Any updates?

this tank is sick...i love it. so clean, so cool.

I have a feeling this is going to be my favorite non-nano tank by far. Even with just the rock it looks AMAZINGLY clean, and actually makes me feel that rimless isn't even necessary. I think when it comes time to buy a large tank, we will be going with something similar.

Can't wait to see this stocked!

Sorry for the lack of updates. I have been really busy with work and traveling. Since my last update, I have already moved some of my corals over. Here they are.

August 11 - Corals transfered from nano tank.
































August 12 - Aquacontroller Apex system arrives




Auguest 15 - Clean up crew added
16 - Cerith snails (15 new, 1 from my nano)
13 - Astrea snails (10 new, 3 from my nano)
3 - Margarita snails (from my nano)
1 - Orange Turbo snail
10 - Scarlet Reef hermits

August 19 - Vortech MP40w breaks


I have a few concerns moving from my nano to the 120.
1) Moving my Purple Montipora Cap.
2) Moving my Sebae Anemone.
3) Moving my Yasha Hashe Goby and Pistol Shrimp

Did #1 and failed. My purple monti cap broke into pieces as you can see in the photos. Very heart breaking but I guess having to start over again is better than nothing. My friend and brother-in-law benefit from it anyway. They got some frags. The Sebae will be really tough. I do not know how I will get it to unattach from the rock. The shrimp and goby will probably have to wait until I get everything out of the nano. I really wanted them to be the first ones in the 120.

Anyway, so I have moved some of my corals and a couple of days later, I get a crazy algae bloom. Almost all the rocks and sand got covered with algae. I kinda expected it since I just started turning on my lights after moving the corals in. What I did not expect is growing a bunch of green hair algae. My tank was fine before I went out of town last monday. I came home wednesday night and my tank has 1/4" sprouts of GHA all over. I know my big mistake was not zeroing my nitrates. I got too impatient and I thought 20ppm nitrates would be okay but I guess not. Very stupid move on my part. So I did a water change. I freaked out about the GHA and I bought a Sea Hare to take care of it. I may have jumped the gun too soon on the Sea Hare but I just did not want the GHA to take control of the tank. He will be returned once it takes care of all the GHA. Anyway, right now the algae seems to be disappearing. The sand is almost completely free of algae and most of the rocks is also algae free except for the little sprouts of GHA. I will do another water change before I leave town again on wednesday. I think I will have it under control soon.

As you guys can see that I also got my Aquacontroller Apex in. I have it installed and running. So far so good. I have most of my setup done. Lights and pumps are all controlled. I have not connected it to the web yet. I also have to install the ph probe.

As for the Vortech. It broke when I got back home last wednesday. The whole wet side assembly just started spinning on it's own and fell off. When I tried to put it back on, the propeller broke off as I was aligning the pump. I have replacement parts coming from Ecotech. It seems the magnet was rubbing against the plastic housing and locking causing the whole wet side to turn with the motor.

Anyway, that is it for now. I will try to move the rest of my corals soon after I get the algae under control. Then move the fishes afterward. After that, I will relax for a while. I have spent way too much recently and I have to let my wallet catch up. LOL.

Thanks for looking.

Looks great! FTS?

Thanks. I have not taken a FTS recently. I will try to take one before I leave on Wednesday. I have most of the corals mounted on the rocks where I would like to keep them in, except the trumpets and scroll.

Amazing tank and setup, very clean, I've always loved Tech tanks, I might try and get me one, one of these days, sorry to hear about the vortech breaking but at least there replacing it soon, hows the water flow with just the one MP40, do you feel there needs to be 2?

Thank you. The MP40w was quite powerful enough that only one is probably necessary. I was still playing around with it before it broke. I had it in Reef Crest mode when I first got it and I could not turn it full power because the sand would blow all over the place. I messed around with other settings but I ended up with the short pulse mode set to full power. That created a nice little wave. I could have made the wave bigger but chose something just alittle noticable. My only problem with it was, it was creating a big dip in sand in the middle of the tank. One of my rocks is directing the flow downward toward the sand. I think placing a few smaller rocks in that spot will take care of that. So far from my experience the corals seem to love the waves. The moment I transfered them from the nano tank, they just seem to inflate bigger and polyp extension is much longer.

So having one seems pretty sufficient but I think putting in two would give a much more even flow throughout the entire tank. I think the side where the pump is has a much stronger flow than the other end. I did not notice how hard the flow is on that side yet as I do not have corals there but on my sun coral tank, the MP10 blows MUCH harder around the pump than the side without. I cannot really put any corals near the MP10 as it just blows the crap out of them. So for an all SPS tank, probably two would be needed. Since I am doing mixed reef and plan on having the SPS corals on the pump side, I think I would be okay with one.

Anyway, another thing to consider is that I have a really deep sand bed so I do not know how it would be if the sand bed was not so high. I could probably do Reef Crest mode full blast and be fine with one pump without blowing sand all over the place if my sand bed was not so high. So I don't know really.

Hello Guia X's

Let me tell you, your tank looks amazing, you have done such a great job on the aquascape. Where did you got the idea from?

About me...Got my biocube 14 running for 4 months now, and I love it. I'm done adding livestock to it. Now, I'm planning to just let it mature, and grow my colonies. But meanwhile, I'm going to jump in to deeper waters. I love your setup, Oceanic Tech tanks are the coolest. So I started looking for an used set around my area a couple of weeks ago, but as you know, there aren't that easy to find.

I don't know if is luck or the fact that I look daily on every listing possible. But I just found a never used Oceanic Tech 120, for $600. Just for the tank and plumbing kit. Is not an easy task to convince my wife about these deal. She seen other deals online, were you can get a complete setup (tank, stand, light, filters, skimmers, etc) for less than a thousand dollars. But I tell here, all these setups cost less than the retail price of this tank and you can't compare it.

I've learned that the best way to save money on this hobby is just to buy the best, no matter how expensive it is, that way you'll save money not upgrading every year or so.

Anyways, I'm going to take a look at these tank today. And if is in great shape, I'll take it home. Even if I have to spend the next week in the doghouse...

Any Update???

Beautiful tank!!! I love the look of it. I'm thinking about upgrading to the same aquarium, how much did the tank and stand itself cost?

Any updates/pics? Looking great! Also, where did you buy your tank? I'm looking into getting a 120 tech myself, but none of the local shops in my area carry it. Sorry if you already answered that question.
Great job!

post pics!!!!!!! great looking tank man !

i do and i know othres do
it's intersting and can be helpfull

I think he lost this thread in the crash. He has a sun coral only tank now though.

Sorry for the lack of updates. I have not been on for a long time. I have been extremely busy traveling back and forth to Phoenix. I have not had much time to spend on my tank except to feed and do a little maintenance. Nothing much has changed. The fishes and corals are all settled in. My main problem right now is I have quite alot of this dark brown algae growing all over the place. It's like stuck to the rocks. It's really hard to scrape off. I have looked all over the the web and the closest thing I could find that it could be is wafer algae. If anyone have any advice, I would really appreciate it. So far all I have read that Sally Lightfoot crabs eat the stuff. I'm alittle scared to put one of those in my tank but if I had no choice I'll have to do it. It seems like it's preventing me from growing coralline algae. It's been months now and most of my rocks are still white in the areas where it's not all covered by the brown algae.

As for my current additions...

November 13 - Fishes added
Kole Tang
Desjardinii Tang
Mystery Wrasse

I love the new additions. They make my tank come to life. They are just all over the place. I really love watching them swim around. Anyway, my tank has been alittle neglected but I am starting to spend alittle more time with it now that I am not coming here every week. I will post photos when I can. Maybe this weekend when I return home.




Thank you. I bought the tank and stand for $1595 + tax, so about $1725.




Thank you. I bought it at Aquarium City in Canoga Park, CA.




Thank you.




That's really good to know. For a while it seems like nobody was posting anything so it seemed like I was just posting for myself. I will post some photos as soon as I find some spare time. Thank you again everybody.

Hey.. thats one heck of setup! Nice aquascaping! Nice clean tank! Good choice on all the equipments!
Congratulations! Great tank!

Thank you. I am always never fully satisfied but I'm starting to really love the scaping but the brown wafer algae is turning me off. I just gotta start getting on top of things. So far I have been happy with the equipment except the lights. The colors of my corals are not quite the same as when they were in my nano cube. My purple monti cap is still kinda purple in the polyps but is now mostly brownish. It seems like the lights are not strong enough or the color temp is not the same. I had 14000K on my nano and this one is 10000K. My Superman monti isn't as vibrant either. They look nicer with the actinics or moonlights but the daylights washes out the colors. I am hoping when it's time to change bulbs that changing it to 14000K will make a big difference. I love the Phoenix 14000K bulb in my nano.

As for the Vortech, I'm quite pleased with it. As I said before, I had it break on me but they sent me new parts and it has worked great so far. I lowered it earlier this week about half an inch and made a huge difference. I am able to run it full blast on short pulse mode. I couldn't run it full blast because it would suck in air bubbles. I have a nice wave going and lots more flow. My next step is to get the fuge going. Hopefully after Christmas, I will have some extra cash to get it stocked and add the lights. So far there is nothing in it but a 6" deep sand bed. There are lots of pods but I should really put some live rock in there. Just need more money. Haha.

There's also another similar (less complexity) method show in this article:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2009/11/beginner#h4

Select item 4 - Sanjay’s Reef

Great thread - You are using a lot of equipment I plan on using in my build. I'm curious about the breakage on the MP40W - Did you do the pin spacer adjustment and placement for vibration? I have same model for my build - thought they were impervious to this kind of breakage.

im so freekin jealous...

Sorry about those algae problems... Have you tried a Sea Hare? Send some pictures to John at reefcleaners.org. I'm sure he can tell you what it is.

Hey your tank is pretty sweet!

That's a really cool way of building rockwork ...

Wow, the tank looks so clean and neat, all the stuff in the tank is brand new and top class. Must have cost a fortune.

I thought about doing it like that but the live framing from Marine Fish & Reef USA gives me some flexibility so that if I need to take a specific rock out and work on it I can put it back in the same exact spot. So far I have not had to do it but it's nice to know I have that option. The rock work in the front right part of the tank is constructed similarly to Sanjay's Reef in that it is one big structure. I could not use live framing for it because it would cause the rock stucture to be too big. While the live framing has not really been put into good use just yet and I don't know if I will ever make use of it, one thing that I really like is that the fishes are enjoying all the little caves and tunnels created from all the pvc pipes.




Thank you for bringing this up. For some reason I had thought that my glass was 3/4" and was not using the spacer. I don't know why I thought that. I measured it and it is 1/2". I just recently put the spacer on. As for the breakage, they said it was a bad batch that had the wrong size washer causing the propeller to rub and overheat. After the replacement, the pump was running fine even without the spacer. I'm just glad you pointed it out before it's too late. I hope I did not just shorten the lifespan of my pump.




I tried a sea hare before when I had hair algae growing all over the place. The hair algae came and went on it's own so I should have just remained patient (I guess it was just part of my initial algae bloom but more like a sequel and took longer than I had expected). I don't know whatever happened to the sea hare. I'm sure it died. I'm glad it had no effect on my fishes. I got a tuxedo urchin and it seems like it is helping it but very slowly. I could probably add more but I don't want them to go after my coraline. One is good enough. My other option was a sally lightfoot. I read they eat the brown wafer algae. I went with the urchin since I like them anyway and I'm scared if I go with a sally lightfoot, I would not be able to catch it later on. I am hoping that the urchin is actually helping. I hope it's just not all in my head. I am also raising my magnesium since it's pretty low. I don't know if that is helping.




Thank you.




Thank you. I tried to keep all my receipts to keep track of how much I have spent but that proved to be very difficult as I kept losing them. Everytime I come home with stuff, I just put the receipt down somewhere and I lose it. So I stopped. I am sure I have spent quite alot more that I, or especially my wife, had wanted but everything is starting to look great and we are really enjoying the tank quite a bit now.

Anyway, I know I said I will try to take pictures but this weekend was just too hectic. I didn't get a chance. Hopefully this week. Here are some new additions from last time.

November 21 - new fish and invert added
- Green Mandarin Dragonet
- Tuxedo Urchin

November 25 - new fish and corals added
- Trio of Lyretail Anthias (two females one male)
- Small colony of brown and green centered Zoos
- Small colony of light blue and light green centered Zoos

November 27 - new corals added
- 3 heads + babies Purple Deaths Zoos
- Small colony of African Blue Zoos
- 3 heads + babies unknow Zoos could be Blue Ice.
- 10 red with teal centered Zoos.

Again, I'll try to take photos of the new additions soon. Thanks again for reading.

I like your aquarium.

As promised, here are a bunch of photos.

New Fishes

Kole Tang


Mystery Wrasse






Lyretail Anthias












Desjardini Sailfin Tang



Old Fishes from my Nanocube

"Wolfe" - Ocellaris Clownfish


"Brass" - Bangaii Cardinal Fish


"Delko" - Starry Blenny


"Delko" and "Horatio" - Starry Blenny and Citrinis Clown Goby



Recent coral additions

African Blue Zoos


Purple Death Palys


Zoos - ID PLEASE


Zoos - ID PLEASE


Zoos - ID PLEASE


Zoos - ID PLEASE



Tank shots

Squidward's House


Zoo Tower
















My homemade screen top for jumpers




Current Full Tank Shot


Here's a close up of the brown algae that I am currently trying to battle. If anyone has any ideas what it is and how to get rid of it, I would greatly appreciate it. So far it seems the Tuxedo seems to be helping but rather slowly.

beautiful photo`s

YOUR TANK IS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE ur Starry Blenny !

Your tank rocks dude!

I'm getting a 120 too. How many fish total are you planning on having? I was thinking 2 tangs and 13 small fish.

I almost decided to get a 125 but me and my dad know its too big for our house. I think u could get 3 TANGS and tons of other little fish. Thta would look AWESOME!!!

OMG... I couldn't agree more!!!

That, and you avatar is amazing oceanbreeze!!!

wOw... excellent photography...

Thank you.




Thank you. Yeah I love him too. He has lots of personality. Unfortunately right now he is being harassed by the Kole Tang. So far nothing bad. The Kole Tang just chases him when he sees him. His buddy Horatio goes after the Desjardini Tang. It's quite amusing. There are no visible marks on any fish so it looks to be okay for now.




Thank you. So far all I have planned on is adding a Pearly Jawfish, a Dusky Jawfish, a couple Flasher Wrasses and a pair of Purple Firefish. I may also add a Yasha Hase Goby cause I cannot find my old one. I still have the pistol shrimp in the nano. I'm not sure how much more I can add after that. Right now I am feeding the tank twice a day because of the Lyretail Anthias. I would love to add some more Clown Gobies like a green one and a red one. This is my first big tank so I don't really know how far I can go. So far 0 nitrates and my fuge is not fully operational yet (no light and macro algae). I'll have to do more research. If you have any advice I would love to hear it.




Thank you.




Thank you. I'm just starting to do aquarium photography. It is so hard. I still have quite alot to learn. Taking sharp photos is quite a challenge especially moving fish. It helps having other peoples' work to look at, like your photos, to strive for.

The Kole Tang should stop fairly soon. DONT get a clown Goby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They devour all types of corals!!!

Really? I have not heard such a thing. I know they love hanging out in acropora corals and occasionally nip at them but they said the relationship is actually benificial to the corals. I have the Citrinis clown goby and he has not touched a single coral. He likes to hang out on my yellow scroll coral but that is about it. Everything I've heard on clown gobies are they are reef safe. Are you thinking of a clown trigger maybe?

If u have a reef-safe clown goby than i think its ok. I just heard from somebody that they eat a lot of different corals. I thought they were completeyl reef safe too. How many fish do u have right now? What are those fish?


Thanks!

AWESOMENESS.
im liking Squiddy's house
corals are looking good too, lotz-o-growth!
keep up the good work!

Wow. That's the first time I've heard that. I always thought gobies are reef safe. I guess I'll look into that.

My current fishes
Bangaii Cardinal
Citrinis Clown Goby
Ocellaris Clownfish
Starry Blenny
Mystery Wrasse
Kole Tang
Desjardini Tang
Lyretail Anthias (Trio - two female, one male)

Green Mandarin Dragonet

The Mandarin is currently in the Sun Coral tank. I am trying to train it into eating frozen. So far it's eating live brine but I need to get more. I left the bag by the sink and came back to an empty bag and all the brine shrimp down the sink. Right now I have been trying to get it to eat artic pods. Sometime he eats it if it falls on his mouth. If it doesn't he doesn't eat it. I'm going to get some brine shrimp today and hopefully he starts eating. So far he is doing okay with the pods in the Sun Coral tank.




Thank you. I changed the bulbs on my halides to 14K yesterday and already seeing an improvement to my corals. The whole tank looks so much better overall. I'm glad I didn't wait until it's time to replace them. I'm enjoying it more now.

I wouldn't worry about clown gobies. I would feed my acans and he would steal the food from them. I stopped feeding the acans but he would still sit on them and wait. When the food didn't come, he ate the acans. He didn't do much damage though, and was extremely easy to catch.

Actually I use to feed my acan as well and my citrinis goby would hang out where the acan was waiting for food. He did not eat the acan though. I can't believe they actually eat corals. I guess I have to rethink my desires for clown gobies if that is the case.

Please if u want a clown goby dont not get one cause of my words. You have a clown goby and are having success so get another if u want. I just heard thry sometimes nip at LPS and SPS. I am definetly over safe.

No worries. I will decide when the time comes. It good to know what to look out for. I wasn't thinking of adding more clown gobies until I had a whole bunch of acros. I'm guessing now I would have to wait until I have colonies instead of frags to be more successful at keeping them if the clowns do start picking on the corals.

Anyway, got a little update...

December 3 - New fish added
- Pair of Purple Firefish
- Blue Spotted Jawfish

Initially I wanted a Pearly Jawfish and a Dusky Jawfish but for $70, I could not pass this one up. That's like half off of online stores. I would still really like a Dusky but I'm not sure I can now with the BSJ. He moved right into Squidward's house with alittle poking and pushing from me. He is so amazing. I love it already. Quite a character.

AWESOME! I LOVE BSJ! Purple Fifefish are realy cool too! I know of a website u can get thenm for 109 $ But 70 $. Thats Amazing!

Man I have GOT to get a 100mm 2.8 for my XTi.....sick shots and sick tank!

wow nice thank, those monti caps really grew fast in your tank.

Yeah that's why I got it. When I first saw it at the store, the tank it was in had a label for a Yellow Head Jawfish for $21. I was like that's not a Yellow Head, that's a BSJ. I thought maybe I could get away with it but when I ask them if that was the price for the fish they said it was a BSJ which had the label on the tank next to it. I guess it jumped over. I probably should have asked one of the other workers instead of the owner. Haha. Still I could not pass on a $70 BSJ eventhough I probably lost my chance at owning a Dusky Jawfish. I love it but man is he causing havoc on my tank right now. He is just digging and blowing sand everywhere. It's cool though cause this tank was built for Jawfishes in mind. The main reason for the DSB. I had him building his burrow in Squidward's house last night but this morning he moved to the Zoo tower in the front. I guess he wants to get more attention. I swear I spent hours this morning just watching him dig and blowing sand away from my Zoos. Very cool fish.




Thank you. I'm still trying to figure it out. Getting it to focus on stuff in the water is really tough. I definitely need alot more practice with aquarium shots. I still need to get in the photography section to check it out. Haha. Hopefully I learn something.




Thank you. Yeah I'm quite surprised it grew so fast. I was so disappointed because it took almost a year to grow that big and I broke it into a pieces moving it to this tank. The color is starting to come back as well. Hopefully it continues to grow as fast with the Phoenix 14K bulbs.

Jawfish LOVE to keep their burrows neat and tidy while they make such a mess.

Here's some pics of the Purple Firefish pair.






The only semi decent pic I could get of the Blue Spotted Jawfish.


December 11 - New additions

War Coral


Purple and Green Micromussa


Purple Bonzai Acropora


Superman Chalice


Porcelain Crab


All the corals I got from Wet Thumb Frags. The Superman Chalice is browned out a bit but starting to back color up again. For $50, I took a chance since I wasn't ready to spend $200 on a frag. It's my first Chalice and I always wanted the first one to be the Superman. I'm just a sucker for anything they name Superman. Haha. The Bonzai is my second shot at Acros but the first time in this tank. Hopefully it will be a success as I didn't have any luck in my 28g nano. If it goes well, more Acros are sure to come. If any one have tips on helping me take care of the Bonzai and what conditions they do well in, I would greatly appreciate it. Right now I have it up on top with really strong flow.

That's it for now. I ordered some stuff from Reef Gardener and Unique Corals last week. Reef Gardener stuff should come on Tuesday and hopefully the Unique Coral stuff too. Bad news is that my Vortech broke again. I have to wait til tomorrow to call them. Hopefully I can get it fixed fast. I will need to put some powerheads in the tank in the mean time.

Love the tank. Awesome fish!