Benny's tank thread (surprisingly by request......)

[Benny314]

So I started mooching around the forum last summer when I started seriously considering an upgrade to my Fluval Edge 46 and I wanted DIY LED ideas and colour combos as I really enjoy the planning and building of these sort of things (everybody loves a good project, that and I work nights and when it's quiet I have a lot of time on my hands lol).

 

This is my Edge project on FB. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bens-Fluval-Edge-project/321400347996727?ref=bookmarks

 

As you'll see I like to plan and build stuff and the edge was a great tank to mod, but soon I started thinking bigger.

My initial thoughts were something like a Clear Seal Reef Space (identical to the TMC signatures but with a better sump layout and a damn sight cheaper). I wanted a cube and was thinking the Reef Space 500 (50x50x50cm), would just about fit where the edge was.

 

However a 3x2x2 tank came round cheap in my local area and well I couldn't help myself. I mean it's only 3 times the volume of my planed Reef Space............... lol.

Think it was a Betta Life Space 1000, needed new filet seals putting in as the guy who was selling it had cut them out to put new in and then realised it was to big for his house.

It's on a diy stand as the Betta stands tend to rot out and has a big sump and plenty of space under the tank.

It's a bit scratched, I did try polishing them out before it came into the house but no real joy. But it does mean I won't cry when I scratch it.

But having a massive sump space for equipment, refugum and some sort of frag/grow out bay is great.

 

It did mean a complete rethink of the front room layout and moving a 48x12x18 tropical tank, but these things must be done in the name of progress.

 

Photos to follow when I have more time............

[Kenmak2008]

lawnmower blenny

[Benny314]

In the Edge? It was a red spot flymo, but it took offence to the clowns after 6 weeks or so and battered them to with an inch of their lifes. He was a sod to catch when I rehomed him lol.

[Benny314]

Right now I have some time on my hands sat around at work........... That's right I'm being paid to sit here, it's great.

 

I had a fairly terrible weekend, some of you may have noticed my sick Kole tang post.

Basically I picked up a nice large Kole of a local reefer who was closing his system down. I had a few fish including a six line off him before Christmas and was set to get the tang the weekend before Christmas but was unable to due to other commitments. So I picked him up weekend before last.

The guy selling him said the fish hadn't been it's self that day (should have walked away then, but I really wanted him and as we all do I thought, na it will be ok), we eventually managed to catch the bugger and I brought him home and drip acclimated him. I unfortunately like many reefers don't have the space for a quarantine tank so I sort of just hope for the best with these things.

Turns out the tang had velvet, probably due to the prior owner stripping down his tank and selling most of his LR back when I originally got the six line and 3 chromis.

The morning after adding the tang I noticed it had powdery spots all over it and put it down to white spot or tang stress spots, having coral my options were limited but I am running UV so I got some oodinex and started mixing it with the food as recommended by one of my LFS.

This turned into an outbreak and out of 13 fish I am down to 3 at this moment. First to go was my Copper Band butterfly (gutted) went without warning or outward signs of infection Friday afternoon. The fish was fine Friday morning. Then mid-afternoon it didn't look so good and was dead an hour and a half later. I had put it down to butterfly's being sensitive and figured I was just unlucky and couldn't keep them.

Then the tang which had been looking better all week, started peeling excess mucus off it's face Saturday.

Sunday morning I lost a little blue/green chromis in the morning and I started to notice dusty spots on other fish. I treated the tank with a full dose of oodinex and hoped for the best realising it was now more likely velvet than white spot.

The tang unfortunately died that afternoon and my clown pair that were my first marine fish back in my edge weren't looking so good.

Monday then saw the loss of 5 fish over the course of the day, including all 3 of my clowns (my original pair and a rescue who I risked and had started to get on with my original pair) and 2 more chromis. Some fish like the clowns were absolutely covered in the classic velvet dusting and were getting very mucus covered towards the end, however most of the chromis showed no outward signs.

Also nothing seems to die overnight. It only ever kills them in the day time? Weird right?

Tuesday only saw one chromis die, the last 2 chromis and the six line seem to be hanging on in there and I'm hoping the combination of oodinex and UV will get the rest of the velvet before it over comes them. Time will tell, I was resigned to this being a total fish wipe out after Monday's carnage.

 

But enough about the disaster, on with the tank development before this catastrophe and then I might even keep on top of the thread to provide the onwards rebuild following this massive stock loss.

 

I was looking to upgrade my Fluval Edge 46 to maybe a Clear Seal Reef Space 500.

Nice dimensions about 125 litres, would fit were the edge was, I really fancied a cube, and it meant an excuse for a new LED build.

As it was a tank came round on one of the facebook trading sites for my local area. It was a Betta Life Space 1000 I believe, 3X2X2, sump and home built stand as the Betta stands seem to have a habit of rotting out....... £50 bargain, now just to fit it in our Renault Megan salon............ God I miss my ford ranger pickup lol.

 

 

So it has a few scratches and needed new filet seals as they had already been stripped out, but for £50 I wasn't going to complain and I won't cry when I scratch it as always happens. The sump is a nice size, fairly wide and has low baffles giving good head room for backflow depending how I plumb it up.

 

 

So this was the layout of our front room, ignore the mess lol. The plan became build a new unit behind the sofa for the tropical tank and the marine would then go where the trops are.

 

 

As you can see I have far to much time on my hands at work and access to paint.

 

 

And this is how it turned out. Not to far off the plans. Getting the tank up the stairs was a mission though, it's only 3X2X2 but it's 10mm double braced and bloody heavy.

 

All the stock from my edge was put in the sump as I had gotten my hands on a par 38 knock off on ebay for £20 and had set it up with a centre return chamber, left hand side was to be primary return compartment and skimmer and the right was going to be a coral/fragging bay and refugum with a bit of black acrylic added far right to make an ATO chamber.

The large fragging area has proved a great place to keep my corals while waiting to complete my LED build.

 

[Slowtwitch]

Looking good so far. I like the layout of the tropical tank and the marine tank around the sofa. Plenty of viewing area..

 

Sorry to hear about the fish loss. At least it's an opportunity to start fresh if you want different stock...

[Benny314]

Thanks Slowtwitch, absolutely gutting. Maybe could have thinned down on the chromis, 7 was a big shoal, but it looked amazing and the butterfly was an all time want, may try again in a few months once I'm sure the parasites have bought it.

Fortunately all my coral in the sump is completely unaffected apart from a frag plug of irish cream zoa that seem to have turned the same colour green as the oodinex, I'm sure it will ware off once I stop dosing the tank lol.

 

I loved the edge for how close to the small goings on you were in the tank, worked very well on the end of the sofa, setting up like this even thought its a massive tank jump (46 litres to 330 odd) I'm still able to sit right in close on the tank and observe the micro flora and fauna and 3 sides viewable is just cool as far as I'm concerned.

[Benny314]

So on with the plot.
As you may have noticed to put the tank in place the sofa had to move to put the new tropical stand behind it, this used up the space the edge was stood in at the end of the sofa, I was considering moving the edge to the other side of the room for a while until the new system was up and running. But this just seemed like a massive pain in the ass and it was going to be a while before I got the lighting sorted for the tank. I had plans for the sump to have a coral bay lit by a knock off par 38 I got on ebay. So I figured get the stands in place (trop tank moved) and put my stock in the sump for holding as the return chamber and coral bay hold about 36 litres of water and that wasn't far off the edges capacity anyway. Most of my corals were in the holding tank in the garage which had my ebay score live rock in (37kg with 2 really cool tonga branches for £40, plus £20 for me to have them couriered, live rock locally from LFS is £13 a kg) as a file fish I had bought to try and tackle the edges increasing aiptasia problem had decided he preferred to eat LPS not aip's.

 

So having pre built the tropical tanks stand to fit with the new marine tanks DIY'd stand, I part drained the edge and got it out of the way, pulled the front room apart, assembled the stand, drained the tropical tank and bumped it over onto the new stand, repositioned the sofa and dragged the marine stand up and placed the sump in it.

Then using a little pump I had and some hose I pumped water from the return chamber into the coral bay to get circulation and put my stock in leaving the file fish in the return chamber away from the LPS he so liked to take chunks out of.

Then with the help of my mate next door we got the tank in and up on the stand.

 

I ended up picking up a nice shoal of 6 blue/green chromis and a few other bits of coral off a chap shutting down a tank locally so I filled the first chamber of the sump and chucked the skimmer in to pump water to both the coral bay and first chamber from the return chamber so as not to overcrowd the coral bay and up the water volume in play as the bio load was steadily increasing at this point. I already had a lemon chromis and I wasn't sure if he'd play nice with the new additions so for safety I figured keep them separate until they had 330 litres to get away from each other in.

 

I also built my aqua scape and all but filled the display so it could recycle following being out of the holding tank over night waiting for the putty to dry.

 

After a bit of messing around and a lot of searching I was able to find some replacement bulkheads for the tank. The originals were in a bad way and also seemed to be for 27mm outer diameter pipe and this would leave me very limited pipe wise as the internal of the bits of pipe I had were about the 20mm mark.

Fortunately aliexpress had a seller selling these really great bulkheads that the allow the pipe to be bigger than the drill hole in the tank. I was able to get 32mm bulkheads that would fit the existing drilling. 32mm pipe is still a pain to find mind, but pipestock came to the rescue with some seriously cheap pipe and fittings. £70 later and I had all the bits I needed delivered next day for that price too!

 

This is what I went with plumbing wise. As the display was currently in the middle of a fairly hard cycle after 30% of the rock had been dry over night and suffered a big die off I had to plumb the system based on what looked like it worked in other peoples systems and hope it ended up quiet (and leak free) first time as I could not do a fresh water test first.

 

 

I went with the standard herby style overflow, but put a durso on the secondary as I'm running maybe 20-30% through it as it supplies my refugum/coral bay with tank water that hasn't been via the skimmer and UV. The return tee's off and feeds my UV (undersized for the tank, but only has 200lph tops going through it), that also drains into the coral bay giving about equal flow between the left and right back into the centre return.

I siliconed some black tinted acrylic into the coral bay area to make an ATO reservoir as the compartment was huge and I could sacrifice some space and I didn't have space for my original plan which was a container higher than the sump to be a gravity fed ATO using an RO float valve. It would have been much simpler and wouldn't suffer float switch or pump failure. But having an arduino as my light controller I figured it could do ATO, temp, PH and possibly salinity down the line so I don't have to splash out on an expensive ATO system, just get some cheap components and integrate them to my controller.

 

Because I have far to much time on my hands on a quiet night shift I went over thinking things and decided to be a smart arse and put a couple of drip lines in on the UV side of the return to allow for quick and easy acclimation of new stock. It's worked out really well, the airline regulators allow me to set the drip speed and the stock can float in the return chamber allowing temperatures to equalise.

 

I had wanted to tee off the primary drain just below the tank to install a mess free auto water changer, basically close the primary drain valve and open the valve on the tee which would run the tank drain through a container with fresh mixed water that would drain back into the sump. The idea was to be able to set it going and then leave it an hour or 2. Then just reset the valves and take the now dirty water in the container away. Yes I know not 100% efficient. But a damn sight easier than trying to take water out of the display with the return pump off and then refilling it via the sump.

The problem came when I had to dog leg the drains with 45 degree elbows as the tank is drilled back left corner and therefore there isn't a straight drop to the sump. This didn't leave me enough space for the tee below the tank.

However my plan still Works as I am just using my small pump to push water out of the return chamber into the container to over fill it back into the sump. This works great and the only effort in a water change now is mixing the salt and then lifting the dirty water to the sink to drain it away a few hours later.

 

Anyway the day came when the display was cycled (finally) and I was able to make water flow, and what do you know, complete silence. I think more by blind luck than good management I had managed to cobble together enough info on what makes overflows noisy to avoid falling into and of those common mistakes. Also it didn't leak (obviously used up all my luck here hence my current fish crisis).

I had got the system going with a 1400lph pump I had kicking around as I was intending to get a Jebao dc but had gained yet more fish from another tank close down and everything needed to go into the display as there was not enough space in the sump.

I ended up with a DC2000 and it's a cracking little pump. I also got my hands on 2 RW-4's as they will ultimately be controlled by my arduino. Think I may get a RW-8 as well as I would like to be able to make things really turbulent at times to simulate storms using the arduino and the 2 RW-4 although enough are maxed out in order to be enough.

 

More to follow. I might finally get the lighting sorted this weekend.

[Benny314]

 

Quite possibly my favourite creature in my tank. Meet noo noo the conch (original name right lol). This little critter is always up to something entertaining like this face plant fail.

I once found him hanging by his shell which he had gotten trapped between the rock work and back glass in my edge. It was so funny, his foot was just sort of swinging there.

He is currently living in the coral bay in the sump as the lighting is providing some algae for him to graze on although I have been supplementing him with nori.

 

 

And this is Dr Evil (so named as I have a pretty big dwarf blue leg that is about, you've guessed it 1 8th his size) currently living in the DT but soon to be sumped. I got him off someone closing their tank down, couldn't believe my luck, you rarely see electric blue hermits for sale, at least not around where I am. He is huge, there's no perspective really in this shot. However he is heading the way of the sump as soon as the lighting is sorted and the conch is put in the DT as I put the conch in the DT the other day and found the hermit cuddling him in a rather unfriendly manor. Fortunately I spotted what was going on before any harm was done. But clearly this bruiser isn't going to play nice, which is a shame as he is really cool, just not a cool as the conch.

[Slowtwitch]

 

Quite possibly my favourite creature in my tank. Meet noo noo the conch (original name right lol). This little critter is always up to something entertaining like this face plant fail.

I once found him hanging by his shell which he had gotten trapped between the rock work and back glass in my edge. It was so funny, his foot was just sort of swinging there.

He is currently living in the coral bay in the sump as the lighting is providing some algae for him to graze on although I have been supplementing him with nori.

 

 

And this is Dr Evil (so named as I have a pretty big dwarf blue leg that is about, you've guessed it 1 8th his size) currently living in the DT but soon to be sumped. I got him off someone closing their tank down, couldn't believe my luck, you rarely see electric blue hermits for sale, at least not around where I am. He is huge, there's no perspective really in this shot. However he is heading the way of the sump as soon as the lighting is sorted and the conch is put in the DT as I put the conch in the DT the other day and found the hermit cuddling him in a rather unfriendly manor. Fortunately I spotted what was going on before any harm was done. But clearly this bruiser isn't going to play nice, which is a shame as he is really cool, just not a cool as the conch.

Nice acquisition in that hermit. Too bad he wont play nice. Maybe after a time out in the sump he can be taught that conch is off the menu...

[Benny314]

Lol yeah. I'd put the conch in and he did nothing but hide buried in the sand for like 4 days, I figured he was making up for the fact he hadn't been able to dig in down in the sump as I only have a little sand down there. Just before I went to work one night the hermit obviously found him. Don't think there will be much educating him, he got to one of the little chromis that snuffed it in the fishbola out break and had its head clean off and then stripped to nothing in about 1/2 an hour. He should be great at keeping the sump spotless of waste food mind.

[Slowtwitch]

Anything new to report here?

[Benny314]

Well there's been a lot going on (going wrong).

 

Got the lights up and running!

 

Recent full tank shot from my favourite viewing angle. The lights are only 59% at peak currently and it's enough to blow out some colours with the phone camera (I haven't gotten to break out my Canon 40D yet).

 

 

I've adopted some yellow tail damsels and an ocellaris clown from someone having tank issues since my fishbola out break. The clowns going to a new home tomorrow as I have a Tomato clown and I'm not about to see if they'll get on. The damsels then promptly started battering each other, which is a shame as they are lovely specimens. So I am keeping one and 2 are going to new homes on Tuesday, currently the clown and 3 damsels are living in my sump in different compartments lol.

 

I'd done loads of research into what sort of nem to get as I was wanting to give a good home to this tomato clown that we had seen at our LFS that was looking sorry for it's self and the tomato was a little different to the clowns I lost to the fishbola.

I settled on a long tentacle nem as I figured it wouldn't roam to much being a sand dwelling one. I mail ordered one and it came well packed and after a long slow acclimatization it seemed it settled in well and was fully expanded by day 2. We then picked up the clown and I fear it may have loved it to death. It was fine for a few days, but then stopped opening fully and the other day the clown had pushed it out of the cave it was living in and it was floating around on the sand bed. I ended up putting it in a pot in my sump under the par 38 to see if it would recover, but it never did. I'm gutted, my parameters all seem good and I'm not getting any ph swings. Maybe I was just unlucky (risk of mail order) with the nem. But now I'm back to square one needing a nem that won't blunder off into a wave maker. I'd love a carpet nem but it's to likely to eat everything in the tank. Sergestions welcome people.

 

On the upside all my corals are loving the new lighting. The sick lobo I got over a year ago is not only doing well but it's looking the best and biggest it ever has. My elegance coral is bigger than ever and my hammer frag looks to be spliting too with in 9 days of going under the better lighting.

 

I have a slight diatom and algae bloom since the lights got up and running. The conch is loving it but not able to keep on top of the ditoms, so I'm looking to get a blue cheek or chalk goby to help turn the sand over and I am picking up a sail fin tang tomorrow which I'm dead excited about.

Also have my local maidenhead getting in some scribbled rabbitfish. They're getting 3 in and I'm thinking I'll home 2 of them to keep them as a pair.

Hoping these 2/3 new additions will help keep on top of the algae. Considering the output of these lights I'm not getting anywhere near the algae I expected, but this stuff is going long and stringy and isn't very pleasnt to look at.

I could only get one lonely black foot snail the other day who is having a hard time making a dent in the algae but he's having a good crack at it lol.

 

I'll chuck up some photos of my lighting rig directly, the controller is half there, still got some kinks and I'm wanting to make some changes when I get time (get my head around the code). I'll get it done soon and then tidy up the wiring as I have some sketchy jumper cables going on at the minute and half the cover case is off the control unit. But I have sunrise, sunset and intensity control which is all I need for now.

[Slowtwitch]

Are you looking to get a nem just for the clown? Or because you want the nem? I would look into a RBTA or possibly rock flower if you really want the nem, otherwise get a long tentacled coral for the clown. Frogspawn or the like. For me, as much as I like nems, I'd stick to the corals. Less risk in either losing the nem cause it wanders into an intake or losing a coral cause the nem decides it likes to sit on top of it.

Really like the scape so far. Can't wait to see it fully decorated with corals.

[Benny314]

I'm looking to get a nem to home this tomato clown. It has always hosted a nem when one has been in stock at the LFS, and the clown had been there over a year with it's nem constantly being removed poor bugger. So me and the wife took pitty on it and after getting my long tentacle nem settled, thought that would be a home for life. I was wrong. Luckly the clown hasn't started hosting my hammer, as I'm pretty sure it would kill it very quickly. It's not the most gentle lover lol. I do have a large mushroom, think it's ric of some description. That has fairly long tentacles on it when fully inflated. But again, I don't think it would take to kindly to the tomato clown bouncing in it.

I want something a little different too. Everyone has bubble tips (most report theirs don't wander), but I want something as more of a centre piece.

Like the scribbled rabbitfish. Could have picked up a black spot rabbit yesterday, but I don't have a huge tank, so what I put in there has to be really special and have that 'wow' factor, or serve a purpose, preferably both.

 

I'm dead happy with the scape too. Waiting for some of my sps to grow out now and encrust it making it look more natural. As well as the tactically placed zoas I'm wanting to hide some of the zip ties used in construction.

[Slowtwitch]

Most recommendations I see for tomato clowns are bubble tips and sebaes. Both can be beautiful nems especially the rainbow bubble tips. Sebaes are notoriously difficult to keep. Good luck with finding a suitable match.

[Benny314]

So lets talk about my artificial day light generators.

 

I was researching lighting before I even had the tank. I was planning a light fitting for a Clearseal Reef Space 500 as I figured it would be a nice upgrade from my edge, 125 litres give or take, tank comes with stand and sump and was a lovely 50cm in all directions. Tidy looking little rimless cube.

As it happened I ended up with the 3x2x2 for a steal and well plans changed.

I have far to much time on my hands some night shifts and last summer put it to good use lurking on this forum and researching and designing my arrays.

I went from planning one long heat sink to what I ended up with as 3 individual arrays. Main reason for this was cost, I found the 16x16cm heat sinks for just £15 a piece shipped on ebay compared to £75 for a meter long 4kg slab. Also the 3 individual arrays give me far better access to the tank as well as greater control of the lighting allowing me to raise and lower individual arrays as well as change the angle the arrays are at allowing me to direct light where I want it as opposed to straight down.

 

The work computers gained illustrator one day as well, which I found very useful in the scale drawing of my arrays. Here's an example of just how much time I have on my hands on some shifts.

 

 

And how it turned out,

 

 

3W Cree RB and NW on 12mm pcbs (this was a great idea for getting a close grouping and no colour banding and disco shadows, complete pain in the ass to solder up lol), 'Cree' 420nm violets and I ordered 24mm 3 diode pcbs and 660nm red, 495nm cyan and 460nm blue epistar diodes to make my own OCW clusters. Also got 3 470nm blues for moon lighting.

 

If I could hang them high enough one of these arrays would probably light my tank and grow corals, but I was restricted by my canopy which I made 10 inches tall giving me about 7 inches off the waters surface to work with.

 

 

Researching into how to control this many LEDs lead me to the realisation an Arduino based reef controller was the way forward. I came across the storm controller and then realised I could get all the components to build a touch screen reef controller that will run heating, wave maker control and other tank systems for the same price if I didn't mind assembling and programing it. As I have so much time and nothing to do with it I figured this would be a great idea. It's turned into a bit of a pain to get up and running, and currently it's not fully finished. But it will give me something to tinker with which I think I need to keep me sane as work is driving me crazy at the minute.

 

 

7 inch touch screen.......... Why the hell not. This is proving to be a really fun little project and looks amazing in the cabinet door next to the tank.

 

 

Cool isn't it.

To be continued.......

[Slowtwitch]

Wow, that is a talent I wish I had. I'm impressed. I'd love a controller for my tank some day. I am just so clueless when it comes to electronics....

[Benny314]

Well it's about time I did an update (photo dump, sorry all poor phone camera quality though).

 

So I've done bugger all with the half done controller, I'll get to it.......... some time.......... maybe........... look it works so lets not worry to much right now.

 

I have continued with the restock following my fishbola disaster.

 

I got my hands on a juvenile Indian ocean sailfin tang. Lovely looking fish and eating very well (it's a little pig and is getting lovely and fat).

 

 

The tang started with a little white spot despite settling and eating well, so I figured I'd get a cleaner wrasse and a cleaner shrimp as I had inexplicably lost my last cleaner shrimp a few weeks ago. The wrasse eats everything, including nori put in for the tang?! He also set about cleaning everything in the tank almost immediately and has sorted the spot out on the tang.

He's brilliant to watch when he's cleaning. The clown seems to like the wrasse paying attention under it's fins and puts them forward against it's face and lists sideways to allow the cleaner to have a good nibble.

The tang will flush almost pure white while receiving a clean, although every so often the wrasse seems to get a bit carried away and nibbles on something that was still attached causing the tang to chase him around the tank.

The cleaner shrimp has also gotten in on the action quite quickly and has given the tang the odd oral clean here an there (fascinating to watch) as well as jumping on board and riding around on the tang a few times.

 

I managed to get a sebae nem from my local maiden head over the weekend and to give it a chance to settle in I put the clown in a holding box for the afternoon.

 

 

Not a happy clown, but it was worth it in the end as she is loving the sebae which also seem to have settled in very well.

 

 

I also got a beautiful pair of orange diamond watchman gobies at the same time.

They have been very industrious in making themselves a cave under the little island I'm using exclusively for LPS and some softies at the front of the tank (I've had to move 2 corals as they were being buried and used for building materials) and they have caused everything to be covered in a fine layer of dust after spending the last 3 days turning over all the sand. This has however fixed the diatom issues on the sand bed that were hanging on. The diatoms had slowed down and were reducing, but in 3 days they have been completely destroyed.

 

 

At this point they had only gotten to the top end of the tank, they have cleared it all now. Also I have repositioned the 2 RW-4's to replicate this gyre type thinking that has been going around lately. I have to say it's made a massive difference to the flow and having the RW's set one on W2 (constant pulse) and the other on ELSE (random pulse/reef crest) I have gotten a lovely gyre movement with alternating random pulses.

 

 

One pissed off elegance coral after being moved for the 3rd time to avoid it being used as building material for the gobies mansion.

I didn't realise there was this much sand in the tank, they stack about 3 inches up around their cave every night, then every morning pull it back out and sift through it again. They're so funny.

 

 

LPS island before the gobies chose to make it their base of operations.

 

 

They have shifted some serious amounts of sand lol.

 

Just waiting on my scribbled rabbit fish now, hoping they'll be available in the next few weeks. The regional wholesaler is still trying to get hold of some.

[Slowtwitch]

Glad things are setting in for you. Happy clown/sebae combo looks real nice. The gobies are always working aren't they. So much fun to watch.

[Benny314]

Wife loves them, they're so funny. Supper happy with the sebae.

[Benny314]

Well it's high time for an update, I haven't been a work lately........ long story. Either way I've grabed some time at home to get an upload done.

 

The goby pair have not only turned my sand bed over so it is immaculate, but they have constructed themsleves a mansion.

 

 

Some of the engineering work they have done with large crushed coral chips to make their cave a little bigger.

 

 

The sand pile I came home to after being out all day. Little buggers.

 

 

Scooter the red scooter dragonet our latest addition, think she is a female. She is supper cool to watch and I think my wifes new favorite fish.

 

 

And finally 4 weeks growth from my green eyed pavona, sorry I will break out my DSLR at somepoint as these mobile pics are crap. The coral is encrusting like crazy. I've got what I believe is a tri colour acro frag that is showing loads of encrustasion on the base too so I'm hopping for good things.

The lobo is doing really well too and so is the elegance coral now it's no longer being buried by the goby pair on a regular basis.

Now I just have so sort out my aiptasia infestation and I'll be getting somewhere. Picking up a copper band on Wednesday to see if that helps, might splash out on a file fish too as I think they're amazing.

Wife has her eye on a little yellow wrasse too which we may adopt and should help get back on top of the bristle worms that seem to be running a mock since my six line snuffed it in the fishbola episode. Don't get me wrong, bristle worms are great cuc, but I feel they do need to be controlled. Mine are getting quite frisky at night since the six line went.

[Benny314]

http://s1374.photobucket.com/user/Ben_Gregg-Waller/media/WP_20150308_001_zpsfjn6uvix.mp4.html

 

Think this might link a video, but it's horrible quality after upload. Sorry.

 

It goes to my photo bucket and there are a load more tank related shots in there that haven't made the thread.

[Benny314]

Well I've not done anything with this thread for a while. I might get round to updating it at some point.............

 

Currently working on a new little project, a Robo-Tank aquarium controller build. It's already proving great fun (I've missed tinkering and soldering). Check out the link in my sig.