Tylers ~30 gal system build.

[zum14]

Another pic of the coral goby. The picture doesnt do the monti justice, I dont know how to take a nice pic, its actually quite blue with close to red polyps.





Ive started a frag tank as well, now I know this may not be as fancy as other peoples on here and its not ideal but I really need a tank to put the cuttings and pieces that break off. Having a small tank really makes a person keep up on fragging. Anywho here it is, again nothing fancy, took a closet and "customized" it.






The tank on the right is cycling a rock thats the last piece for my display, the one on the left, i know ghetto right?, is the frag tank. Have an aqua clear 30 with liverock rubble and carbon, and the aquac remora skimmer. Still need to put the overflow box on it though. Microbubble city. Im going to hopefully frag tomorrow night to let the frags heal up for the rest of the month and maybe bring a few to our local tank tour. We will see how things go.



Needs to get mowed!

[zum14]

So last night was a busy one for me. Few new things for the tank. Picked up a Bubble Magus NAC-QQ thanks to a good deal from lorenz0. Sooooo much better. Took nothing to dial it in and its skimming away. An ASM G3 on a 35 gal tank with some coral and a small goby may have been a little excessive. It was too hard to get it dialed in to skim anything. Anyways, happy I made the switch and now I have some room in the sump and may try some chaeto or some of the red stuff that has slipped my mind for the moment. Anywho. I also got the last rock into the display as it stopped spewing terrible things into the water and settled down. Its going through a bit of that diatom bloom but should clear. Hermits were busy on it today. New current FTS.










What im having trouble with right now is as you can see in the front theres some algae growing on the rock. Now I feed about 4 small marine pellets a day and the goby swipes 2 of them, so im fairly certain im not overfeeding. I have some GFO in a TLF reactor in the sump and do weekly waterchanges (actually getting good at it as with it being upstairs now im always fiddling or looking for something to just wander about on and mixing water and such is filling this nicely) but still this stuff grows, pretty slowly but im wondering if the rocks got some nutrients in it thats feeding this stuff. Im not sure if growing some in the sump will offset this either. Ill keep pruneing and see what happends. I also busted out my wet tile saw last night. MAN russell was right, this does make a huge mess. I set it up in the basement as it cooled off last night and didnt want to do it outside. I did it in a large rubber tub sump I have laying around. It contained most of the spray. The rest was on me. Went well, stunk a bit but I might of been going too fast for it. The platygyra is still nice and puffy and not spewing anything or sliming bad. The pagoda is not so happy but still not receding or anything.





Frag tank is pretty full now. Things just need some time to heal now. I have a funny feeling im going to be looking for an upgrade on these bulbs soon though. Im not sure anything in the tank is impressed with them either. Otherwise everything appears to be doing well.






I also managed to get a screen top built. Its not clear mesh but its really thin and I dont see any noticeable dim when I put it under the light or even a flicker. I just am happy I can get my firefish now and even though its not 100% I can still sleep better knowing I tried.






Heres a random one of my acan, Im really enjoying watching this one as it keeps getting more and more green in it. Some of the smaller discs are all green.





This one is a rock I picked up from the LFS with some zoas on it. Ive been drooling over them for a while and picked them up.









So thats pretty much it for now. Im starting to think about accent lighting on this thing, I know I know. I really do like the color and am overwhelmed how much things look different and more colorful with a good light but am wondering if a couple t5's of the right color would just make it explode. I have to be careful because I dont want to go pink or blue but we will see.

[zum14]

So I took another pic of the coral goby but when I uploaded it, I looked at the one already in this thread and its basically identical so no reason to repost. Funny though. Anyways new addition today! With the addition of the screen top a lfs(well sort of) had some firefish brought in, I went with the purple firefish this time as I really am impressed with the color. Went for a lengthy acclimation and after about 2 hrs hes already scoping the tank for a better hiding spot then the one he went for when he first got in the tank.







He looks really pink and blue in the pics but hes mostly some nice purples. I cant figure out the white balance on my camera to save my life so.... Ya now we have 2 of 3 fish slated for my tank. Im going to go with a tank bread bengaii I think. There not super active swimmers and one of my favorite fish. That will be it for fish in this tank, maybe one or two more shrimps but no more fish. Ive heard word of a group order to coral master here in the near future so im going to have to start saving my pennies. Looking forward to some nice sps and possible an acan or two. Very excited.

[jon.smolders]

Nice firefish. I really want to get one, but I need to build my screen first. I really want to get some nice zoas like that too. Dang... I need to get out to the LFS... the only problem is the nearest one is an hour away! Nice tank!

[Madreefer]

Looks great Tyler.

[zum14]

Tank update. Ill post the pictures now and fill in later. Needless to say, the separate frag tank idea just didnt work. no nutrients and salinity was almost impossible to keep steady. As you can see I took a page from Whatcaneyedo. Found a sump of nice dimensions, lots more real estate and only 15 gal. Anyways got to run for now. will explain more later.

[zum14]

Some top down pics after building an acrylic box for pics. There still not great but better then the side shots for showing colors.

I still cant get my camera adjusted to show the real blue in this piece but oh well, I know its probably me, Ill keep fiddling.





Heres a some pics of a couple of the platygyra frags I cut a while back, should be ready for sale soon.





Heres the platygyra colony in my tank. Its definitly a slow grower but the green really pops nice.



My two monti caps.





Frag sump is filling nicely.




Going to look into maybe some supplemental light next or possibly a fixture change. Im not really sure yet, Im wondering if my lighting is almost too intense. I have a chalice coral thats recovering in my frag sump as it was bleaching on the bottom of my tank. Im curious if the light was the cause, moved it around in the tank a few times but it was never happy. I guess it could of been something else ****ing it off but my pagoda isnt super happy either compared to the piece in the frag sump and now that Ive pushed my ricordea under a rock ledge its splitting and growing, otherwise it was starting to shrink. I had some candy cane coral in the main tank but didnt seem to inflate much in the main tank, looks happier in the sump. Not sure what to make of all of it yet. Part of me is wondering if I should give the reef side up and get a nice large tank of angels next. There my favorite fish and are one of the main reasons I was drawn to salt. Unfortunately there not reef safe.

[whatcaneyedo]

George is presently looking for a favia so I let him know about your platygyra. If you really want to set up a large angel fish tank... Lonnie is offering his 450gal for a great deal.

[zum14]

Originally Posted by whatcaneyedo

George is presently looking for a favia so I let him know about your platygyra. If you really want to set up a large angel fish tank... Lonnie is offering his 450gal for a great deal.

Sounds good. I thought about lonnies tank but just am not ready for it. Im not saying im going to its just im pretty sure i saw an unfavorable worm a couple of days ago when my frogspawn was receded a bit on one head. I just dont know how to deal with all the crap to have corals as nice as they are. I guess thats the challange. Im sure the feeling will die off. Its also difficult with a small tank, no room for stuff and availability in this town is only going to get worse for fish and coral. I will say i am the happiest i have been with my tank so far, just maybe need that new coral or fish i have been after for a while.