[Cleverbs]

I had been planning a large reef tank for months last year i started planning and talking to people on this site about ideas. for a long time i planned on doing a 150g Cube SPS reef after I moved into a house. about 2 months before I moved I came across a 210g 7ft tank and stand from a guy. Turns out that the tank was so badly scratched I couldnt use it. However I had a nice stand so I decided to buy a 220g Tank instead of going with a cube. Also went LPS instead of SPS because I found myself loving LPS corals so much more then SPS over time. So enough of the rambling lets get the pictures out (sorry for low quality Iphone pics)

Lets start from the begging.

Here is the stand when I got it, It had great structure but was in terrible shape so I stripped the thing and took off all the trim and added new trim to it and painted it.

Coated it all in Kilz

You will see if finished painted later

Bought my skimmer and rock for the tank about a month before moving in so I could get it cycling in a trashcan for a while. The skimmer is a Reef Octopus DCS250

Got the tank moved into the house it was a PAIN almost broke it one time and the stand was so long that we had to remove a light fixture to get it down the steps lol

The first time the tank was wet.

Heres with the Live rock in it that had been cycling. I let it run like this for about 3 weeks before I moved the rock and livestock from my 75g that was at my parents house into it.

Put up my lights after I moved everything over. I decided to go with AI Hydras because they looked nice and would give me all the lighting I needed.

heres the tank about a week after adding all the Live rock in

So I was going to keep it BareBottom but just didnt like it that much the tank seemed like it was loosing a lot of depth and color pop from the lack of sand so I did what I swore I would never do again and added sand to the tank. Honestly I love it looks so much better and really brings out the coral. This is the tank as of today. As you will see i have been collecting a lot of coral.

Tank Stock includes
Marine Betta
Yellow Tang
Tomato and Cinnamon Clown
4" Yellow Watchman
Coral Beauty

Equipment
3x AI Hydras
Reef Octopus DCS250
Fluval 300W heater
Dont Remember what the return pump is lol
ReefKeeper Light Plus
2x WP40s
Dual BRS Reactor with carbon and GFO
5g ATO with Kalk dosing in it

 

[chrisfrat]

Looks amazing! Keep us updated!

 

[Katink]

WOW! Great job with the stand man. Looks amazing. I almost bought that sofa! (just thought you would love to know that) :funny:

 

[Shane the Reef Geek]

Looks great!! I'm envious of your location, looks out of the way, quiet, and comfortable.

 

[Modulus]

Awesome tank! :thumbup: I cant wait to see it progress

 

[Cleverbs]

Thinking about buying a dosing pump. Not sure if it will be useful to me however.

 

[Cleverbs]

Just thought I would list the corals I have currently

Tongue Coral
Three Welsos, Metallic Green, Purple with Green Stripes, tri Color with Green Red and Blue
Two Hammers - Purple Tip, and Spattered Hammer with green and blue tips
Lots of Ultra Acans
Galaxia Large one
Toad Stool
Two duncans one is branching the other is more of a cluster
Six Chalices - Aussie stary night, Aussie Big eye, Mars Man, Blood Red, Miami Hurricane, Radical Red Chalice, The radical red is my favorite, it is red with a gold growth rim and has blue streaks that go through the eyes
Frog spawn
Few Brains
Blasto colonie
5 types of zoas
2 Maxi clams one Gold and one Purple with blue dots
Candy Cane
Not sure what the Red Coral is thats on the bottom looks like a doughnut of some kind and it has split into two mouths.
also unsure of another coral that is really cool and maybe one of the coolest shaped corals iv seen, Ill have to get a picture and hope someone can ID it for me.

I added a birds nest last night to start to mix the reef. I just want some simple easy to keep acros in the tank to give some texture and allow me to fill out the top of the rock beings I dont find much for LPS that will thrive on top of my rocks. I will probably use Acans to fill a lot of it however but the birdsnest is a test run

 

[Cleverbs]

Picked up a giant maybe to giant flower cup today from the lfs. It's about 10x12" looks great. I need to find a nice place for it however that won't shade corals and will give it the desired conditions. It's by far my largest coral and I couldn't pass up the deal. It was 80$ and I got a large gsp With it for free. I wanted the gsp to glue to the back wall of the tank so it will incrust the glass. Always liked the way that looked. Not sure how to get it to start growing on the glass iv thought of super glue and maybe putting it on a frag rack against the back wall and letting it attach itself.

 

[chrisfrat]

Be careful with glueing GSP. I glued some to a rock and it never opened back up. Not sure why, but just heads up.

 

[Cleverbs]

Oh I got it for free and I don't want it taking over my rock so I'll run the risk.

 

[TrishW]

I have glued GSP before and had mixed results. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.

I have been thinking of trying to get mine to grow up my overflow columns (I know I will have to keep it trimmed away from the weirs) but with glass it may be harder to get it to attach. Perhaps you could glue some crushed coral pieces to the glass and place the rock of GSP near them. That way it would have something rough to attach to.

 

[Cleverbs]

I put the gsp on a rock that leans up against the glass so we will see what happens. I figure it will be a nice coral to frag and easy to frag off glass. My lfs is always wanting to buy it.

I have been slowly restocking the tank. Iv been really ranking my time this time instead of stocking to quickly. I picked up a blue head fairy wrasse and a malanomas wrasse. I read that the malanomas isn't good with shrimp but is fine with coral. I am not able to have shrimp anyways because of my marine beta that freaks out if I hold a video of shrimp moving up against the glass. It's very funny. They have been doing really well and iv had them a week. I'm thinking I may pick up a rainbow welso today that a guy has for me.

 

[Cleverbs]

Alright here are some more pictures and ill be uploading a video soon. I hate Iphone camara...I really need to invest in a nice camara for this hobby.

I got a new Blond Naso, its about 6-7" long and nice and fat. Im thinking its a male based on how sharp his tail is and the hump on his nose. He has settled in quite well over the last 2 days and is eating like a champ and put the yellow tang in his place really quick.

 

[mahmoud]

looks amazing, nice tank

 

[TrishW]

I love it when my tangs throw their fins up.

 

[mahmoud]

ur not thinking of adding any shrimps or small fish such as firefish ... ect right?

 

[Cleverbs]

Some small fish but no shrimp I like wrasses and my marine Betta more then shrimp and they will eat them. I'm thinking of trying a cleaner shrimp to see but I'm worried about adding a 35$ shrimp snack for my Betta.

 

[Cleverbs]

I don't care a lot for smaller fish for the most part. Part of the reason I went with such a large tank. I like a lot of movement and small fish don't ever seem to utilize the whole tank. I like wrasses and most my smaller fish will end up being wrasses and anthias and possibly chromis

 

[mahmoud]

Yea seems to be a gd plan

 

[mahmoud]

I like betta too but i like small fish and shrimps even in big tanks more