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D Z's garage frag tank(formerly CAD 34G Mini)


D Z

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That red planet looks amazing. You should've taken some pics of the other Sps frags. I saw the ones they had,but damn. I guess $60 really isn't all that bad. When I was in LR Shaun was in Vegas and Dylan gave me some good deals.

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Awesome photos and the tank is looking great! Love those ricordeas.

Thanks! The garden has filled in nicely.

 

Any updates on the AquaMaxx skimmer?

As GTI said on his page, its running really well. I am very happy with it. It is now producing a very dark, but still somewhat wet skimmate. I am ok with this as long as it remains dark and not the light-tea color I was getting from the CADLights skimmer. Also, I expect that when I add more fish in the near future that I will start to push it more and should get even better results with more DOCs in the water column. The only complaint I have, and its not even really a complaint, is I cannot keep cerith snails from going into the venturi intake. I know when one has gotten in there cause the skimmer stops working properly and creates a bunch of microbubbles. Granted this really isn't the fault of the skimmer, just something to watch for.

 

That red planet looks amazing. You should've taken some pics of the other Sps frags. I saw the ones they had,but damn. I guess $60 really isn't all that bad. When I was in LR Shaun was in Vegas and Dylan gave me some good deals.

Thanks bro. Alex took a bunch if pics, these were just what he had already edited for me. There should be more coming and I believe some of them should be of some of my other SPS frags.

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Ohh also, forgot to mention, I got my new IM Gormet Defroster yesterday. I tried it out really quick last night and it seemed to work ok. I think I need to find a better spot for it. I put it in the back right corner of the tank as it is somewhat "hidden" there, but I don't think it was getting enough flow to properly tumble and break up the food. I'll play around with it more tonight.

 

On another cool note, I finially can talk a little more about what I am doing for all my sps frags. The clear frag rack has just been a temporary solution while I decided what I wanted to do. Ultimately, I decided a tower would be too much work and probably would not look quite the way I wanted so I decided to go with the Alternative Reef and have them make me a custom magnetic rock structure that will hang on the back wall. It will go in the dead space above the torch to add some filler to the middle part of the tank. It just finished up and should be shipping to me in the next couple days, but here are the pictures that they sent me. I can't wait to see how it looks in my tank covered with SPS frags!

 

17672130818_af4bb8abc4_z.jpgDSC_0231 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

17672130888_ea5a2fb462_z.jpgDSC_0234 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

17672406910_669873cf8d_z.jpgDSC_0232 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

17237418814_b17ba30f15_z.jpgDSC_0233 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

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That mag rock looks sweet and will look even better covered in SPS! You ever get your lighting up and a schedule figured out? I should have my hybrid up and running by the weekend and was curious what you ended up doing. Sorry if I missed it!

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Grea pics. That red planet is stunning.

Thank you!

 

That mag rock looks sweet and will look even better covered in SPS! You ever get your lighting up and a schedule figured out? I should have my hybrid up and running by the weekend and was curious what you ended up doing. Sorry if I missed it!

Thanks, I'm really excited for the mag rock. I have not gotten my hybrid retro done yet. I just started working on building a new floating canopy over the weekend. Hopefully I will have it all done and running within the next couple weeks.

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Last night I noticed my clowns acting weird. They were hanging out down in the bottom left corner, right ext to my echinata frag, which they never do. I looked a little closer and the smaller of the pair had a bunch of marks on both sides of his back. Looks like sting marks, which I guess doesn't surprise me too much as they have been trying to host just about everything in the tank lately. I have seen them rubbing up on my wellso, my duncans, echinata, and I would have to assume my torch, which is what I am guessing is the cause of this. He was looking pretty rough last night, not moving much out of that spot(probably because its pretty low flow). I checked really quick this morning and he was still alive so I am hoping he will heal up and pull through.....fingers crossed.

 

In other news, I got my IM gourmet defroster a couple days ago, but havn't really gotten to work as well as I had hoped. I through a chunk of frozen LRS in and it never really breaks up, just keeps floating around. I think its just not getting enough flow to properly tumble it, but I am not willing to put the defroster in the middle of the front pane where it would get enough flow, as it looks horrible there. Anyone else experience this that has bought the defroster?

 

I get my mag rock and a new screen top kit from BRS today, so that will be some projects for the weekend.

 

Also, here are a couple more pics that Alex processed for me.

Zoa garden

17949811656_cbeb38bfad_k.jpg17881753171_0be76fc874_o by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

Utter chaos

17788639500_b707d2e9e9_k.jpg17878249122_2f686ff4e4_o by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

Rastas and Bella Blues(maybe, or close to it)

17949830176_1ce9ea34cc_k.jpg17854882416_8e2f0964d9_o by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

Duncans lookin all pretty

17355741553_fb23c15fe5_k.jpg17881748711_2b817548c1_o by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

Top down of the new splattered hammer

17355742833_e932ae3657_k.jpg17694966299_2bd9fd5305_o by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

Couple cool shots of the clowns and wellso

17949812216_31b63b0189_k.jpg17881226785_8d5e0de7e9_o by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

17355743483_7552a969f0_k.jpg17258711214_f95c263f59_o by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

Some SPS shots...lets start with my Pink Lemonade, which still boggles me. It has bubbles where there should be polyps

17355743293_7cf2b4a1b3_k.jpg17693660680_765e96abb2_o by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

My unknown, random green acro, another one that boggles me. It has great PE on all the new growth, but still will not extend on the old growth

17973112852_7ebea090e8_k.jpg17881214055_2b46760d39_o by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

Frag Rack, from left to right, green/purple monti I got from Alex(can't remember its name), unknown acro, hawkins, green granulosa, red wine acro

17976262755_e1635dca1e_k.jpg17881217455_040439d29e_o by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

.....Red dragon, Tyree Undata, some unknown green acro bugger

17949812276_7a11e37379_k.jpg17878250312_2e6a5a89ed_o by cchsoracle, on Flickr

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lilmatty5dimes

Wow. Sorry to hear the news about the clown. Hopefully he'll pull thru. I want a frag of the Bella blues. Those look pretty nice. Love your sps. I'm pretty jealous of all of them. I'm selling a few things to get some money to buy the few things I need for my upgrade. I just can't stop buying coral. Lol keep finding to good to be true deals on things. Lol hopefully by the end of July I'll have the new upgrade up and running.

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I really like how that Mille is turning green,it's so weird. But that Red Wine is so similar to the RP it's crazy.

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Love the piece you got from Alternative Reef! I think he is my favorite "artistic rock" maker, if that term makes any sense. I have one of his wrasse dens in my barebottom frag tank, and my Melarnus really loves it and it looks way better than Tupperware!

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Wow. Sorry to hear the news about the clown. Hopefully he'll pull thru. I want a frag of the Bella blues. Those look pretty nice. Love your sps. I'm pretty jealous of all of them. I'm selling a few things to get some money to buy the few things I need for my upgrade. I just can't stop buying coral. Lol keep finding to good to be true deals on things. Lol hopefully by the end of July I'll have the new upgrade up and running.

Thanks man. So far it looks like the clown will pull through. It is still showing signs of being injured, but doing better than it was last week. Finish that upgrade man, then you can really buy some more coral!

 

I really like how that Mille is turning green,it's so weird. But that Red Wine is so similar to the RP it's crazy.

I'm pretty sure that is actually some kind of acro and not mille. It just doesn't have the right coralite structure or PE to be a mille. Still an interesting piece non-the-less, though. The red wine is also very interesting. I have had it it pretty high light and it has lightened up and has some really cool pink highlights now.

 

Love the piece you got from Alternative Reef! I think he is my favorite "artistic rock" maker, if that term makes any sense. I have one of his wrasse dens in my barebottom frag tank, and my Melarnus really loves it and it looks way better than Tupperware!

Thanks! Scott definitely has quite the artistic hand when it comes to making natural looking mag rocks. Those wrasse dens are cool too!

 

Tank looks great love all the new coral.

Thank you!

 

Such pretty sps. I wish mine would stay so colorful!

Thanks Kimber! Keep it up and pay attention to those levels and you will get some more color out of your frags.

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So made some more changes/upgrades over the weekend. First, got a screen top from BRS. I should have done this a while ago. The BRS kit looks a lot better than the screen top I had made before with a frame from home depot and white tulle.

17854839538_e11b031277_k.jpgDSC_0012 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

Then the tank got a 5 gallon WC and some water testing(I haven't tested in 3 or 4 weeks)

Salinity: 1.026

cal 410
alk 9.4
nitrate 1 to 2

 

phos 0.00

 

Then, the new mag rock went in.....

18122830561_7255b5efcb_k.jpgDSC_0015 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

17935547849_16cb8b3345_k.jpgDSC_0016 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

18118293662_07b8ccb5fa_k.jpgDSC_0027 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

Now to find time to glue sps all over it! B)

 

And last but not least, I went fish shopping yesterday. After talking to the guys at Top Shelf, they are going to take a couple fish out of one of their displays for me today. After work, I am going to stop by and pick up my new yellow tail tamarin wrasse and sunburst anthia!! The tamarin has been in that display for a while, is very healthy, and is eating everything frozen. The sunburst has been in there for about 3-4 weeks and is also very healthy and eating. I am so excited to be getting some really cool fish. Now to see whether my pod culture can keep with with both the mandarin and the tamarin. If not, I will probably end up taking the mandarin out, but in the mean time I will start trying to get the mandarin on frozen and see how it goes.

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I picked up my fish last night!!! So far they are both pretty much hiding, but I did manage to get some crappy cell phone pics while they were still in the bag acclimating.

 

The tamarin did pretty good. I decided not to QT the tamarin, mostly because I do not have sand in my qt. After I added him to the DT, he actually swam around a bit before diving into the sand. He checked out my female O. Clown and they seemed to get along quite well. Also, I put a couple pellets in the bag while it was acclimating and it actually went for them, so that is great!

18157627575_31849edb56_k.jpg20150526_193253 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

17537316923_754e835cbe_k.jpg20150526_193252 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

The sunburst anthia went into my QT and did pretty well also. It has pretty much just been hiding down under the LR. I tried to see if it would come out for feeding time last night, but it did not. It may be a couple days and even longer before it warms up to me, but that was to be expected.

18158977911_cd9532413b_k.jpg20150526_193330 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

 

Ohhh and I almost forgot. After I raised my salinity over the weekend, I woke up Sunday morning to find my wellso all inflated. It must have been happy with the change as I have never seen it do this before!

17970146330_63091032be_k.jpg20150525_091934 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

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lilmatty5dimes

Great additions. Both fish will add tons of color to your tank. That wellso looks crazy sweet.

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Great additions. Both fish will add tons of color to your tank. That wellso looks crazy sweet.

Thanks dude. Im super stoked about the fish...I have been waiting a LONG TIME to get some more fish in here. Was well worth the wait, though.

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So the fish are doing well so far. The wrasse has been out and about and seems to be quite happy in its new home. I was worried that I may not see it for a week or so, but it was out before the lights even came on yesterday morning. I fed cyclops to the tank for the first time last night and the clowns went crazy for it. Also, I am pretty sure I saw the mandarin striking at the cyclops as well!!!

 

The sunburst is still quite timid in the QT. I still have not seen it come out to eat, but I am sure it will once it gets used to things a bit more. I am happy, though, that it has ventured away from squeezing itself in between the bottom of the live rock and glass to one of the pvc fittings.

 

Peaking out at me...

17582618873_a8f6aae8c4_k.jpg20150527_234202 by cchsoracle, on Flickr

 

 

On another note, I may finally be getting a DSLR for father's day!!! So assuming that does happen, you can expect MUCH better fish pics in another month or so. :D

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Love fatheads, I'm trying a trio of dispars atm and they are very shy, kinda worried I made a mistake goin with them but we shall see.

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Love fatheads, I'm trying a trio of dispars atm and they are very shy, kinda worried I made a mistake goin with them but we shall see.

Dispars are awesome too! I would think they should settle in after a few weeks or so. I kinda feel bad about my fathead in the respect that I am do a 3 week qt. So, by the time he finally settles in, I will move him into the DT and then start all over.

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Arkayology

I love the magnetic frag racks from The Alternative Reef. Mine has an awesome hidey-hole for my midges blenny. Yours doesn't have frag plug holes like mine though. Are you just going to attach corals to it like you would regular rock?

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Dispars are awesome too! I would think they should settle in after a few weeks or so. I kinda feel bad about my fathead in the respect that I am do a 3 week qt. So, by the time he finally settles in, I will move him into the DT and then start all over.

My only worry is them starving from not coming out, I think today I am going to buy a bunch more food and try a new one every day I heard cyclops are pretty good which I alrdy have but no response yet from them. Gl with urs tho, anthias are def my fav fish i want a big tank one day full of em like 20 at least lol.

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I love the magnetic frag racks from The Alternative Reef. Mine has an awesome hidey-hole for my midges blenny. Yours doesn't have frag plug holes like mine though. Are you just going to attach corals to it like you would regular rock?

Yep, I specifically had that one made for that space and asked that he not put holes. I wanted it to be more of a permanent floating rock structure specifically for SPS. I want to be able to mount the coral at an angle that will hopefully get it to grow up and out away from the back wall, therefore, no holes for frag plugs.

 

Mine also has a pretty cool "cave" type opening. I figured it would also be good to add more hiding spaces for fish, as I had a pretty minimal amount of LR to begin with. It also seems to add a cool darker area under it, kinda like a drop off reef type tank feature. All in all, I am very happy with how it came out. I just need to make some final decisions and find time to do placement...

My only worry is them starving from not coming out, I think today I am going to buy a bunch more food and try a new one every day I heard cyclops are pretty good which I alrdy have but no response yet from them. Gl with urs tho, anthias are def my fav fish i want a big tank one day full of em like 20 at least lol.

Yeah, I have that concern lingering in the back of my head too. While I have not personally seen it eat, my wife said she thought she saw it come out and peck a bit the first day when she did the morning feeding. Fingers crossed, but I'm sure it will come around soon. GL to you as well, tank it looking awesome lately. I got a feeling you will be TOTM here pretty soon.

I love the magnetic frag racks from The Alternative Reef. Mine has an awesome hidey-hole for my midges blenny. Yours doesn't have frag plug holes like mine though. Are you just going to attach corals to it like you would regular rock?

Ark - while you are hanging out in here, take a look back at my last pic of my pink lemonade frag. You are pretty knowledgeable on SPS. Have you ever seen anything like that? I was talking to Alex B earlier and he thinks it may be an infection of some kind. It's really weird. I have seen some reference to similar behavior online, but no definitive resolution as to what caused it or how to treat it.

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Yep, I specifically had that one made for that space and asked that he not put holes. I wanted it to be more of a permanent floating rock structure specifically for SPS. I want to be able to mount the coral at an angle that will hopefully get it to grow up and out away from the back wall, therefore, no holes for frag plugs.

 

Mine also has a pretty cool "cave" type opening. I figured it would also be good to add more hiding spaces for fish, as I had a pretty minimal amount of LR to begin with. It also seems to add a cool darker area under it, kinda like a drop off reef type tank feature. All in all, I am very happy with how it came out. I just need to make some final decisions and find time to do placement...

 

Yeah, I have that concern lingering in the back of my head too. While I have not personally seen it eat, my wife said she thought she saw it come out and peck a bit the first day when she did the morning feeding. Fingers crossed, but I'm sure it will come around soon. GL to you as well, tank it looking awesome lately. I got a feeling you will be TOTM here pretty soon.

Thanks man, being nominated is nuts, I feel like the tank needs at least another year of growth to get where it's close to the picture in my head lol. Def feels good that people seem to like the look tho heh.

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Thanks man, being nominated is nuts, I feel like the tank needs at least another year of growth to get where it's close to the picture in my head lol. Def feels good that people seem to like the look tho heh.

Its definitely different to see something so natural looking. I love to say I try to keep it as natural looking as possible, but I know that I am no where near as natural looking as your reef. You really hit the nail on the head. While I'm sure in another year the tank will really be something amazing, it is ready to be TOTM now!

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