-
Folks, if you've recently upgraded or renewed your annual club membership but it's still not active, please reach out to the BOD or a moderator. The PayPal system has a slight bug which it doesn't allow it to activate the account on it's own.
The 210 tank build
- Thread starter mnat
- Start date
Thank, Brandon, it has been a long time coming.
Sorry you weren't able to make it today!
I am pleased to report that the fish in the basement have FINALLY moved into their new home, the display tank. On Christmas evening, we moved the nahaki's wrasse, the bells' flasher, the anthia, and the assessor basslet up to the display.
We added in the last few pieces of branch rock (they needed to cycle before being added) today. Three tubes of epoxy later, and the arch on the left hand side is now a cave. I also brought up a few more frags today; three of the birdsnests (thank you Brian, George and Sonny) and a setosa frag (thank you Terry and Anthony). So far, the corals we have added are doing well; we are up to a whopping twelve frags in the display; a space invader pectina, three birds nests, a torch, a hammer, two spiralis, a purple stylo, a setosa, a gorgonian, and a pocilipora.
We added in the last few pieces of branch rock (they needed to cycle before being added) today. Three tubes of epoxy later, and the arch on the left hand side is now a cave. I also brought up a few more frags today; three of the birdsnests (thank you Brian, George and Sonny) and a setosa frag (thank you Terry and Anthony). So far, the corals we have added are doing well; we are up to a whopping twelve frags in the display; a space invader pectina, three birds nests, a torch, a hammer, two spiralis, a purple stylo, a setosa, a gorgonian, and a pocilipora.
Wow three weeks and I have not updated. No pics as of yet but I will get some tonight.
As always with reefing some good news and some bad news.
Good news: Tank is maturing along very nicely. Coraline growth is accerating so the rock does not have that white dead look to it. The corals that are in the DT are looking great and we are getting some growth. We added some new fish to the tank so that is exciting. We got a pair of helfrichi firefish and a magnificent goby (another one) from Diver Den that were added in this week. We got a pair of flame wrasses from AO along with a borbonius anthia (who is living in the recirc tank for right now until we get him a little bigger and stonger). We picked up a blue spotted jawfish and a helfrichi (single) from absolutely fish (my first trip to the store). So far all of them are doing well (I will cover that a little more in the bad part). The corals in the frag tank look amazing and some will be moved up shortly.
The bad/needs work category:
Have a weird thing going on with my wrasses right now. About three days after we added the flames a whole bunch of our fish just dissapeared on us. They started to come back out but the wrasses either hide or just lay on the sand. No spots, no visible disease, no signs of aggression or attack, just laying on the sand or in caves. They eat fine and swim around for a while and then just back in the caves. I picked up some Dr. Gs medicated food and have been feeding the anti bacterial one to the fish to see if that was the issue. No changes as of yet (I have the other two types of food and might move onto the prazi treated food when I am done with the 10 days of treatment). BTW it is only the wrasses, no other fish is affected in the slightest. Our anthia was MIA for a few days but now is completely normal, so go figure.
Needs Work: The cover works great but once it gets a little splashed the weight pulls it into the water where it sits. Still does the job, but I really don't want the thing hanging in the water as you can already see some algae on it. Going to figure this one out over time, not terrible but needs work.
Thinking about looking into some sort of floating canopy for the lights. The problem is with the height of the tank and just the leds the way they are now, they hit you in the eyes when you bring them up higher where they should be. This is especially bad when you are sitting on the couch which is where we spend a lot of time. Kicking around ideas in my head for essentially a shield that runs across the front of the light and the sides to combat this problem as with the lights where they are, they are spotlighting a bunch and I am worried about frying some corals if I move them up there. Hence the reason most of our corals are in the frag tank living out an awesome existence.
So there is my three week update, hopefully to have pics following up tonight or at the latest tomorrow.
As always with reefing some good news and some bad news.
Good news: Tank is maturing along very nicely. Coraline growth is accerating so the rock does not have that white dead look to it. The corals that are in the DT are looking great and we are getting some growth. We added some new fish to the tank so that is exciting. We got a pair of helfrichi firefish and a magnificent goby (another one) from Diver Den that were added in this week. We got a pair of flame wrasses from AO along with a borbonius anthia (who is living in the recirc tank for right now until we get him a little bigger and stonger). We picked up a blue spotted jawfish and a helfrichi (single) from absolutely fish (my first trip to the store). So far all of them are doing well (I will cover that a little more in the bad part). The corals in the frag tank look amazing and some will be moved up shortly.
The bad/needs work category:
Have a weird thing going on with my wrasses right now. About three days after we added the flames a whole bunch of our fish just dissapeared on us. They started to come back out but the wrasses either hide or just lay on the sand. No spots, no visible disease, no signs of aggression or attack, just laying on the sand or in caves. They eat fine and swim around for a while and then just back in the caves. I picked up some Dr. Gs medicated food and have been feeding the anti bacterial one to the fish to see if that was the issue. No changes as of yet (I have the other two types of food and might move onto the prazi treated food when I am done with the 10 days of treatment). BTW it is only the wrasses, no other fish is affected in the slightest. Our anthia was MIA for a few days but now is completely normal, so go figure.
Needs Work: The cover works great but once it gets a little splashed the weight pulls it into the water where it sits. Still does the job, but I really don't want the thing hanging in the water as you can already see some algae on it. Going to figure this one out over time, not terrible but needs work.
Thinking about looking into some sort of floating canopy for the lights. The problem is with the height of the tank and just the leds the way they are now, they hit you in the eyes when you bring them up higher where they should be. This is especially bad when you are sitting on the couch which is where we spend a lot of time. Kicking around ideas in my head for essentially a shield that runs across the front of the light and the sides to combat this problem as with the lights where they are, they are spotlighting a bunch and I am worried about frying some corals if I move them up there. Hence the reason most of our corals are in the frag tank living out an awesome existence.
So there is my three week update, hopefully to have pics following up tonight or at the latest tomorrow.
We are charging the battery for the DSLR as we speak.
We did a lot of work on the system this week.
Ethan came up on Tuesday (thanks Ethan!) and installed our 2d 65 make up tank; now we have one devoted to ro/di for top off, and another one hard plumed into the system for mixed saltwater.
We spent a lot of time yesterday and today working on the system.
The bad news: we lost our Maxima clam this week. We are not sure why, the blue squammie looks great and is happy. We have two possibilities: (1) he had been moved by the jawfish digging out of the light, and (2) I attempted to move him back into the light. It could very well have been my fault; we are not sure.
The Blue Squammie on the other hand is looking fantastic. Over the course of the last two weeks, he has moved about 3", which has been interesting to watch. We put him in the sand, he is now on the rocks. I have never seen a clam behave this way before, it was pretty neat.
Our wrasses have nearly recovered from the illness that began effecting them in January 9th. The Flame wrasse pair is back to normal, as is the Bell's flasher; the Nahaki's still is not behaving normally, but is improving. At one point, all four wrasses disappeared for about 2 weeks. We are thrilled they are all still with us, and that the flames and flasher are behaving normally (and eating!) once again. We think that we may have gotten a batch of contaminated food.
As many of you know, we have been battling AEF for months now, since before the big tank arrived. We have been using Zeo Flatworm STOP and two other products, and I have been manually removing the parasites about 1x per week. The corals are mostly colored up and growing, but we have not been winning the war. Bite marks have still been visible, and about 6 pieces look really rough, right around 10% of the acro frags we have (there are 62 acro frags downstairs). Yes, we know we have a coral buying problem.
Today, we dipped every Acro in the frag tank in Revive. In the process, we stunned, and removed, dozens of AEF (I stopped counting). It took three cycles of dipping, right about 20 frags each time.
We probably should have been doing this all along. It will now be part of our weekly routine until we stop finding AEF and seeing bite marks.
We also caught the gold stripe trimma goby (and by caught I mean he was in a piece of rock we removed so that we could manually remove bubble algae, and he fell into the slop sink), and found an olive snail. I know they can be predatory, but I couldn't help myself: he moved into the 12g this afternoon along with the trimma.
We spent hours down there removing bubble algae yesterday, a remnant of our overly speedy breakdown of the 45g the day Sandy hit- we are seriously considering buying an emerald crab.
That said, the frag system is mostly doing well, and the 65 "recirc" tank has become a conditioning tank for two baby borbonious anthias. They are so cute, they are less than 1" each.
I will leave Mike to finish this update, he is cleaning the glass now for photos, but the system is coming along, even if there have been a few stumbling blocks along the way.
We did a lot of work on the system this week.
Ethan came up on Tuesday (thanks Ethan!) and installed our 2d 65 make up tank; now we have one devoted to ro/di for top off, and another one hard plumed into the system for mixed saltwater.
We spent a lot of time yesterday and today working on the system.
The bad news: we lost our Maxima clam this week. We are not sure why, the blue squammie looks great and is happy. We have two possibilities: (1) he had been moved by the jawfish digging out of the light, and (2) I attempted to move him back into the light. It could very well have been my fault; we are not sure.
The Blue Squammie on the other hand is looking fantastic. Over the course of the last two weeks, he has moved about 3", which has been interesting to watch. We put him in the sand, he is now on the rocks. I have never seen a clam behave this way before, it was pretty neat.
Our wrasses have nearly recovered from the illness that began effecting them in January 9th. The Flame wrasse pair is back to normal, as is the Bell's flasher; the Nahaki's still is not behaving normally, but is improving. At one point, all four wrasses disappeared for about 2 weeks. We are thrilled they are all still with us, and that the flames and flasher are behaving normally (and eating!) once again. We think that we may have gotten a batch of contaminated food.
As many of you know, we have been battling AEF for months now, since before the big tank arrived. We have been using Zeo Flatworm STOP and two other products, and I have been manually removing the parasites about 1x per week. The corals are mostly colored up and growing, but we have not been winning the war. Bite marks have still been visible, and about 6 pieces look really rough, right around 10% of the acro frags we have (there are 62 acro frags downstairs). Yes, we know we have a coral buying problem.
Today, we dipped every Acro in the frag tank in Revive. In the process, we stunned, and removed, dozens of AEF (I stopped counting). It took three cycles of dipping, right about 20 frags each time.
We probably should have been doing this all along. It will now be part of our weekly routine until we stop finding AEF and seeing bite marks.
We also caught the gold stripe trimma goby (and by caught I mean he was in a piece of rock we removed so that we could manually remove bubble algae, and he fell into the slop sink), and found an olive snail. I know they can be predatory, but I couldn't help myself: he moved into the 12g this afternoon along with the trimma.
We spent hours down there removing bubble algae yesterday, a remnant of our overly speedy breakdown of the 45g the day Sandy hit- we are seriously considering buying an emerald crab.
That said, the frag system is mostly doing well, and the 65 "recirc" tank has become a conditioning tank for two baby borbonious anthias. They are so cute, they are less than 1" each.
I will leave Mike to finish this update, he is cleaning the glass now for photos, but the system is coming along, even if there have been a few stumbling blocks along the way.
So I took 300 pictures today and trimmed it down into the 80s. That is what happens when you don't take pics for a while and everything is going pretty well. I will start with the DT:
The coraline algae is really taking off so the rocks are really looking good, not white like they first were.
Here is a close up of the screen top and how we put it on as not to ruin the rimless part:
Middle:
Right:
Left:
New Photo-synthetic gorgonian from Elos:
Both of our coco worms:
Sinlge coco worms:
Peach hammer from Elos:
The coraline algae is really taking off so the rocks are really looking good, not white like they first were.
Here is a close up of the screen top and how we put it on as not to ruin the rimless part:
Middle:
Right:
Left:
New Photo-synthetic gorgonian from Elos:
Both of our coco worms:
Sinlge coco worms:
Peach hammer from Elos:
Gold Plate:
Our old Gorgonian and sprialis:
One of our Helfrichi firefish, we currently have a trio. Basically I bought a single from AF and a pair off of DD. So far they like each other:
False Shepardi:
Joculator the true king of the tank:
Suburst Anthia:
Gold assesor basslet swimming sideways. This guy swims upside down as well:
Aurelentas anthia, really becoming our favorite fish. We are trying to source some females but they are hard to get:
Bells Flasher wrasse:
Big acro crab we got from DD
Our old Gorgonian and sprialis:
One of our Helfrichi firefish, we currently have a trio. Basically I bought a single from AF and a pair off of DD. So far they like each other:
False Shepardi:
Joculator the true king of the tank:
Suburst Anthia:
Gold assesor basslet swimming sideways. This guy swims upside down as well:
Aurelentas anthia, really becoming our favorite fish. We are trying to source some females but they are hard to get:
Bells Flasher wrasse:
Big acro crab we got from DD
Pictures! Woo Hoo!
I like your worms….. (now there’s a line you don’t hear frequently)
I like your worms….. (now there’s a line you don’t hear frequently)
Now we get into the frag tank. For all you coral junkies out there, this will be fun:
First though, our whiteboard in the frag room that helps us keep track of everything:
Frag tank shots:
Here are our pair of borbonius, they are living in the recirc tank until they fatten up and get a little larger. They are just too small at this point to hang in the DT. Sorry it is really tough to get a picture of these guys due to the lighting, them running away, and the tank is a touch dirty.
Shazaams:
Bahamma Mamma:
WWC Rainbow chalice:
Reef Koi's crazy WM:
Micro:
First though, our whiteboard in the frag room that helps us keep track of everything:
Frag tank shots:
Here are our pair of borbonius, they are living in the recirc tank until they fatten up and get a little larger. They are just too small at this point to hang in the DT. Sorry it is really tough to get a picture of these guys due to the lighting, them running away, and the tank is a touch dirty.
Shazaams:
Bahamma Mamma:
WWC Rainbow chalice:
Reef Koi's crazy WM:
Micro:
JFox Arabella:
Solar Flare Acans:
Random Acans:
Others:
Cornbreds Double Helix:
Joe Knows reefs Steroids:
Emerald Mummy Eye:
4 color Watermelon:
Pink Watermelon. He got stung when we moved some things around so you can see him recovering:
Toxic Pie:
Solar Flare Acans:
Random Acans:
Others:
Cornbreds Double Helix:
Joe Knows reefs Steroids:
Emerald Mummy Eye:
4 color Watermelon:
Pink Watermelon. He got stung when we moved some things around so you can see him recovering:
Toxic Pie: