200g display / 400g system build

[Dragonist]

Originally Posted by benny z

hello and thanks!

agreed that a 55 is really quite small for any tang. only tangs i'd keep in a 4-foot tank would be bristletooth tangs, and even then it is smaller than preferred. typically i advise 6-foot or longer tanks for tangs.

you can run a reef tank without a skimmer - many people do. there are thousands of ways to run a system and no one way is right or wrong. personally i feel strong skimming is necessary for the animals i intend to keep, but if you only plan to keep soft corals and the other inverts you've already acquired it will likely be fine without a skimmer. just be sure to keep up on regular water changes and don't over feed.

good luck,
ben

thinking of getting a 1 stalk xenia frag for $5.00 from lps...first one i got died...from reading i think it was due to 0.00 nitrates...going to get another 1 (wife is in love with them)!

[aquawolf]

I have always liked those tangs, but I really like the Rabbit Fish. Thanks for posting the pictures.

[benny z]

thanks - and no problem. i really like the rabbit, too. though from afar he pales in comparison to the other two, when you get close you see the detailed teal lines all over his body and it is very attractive.

my reefkeeper2 failed two days ago and i came home to a tank temp of 74* (after i had just bumped it up to 80* the day before). frantic, i slowly raised the temp back up to 78* over the course of the next 36 hours. turns out it was just a blown fuse, but it was enough to wake me up to the reality that i had placed all my eggs in one basket. i will now be setting up a second rk2 on a different circuit in my fish room to control the 2nd heater and also some eventual lights over my fuge/frag tank.

with the 4 x 250w lighting and 2 x 300w heaters on the rk2, i was theoretically at 13.33 amps. the unit has a capacity of 15 amps, so for now i've staggered the lighting by 1/2 an hour so that they do not all fire at the same time - i think they draw more than the rated wattage at startup. ...so it's possible that if the heaters were both on when all halides fired, that it spiked over 15 amps, blowing the fuse. i have an expansion socket for my rk2, but i will be using that in the summer to control a window air conditioning unit in the fish room based on water temp.

luckily the fish didn't stress any more due to the temp swing (thank god - i was sweating!). ...and, actually, there are now zero white spots on the tangs. they appear to be as healthy as can be. i think you were right about it being stress spots and not ich. it did not look like ich and they were not showing the typical signs of ich stress (striking the rocks, lethargic breathing, lack of appetite, etc). we'll see how it goes over the next few weeks.

[aquawolf]

Sounds great that the white spots are gone. Glad you found and resolved the heater issue before it got any colder than that as well. You are probably right about the heaters being on at the same time that the lights fired and that blew the fuse. Hopefully the stagger system will keep it from happening again, at least as until you get your new controller.

[benny z]

here's a vid.

youtube destroys the quality - it's almost worthless. but whatever.

YouTube - tangsrabbit

the water noise you hear during the first 1/2 of the video is mostly noise from one of my smaller systems in that room. the skimmer on that tank is very loud. you don't hear much noise from the big system out front. but wait til the second half and you get the full experience of the fish room. i don't run the silencers on the beckett skimmer and it is LOUD.

[aquawolf]

The video looks good to me. The fish look very healthy and have plenty of room to grow up in your system.

I am going to have to try playing with the video thing some day as well.

[clownin]

this tank is E-MAZING ha, great job!!!!

[Dragonist]

Originally Posted by benny z

here's a vid.

youtube destroys the quality - it's almost worthless. but whatever.

YouTube - tangsrabbit

the water noise you hear during the first 1/2 of the video is mostly noise from one of my smaller systems in that room. the skimmer on that tank is very loud. you don't hear much noise from the big system out front. but wait til the second half and you get the full experience of the fish room. i don't run the silencers on the beckett skimmer and it is LOUD.

no awesome tangs or rabbitfish...put i have damsels! http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gkbYbhBT1c

[benny z]

i just studied the glass and noticed for the first time that pods are everywhere!

this picture is a random sampling of what's going on - pods on the glass and worms now visible throughout the sand. also note the gas bubbles in the sand - denitrification is happening.



as an experiment, i kept the bottle and macro algae that my pods came in. i had rinsed it really well with tank water a few times after i emptied it to be sure i got all the pods i could. but today i held the bottle up to the window and it is full of pods again. i wonder how long i can keep propagating these pods in the same bottle they were sent to me in, with the same macro algae.

also - today i made three frags to be the intro corals in the tank.

far left we have a red and green blasto, middle is a blue milli, and far right is a frag of gqjeff's famed "chips-but-not-really" acro.

i promise they all look much better in the water.

[aquawolf]

Propagating the pods thing is pretty cool. Let us know how long it lasts. Best of luck with the sacrificial frags, I hope they do well for you.

[Dragonist]

lol complete ignore on my damsels!

[benny z]

Originally Posted by Dragonist

lol complete ignore on my damsels!

your link took me to a page not displayed error.

[Dragonist]

here is the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gkbYbhBT1c

[aquawolf]

The video of the damsels eating was decent as well.

You should probably start a new thread with a link to your video instead of using someone else's build thread though.

[Dragonist]

Originally Posted by aquawolf

The video of the damsels eating was decent as well.

You should probably start a new thread with a link to your video instead of using someone else's build thread though.

Sorry no harm intended...will create my on thread with the vid!