annamarie421 Posted December 11, 2007 Share Posted December 11, 2007 Instead of going along with the original plan to upgrade my 20H, I set up a 90RR! I'm going in a new direction with my tank, and it's going to change a lot, so I figured I'd just start a new thread. Since I bought the Sunpod 150w fixture, the SPS bug has really started to take hold...so the plan is to replace all my live rock, so I can get rid of my mushrooms, xenia, and all the zoas that I'm not crazy about. I'll be keeping my ricordea polyps if the flow isn't too much for them, my SPS frags, and my clam. The new live rock just arrived today, and it's in buckets starting the "cooking" process. I'm hoping that the rocks cure, and are ready for the tank quickly, but I'll be patient and wait until they are done "shedding" detritus. Once the rock is ready, it's bye-bye sand, hello flow! The new rock is Tonga Nuku Fusion from Dr Mac's - the rock was packaged REALLY well, and there was no smell to it at all! It looks great, the pictures don't do it justice! It just got here this morning! http://www.pacificeastaquaculture.com/Deta...Id%3d5%23T+2004 Tank specs: AGA 25 gallon glass aquarium - 24x12x20 150w Sunpod - stock bulb, soon to be switching to Phoenix 14K 30 pounds Tonga Nuku Fusion live rock white starboard bottom Deltec MCE600 protein skimmer powerheads will either be two MJ mods, or two Tunze 6025 Nanostreams Current Fish: pair of banggai cardinals one tail spot blenny Current Frags: impostor "superman" monti ORA Pink Milli green polyp poci Other current inhabitants: peppermint shrimp astrea snails cerith snails emerald crab small maxima clam Next frags (paid for, not picked up yet): Raspberry Poci Purple Bonsai Blueberry Tort Tri-Color Milli Tyree Ponape Birdsnest Tri-Color Valida Tri-Color Nana Chips Acro I'm expecting this this thread to be really boring until the rock is done cooking, at which point I'll try to update frequently, and add lots of pictures! Anna Link to comment
Cuervo420 Posted December 11, 2007 Share Posted December 11, 2007 You're off to a great start. I think you'll like going BB, I did a 3gal picotope a few months ago and laid down a sand/epoxy faux sandbed and i must say i love it. Link to comment
annamarie421 Posted December 11, 2007 Author Share Posted December 11, 2007 Thank you!! Did you cook your rock before you set up your bb tank? Anna Link to comment
annamarie421 Posted December 17, 2007 Author Share Posted December 17, 2007 I picked up my new frags today! In addition to the ones mentioned, I got: Green/Yellow Milli Blue Stag Blue Tenius Freebies: Pink w/ pink polyps monti cap superman monti (the real deal!) I'll take some pictures later (moonlights + flash). Some of the frags already have great polyp extension, some are starting to come out. I'm excited to see everything tomorrow with the halides! Anna Link to comment
annamarie421 Posted December 17, 2007 Author Share Posted December 17, 2007 I'm not the best at aquarium photography (or any photography for that matter...). I took about 25 pictures, and only two of them turned out decent. A trip to the photography forum is in my near future. Anyway, here they are: I'm going to keep all my SPS frags on the frag rack until I take out the sand, and set the tank back up with the new rock. The superman frag is small, but I am SO hyped to have a piece of the real thing - it is so much nicer than the imposter superman monti that I have - tiny, but really beautiful (and FREE!!!). On another note, the new rock is curing really quickly. The ammonia only made it up to about 0.5, and is now at zero. There is very little detritus coming from the rock right now. I'm planning to do a 100% water change tomorrow, and shake out any detritus that I can. I'm hoping that it will be fully cooked pretty quickly! I guess that's all for tonight. I might try to take pictures again tomorrow. Anna Link to comment
annamarie421 Posted December 27, 2007 Author Share Posted December 27, 2007 Just ordered two new Trachyphyllia brains from www.zoanuts.com! One is an Australian Trach! I can't wait to get them! The rock cooking is going great - I'm getting very little detritus off the rocks, since they came in so clean. I believe they are fully cycled, but I'm planning to give them at least another two weeks anyway. So far I have found a couple of cool reef safe snails in the cooking tub - it's a nice change to get reef safe algae eating hitchhikers!! I'm changing from Reef Crystals salt to Seachem Reef Salt. My last two buckets of RC didn't mix up with good numbers, and so far I'm really happy with how my first batch of the Seachem has mixed. I'm going to do small water changes every other day for the next week or so (2-3 gallons) to switch the water over. Hopefully the salt switch will go well! Anna Link to comment
Uhuru Posted December 27, 2007 Share Posted December 27, 2007 I also switched from reef crystals to reef salt with great results. Make sure you adjust for non borate alk though, seeing as how you have a lot of sps frags. Link to comment
annamarie421 Posted December 27, 2007 Author Share Posted December 27, 2007 Glad to hear the switch went well for you! I'm going to have to check out your threads! Anna Link to comment
Cuervo420 Posted December 27, 2007 Share Posted December 27, 2007 Thank you!! Did you cook your rock before you set up your bb tank? Anna Can't say that I did. It was all precured from 5-10yo tanks. Link to comment
annamarie421 Posted December 28, 2007 Author Share Posted December 28, 2007 A couple of the frags have browned out a little, but all are growing, and polyp extension is really good. The color has improved on the Ponape Birdsnest, raspberry pocillipora (it was more brown, and is turning more pastel pink & green), and the blue stag (top right frag in the full frag rack picture). I'll get a new picture of everything tomorrow when my brains arrive. Anna Link to comment
annamarie421 Posted December 28, 2007 Author Share Posted December 28, 2007 The new corals arrived! The packaging was excellent, but the water did get pretty cold, despite the heat packs. Pictures... I'm about to start drip acclimating, so there will be more pictures later. Assistant #1 Assistant #2 This is what it looks like outside today... Anna Link to comment
annamarie421 Posted December 28, 2007 Author Share Posted December 28, 2007 The dayglow trach looks really good! I'll try to get a better picture later, but for now: I'm a little worried about the neon trach - it went from this (photo from zoanuts website): To this: Comments on the bleached brain are welcome. Anna Link to comment
Mr Miagi Posted December 30, 2007 Share Posted December 30, 2007 Ive had a bleached Trachy come back, just keep it in good water conditions, feed several times a week with a meaty food, and give it some time. Hopefully it goes back to how it was on the ZoaNuts website! Wow. Link to comment
annamarie421 Posted January 20, 2008 Author Share Posted January 20, 2008 Today was a great reefing day for me! I went to my local club's meeting, and they had a raffle with some good stuff - I spent $10 on raffle tickets, and won 3 sets of Kent Marine Nano Reef Part A & B! I was really excited about winning $30 worth of two part, but then at the end, I also won a used Aquacontroller 2!!!!!!!!!!! I'm going to replace my Lighthouse Controller with the Aquacontroller II. I am so excited about all of my new stuff! I got some Nutramar Prawn Roe as part of a group buy that I'm looking forward to trying out. I also bought a pack of a local guy's homemade frozen food - a lot of people have been using it, with good results (it's got similar ingredients to Rod's Food). I got three new frags today as well - a frag of "real" sunset montipora (orange base with green polyps), a frag of Leng Sy Cap (I got it from somebody who got it from www.atlantisaquarium.net, and I also got a frag of a really pretty nana that is white, teal, blue, and brown. My frag rack is crazy full right now! Everything is growing really well - I can't wait to get the tank switched over to the new rock, so I can get everything placed where I want it, and let it all start growing in. A couple of my SPS frags turned poo brown, but are starting to color back up now. I got a really good deal on a used Tunze 6025 about a week ago. I added it to the tank, and the corals seem to love the extra flow (definitely noticed increased growth since adding it!). I'm probably going to buy a second 6025 before I take out the sand and add the new rock. I think I'll get a Phoenix 14K bulb to replace the stock bulb in my Sunpod fixture as well. The brains both seem to be doing ok. The bleached one hasn't changed at all, but it is still alive, which is good. Hopefully it'll start getting its color back eventually. Here are some frag update pictures (and pictures of the new additions!). As you can see, some things look great, some things I turned poo brown, but everything is growing. The polyp extension on everything is GREAT! The stuff that browned out is all starting to regain color with the extra flow - hopefully I'll have more color improvement pictures to post soon! Hopefully I'll get better at capturing the color of the corals on camera as well - a few of the pieces are pretty accurate, but a few just don't come out (ponape birdsnest, and new nana frag for example). OK, that's it for today! Anna Link to comment
spanko Posted January 20, 2008 Share Posted January 20, 2008 You are gonna love a tank without substrate. The first thing I noticed is how much less I have to clean my glass, a small thing but very noticeable to me. Can't wait to see your new setup. Link to comment
dtfleming Posted January 20, 2008 Share Posted January 20, 2008 your brain doesnt look the same from zoanuts because they photoshopped it. Nice collection of sps though. Link to comment
Matty1124 Posted January 21, 2008 Share Posted January 21, 2008 you think they photoshop... i have never heard anyone say this about them... i just assumed its cause they have such heavy actinic suplementation on their tanks... any you have a great SPS collection... are you going to mount them in your tank or are you going to keep them on a frag rack to let them grow out... again you have a killer collection.. Link to comment
travisurfer Posted January 21, 2008 Share Posted January 21, 2008 just looks bleached from shipping. lps are sensitive sometimes. Link to comment
annamarie421 Posted January 21, 2008 Author Share Posted January 21, 2008 No FTS yet! your brain doesnt look the same from zoanuts because they photoshopped it. Nice collection of sps though. Actually, I missed in the description where it said "all the brown has left leaving neon yellow". I learned my lesson to read descriptions fully... I'm done buying corals from vendors with crazy actinics too. Link to comment
annamarie421 Posted January 21, 2008 Author Share Posted January 21, 2008 any you have a great SPS collection... are you going to mount them in your tank or are you going to keep them on a frag rack to let them grow out... again you have a killer collection.. Thanks! Once I do the big switch (old rock to new rock, no more sand) I'm going to epoxy everything to the rock. The rack in the tank is kind of driving me nuts - it's hanging on the front of the tank, and looks like CRAP! I need to pick up some of those magnetic frag racks w/ black eggcrate one of these days - those are pretty slick looking, and if I mounted it on the back, I don't think it would take away from the aesthetics of the tank as much as the white eggcrate w/ MJ holder rack. I might try some of the magnetic frag plugs too - I think it'd be sweet to have sps growing out from the back of the tank. I did another 100% water change on the new rock last night. There was a little bit of detritus that came off, so I'm wondering if I should give it another week? I'm getting antsy to get going with this project though. Link to comment
annamarie421 Posted January 25, 2008 Author Share Posted January 25, 2008 Got the new tank today, and ended up getting the 25 instead of the 20. Same footprint as a 20H, but it's 20" tall instead of 16". I got the first cut in the starboard made, and my dremel started smoking, so I think I'm going to have to get the big saw out. I'm hoping to get the back of the tank painted tomorrow night, and the big switch might happen this weekend. Pictures coming after I make a little more progress. Anna Link to comment
annamarie421 Posted December 2, 2008 Author Share Posted December 2, 2008 update time... I still have a 20H - it's filled with mushrooms, some zoas, and a pair of banggai cardinals. Here's some really old pics to give you an idea. So, I was going to set up a 20H BB tank, then it was going to be a 25H BB tank, but then instead it ended up being a 90RR w/ sand. Looking back on it, I wish I hadn't put the sand in - but everything is doing well, so no biggie. At first it was going to be this: But instead we built a stand to hold the 90 and the 25...no finished pictures of it are uploaded - it's not the prettiest stand, but it's sturdy. BRS Eco Rock was used in addition to the rock earlier in the thread. I'll upload more pics tomorrow - those bring us up to March 2008 or so. Link to comment
Lalani Posted December 2, 2008 Share Posted December 2, 2008 Oooh, can't wait to see that 90gal tank filled up. Link to comment
annamarie421 Posted December 3, 2008 Author Share Posted December 3, 2008 Ok, please be kind to me! The stand is ghetto - first ever woodworking (if you could call it that...heh) project, but it's level, and I'm proud of building something! Early March 2008 - filled it up w/ water, sand, rock. You can see the 75 gal sump below, the 25H to the right, the ATI Bubblemaster 200, a mess, and some hockey on the TV! So I can't figure out how to take a decent picture of this tank with my little Cannon digi-cam...here's some evidence of my pathetic attempts. Seriously crap photos, but it's all I've got. Lighting is 400w Helios 20k in Lumenbright reflectors - it isn't anywhere near this blue in person. It's like crisp white/blue, not overwhelmingly actinic/blue! So anyway, some little SPS frags on dirty rocks... These photos are April 2008ish. this might be ORA Roscoe's? A. tenius - I can't focus A. valida (I think) Leng Sy cap Orange cap - sometimes has a pink growth edge and pink polyps! tort AC Superman Monti from Zoanuts (example of why you should buy the real deal, not a knockoff!) S. calliendrum from Aquarium Specialty looks ugly here, but it's so pretty!! angry browned out purple with green polyps acro my brown blue milli green milli - omg look at the yuck on that rock! both of the millis pink milli angry Oregon Tort chips acro stag - it's moody...brown, purple, green, blue That's all I've got uploaded so far. So this catches us up to 04/2008 - probably more to come from around this time. Go easy on me please! Link to comment
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