Rishu's Really Ridiculous Reef: a 96x20x20 penny tank build

[rishu_pepper]

Lights will be coming up after aquascaping. It's still happening at the moment, and also coral migration.

[rishu_pepper]

Lights up, corals in:

[hondas3000]

so nice, guess new always is better. That long shape sure have lots of floor space for you to add coral.

[Wretch]

Beautiful

[.bubbles]

Random stuff about our aquascaping/pics posted/corals :

For anyone that's been following along, clearly you'll notice that my original aquascape model went out the window. I knew it was from the beginning but it was something to do while we waited for the tank.

Even though the rock work is very different, the model was helpful for wrapping our heads around coral placement. We had so many cool rocks to use, but they're so unpredictable in how they fit together and how stable (or not) they are, we had to wing-it. For the first hour I experimented with fiji crete...and then I gave up.

I'm sure I did something wrong...but the fiji crete didn't work for me at all. We couldn't assemble the rocks out of water for fear of die-off. But as soon as the crete touched water it dissolved. From our google searches it seemed that other reefers found that it worked fine even in water. But no matter what consistency I mixed it to or how many minutes I waited, it would hit water and start dissolving and make a cloudy mess. We got one piece to halfway stick but whilst fitting the structures together, it got knocked loose. Soooo yeah fiji crete did not want to be my friend

Anyway.

Aquascape plan was roughly to fulfill these points:
- rule of thirds
- negative space to balance out rockwork
- have varying height and make sure the entrance corals/rocks allow for background corals to peek through
- set foundation bearing in mind corals will fill in space
- lots of hidey-holes for fish
- prepare specific sections with corals in mind (a shaded area for brains, easy to reach/feed area for dendro colonies, area with porous rock for zoa frags etc.)

I found it to be quite a challenge aquascaping a penny tank. Every little section I have to climb up and down the stepladder and go to each side to check. Brian tried holding up a front facing camera and a mirror for me - both options were useless.

It was about a 3-day process to get the tank to look how it does now. Day 1, Throw the plan out the window. Sort through the rock and improvise the foundation. Day 2, fill with sand and wait for it to settle. Fit in the corals we have in our care. Day 3, add in corals kind reefers have been taking care of for us and fit those in.

The white tonga branches look a little jarring at the moment, but they're great pieces...just have to have patience while it colours up. I don't know if I am entirely satisfied with the aquascaping at the moment...I guess it is one of those things that is a constant work in progress - until we stop buying coral (yeah right). Does anyone have any notes or tips they think I could improve on our current aquascape?


We picked up a bright 5" RBTA for our entrance side 'show piece'. But the darn bugger keeps moving around because we don't have enough flow reaching that end of the tank. (We're looking into getting a gyre to solve the issue. It isn't ideal to have a powerhead at the front...but at least the gyre is a bit more discreet than the traditional.) Hopefully it'll eventually settle down. As you see in the pics posted by Brian, it is currently hosting a porcelain crab. I'm hoping once the tank is ready for fish, we can find a pair of black clowns. It would make quite a dramatic contrast against the RBTA.

Our euphyllia looks a little sad in the pics. Haven't fully extended yet, still adjusting I suppose. But even so, the wall hammer is looking pretty darn good

I'm pretty excited about our little zoa garden..can't wait for them to start growing off their plugs and cover the LR

As we don't have any fish in the tank we've been observing our inverts explore the new tank and it's quite interesting actually. We have the standard hermit crab and snail clean up crew. We also have a cleaner shrimp, 3 peppermints, a fire shrimp, aforementioned porcelain crab, 3 tiger stripped serpent sea stars, a crap ton of brittle stars hiding in the rocks everywhere, 1 anemone shrimp and 1 pistol shrimp. Our anemone shrimp is really strange...despite having 3 anemones in the tank, it has taken to swimming laps around the tank rather than hang out with any of the anems. We've had it for a little under 6 months and it has never been interested in anems for some reason. The pistol shrimp also did something strange tonight, it was also doing laps around the tank. It has been very shy for the entire 3 months we've had it and everything I've read about them says that they tend to stay safely around their burrow. I guess ours decided to be a rebel.

In general, I'm the more rational/practical one and I do the nagging to keep us in check. But I think I'm losing my grip and may need an intervention as it is 3am now and I am posting about our tank.

oi vey.

[canadianbudz604]

Looking really good.

[rishu_pepper]

Originally Posted by canadianbudz604

Looking really good.

Thanks Jesse, especially for the macro and xenia! Let me know when you're in the area and I'll share you some of the mushrooms.

[albert_dao]

This is off to a great start you two

[jason604]

Very nice clean look. Mybe get 1 more radion?

[rishu_pepper]

Things to note:

- right now the skimmer is OFF due to the lack of bioload (goes wild and overflows after a few hours), think it'll be okay to run it skimmerless for 72 days, with just regular WCs?
- waiting to buy a Gyre for the other end of the tank, will be scouring the B&S for now, not in a hurry
- refugium is filled with LR and some chaeto/red macro
- still need to set up the Apex/ATO, thinking of DIYing a cabinet for the electronics next weekend
- for now, will hold off on a doser until at least after 72, and probably wait for next frag swap which is our next milestone date for adding SPS
- need to DIY a mesh top eventually for jumpers
- RBTA is walking like stupid far lol. It's hosting a porcelain crab we got at OC yesterday
- had to remove a hermit crab because it was attacking snails and rampaging over the zoas
- moved down the torch and it seems much happier
- happy with the aquascape/coral placement, just need the tonga branches to colour up and it'll look good

Originally Posted by albert_dao

This is off to a great start you two

Thanks bud, especially thank you for holding our corals. The wall hammer is an amazing piece.

Originally Posted by jason604

Very nice clean look. Mybe get 1 more radion?

Have them about 12" AWL and no shadowing atm, so will probably be fine.