Coleus's 155 bowfront tank. HRV installed and new mixing station
 

Ok, where should i start? Just want to make a thread to share some of my frustration and happiness of this very stressful saltwater hobby. I want to post something here so maybe someday i can look back and see how much sweat and tear that I have experienced in this hobby.

BE WARNED: that all picts won't be as nice because i suck at taking photo and don't have a good lens. That explains why Kien had to come over and took my babies pictures lol.

Ok, let's start. I started with 92 gallon bowfront with cichlids for couple years. They were very easy to look after. Water change happened once a month. Good old time!
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=1791

Near Xmas 2008 , after re-watching Finding Nemo with my niece, I figured i should start a salt water. So went to one of the big chain LFS and bought myself a 45 bowfront tank (just a big fan of bow front tank) with Coralife PC light, rena xp, etcc because at that time I did not do any research and just listened to whatever person worked there told me. Bought live rocks and some "magic" chemical to help the water cycle faster. Got myself right 2 nemos right away :-). At that time, I thought to myself "wow salt water is not that expensive".

Then started to add some coral and fish starting 2009
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=1792

and then more live rock, the more the better right?

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=1793

I was pretty happy with 2 nemos, one dory, and urchin, two shrimps and some lps back then because babies were on the way I did not want to over killed my bank account.

Then my saltwater hobby took to another turn when my co-worker told me to visit CANREEF.

OMFG, since the day i joined, i started stocking more corals and fishes until i ran out of space and then The Unpreventable thing happened: TIME TO UPGRADE (does it sound familiar to anyone?)

Found a used 155 bowfront tank, and here it started
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=4290

Fast forward to Oct 2009
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=1987

Then decided to remove the sand
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=2216

And then disaster happened when i overdosed my vodka, most of my coral died or brow out.

Then babies came and got no time for tank so sold most of my corals and left with fishes and some easy LPS. Add couple coral/fish here and there.

And now full again
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=4280
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=4288

Feeding time
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=4276

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=4270

And some other shots on my suppose QT tank
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=4266
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=4271

Here is my last fish i added 5 months ago and turn out he is a vegetarian.
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=4279


Hopefully, in couple months i will able to compare with new pictures to see the growth of my tank

Well it's about time Tai, still really love those Duncans dude. I have seen your tank at it best and worst but it always looks great.

Ps your photos are really good as far as I am concerned, not all of us are pros at it especially me. :biggrin:

Wow a rock beauty! He looks nice and healthy. How's that? any tips?

he was very healthy when i picked him up and i really don't do anything special.

I give him food with selcon once a week and Ocean Nutrient pellets every day.



Thanks Greg

how much vodka did you put in to overdose?

For someone who sells enough equipment to start 10 reef tanks it's nice to see your pride and joy finally =) Looks nice and your photos got better too. What did you notice (good or bad) after you removed your sandbed?

Can't remmember but after 2 weeks of vodka dosing, my lps started dying so i stopped and things were back to normal


I prefer bare bottom because it is much easier to clean and suck out the debris. Also, if my coral got knock over and sink to the bottom, it won't likely die by the time i come to rescue. Also over time, the sand started to look dirty and as i read you need to replace every 4-5 years which I found too much work. However, i still have a DSB in my refugium

Digging the gorgonian. :cool: How long have you had it and what are you feeding it?

Can't remmember but after 2 weeks of vodka dosing, my lps started dying so i stopped and things were back to normal


I prefer bare bottom because it is much easier to clean and suck out the debris. Also, if my coral got knock over and sink to the bottom, it won't likely die by the time i come to rescue. Also over time, the sand started to look dirty and as i read you need to replace every 4-5 years which I found too much work. However, i still have a DSB in my refugium

I have 4 gorgonians, the brown one i got it last summer i think and it is very slow growing. The purple one just recently got it from JL with Kien. The blue one and red one i got from gold couple weeks ago. I tried to target feed them with reef roids.

Nice tank Tai, although it doesn't look like a 29 cube?! :smile:

Considering the vodka overdose - are you running pellets on this tank now?

I have been running pellets for more than a year now and i have no issue with it

so nice Tai

:redface: Thanks John

bout time! I like your tank, it looks very peaceful :)

Thanks Kien. Peaceful :-) yeah for now

This guy should win the longest poop award

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=4327

You might have internal parasites, poop shouldn't be white. (I could be wrong thou.)

i dont know if it is internal parasites or not but i took this picture almost a year ago.

tank looks good Tai.......if you still have the fish, then I would say it was just a good duece:biggrin:

Yeah he is still kicking last time i checked :-). Thanks Doug

Updated: Almost got a disaster this morning.

I Got up this morning and checked the tanks. My RSM 130 had no water movement because i forgot to turn off the switch last night after feeding my coral. Fortunately, everything is still alive because of my temporary tunze skimmer was running inside the tank.

Then noticed the water in my main tank was hitting the top screen. Checked the overflow and saw one is jammed :-( Thus my ATO filled all fresh water from top off bucket. Fortunately, it is only 5 gallon so it ran out of water to fill otherwise i would have a wet floor and wife would be mad.

Now I installed a float switch in my overflow to detect if it jammed again, it will shut off the return pump.

Again, 2 lessons learned from this

1) Never have a big reservoir top off water
2) Must have float switch to detect when an overflow occur.

WHOW, that would not have been good the little misses would have kick you a$$ for sure if the floor got wet. One of the reasons I have been thinking of having my top off manual operation from my well room or just put in a couple electric silenoids in the line.

ya thats a good lesson.....my Girly has been using a 20g rubbermaid bin for her top up(probably 15 gallons when full) and asked me to swap in a 50g tank that she had bought.....I pointed out that if anything went wrong she would then have 50 gallons of fresh water in the system......she decided to stick with the rubbermaid.....I say never have a reservoir big enough to flood your sump or cause to much of a salinity drop to cause issues with the tank...

What kind of an overflow are you running?

i got no idea what they are, i will take some picture tomorrow. But they are lamed

couple new shots

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=4362

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=4361

also here is my frustration on caps of hanna phosphate kit. Why can't they make them screw caps?

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=4363

tank is looking good. I dont have a problem with the caps but hate the fact that it times out so fat you add the mix then are rushing to shake it and get it in before it times out.

yes i hate that too, i lost my first test because of follow the instruction exactly.

So, next round, i used both vials, one for tank water and one for tankwater + reagents

I'm loving that Gorg! And your Hanna caps look just like mine. :lol: PITA!

Thanks.


Anyone know if that Gorg is Photosynthetics?

Coloured polyps, so it's non-photosynthetic..

Hmm, it does not seem react to my spot feeding at all :-(

What I found with gorgonians, and this applies to photosynthetic gorgonians as well since they still will eat, that particle size is extremely important and that what works for one won't trigger much of a response in another. So try different things until you find the magic food that works. Reef chili, Reef Roids, Acan+, Cyclops-eeze, rotifers, maybe even oyster eggs if the polyps are very small. If you have time and energy maybe try baby brine shrimp.

The most success I've seen with NPS gorgonians (actually for any NPS coral) tends to involve clever DIY strategies for continuous feeding. Things like taking a kalkwasser reactor but instead of using kalk, just feed it tank water and then load it up with the food items of choice (eg. cyclops or whatever) and then mixing all day and dripping the food-laden water into the display tank 24/7 or on some intervals scattered throughout the day.

In some cases I've seen people go way crazy and have a little fridge unit that the food can be stored in so it won't spoil over the course of the day. Or others using fridges and syringe pumps preloaded with mysis or something. Really neat to see ideas folks come up with. :lol:

Thanks Tony, I have tried Reef chili, Reef Roids, Acan+, Cyclops-eeze but not others, will try them out.

Alright, have not had lots of time lately to enjoy the tank and taking shots but saw my blue linkia are on the front glass so took out camera and snap snap

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=4449

This tank looks absolutely amazing in person. I'm still shocked at how large your BTA is. Great job. :razz:

Thanks Donny.


Here is the new addition of the tank. Thanks to fishytime :-). The first clam in my main tank.

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=4450

So today, I am getting bored of SPS already and start missing all my LPS. I still have some LPS but not much and they seems to do well in the corner of my tank where i don't really see them. I am missing the waiving actions. Anyway, took some pictures and see how well my sps is growing since Mar. Here are some comparison photo, please ignore the size because i am moving some of them and my camera focus is not at the same distance so they are not 100% correct but you probably see new growth. Now this make me get excited about SPS again lol


http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=4454

This one recovers nicely from a little bleaching when i first got it
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=4455

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=4451

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=4452

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=4453


Cheers