.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1674.jpg

[whatcaneyedo]

Its been a bad year for clams in my tank. I've lost 4 now out of the 7 that I started the year with. The large maxima and crocea I had for about 5 years each while the squamosa and little maxima I only had for a year or two. I believe that the squamosa may have carried a disease or something that infected the others as it was the most recent addition. From day one the squamosa would exhibit classic signs of pinch mantle. In total I think I gave it 4 fresh water dips which would work for a little while and then the symptoms would return. I also routinely inspected all of them for parasitic snails but never found any.

What really confuses me though is how all of them died. The large maxima looked pinched on a Monday in April and was dead on the Friday. The Squamosa looked pinched for about 5 months starting in the Spring and finally died in October. The following day the crocea which looked perfectly normal the night before as it had for years was dead in the morning. Two weeks later the small maxima died basically the same way the big one had.

The three clams I have left are a 5 year old Crocea, 4 year old Derasa and 2 year old Maxima.

On the plus side the tank continues to look great and everything else is growing almost out of control.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1848.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1863.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1849.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1856.jpg

[Delphinus]

I feel your pain, I lost several clams this year including my oldest ones (one was over 6 years in my care. :cry:) It seems once one of them gets something it transfers to others fairly easily.

Nevertheless the tank still looks fantastic, great colours.

[lastlight]

Sorry to hear about your clams. Amazing FTS. Love the green on that cap. Not sure if mine is just a different strain or what but it's such a pale green...makes me jealous!

[zum14]

Sorry to hear about your clams. Amazing FTS. Love the green on that cap. Not sure if mine is just a different strain or what but it's such a pale green...makes me jealous!


Tell me about it! I have a frag of that very cap. It grows like crazy but I have yet to get it that green.....

[whatcaneyedo]

All of my bulbs are 250W 14K Phoenix MH. I'm not sure if thats all there is too it of or if its a water quality issue as well.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Montipora3-1.jpg

[lastlight]

Do you dose anything other than Ca,Alk,Mg?

[whatcaneyedo]

I've got a small assortment of things I use every once and a while. Once every week or two I might use Lugol's, Selcon, Vit Chem or Kent Garlic. Each week I add some magnesium salts to my water change water. Then every couple of days I'll feed Coral Frenzy. Kalkwasser and a Calcium Reactor do the rest. I haven't added baking soda or calcium chloride in months and I only breifly tried some Pro Bio products and Vertex bio pellets earlier this summer.

[BlueTang<3]

Dude your tank is awesome. Ever consider running a dosing pump vs reactor?

[whatcaneyedo]

Dude your tank is awesome. Ever consider running a dosing pump vs reactor?

Nope. I've already got the calcium reactor figured out so that I have to do very little work to keep my parameters in check. I calibrate the probes and top off the media about once every three months, clean the whole reactor twice a year and get the CO2 cylinder refilled about once a year. I haven't adjusted the flow in a month or two, the last time I added baking soda was in June and I have not used Calcium Chloride at all this year. Plus I think more trace elements are added back to the water by dissolving coral skeleton than by dosing.

The only downside to the calcium reactor in my case is that my pH tends to be quite low throughout the winter. Right now I sit around 7.7 to 7.9 I'm trying nearly every trick in the book to combat this. What I may try next is drawing my skimmer air through CO2 absorbing media.

[whatcaneyedo]

My Tunze ATO has begun to act up this month for the first time in 4 years. For some reason it doesn't always stop topping off once the water level returns to the bottom of the photo eye. So what I've done is add another float switch to my controller along with some more program language so that if the water level reaches the float switch the controller will shut off the tunze for 30 min. While doing this I also added a command to shut off the ATO for 30 min whenever the Kalk reactor mixing pump comes on. This way freshly mixed kalk water isn't being pumped into my tank anymore.

Overall my program looks like this now:
If Power 020 Then LT1 OFF
If Power 020 Then LT2 OFF
If Time > 00:00 Then WP1 ON
If Time > 00:00 Then ALM OFF
If Time > 00:00 Then SKM ON
If Time > 00:00 Then ATO ON
If Time > 18:00 Then FWT ON
If Time > 19:00 Then FWT OFF
Max Change 005 M Then WP1 OFF
Max Change 020 M Then LT1 OFF
Max Change 020 M Then LT2 OFF
Max Change 030 M Then ATO OFF
If Sun 060/-120 Then LT1 ON
If Sun 120/-060 Then LT2 ON
If Moon 000/000 Then MON ON
If Temp > RT+1.3 Then COL ON
If Temp < RT+1.0 Then COL OFF
If Temp > RT+1.3 Then FAN ON
If Temp < RT+1.0 Then FAN OFF
If Temp < RT+0.7 Then HET ON
If Temp > RT+1.0 Then HET OFF
If Temp > RT+3.0 Then LT1 OFF
If Temp > RT+3.0 Then LT2 OFF
If Temp > RT+3.0 Then ALM ON
If Temp < RT+-1.0 Then ALM ON
If Temp < RT+-9.9 Then HET OFF
OSC 003/255 ON/OFF Then KAL OFF
If pH2 > 06.60 Then CO2 ON
If pH2 < 06.50 Then CO2 OFF
If pH < 07.60 Then CO2 OFF
If pH < 07.60 Then ALM ON
If pH > 08.60 Then ALM ON
If pH > 08.40 Then ATO OFF
If Switch1 OPEN Then ATO OFF
If Switch1 CLOSED Then ATO ON
If Switch2 OPEN Then WP1 OFF
If Switch2 OPEN Then ALM ON
If Timer KAL = ON Then ATO OFF



New pictures
Top right to show off the montipora colonies.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1922.jpg

Top left to show off the green acro
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1925.jpg

Probably my all time favorite clam. Fortunately its also one of my few surviving ones.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1915.jpg

These two Pocillopora colonies started growing on my returns about a year ago all on their own by either spawning or polyp bailout.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1928.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1929.jpg

[whatcaneyedo]

At 4:00am this morning I couldn't sleep so I went down stairs to have a look at the tank. The one year old seal on my crappy Reeflo Dart pump must have just went so there was about 2 gal of water on the floor. Ironically I had just removed my water on the floor sensors last week so that I could use a second float switch on my ACIII to protect against my failing Tunze ATO... If they were still in place I might have had some earlier warning about the flood. Fortunately I'm not a complete idiot so I have a spare Dart to use as a backup when these things inevitably happen. So an hour and a half later my rusty old spare is in use again and some of the water is cleaned up. Now I'm just waiting for Reeflo to respond to my email so that they can gouge me with the price of another seal to get me by until next year. Merry Christmas devil tank.

[zum14]

Wonder if that was the "watery" noise that we heard? Crazy. Funny how, what was it? a week ago? you were talking about that very backup pump. Good thing it was there. Could of been an interesting day.

[whatcaneyedo]

That sound we heard certainly sounded like a small burst of water. I bet thats what it was too.

This is the second time I've needed to replace a seal... actually its the third time because I've needed to do it on both my primary Dart and what is now my spare (both were purchased used BTW). part of the process is to silicone a new one in which then takes time to cure. That is the main reason why I own two but its a good idea to have one extra regardless. What weirds me out is the last time it was just a slow leak that resulted in a little salt creep and corrosion. This time it was flowing out at about the same rate that water passes through my calcium reactor. Up until now it was absolutely fine, no salt creep no nothing.

[whatcaneyedo]

I've acquired a few new goodies over the last few weeks. The girlfriend got me a new camera (Canon EOS Rebel XS) for Christmas so I've been playing around with it and thumbing through the manual. Then I got myself a Neptune Apex on boxing day. I also picked up a new seal for my Reeflo Dart when I visited Progressive Reef so that I could immediately fix the leaking pump. In a few more weeks the two that I ordered directly from Reeflo should arrive. I was very pleased with their customer service considering the time of the year.

Here is some more good news, my toadstool which bleached back in August is finally re-gaining its color! If you look back in my thread I mentioned how it and a few other coral begun to bleach when I tried out a minimal amount of Vertex biopellets.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture2035.jpg

Now that the dying has stopped I wanted to show off this pieces as well... It was a nice healthy looking platygyra when I bought it a month ago. Unfortunately it was inadequately bagged for the trip home. Upon arrival the bag smelled like rotting fish. However I consider myself lucky that this much survived and I accept 50% of the blame. When I told the retailer that I had a long drive back to PG what I should have said was please use a larger bag and a lot of water.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture2022.jpg

Here are a few random shots with the new camera.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture2039.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture2010.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1990.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1942.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1999.jpg

[Madreefer]

Nice pics. Did you use a different macro lens than the one it comes with?

[whatcaneyedo]

No just the EF-S 18-55 lens it came with.

[imcosmokramer]

great pics

[DOMINATOR]

beautiful tank!!!!

[whatcaneyedo]

Thanks :biggrin:

Clamless 2011 full tank shot. My last clam, a derasa, now lives in the frag system. I'm beginning to think that it could have been pyramid snails all along. The reason I've been doubting it is because I was lead to believe that if I did have them they would be swarming the fleshy undersides of my clams. All I ever saw would be one or two underneath the mantle and many others all over the sand, glass, rocks etc.

The only up side is that this gave me a little bit of extra space so now I can fit one of my elegance frags up top. 14 months alive and counting.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture2378.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_6795.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture2122.jpg

[whatcaneyedo]

I'm happy to report that the expensive little frags that I bought from Oceanic Corals last September (5 months ago) are doing quite well.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1666.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_6834.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1669.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_6819.jpg

[Jason McK]

Great looking frags. The first one has a mimi brittle star

[whatcaneyedo]

Yeah the brittle star came from my tank, not from the frag. I bought a piece of liverock at our LFS around 5 years ago because it was covered in the little things. Now my tank is full of them. I probably have thousands. I also have a big green 'death' brittle star that I bought 7 years ago as a bad impulse purchase. Fortunately I've never had the desire to keep any small fish with it so it has not caused me any problems. But it is huge... heres a pic of it in the bottom of an IO bucket (the white balance is off on the camera) so that you can see the size.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1250.jpg

[whatcaneyedo]

Those who are familiar with my tank know that I've had a minor bryopsis problem for a few years. By decreasing the phosphate level in the system I've been able to get most of it under control. However a few areas still remained. Most notably along the spraybar that extends across the lower back of the tank. Some of it can been seen just to the right in the picture of the the platygyra if you scroll up the page.

On RC I had read about some impurity in Kent Tech M that for whatever reason kills bryopsis. So after watching a friend experiment with it on his own system I gave it a shot too. I purchased a 64oz bottle and added 200ml daily for about two weeks until I ran out. This brought the Mg in the system up from 1300ppm to 1500ppm (the total system volume is just over 200gal). Some of the bryopsis I pulled out manually which I would do monthly anyways and the rest yellowed and disapeared.

Here is a picture of the spray bar now bryopsis free:
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_6886.jpg

[Madreefer]

Tank looks great as always. Good to see the Kent Mag worked for you. I ended up using 6 liters of it.

[abcha0s]

+1 on the tank looking great.

Was it the "impurity" that killed the bryopsis or was it simply the elevated mag levels?

http://austinreefkeeper.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/how-to-rid-your-reef-of-bryopsis/

Brad

[corpusse]

Tank looks really great, while I have seen this thread before I went through it today for the first time in a really long time, it's great to see the changes throughout the years.

What is almost equally impressive is that you wear gloves! I've never seen a refer wearing them! I used to wear smaller gloves sometimes when fragging, but I can't tell you how many times I've been stung by bristleworms and other things, and once even stung by my own dwarf lion fish. Your hands must love you!

[whatcaneyedo]

The lionfish hasn't stung me yet but bristle worms have pricked my figures a lot in the past. I've also been bitten by the clownfish a couple of times too so I find gloves to be necessary when putting my hand in the tank.

I've attempted elevating the Mg in my tank to 1500ppm and above in the past using a conventional 9:1 magnesium chloride and sulfate salt mix. Even after several weeks the bryopsis still persisted. Take a look on RC and you'll find many reports of people successfully getting rid of it with Kent Tech M. Here is one of them: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1840519&highlight=kent+magnesium+bryopsis I tried to find a thread with one of Randy's posts in it but I'm running a little short on time. This product doesn't seem to work for everyone but for whatever reason it worked for me and Madreefer.

Edit: here is the original Tech M treatment for bryopsis thread from RC: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1113109

[benzzz]

Just went through the whole thread. Great tank and many nice changes. I have had a dwarf lion for about 3.5yrs and he eats like a champ. frozen mysis and he knows when I enter the room as he comes to the glass and sits on a toad stool and looks at me until i come over to feed him.

Thanks for sharing!

[whatcaneyedo]

Just a few of the sponges growing under my rocks. FYI I don't use any liquid phytoplankton foods.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_6907.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_6916.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_6938.jpg

[ludinano]

Well to start I must say your tank is inspiring to say the least. I came across your thread a while ago when searching for images of the bullet 3 skimmer. Your coral and fish husbandry show amazing results. Sorry about your loosing most your clams they looked amazing too. I have already planned on attemping to have my 100g stock tank sump look as clean as yours, since most stock tanks are just a mess of cords and tubes.

I must say i would appreciate your input on my (your) skimmer. I normaly frequent on RC and have recently ran into some confusion on sizing my skimmer.

Ive always thought a skimmer should be sized to your system. And when i was posting that i planned on using the bullet 3 i was told it was to big. Then got different responses one saying to size skimmer to display anouther just to size to your bio-load.... Which if you ask me is a loaded response.

Anyway my system will be similar to yours with 120 display, 100g stock tank, want a 50-60g frag tank, 50g refugium, and recently decided to have a small (30-40g) softy tank or other type of specialty tank added in.

To judge by (bio-load) main display to be packed with SPS and LPS 3-4 tangs and many smaller fish, then i would have frag tank probably with a fish in it, and the specialty tank with some fish ( thought about doing a mini predator tank.)

To judge by whole system would be roughly 370 with out rock displacement.

And to judge by display 120 G

It sounds like you've been very happy with your bullet 3.

long story... long Do you feel my system would be ok with the same?


Here is a link to my build thread. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1969241

[whatcaneyedo]

I've tried to cut down on the mess of plumbing by keeping mine very direct and simple. However if you look closer I do have a lot of wires. I just try not to photograph them.

I plan to continue to use the bullet 3 when I eventually upgrade to a 250gal display which will boost my total system volume up to around 350gal. At the moment it seems to be more than enough of a skimmer for my tank so I'm confident that it will handle just fine. However the whole reason I use this skimmer is because I got a great deal on it buying it used. If I were to buy something new I'd probably get a modern design that is compact, quieter and more energy efficient.

[whatcaneyedo]

I've been wanting an Ornate Wrasse since last July and I finally got one! A big thanks to J&L for getting it in. I've only had it for five days now but its settling in nicely. Having the wrasse in my frag bin makes it pretty difficult to get a good picture. Out of the 200 I took this is probably the best.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_7614.jpg

I also picked up a tailspot blenny because they're so cute.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_7457.jpg

Oh and I tried bio pellets again for the first few weeks of March... Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. There will not be a third time! It took months for my poor toadstool to recover from bleaching last time. So I tried cutting back to just 100ml of pellets but as you can see the results were the same. Everything else in the tank remains the same but my soft coral begin to bleach.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_7463.jpg

[The Grizz]

That is so weird about your toadstool and pellet reaction. I have a Devils Hand and figure leather, been running pellets for about 6 months or more without any bleaching.

Love the new wrasse and tailspot, I see a frag of green monti with my name on it too :lol:

[fishytime]

+1 on the fish....absolutely love Tailspot blennies......mine is one of my favorite fish.....also dig the sponge pics:biggrin:

[whatcaneyedo]

Two weeks ago the yellow canary wrasse jumped out of my frag tank... So last weekend I spent a lot of time building this contraption to keep that from happening to the ornate wrasse. I used about 20' of 1/2" PVC, a lot of angles, zip ties and about 10' of plastic chicken wire that I bought from a local pond and garden supply store. The chicken wire is grey and not transparent but its extremely fine so it doesn't block very much light. The openings are 1/4".

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_7664.jpg

[abcha0s]

Man that's a big frag tank! ..and wrasses in a frag tank?

Looks awesome!

- Brad

[whatcaneyedo]

Halichoeres Wrasse are great for flatworm, pyram snail, and bristle worm control. At the moment I'm waiting for the ornate wrasse to grow a little larger so that I can put it in my display tank and not worry that it will get eaten by the eel.

[whatcaneyedo]

Some new pictures for the new month. I picked up a few goodies during one of my semi annual trips to the big cities. From Denis I got this fantastically blue 'frag' of his Turaki along with some others. This prompted me to do some minor aquascaping in order to accommodate it into my display tank. The old blue with brown polyps acro had to go in order to make room. But now I can finally see the one that was sitting just behind it. I'm not sure what kind of acro it is, all I know is that I got it from OA a few years ago and the polyp extension is nuts.

However not all is doing well at the moment in Russell's reef. My orange Montipora capricornis is still struggling to hang onto life. Some combination of new bulbs and seasonally low temperatures caused it to bleach a few months ago. Some spots on it are dead but I remain optimistic that it will return to its former glory in time. To aid its recovery and to hopefully rid my tank of cyano once more I've decided to try out another Prodibio BioKit. I don't know if I was just seeing things or not but when I tried out a BioKit last summer, compliments of Progressive Reef, my cyano went away until recent events brought it back. I think that because of some new product experimenting my tank could use a bit of a re-set and I believe that Prodibio might do that for me. Or maybe I've just been snorting too much kalkwasser. :wink:

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_7776.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_7831.jpg

[whatcaneyedo]

I recently picked up a couple of new additions when a local shut down his tank.

This powder blue tang is now enjoying itself as the king of the castle in my lit 140gal stock trough sump.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_8297.jpg

Although I've been wanting a nice derasa and maxima to partially replace the seven clams I lost last year I couldn't resist this moderately sized 6" squamosa.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_8215.jpg

While attempting to take a half decent pictures of the top two I did manage to get a pretty clear shot of the ornate wrasse.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_8318.jpg

The tail spot blenny is in better focus than last time but its still no award winner.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_8465.jpg

The first picture I've been able to get of the reclusive female mandarin dragonet that lives in my sump. She was pretty slim when I bought her from the LFS several months ago.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_8452.jpg

19 month old elegance that was fragged 11 months ago.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_8226.jpg

Not bad for 10 months growth don't you think? From roughly 10 polyps to this in that amount of time:
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_8244.jpg

Heres the pic again from September last year.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1666.jpg

[spawn]

Sweet Pics

[Madreefer]

I was wondering if you were goin to pick up one or all of those clams. I thought about getting one myself but I dont think my wife would be too pleased as i'm goin to be a poor student for a few months starting monday. Your post before your last one with probidio in the title, what is the coral in the second from the top?

[whatcaneyedo]

This Acropora? I don't have a name for it. I got it as a small frag from Ocean Aquatics in the fall of 2008. It doesn't grow exceptionally fast but it does okay. The polyps on it are huge. I think you got a branch of it from me a few months ago.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture110.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_7831.jpg

[skabooya]

nice. i would love to see your tank again in person. i loved it, :)

[ProReef]

Wow Russel, that looks just awesome. I absolutley love your zoa "life-ring" around your clam. That is rockin'. How has that "green death star" brittle star been behaving? I've seen them take down fish-especially small ones. But i guess your lion also helps with that to! Looks just beautiful. Keep the pictures coming.
Cheers Ronnie

[whatcaneyedo]

You're more than welcome to stop in again the next time you come to PG.

Before I forget. I've concluded my second one month trial of prodibio. The cyano on my sandbed did not go away this time which was unfortunate. However my orange montipora capricornis has made a full recovery. I don't know how much of that I can attribute to prodibio as I believe it was a simple matter of light shock that caused the decline in the first place. For now I'm going back to traditional reefkeeping. No more carbon or bacteria dosing/manipulation. Heavy skimming and regular water changes has worked so well for me in the past. I don't know why I keep trying to mess with it.

[whatcaneyedo]

Thanks Ronnie. The giant green brittle star actually died in April. I got it back in early 2004 and never had any problems with it because I've always stuck with fish that were too large for it to eat. I used to feed it pieces of krill or silverside several times a week which may have helped too. It was pretty disturbing to watch it die. It basically just started to disintegrate from the central disk outwards. Wikipedia states that brittle stars in general only live up to 5 years so I guess it might have been an old age thing. I haven't been able to find any information to make me think otherwise. Aside from the clam problem I haven't had many losses in the last few years. With automation my tank has become extremely stable and predictable. And of course the millions of tiny brittle stars that I have are still thriving and occupying every nook and cranny available.

[whatcaneyedo]

Its been two weeks and the powder blue tang is turning out to be quite a challenge but not in the conventional way. At first it didn't get along with the ornate wrasse. But after two days of slashing at its reflection in a submersed mirror it decided that the wrasse was okay. Now its systematically sampling some of the coral that I keep with it. From day one I've been feeding it Ocean Nutrition pellets and PE mysis each day as well as a constant supply of nori on a clip. So I guess I'm going to have to up the feeding to see if that will make it behave. I've added an automatic feeder to drop pellets twice each day and I'm increasing the portion size of nori. So far its gone after Duncanopsammia, Sarcophyton and Cladiella. The trough that it is in is 4'x3'x20" and contains close to 140gal of water. Its tank mates consist of an ornate wrasse, tailspot blenny and mandarin dragonet. The tang has been very active and readily accepts any food that is offered.

[whatcaneyedo]

I decided it was time to downsize this acropora today. I've been fragging it monthly in an attempt to keep it at a manageable size but it was still growing out of control. What I'm left with now looks 1/4 this size and kind of crappy at the moment. Needless to say I have a lot of frags and calcium reactor media...

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_8468.jpg

[whatcaneyedo]

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_8602.jpg

I haven't posted anything on here since July so here is a little update. The Montipora colonies went through quite a rough patch recently and they're only now starting to look okay again. I'm sort of regretting that major fragging job I did on my big green acropora and I may have shuffled a few other things around just because. But as long as fatso is happy I guess I can be happy too.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_8502.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_8505.jpg

[spawn]

still looks great.

[fishytime]

thats one sweet shot of "fatso"!

[whatcaneyedo]

I wanted some decent pictures of the clams so I dug out my scuba camera for some top down underwater pictures. Out of the 100 these turned out okay. The Maxima was from J&L's Tahiti shipment last fall. While I was at it I caught the tomato clown trying to asexually reproduce again.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_3458.jpghttp://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_3461.jpg
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_3454.jpg
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_3483.jpg

[skabooya]

Nice shots. Love the clams. And poor clown. lol.
PS, do you need anymore shipping coolers?

[whatcaneyedo]

I've got a decent stash of coolers right now but I'm always willing to take more if they're available.

[milano07]

Do you still have the Elegance coral? I don't see it in the last pics that you posted.

[whatcaneyedo]

Yes I do actually. The butterfly fish started picking on it after a month or so in the display tank so I had to move that piece down to my frag trough. I have two of the three frags of elegance that I cut from my original colony. I sold the third piece which died shortly after in its new owners tank but that was a year ago. Its still not an easy coral to keep but I have had it for over two years at this point. I also had to build this cage around it and a few other coral because I've got a powder blue tang in my frag trough that also likes to nip at coral.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_3466.jpg

[Coralgurl]

I just went through your entire thread and your tank is stunning! I'm debating lion fish and eels and this thread is both inspiring and informative. Do you still have the Fu man chu?

[whatcaneyedo]

Yes I still have the fu manchu as well. Its been very rewarding being able to keep a fish that so often doesn't do well in captivity and isn't commonly kept. The LFS that I bought it from had already weaned it onto frozen food so getting it established in my tank was actually pretty easy. If you do decide to keep lion fish and eels do note that you probably won't be able to keep crabs or shrimp and you definitely won't be able to keep small fish.

[whatcaneyedo]

I had a problem recently with my OM 4 Way. The internal magnet wore through its plastic cover and bore a hole in the lid of the unit causing it to leak onto the floor for a few days. Once I discovered this I emailed OM in a panic and they promptly shipped me some replacement parts one week later for a nominal fee. It took over two weeks from the initial discovery until I was able to fix the unit. Moral of the story: keep an inventory of spare parts for everything.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_9360.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_9359.jpg

Apart from that minor headache things have been doing relatively well.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_9365.jpg

I moved a few pieces around recently but for the most part I'm just letting things grow.

[whatcaneyedo]

Nothing much has happened with my tank in a while so I haven't bothered to post anything here. But now I've got a big change, we've purchased our first home and today is the day I move the tank. :redface: More pictures to follow.

Here is my most recent picture.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/FTS2013_zps40545187.jpg

[lastlight]

how many people has that clown eaten? tank looks great good luck with the move!

[SanguinesDream]

Nothing much has happened with my tank in a while so I haven't bothered to post anything here. But now I've got a big change, we've purchased our first home and today is the day I move the tank. :redface: More pictures to follow.

Here is my most recent picture.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/FTS2013_zps40545187.jpg

Russell, if for some reason any of those sps break or you discover that you no longer have room for any of your corals, I'd be more than happy to take them off of your hands.

But seriously, good luck with the move.

[albert_dao]

How did I miss this? This tank is simply fabulous. Absolutely great work!

[asylumdown]

Wow, this tank is stunning. Fingers crossed for a quick and painless move!

[Cubeman]

Hope the move went well - that would be a busy day.

[fishoholic]

Very nice, I hope the move goes well. FYI use new sand, not worth crashing your tank trying to use any of the old sand.

Yes I still have the fu manchu as well. Its been very rewarding being able to keep a fish that so often doesn't do well in captivity and isn't commonly kept. The LFS that I bought it from had already weaned it onto frozen food so getting it established in my tank was actually pretty easy. If you do decide to keep lion fish and eels do note that you probably won't be able to keep crabs or shrimp and you definitely won't be able to keep small fish.

I love fu manchu's I've had mine for 3 yrs now and he was trained on frozen at the lfs before I bought him.

[daplatapus]

I love fu manchu's I've had mine for 3 yrs now.

Uhmmmm, I thought you were a lady..... :kev: :twised:

[zum14]

Have you slept yet?

[fishoholic]

Uhmmmm, I thought you were a lady..... :kev: :twised:

:pound: I am, I meant this guy :wink: :lol:

http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii53/Laurie_Morin/Nikon%203100/1df99486-338f-4d46-9f5a-e2c40e97df47_zpscdf6289c.jpg (http://s261.photobucket.com/user/Laurie_Morin/media/Nikon%203100/1df99486-338f-4d46-9f5a-e2c40e97df47_zpscdf6289c.jpg.html)

[whatcaneyedo]

I got to bed at 4am... I'm just hanging the lights now after spending most of the morning trying to get the Apex to work on our new home network. This evening I'll hook up the Ca Reactor and all of that other crap except for the RO/DI which might require some crawling around under the house... Most of the big coral got pretty broken up. I'll post some pictures when everything is running as it should once again.

[Nuttyreefer]

Look good I wish my tank look like that

[zum14]

Later then I figured. I had guessed round 2. Were you able to get the tank positioned the way you wanted?

[whatcaneyedo]

The tank is in a good location for now but it looks pretty crappy compared to the before picture. I decided to shuffle most of the rocks around but I wanted to keep the coral in their old locations so I had to bust up almost everything. I'll take a picture once I get around to cleaning the glass.

But here is a bucket of horn coral for now. Who wants frags?
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Image-3_zps2125be8a.jpg

[fishoholic]

That sucks that you had to break everything up and that you were up so late moving it. :sad:

[whatcaneyedo]

Here is how the tank looks now with smaller colonies and the tangs in differen't places. The powder blue is now in my display and the purple is down in the 140gal stock trough frag sump. They seem to be much happier this way and I'm enjoying the change up as well. I also took advantage of the move to remove most of the green zoanthids and a lot of pink pocillopora. The sand is also new. I didn't like how my old fine sand was chronically growing cyano so I dumped it all into the stock trough and filled the display with some crushed coral.

Unfortunately I lost two fish during the move. My 8+ year old snowflake moray which had a tumour growing just behind its head died a few days after. And the ornate wrasse that had lived in the stock trough for several years found a small gap in the netting on top to jump through. I don't know if I want to bother with another carpet surfing wrasse but I am thinking of starting over with a smaller variety of moray like a golden dwarf.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_0080_zps696dc9f3.jpg

[whatcaneyedo]

It has been a few months since the move and now that winter has set in I've finally begun on the in-wall conversion that I've been wanting to do for nearly a decade.

It may not look like much yet but I have already spent many hours working on this project. Crawling through 30' of the attic was very time consuming and simply working around a running system has me moving in slow motion so as not to trip over anything.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Image3_zps42df1316.jpg

But my attic adventure paid off and now I have a ceiling exhaust fan and a second circuit to run the tank on. I've wired the fan to a humidity censor so hopefully it manages itself.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Image1_zps199c6b9f.jpg

Framing has also been a big challenge as this room has in floor heating so I can't drive any fasteners into the concrete. Also, the exterior walls have 2" of ridged insulation behind the drywall so my stud finder is useless and I have to use 6" lag bolts to hit anything.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Image2_zps31d12c74.jpg

But it is coming together slowly. I'm deliberately framing around the tank to allow me to easily remove some of the wall at a later date if/when I scratch the money together for an upgrade. 5'x3'x2' is what I'd really like to have but its not at the top of my priority list right now.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Image_zps663dea9d.jpg

As I make more progress I'll post some more pictures.

[skabooya]

oooo looking good. :)

[zum14]

Very cool dude. If you need a hand with some heavy lifting I'm always available.

[whatcaneyedo]

All framed up, hopefully I'll get it drywalled this weekend.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Image4_zps1aff6340.jpg

[Madreefer]

Looks awesome. Wish I had the option of doing an inwall.

[whatcaneyedo]

Looks awesome. Wish I had the option of doing an inwall.

Why not finish your basement and build an in wall down there?

[Leah]

No temptation to go BIGGER?

[zhasan]

Very nice!

I've always liked the built-in look. I really like the little room you get with this build.. keeps everything together and a clutter free look for the tank!

[Reefer Rob]

Tat would have looked much better as a 48" or 60" cube! What, it's only money :mrgreen:

[Reef Pilot]

Had this discussion on another thread. But how are you going to clean the glass and see what you are doing when arranging rocks and corals on the viewing side with the wall coming down to the tank top?

[whatcaneyedo]

Leah, a few posts back I mention that I've framed the wall so that there are two removable sections so that the rough opening can accommodate a 5'x3'x2' tank later… when I can afford it.

Reef Pilot, I clean the glass with a Magfloat. If you haven't heard of them they are the best thing you'll ever buy for your tank. So far I can still reach the front of the tank from the back and with the return pump shut off I can view it all from the top down.

[Reef Pilot]

Reef Pilot, I clean the glass with a Magfloat. If you haven't heard of them they are the best thing you'll ever buy for your tank. So far I can still reach the front of the tank from the back and with the return pump shut off I can view it all from the top down.
Haha,... yeah, I know what a mag float cleaner is, and use one every couple days. I was thinking of more serious cleaning, like coralline algae, or even your rock and sand on that side. And arranging your corals and rock.

Maybe you have more room than I do, but I even break corals accidentally when I can see what I am doing...

Anyway, should look good as an in-wall. Good luck.

[whatcaneyedo]

There is an attachment for the magfloats that allow you to add a razor blade to them. It does a terrific job removing coraline if used regularly (once a month in my case) http://www.jlaquatics.com/product/cl-mrzebl/Easy+Blade+Scraper+Attachment+for+Cleaning+Magnets .html

I don't do anything to clean the rock or sand.

This is the same tank that I've had since 2006 so I really don't move things around much anymore. But if reaching through the back becomes too much of a nuisance later I can always cut an opening in the front and make up some doors.

[whatcaneyedo]

I'll hang a new background on clips for easy removal later but here is a FTS for now. There are fish in there somewhere… powder blue tang, tomato clown, fu man chu lion fish, copper banded butterfly and a new snowflake moray. The purple tang is in the frag trough with a tail spot blenny.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_0223_zpse0b02886.jpg

[BlueTang<3]

Looks good, make sure not to cheap out like I did and buy the dust free drywall mud. Tank looks very clean, what kind of a top do you have on there with the eel?

[whatcaneyedo]

No top. I had the previous snowflake for 8 years until it developed a big lump/tumour and died last spring. In that time it never jumped or showed interest in escaping so I've got my fingers crossed that this new one will be the same.

I'll be sure to buy the better mud but I probably won't tape/mud the inside of the room anyways. I might just insulate and poly it for sound dampening and to protect the insulation from getting wet.

[BackPackHunter]

Just read this whole thread
Very nice set up.
Following along

[whatcaneyedo]

I had to do a little equipment shuffling and re-plumb the overflow to make everything fit a bit better. But I got the board up so things are looking a lot better from the outside at least.

I'm going to need to use a different de-humidistat though. The DewStop sensor doesn't kick in and turn the exhaust fan on until the room reaches 80% which is okay for a bathroom but too high for the tank room. It has been up near 30 degrees Celsius and 60% humidity in there all of the time so I'm going to install an adjustable sensor to run more often.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Image3_zpsacaaf6df.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Image2_zps0ba35b76.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Image_zps2a471cf3.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Image1_zpsc0ef6b0a.jpg

[Delphinus]

Looks awesome!

I have my inwall setup the same way, front and right side viewable. It's a nice blend between the clean inwall look and the additional viewing angles that multisided gives you.

There are times I wish I had given myself cabinet door access on the front. Would have made for easier target feeding my LPS and 'nems (although I make do with the access from the tank room so it's not a huge loss). At the beginning I really wanted a quiet tank and I figured cabinet doors would let equipment noise escape into the living area. Having switched to LED's my cooling fans have never turned on once though so the irony is I keep my tank room door open all the time anyhow. :lol:

Still though I think the inwall look has this "public aquarium" look. It's a nice separation: from the front it's all about viewing the animals; from the tank room it's all about running the system.

What is the black thing on the floor next to your skimmer waste collector?

[Madreefer]

Do you think your going to need a chiller for the summer months? Or you going to give LEDs a go? Hard to tell in the pic but did you use that gyproc that's moisture resistant? There's huge chunks of gyproc falling in to NEs tank. Been like that for over a year and they still won't fix it.

[whatcaneyedo]

Yes I used green board because despite my best efforts I always splash a little water around. I have the ability to run the ceiling fan constantly now that I've installed a regular de-humidistat (not pictured) and there is a window right beside the tank room doorway so I should be okay in the summer. I don't remember, does NE have any active venting for their tank room?

The thing on the floor is the protective cap for the CO2 tank.

The quick part is done. I'll post some new pictures once I've finished off the area and hung the door… or pictures from the PG Tank Tour. Whichever comes first.

[Madreefer]

I don't remember, does NE have any active venting for their tank room?



Yes but it was installed way too late. They are in need of someone to replace the wall, as well as put in access to the front of the tank. If your interested I'll talk to them. Your usually off this time of year are you not?

[whatcaneyedo]

I'm still working steady, probably until the end of February. Plus I've got my own walls to complete.

[gregzz4]

Coming along very nicely
Keep the pics comin'

[whatcaneyedo]

Done for the moment. I used the same paint as the previous owner to finish off the walls and trim of the room but I think we'll be changing the colour scheme later. On the inside the walls are also insulated with Roxul so its very quiet in front of the tank for the first time in nearly a decade. The camera doesn't want to show that the trim around the tank is actually oak stained dark red so here is a closeup.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_0260_zpseeaf5d8e.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_0266_zps594fd831.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_0267_zpsbce71a96.jpg

The room is always too warm and the humidity keeps the exhaust fan running almost constantly so I decided to retrofit this fresh air intake. Its too cold outside right now to caulk the exterior portion but I'm quite pleased with how well it works.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Image_zpscf78765e.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Image1_zps73cb503b.jpg

[BlueTang<3]

Good Job

[whatcaneyedo]

Here are two more pictures to show the tank room insulation. I've also repainted the trim and replaced the curtains for a new colour scheme. That blue was driving me nuts.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Image_zps109b1c2e.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Image1_zps4d1c896a.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_0340_zpscb776fc9.jpg

For the first time since 2007 I actually want to show off the room as well as the tank. This was its former home.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture183.jpg

[gregzz4]

That's a room I'd be proud of :smile:

Where'd you get the posters ? Magazines ?

[whatcaneyedo]

The posters came from Ottawa Inverts but they are no longer a retailer. Its the Illustrated Guide set by Anthony Calfo and Robert Fenner. Marine Depot says they've been discontinued so I guess they're a collectors item now.

[Dez]

I love it!

[pgtanks]

looks really good Russell, are you gonna put up anything like poly on the inside of the room or keep the insulation bare?

[kien]

wow, that turned out wicked and really suits that space well! Excellent work!

[whatcaneyedo]

As long as I don't get the insulation wet it will be okay without any covering. It would be pretty tough to do now with all of the electronics in the way but I still might do it at some point.

[lastlight]

looks classy great work! gotta say i did like the mancave look too though. those posters are sweet.

[whatcaneyedo]

Today we finished off the rest of the viewing area of the tank room. We found this cool leather set used on Craigslist so now there is something worthy of the tank to sit in. The bar and bookshelf were also purchased from Craigslist/Kijiji.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_0404_zps08a96045.jpg

[Rice Reef]

Amazing!

[zhasan]

Awesome looking setup and observation area!!

[whatcaneyedo]

I just came home to a dead Copperbanded Butterflyfish tonight. I've had it since the fall of 2008... it was always a very active fish and ate readily 3 times every day. These pictures were taken just last week. I have no idea why it died but I've since done a water change and placed some fresh carbon in the reactor. The last new additions to the tank were a Flame Angel and a Mandarin Dragonet back in the spring (June I think).

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_1065_zps08034159.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_0850_zpsf0414aa0.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_0838_zpsdacbe321.jpg

[Doug]

Aw. That sucks. Sorry

[asylumdown]

I suspect something had been going on with that CBB for a while as he was very underweight. You can see how he the curve of his body below and behind the gill flap and above his eyes are concave, so he had probably been wasting for a while, likely so slowly you didn't notice. He might have had gut parasites, or some other conditions that made it hard for him to absorb his food.

In any case I'm sorry you lost him. I had mine for a year when he mysteriously died of what I can only describe of the fish equivalent of lung cancer. An entire gill was replaced by some sort of tumour over the course of weeks, then one morning he was just dead, after behaving perfectly normally the night before. They're fickle animals.

[whatcaneyedo]

You're probably right. The dorsal and tail fins were also a little bit ragged looking compared to normal which I had noticed. Like most people I purchased the CBB for aptasia control. With any luck after 6 years that crap won't come back and I won't feel inclined to purchase another.

This 3-4 year old powder blue tang is my next typically delicate fish and it still looks relatively round so I've got my figures crossed that this was an isolated incident. As a precaution I'm going to start adding garlic extract to their food again. The CBB only cared for Mysis and whatever worms etc that grew within the tank but the tang also eats pellets and nori daily.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/IMG_0836_zps79189729.jpg