Been a Long Time

[Weatherman]

It has been a long time since I've shared any pictures of my tanks. I don't fiddle around with them much. I just let the coral and fish grow.

My 120 will be three years old in January. Here's what it looked like shortly after it was set up:




Here we are this evening (anyone want some Xenia?):




I think I've commented before that the Pocillopora in the center of the tank has been (and continues to be) very prolific in producing babies. About two years ago I saw this on the cuttingboard:



Here's the same coral today:

[crvz]

Boy, that tank has been left to its own devices, huh? Looks great!

[Weatherman]

How about some pocillopora growing on eductors (I didn't put them there, they attached themselves):

[Weatherman]

Originally Posted by crvz

Boy, that tank has been left to its own devices, huh? Looks great!

About the only thing I do with it is try to keep the front glass clean, and keep the Tunze Stream clean. I, occasonally, suck out a few Xenia, just to keep them from taking over. Otherwise it's just routine water changes, cleaning the skimmer, and replacing a bag of carbon every month. Light bulbs get replaced once a year.

I use a combination of kalkwasser and a calcium reactor to maintain calcium and alk.

[King-Kong]

weatherman! clean that glass, man! haha..

I think you need to grab yourself a razorblade, a filter sock, and a bucket of vinegar, and clean up some of that dirty equipment

If money is too tight to afford razorblades and vinegar, sell some xenia!!

[Weatherman]

I guess “meticulously-tended-garden” has a bit more universal appeal.

That’s ok. I like meticulously-tended-gardens”, too. However, that wasn’t my objective in setting up my tanks.

As long as the electrical and mechanical systems are maintained in good working order, and as long as the water quality is maintained, and as long as I can see through the front glass, I don’t feel any strong desire to manipulate the environment. I’d rather see what the animals do if left to their own devices. I provide them with food, of course. And if the snail population needs to be replenished to keep algae under control, I do that. I also trim back invasive species (like the Xenia) to prevent them from dominating the tank. But that’s all.

How many people do you know have a tank that is so stable for so long that they have hard coral growing on the sides of the tank and on plumbing fixtures (coral they didn’t mount there themselves)? Not many, would be my guess. That little detail is the kind of thing that appeals to me.

Bare-bottom tanks have often been criticized as being “sterile”. They don’t have to be. That’s one of the nice things about them. They are flexible enough to work in just about any way you wish.

[gwaco]

ummmm , jack , i think you have an xenia problem !
boy it sure has matured over the years ! i remember pic one from the old days !

[Weatherman]

Fortunately, I like Xenia. I just kind of pulses and waves at you.

It didn't really start growing until I got rid of the Bullet-3 skimmer and replaced it with a little Euro-Reef. In fact, everything seemed to have done a lot better with a little more DOC in the water.

Here's a closeup of the right side of the tank. Lots of Xenia, Pocillopora and Halimeda with a Crocea and a Monti thrown in for good measure. The red color on the rocks in the upper left is a fuzzy red algae that my Foxface and Virgatus rabbit keep cropped very close.

[uhuru]

I love your rock choice (and layout) here is mine, very similar huh?



Yours is definitely a unique BB tank I love how you let it mature on its own like that.

[Loverotties]

Wow !What a setup!

[Wiskey]

Very nice Weatherman! I quite like it I kinda let my 50G tank go the same way, I really don't touch it much, and I just let the coral grow and mature as they wish, except for fragging things out of it for newcomers to the hobby that could use some help getting started (it's a softie tank).

Until the big Kalk crash it was a really filled in tank with some huge coral,.. now it's not as much, but it's working on getting back there

Great work! Thanks for putting up the pics for us.
Whiskey

[motorslave]

Dang, thats awesome. Very cool how it has evolved and the pocillapora is killer! You dont see that much. Great tank!

[Twitterbait]

totally awesome man! you don't need a perfect tank without algae, just a well tended setup which you have. i love the randome coral growing wherever it landed, looks great. whatever your doing keep it up.

[Weatherman]

What's interesting is that, about a year ago, I was considering tearing the tank down because I was having so much trouble keeping some of the coral alive (the pocillopora were bulletproof, but not much else).

For whatever reason, the key for this particular tank was to cut back on the skimming and to use carbon all the time.

I'll take some pictures of my 180 this weekend to show my three, huge BTAs. After two and a half years, not one of the three have split, but at least one has spawned. I haven't done hardly anyting to that tank since I removed the sand in April 2005.

[Wiskey]

Cool Deal! I'll be checking back for the pics of the 180

Whiskey