Featured Tank - Fall/Winter 2012 "chris88"

[Delphinus]

For some at least, winter 2012 is fully upon us, so it's time to inject some colour back into our lives!

Our Fall/Winter 2012 Featured Tank is Chris88's Colour Cube of Coral Goodness!

Please click on the picture below to check it out.

Congratulations Chris, and thank you for sharing your system details with us!

http://www.canreef.com/ftotm/nov12/images/thumbs/084.JPG (http://www.canreef.com/ftotm/nov12/index.php)

[kien]

Congrats! That's a sweet looking little tank you got there! Looking forward to reading about it later today.:biggrin:

[christyf5]

Congrats Chris! Great looking tank, it looks very well manicured :biggrin:

[Zoaelite]

Oooo, very nice!!! Congratulations Chris! Two Radion TOTM's in a row, take that AI Sol haha.

To boot its another semi-zoa dominated tank, good choice Tony, again very well deserved Chris!

[Seriak]

Very Nice tank.

[Proteus]

Very nice tank love how simple it is.

[LoJack]

Beautiful Tank. Its so filled out I thought it was a Biocube with a powder blue tang in it lol.

It looks phenomenal, great job!

[chris88]

Thank you all for the kind comments. The tank is still in its adolescence phase but I am happy with it so far. I want to thank Canreef for all of their work. There is a lot of time and effort that goes into setting up a featured tank and I just want to make sure they get their praise to.

[lastlight]

vibrant and spotless setup very nice! sweet touch with the livestock photos on your wall.

[NorthernCoral]

Fort Mac reppin the featured tank atta boy Chris.

[molotov]

That is one nice system

[ashr]

Wow, very very nice tank!! I love it.

Great work:mrgreen:

[mseepman]

Really nice tank Chris...good to see a feature back on here.

[sphelps]

Truly inspirational. Awesome setup Chris!

sweet touch with the livestock photos on your wall.
Agreed, I'm totally stealing that idea :mrgreen:

[Doug]

:clap2:

Congrats Chris. Well deserved featured tank. Nice pics and great write up.

:thumb:

[CherylMcKay]

Really beautiful. Do you have a build thread I can look through?

[redonimask1]

Thank you all for the kind comments. The tank is still in its adolescence phase but I am happy with it so far. I want to thank Canreef for all of their work. There is a lot of time and effort that goes into setting up a featured tank and I just want to make sure they get their praise to.

what size of tank is this? its beautiful

thanks
dave

[Rice Reef]

Congrats, man! I really like your set up!

[chris88]

I do have a build thread. I have an old one somewhere on here for my 50g and a new one for the 93g tank. I am not handy so I didn't really document the actual set up. I am more into the coral gardening aspect of the hobby. If you search threads with my name you will find both of the threads.


Thanks again for all of the kind comments I am just happy to share my approach to the hobby with everyone.

[Chowder]

Congrate Chris! Very nice and clean tank.

Chris88 50 Gallon.
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=68798

Chris88 93 Gallon
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=89618

[reefermadness]

Looks great Chris......cubrific!

[fragbox.ca]

amazing little tank and I love your quote in the signature lol

[new2reef]

Great looking tank.

[Nizzmo]

gorgeous tank, very simple design. love it

[Myka]

Congrats!

[liz]

An inspiration!

[ReefGrrl]

That is a breathtaking reef; I teared up a bit looking at the photos (which are also wonderful).

I'm truly inspired by your story Chris!

I "inherited" a 20 gal saltwater tank from friends in July of 2011, which they had sadly neglected. One clownfish (which I later named Sid Vicious, and which got given to my LFS because he was just plain mean) and a single blue leg hermit crab were the only visible live creatures. Well, other than an infestation of cyano, which I quickly learned was a bad thing.

I decided Sid needed a host, so started doing some research. That's when I learned that the salinity was off the scale. No wonder Sid was so mean. It took three months of careful water changes to get the salinity and other parameters back in hand, and I purchased my first three corals in November of 2011. To make a (very) long story short, the tank is now a reef and has become my passion. Of course the irony is that Sid was the original reason for looking into coral, and I gave him away.

I now have 36 separate specimens of 25 different types of corals. I've probably lost about a dozen other types that I wasn't experienced enough to maintain. The sand and rock are alive with creepy-crawlies, visible both day and night. I have a flame hawkfish (called Neville - I don't normally give my fish names but once in a while it just seems appropriate), a yellow-tail blue damselfish, a cleaner shrimp, a rainford goby, two hector's gobies and a dozen small snails (the tiny ones - nassarius?). There are also some bristleworms which are big enough to have names!

My basic equipment is a NEXX filter augmented 2 days on-2 days off with a cheap coralife skimmer, a hydor rotating attachment on my filter outflow and a Koralia nano powerhead. My phosphates and nitrates are zero and the zero nitrates is probably why I seem to be unable to keep zoas alive so your information about dosing is something I'll look at very carefully. I will also be more disciplined in testing for the various other parameters, because looking at what you've accomplished, it appears to be very worthwhile!

Because of what I've learned, and in order to give things more space to grow (they are starting to touch each other and I can see the effects of it) I feel like I can upsize a bit so I've acquired a 30gal cube. My plan is to slowly transition everything from the 20gal, over the next however-long-it-takes. Right now I'm trying to figure out whether to have a sump/overflow/refugium. We have put wheels/casters with brakes on the new the aquarium stand to allow better access for maintenance, so I may go ahead and have some type of sump since I will now be able to get at it behind the tank location.

So thank you for posting your prior builds on this site - I have lots of helpful reading ahead of me!

-Cindy

[Saltymac]

I met Chris tonight and what a wonderful person he is, almost as nice as his tank...lol only joking Chris.
This tank has changed since this time last year but it is still truly awe inspiring I hope my tank will look like this in years to come. With some guidance from experience people on Canreef and Chris I am sure I will have some success as well as the inevitable hich ups along the way.