[Reefer Addict]

Tank Specs updated June 19, 2003 - Pics before June 19 post are with old lighting/inhabitants

Well, I've been hanging out here and posting since I began my quest for a little piece of the ocean, so I thought I'd share how far I've come in the past few months. What a great learning experience it has been.
I can say that the rewards have far outweighed any problems that have cropped up along the way and I'm looking forward to keeping reef tanks for many years to come.

Anyway, here's what I've got...

Tank Specs
55-Gallon Tall Glass tank (36"x24"x16")
70-Lbs. Live Rock (mixture of Fiji and Tonga)
65 Lbs. sand (20 Lbs. Aragonite / 20 Lbs. Live Aragonite / 25 Lbs. Mexican Puka)
10 Gallon Sump
40" Stand w/canopy (DIY)

Lighting
250w 10K Ushio Halide (DIY)
240w Power Compact Actinic Lighting (2-55W Coralife 03 Actinics / 2-65W Phillips Actinic 03's)

Circulation
6 MaxiJet 1200 Power heads for in-tank circulation on a Natural Wave timer.
MagDrive 5 for sump return
(DIY) Dual overflow box

Sump
10-Gallon Walmart Glass tank with DIY plexiglas baffles
SeaClone 150 Protein Skimmer (which miraculously does a good job, contrary to a lot of what I've heard)
Pro-Heat 350W Titanium Heater
Acu-Rite indoor/outdoor digital thermometer (outdoor probe taped to side of sump to take tank temp reading)

Now to the good stuff... the reason why all the list above had to be purchased.

Fish
2 Oscellaris Clowns (mated pair)
1 Purple Firefish
1 LawnMower (Algae) Blenny
1 Copperband Butterfly
1 Red Scooter Blenny
3 Neon Blue Cleaner Gobies
1 Orange Spot Watchman Goby
1 Yellow Watchman Goby
1 Pearlscale (Crosshatch) Butterfly
1 Green/Red Clown Goby

Inverts
1 Blood Red Fire Shrimp
1 Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
2 Red Fromia Stars

Corals
(*Not exactly sure of species due to clueless LFS and I also don't know the Taxonomic ID*)
Tree Coral
Brown Star Polyp Colony (that broke into 4 pieces upon removal from LFS bag)
Encrusting Star Polyp Colony
Burgundy/White Frogspawn
Purple/Blue Candy Cane Coral
Yellow/Orange Goniopora (I've heard these are tough to keep but it was too beautiful to pass up)
Brown/Orange/Blue Zooanthid colony
Pulsing Xenia
Green Bubble Coral (small bubbles)
Pagoda Cup Coral
Fluorescent Green Tree Leather
Yellow/Orange Hammer Coral
Green/Pink Hammer Coral
Yellow/Pink Torch Coral
1 Purple/Pink Polka-Dotted Mushroom
Blue/Brown Bullseye (Elephant Ear) Mushroom Colony
Squamosa Clam
Pink-tip Rose Bubble Tip Anemone
Baby (about 2") Carpet Anemone (sold to me as a 'flower' anemone)

Clean-Up Crew
6 Scarlet hermits
9 Hawaiian Zebra Hermits
4 Mexican Red Tip Hermits
2 Mexican Turbo Snails
2 Margarita Snails
9 Nassarius Snails
6 Astrea Snails
3 (Super-Tiny) Brittle Stars (Hitchhiked in on Candy Cane Coral)

Deceased Inhabitants
Mandarin Dragonette (Was feeding on multiple different foods but died anyway)
Frogspawn Coral (Brown Jelly disease)
1 Mexican Turbo Snail (Gosh these things stink when they die)
1 Peppermint Shrimp (Just disappeared... haven't seen it since)

Well, that about sums it up... except for the picture... which is worth at least another thousand words or so... I wish my camera could do it justice.

 

[Reefer Addict]

Here's a picture of the sump area...

 

[Reefer Addict]

And a picture of the tank/stand before anything started going in it (the ghastly couch next to it is slated to be removed soon thank goodness)

 

[Reefer Addict]

Here's a little different angle of the tank...

 

[tyler]

looks very good.

i think i used to have that same carpet...

 

[Reefer Addict]

Thanks tyler. I appreciate the feedback.
The carpet is the type you get when you go to the carpet store and tell them you want to spend $1.95 sq/yd.

 

[Casey]

Nice tank
I think I use to have that couch

 

[Joel]

nice tank. If the Gonoporia dies, mine did in a long drawn out process over 6 months, try an Alveopora they're a lot hardier and look very similar.

 

[Reefer Addict]

Well, as an update, I have a small casualty list...
Unfortunately, the frogspawn succumbed to brown jelly disease. It wasn't fully inflated when we bought it (a lesson learned), and began showing signs of the disease a couple days later. It only lasted a couple weeks before it was just a skeleton.
It has since been replaced by an orange/yellow Hammer Coral which also started getting devoured by brown jelly... luckily I caught this one in time and a few turkey baster treatments later it's stabilized and recovering well, though half the colony perished.
My Bubble Coral also developed a taste for Lettuce Nudi's, and ate two of them after they got blown off the glass by a powerhead. Something else also thought that the Nudi's looked tasty because the remaining two turned into two halves. They've also since disappeared.
The last casualty was the Mandarin Dragonette... (my wife's favorite).
It was doing great and was accepting supplementary food, but we awoke one morning to see it fluttering around in circles in the tank... he died a couple hours later. I'm not really sure what caused it, but I don't think it was starvation.

Otherwise everything else is doing great, and the tank params are all in line (Amm=0, Nit=0, Nat=<10). I'll post another picture once things grow a little more... the tank pretty much still looks like it did in the first set of pix (can't expect much growth in a month).

Thanks for looking.

 

[Reefer Addict]

New Pix

Well, I did some rearranging so I would have some more room to add things, and so that some stuff was closer to the lights. I'm still not completely happy with it, but it'll do for now. That's one problem with buying rock over the internet, you never know what yer gonna git. It's like putting together a puzzle without a picture.
Anyway, here's the first pic of the new arrangement.

 

[Reefer Addict]

And here's a little closer shot of the center area:

 

[Reefer Addict]

And of course the gratuitous side-view shot:

 

[Yoshi-22]

that looks even better then the first pic

 

[Buzz_Hog]

RA, is your femlae clown darker along her back than the male??

One of my clowns is getting dark along the back and I was wondering if that was because it was changing to female...

 

[Reefer Addict]

Thanks Yoshi.
We've done more to the tank in the past couple of weeks than we had in the previous few months... I really like how it's coming along. Now to just find little frags to fill in the open spaces and it'll be well on its way to being finished (if that's ever possible. ).

Buzz:
The female is definitely darker than the male...
The interesting part was that when we bought them at PetCo (the 'only' fish we've ever bought there... got really lucky they didn't have ich) the pair we have were the darkest two in the tank, and had already 'paired up' even though there were several other clowns. I almost wondered if it was due to the dark coloring, since the other false perc's were a lighter orange, and these are a darker reddish-orange.
They started out almost the same size, though the female was about 1/4" bigger than the male... she's now almost 1/2" bigger than he is, and she's definitely the boss of the tank.
The male is dark also, but not nearly as dark as the female... the photo above is pretty accurate.
I'm not sure if that has to do with her being female, or if she's just maturing faster than the male (just like in humans... )... somebody in the forum will probably know.
HTH

 

[Reefer Addict]

Well, I bought some more stuff...

And I edited my original post to reflect the new purchases.
I'll post some pix here probably later this evening... I did some more rearranging in the tank and a few things are still closed up.

David.

 

[Reefer Addict]

Well, still no recent pictures as of yet... I plan on redoing the rockwork here in the next couple days (again) and then I'll get some up here.
The Pearlscale Butterfly also went back to the LFS... darn little bugger started pecking at everything in the tank... but the last straw was when it started going after the clam's mantle.
I had to tear all the rock apart to get it out, but it was worth it to see everything once again open and happy.
A lesson learned I guess.

 

[Reefer Addict]

Yay... finally a real update.
I finished the redoing my rockwork, and here's a pic of how it turned out... I wish I had a better photo.

 

[Reefer Addict]

Here's the picture (heheh... whoops).

 

[Guest]

lookin good