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36" SPS reef (I need a better camera)


Weasel Baron

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Weasel Baron

Equipment

36x8x9 12 gallon tank

standard 10 gallon sump

Jebao RW4

Reef Octopus bh50

eheim jager 75W heater

 

Lighting

36" 4 bulb ATI (soon to be retrofitted w/ 2 V3 Nanobox pucks to replace the two middle bulbs)

 

Livestock (corals & sessile inverts)

a chunk of blue sponge

encrusting Alveopra

Sunset monti

sunburst monti

neon green monti cap

Red monti cap

Ponape birdsnest

ORA bird of paradise

Pink birds nest

Cyphastrea meteor shower

Orange and purple cycloseris plate

Gold and green cycloseris plate

Rainbow cycloseris plate

Rainbow Acan head

Neon green branching hammer

Green tip torch

Orange and blue ricordeas

Strawberry shortcake Acro

Bali shortcake Acro

Blue A. vermiculata

Pink/Red A. millipora

Orange and green Lobo

Red/Yellow Rock Flower anemone

Green/Yellow Rock Flower anemone

Green/Blue RFA

Blue Tip green A. plana

Montipora "jedi mind trick"

Montipora "forest fire"

red/purple chalice w/ yellow/orange eyes

Neon green aussie toadstool sarcophyton

Various Zs and Ps

 

Livestock (fish and inverts)

filthy little smeagol, the mantis shrimp (1/2" long, likely P. ciliata)

Tiger pistol shrimp (~2" long. more than the mantis can handle, for now)

1 large nassarius

1 Neon goby

1 Clown

1 Blue damsel

1 female Emperor shrimp

1 fat Turbo Snail

 

 

FTS (4/10/15)

Currently finishing cycling

tF7VaUV.jpg

 

FTS rescaped (4/16/13)

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FTS (5/3/15)

5yl10Kj.jpg

 

FTS (5/13/15)

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FTS 6/2/15

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The impetus for this tank was mostly based on a decision to move my sps and some other corals into a more manageable (and easier to fill) tank. Im moving them partly because Ive decided to follow through with my original plan of having a large anemone as the focal point, and partly because it wont be as expensive to fill a 12gal w/ sps :P

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Andrew_Reef90g

My ritteri decided his favorite spot was the front glass. Ritteris really like a lot of light, it's weird to see them at the bottom of the tank like that.

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Weasel Baron

There was a large purple ritteri at my LFS that I couldnt pass up; its been happily sitting in the corner of the tank for the last week or so, but the hope is to redo some of the rockwork once I move the majority of the coral over to the other tank, and have the nem more centrally located

 

N88oWDa.jpg

 

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The plumbing is as follows:

 

ckTW01M.jpg?1

 

please disregard my dog, who wont let me take a picture without him in it (I have to sneak away while he's asleep)

 

the in-line and out-line are both drilled through the bottom of the tank, with the in-line having a check valve. The rockwork was then built around the PVC and the height of the in-line and out-line were set to avoid catastrophic overflow should the check valve and power both fail. The out-line also has a ball-valve for easy water changes

 

tEdtGBx.jpg

 

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(thats homemade beer fermenting in the back, another terribly addictive hobby!)

 

 

 

the sand and some liverock was added, and it came with a tiny little mantis shrimp

 

v1Uac2Q.jpg

 

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weird zebra snail (middle of pic) and blue sponge to the right. Not sure if its a sundial, but there arent any polyps in there and wont be for a while, so *shrug*

 

DdxA9kA.jpg

 

 

 

Im still not entirely sold on the large piece of liverock, but its where the mantis lives, so it stays for now

zig2CXH.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

The ATI light will stand as is for the time being, but the plan is to set it up w/ a heatsink and two of the nanobox V3 arrays to replace the middle bulbs

 

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still have to clean up the wiring, but I like how its shaping up. The bulb combo is:

 

2 Blue+

1 Purple+

1 Actinic+ (Giesemann)

 

 

 


My ritteri decided his favorite spot was the front glass. Ritteris really like a lot of light, it's weird to see them at the bottom of the tank like that.

 

such a pain! mine has slowly started shifting that way as well

 

tank has four 24" t5 bulbs and a Kessil a350w set 75% blue 50% white, so it seems pretty happy w/ the light so far. may turn the LED down a bit when I relocate it to the middle, but I get the feeling the nem will disregard anything I try to do and move around anyway :lol:

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Andrew_Reef90g

such a pain! mine has slowly started shifting that way as well

 

tank has four 24" t5 bulbs and a Kessil a350w set 75% blue 50% white, so it seems pretty happy w/ the light so far. may turn the LED down a bit when I relocate it to the middle, but I get the feeling the nem will disregard anything I try to do and move around anyway :lol:

How long have you had it? I would just let it go where it wants to go. At the end of the day, it's going to go where it wants anyway, so it's less stress to just let it. If it's in a decent spot right now, try feeding it small amounts a few times. This may help it decide to stay there

 

Looks awesome! How do you like the ritteri? Any issues with it in that tank? I was thinking about one for my tank.

 

 

IMO ritteris are easy as long as you can find a healthy one. They just don't do well with shipping. I bought mine from a fellow reefer who had it for years.

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Weasel Baron

only a couple weeks, but it's more or less stayed put (half of it has shifted up a little bit against the glass). It was indeed looking good at the LFS and was super sticky, so I do believe shipping is the #1 reason these guys get labeled as bad nems to own. I will attempt to move it once I transfer the other corals, but only if I can do so without trouble... if its firmly attached to the glass I wont bother

 

 

In other news, the cycle is more or less wrapping up; ammonia is down to 0 and nitrites are below 0.25 so I will retest tomorrow and likely do some water changes this weekend. I have a McCosker's in the 50gal w/ the ritteri that Im increasingly worried will get eaten, so I may move him over as the first inhabitant. I also plan on grabbing some CUC and seeing what they can do about the algae

 

 

Not entirely sure what I want to do w/ the fish end of things. Ive put together a screen top with some 1/4" black bird netting (had to cut out the region on the left to allow the island to stick through!), so Im not too worried about jumpers. I'd like to do a bunch of little fish and shrimp, neon gobies and the like, but the thought of a wartskin angler is really tempting too!

 

obviously not planning on getting all of them, but here are some of the potentials:

 

wartskin:

p-76931-wartskin-angler.jpg

 

yellow line shrimp

p-38744-Yellowline-Shrimp.jpg

 

venus anemone shrimp

p-38745-Glass-Shrimp.jpg

 

green banded gobies

p-90041-Greenbanded-Goby.jpg

 

starcki damsel

p-89666-starcki-damsel.jpg

 

red spot cardinals

0410151-228v.jpg

 

pearly jawfish

p-71432-yellowhead-jawfish.jpg

 

hector's gobies

p-71237-hectors.jpg

 

eviota gobies

p-26183-gold-neon-eviota.jpg

 

neon gobies

p-80275-neon-blue-goby.jpg

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jedimasterben

I'm with jbb.

 

But not if you get the angler, that will be the only fish or invert you could have, unless you like buying expensive meals :)

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Weasel Baron

I'm with jbb.

 

But not if you get the angler, that will be the only fish or invert you could have, unless you like buying expensive meals :)

 

really tempted to grab one, but I think I like the idea of more than one tank inhabitant more. Petco is having their $1/gal sale again, so maybe I just pick up another 20gal for an angler....

 

also, what about one of these guys? I heard they can be jerks

 

 

Gold Assessor Basslet

 

p-90097-gold-assessor.jpg

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jedimasterben

You dont have enough volume to really give them breathing room, so they're morely to be aggressive. They're also jumpers, as are most of the fish you selected lol

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Weasel Baron

mini update

 

no NEW livestock, but I am moving forward w/ the transfer. Cleaned up the wiring as well

 

4dxoWj0.jpg

 

some new inhabitants, they seem happy and most are showing good PE now. Still have a LOT of scaping to do, but for the time being it will just be basic stuff (preventing coral wars) and keeping an eye on how things are acclimating to the new system :happy:

 

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this little dude is happy to be more centrally located as well

 

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iGcQwDn.jpg

 

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FzoyVPY.jpg

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Weasel Baron

new tiger pistol shrimp! also got a couple large(ish) nassarius snails, but they promptly buried themselves once i put them in the tank

 

jY0y60m.gif

 

fXEzIsV.jpg

 

 

I also finally got around to some aquascaping, but its a bit cloudy so those pictures will have to come later

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Weasel Baron

this tank is coming together so much better than the 50gal did it makes me want to cry. I'm almost 100% sure that tank was doomed from the beginning, but thats ok because all its coral was transferred to this tank :lol:

 

Aquascaping is done for the most part, excited to see how the red monti grows in, but I get the feeling ill be trimming it frequently

 

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grabbed a couple frags yesterday, Im REALLY excited to see how the one on the right colors up

 

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this guy has some nice blue on the tips, but we'll see where it goes

 

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small piece of encrusting goni that was around from the start of the 50 onward

 

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using some chaeto as filter floss

 

gne73d4.jpg

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Weasel Baron

New babies. I was hopeful they wouldnt fight, and seem to be getting along really well. Hopefully they become a pair and lay some eggs!

 

rvo0KwS.jpg

 

 

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also, anyone have some ideas for how high I should hang the light and for how long it should be running? I have it about 10" off the water's surface and 2 bulbs on for 10hrs and the other two for 4ish hours at peak hours. too much?

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Weasel Baron

thanks guys! I just grabbed some sweet frags off ebay for relatively cheap:

 

Jc2KKCK.jpg

 

2CEgoLP.jpg

 

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will update when I get them in on thursday.

 

 

any thoughts on the recommended light fixture height?

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I like the addition of the various gifs. Its great to see the critters and corals in motion even if its only for a few seconds.

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Weasel Baron

I like the addition of the various gifs. Its great to see the critters and corals in motion even if its only for a few seconds.

:happy:

 

I agree with everyone, very cool. Nice job on the whole set up.

What kinda beer you brewing?

 

imperial black IPA; 5 different hops and an ABV of around 10%. Ive been reworking the recipe for this one over a couple of batches, so hopefully its even better than the last batch I made :lol:

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Weasel Baron

soooo, can anyone give their 2 cents on hanging height and operating time?

 

I have the fixture now at 12" off the surface, with all 4 bulbs going from 11am to 9pm. Considering dropping the fixture back to the 9" height but only running 2 bulbs for a week or so to get everything acclimated. Dont want to turn everything into toast!

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