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Cultivated Reef

Two Cats and a Reef


thecoralbeauty

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thecoralbeauty

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___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
FIRST POST

 


April 15, 2015:
Hello! I finally figured out how to do the whole picture thing on there (I hope) so here's the official thread. I'm currently waiting on my new LED fixture to come in the mail, but here's some photos of how things are going in the meantime.

Tank History: I started this thing in college, when my marine biology friend finally won me over back in college. I had a ten gallon tank and the 6 gal fluval edge. They lived happily until my graduation, at which point I combined them, and moved to the springs. My best friend inherited that tank, and had it for about a year, then she got a puppy, I bought a house in denver, and I got my tank back!
She had upgraded to a 20L and no longer used the metal halide fixture I had on it. Much of the livestock was gone, so it's been an awesome opportunity to start completely over! I've got some awesome frags in there, so now I'm just playing the waiting game and continuing to add corals as I find cool ones. =)
The LED fixture currently is about two years old and is of questionable quality, so it is being supplemented by a 20L aquarium light and a random pink LED stunner strip I happened to have laying around. All of these will be replaced by the Radion XR30w Pro.

The cats are over the moon- I adopted them during the year my friend had the tank. They think its the most exciting Cat-TV ever. My fish, however, don't share this opinion.

Livestock:
CUC:
-6 hermit crabs (Soon to be traded to my friend's tank, he is offering to take them so I don't feed them to the cats. they drive me crazy!)
-assorted nassarrius snails and turbo snails
-sand sifting star
-tuxedo urchin

Fish:
-hi-fin goby
-flasher wrasse
-(third and final fish will be yellow-headed jawfish. I used to have a blue-spot in the old tank, lived for three years before jumping to his death. i miss him dearly)

Corals:
-assorted zoas
-pulsing xenia (one of my favorites)
-purple-tip hammer
-purple-tip frogspawn
-green star polyp
-red, purple, hairy mushrooms.
-orange ricordia (has already split!)
-blue moon palys
-green polyp toadstool
-yellow candy cane (trumpet, whatever you call it)
-two different colors of acan
-(I have plans for some sps once I get this sweet light in- I've always adored the colors and shapes, but didn't venture there because of the lighting situation)

Inverts:
-green rock flower anemone
-pistol shrimp (roommates with the goby)

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thecoralbeauty

Thanks! I've actually been reading for a long time, just finally made an account and started posting. This site has been a bible for me over the years. Glad to finally officially join!

 

I ordered the Radion xr30w pro- way overkill, but hopefully the last light i'll ever have to buy- even if i switch to a deeper build. messed with it in the store, went online to purchase to side step the ridiculous sales tax. Not cheap, but slightly better. I'm a teacher, (randomly, and unplanned) so, given my tiny salary, I figured I'd better save that sales tax money for frags to put UNDER the awesome light I bought =)

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I ordered the Radion xr30w pro

 

Welcome to the Radion club... it's a small, exclusive group and we're happy to have you. It's a great light, and I'm sure you'll be pleased with your investment!

 

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Steensj2004

Love radions. Some of the best lights you can buy IMHO. Only light I'll buy over a Ecotech is the Hybrid I have! Great looking tank! To bad, I just sold a gen3 pro for 550.00 original box and hanging kit,lol.

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Love the cats. My cat couldn't care less about my aquarium, but yours are clearly interested! Also jelly of your goby/pistol combo. Can't wait to get one. Thanks for sharing!

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Welcome to NR. I loved your title, 2 cats and a reef! Ha ha, it caught my attention. I like your choice of live stock. Looks like you are off to a great start!

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thecoralbeauty

Love radions. Some of the best lights you can buy IMHO. Only light I'll buy over a Ecotech is the Hybrid I have! Great looking tank! To bad, I just sold a gen3 pro for 550.00 original box and hanging kit,lol.

AAHHHHH i wish i had known that in time!! sigh. so expensive.

is the interface easy to use? I'm really excited to start playing around with the settings. I wanted to at the store but the guy had other things to do, so i haven't seen the software or controls or anything. just messed around with the lighting so i could gauge intensity and spread.

 

one of the pumps is the 420. unsure of the other one- its about 5 years old and i inherited it from a different friend. too much/too little flow? things seem happy, in any case.

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righttirefire

I'm swapping my 20 tall to a 20 long in a couple weeks. It's a long term build. A hydor 240gph. 2 AC50'S. until the sump is cycled. Then a eheim 1250. Just curious.

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Steensj2004

AAHHHHH i wish i had known that in time!! sigh. so expensive.

is the interface easy to use? I'm really excited to start playing around with the settings. I wanted to at the store but the guy had other things to do, so i haven't seen the software or controls or anything. just messed around with the lighting so i could gauge intensity and spread.

 

one of the pumps is the 420. unsure of the other one- its about 5 years old and i inherited it from a different friend. too much/too little flow? things seem happy, in any case.

It takes a few minutes to figure out, but if you're tech savy at all its easy to learn. I would start the intensity off REALLY low, and ramp u over a month or more. Also, turn UV of and add slowly, I'm fairly sure my corals had a HORRIBLE reaction to UV as it was new.

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thecoralbeauty

Love Kats. :lol:

Welcome :flower:

Gobies and shrimps are the cutest pairs evar aren't they.

They are absolutely adorable- the shrimp keeps house and the goby runs surveillance. I have sugar-fine sand, so when the shrimp starts digging there are little sprays of sand going every which way. Fortunately they built their hole(s) in the front of my tank, so both cats and I get a front-row seat.

It takes a few minutes to figure out, but if you're tech savy at all its easy to learn. I would start the intensity off REALLY low, and ramp u over a month or more. Also, turn UV of and add slowly, I'm fairly sure my corals had a HORRIBLE reaction to UV as it was new.

Thank you so much for the pointers. I have a feeling I'll be asking all sorts of questions. The current LED fixture I have only has white and blue, and given that I have to supplement it with other lights I had around the house, I don't think it's very intense at all. This will be a whole new experience for me with the extra colors and the UV.

I'm obsessively checking the tracking number. I can't wait!

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Really nice tank! Love goby shrimp! I have a pair of high fins with a shrimp. I'm running a six falling fluval edgr currently but will prob be going to a twenty long soon with the rim removed or something similiar. Wish my cats cared about the tank. What HOB skimmer and filter do you use? And what media? Also just curious how old the tank is? I live in an apartment and a refugium/sump just isn't to feasible here.

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thecoralbeauty

I use an Aqueon HOB filter and I have a purigen pouch in it, along with a bag of carbon and phosphate sponge that I mix up and change out periodically. Originally when I started reefing, I was under the supervision of a very purist-thinking reefer friend, and I had no filter at all. My tank relied solely on live rock and sand for biological filtration, CUC and filter feeders, and water changes to do the rest. I actually can't remember what caused me to try a HOB filter.

 

My rock, etc has been around about 5 years, but this tank was started about a year and a half ago? My best friend decided to move it from the ten gal tank to a 20L. She got a puppy and ended up not having time for it so a lot of the livestock had died before I suggested I take ownership again. I ended up changing out a lot of things and starting over. The hermit crabs, snails, blue moon plays, and green polyp leather were all hers. Everything else I have stocked since it returned to me, about a month ago. I had a lot of cleaning to do (she was not a fan of water changes, apparently....) and ultimately I ended up replacing a lot of the existing live rock with nicer pieces and most of the sand bed with new live sand. It had to go through it's own little mini-cycle period, but now I have an abundance of copepods and everything is nicely back in balance. Now I'm just waiting for things to grow and contemplating if I want to keep moving my rocks around to a nicer arrangement.

 

So, effectively it has lived in this tank about a year and a half, in my hands in this tank about a month, but two or three pieces of rock and probably some sand have been around 5 years. (Simple answer, right?)

 

As you can see, it's currently on my filing cabinet, so it's not like I have that much room for a sump or refugium either. I never had one before and was just fine, but now I'm not sure what I'll end up doing. Right now, the big upgrade is the light!

 

You've inspired me to search for pictures of the original ten gal tank in all it's glory. I'll share if I find anything fun. =)

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Wow! Super awesome. How long did you have the clam for? I would really like one once I upgrade to the twenty long.

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thecoralbeauty

I had one for two years, died of pinched mantle syndrome... the other survived that and lived for another year before i gave my friend the tank. I adored them, and I'm definitely planning on getting another when i find the perfect one.

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thecoralbeauty

Updates-

-A friend (possibly one of the best friends) gave me some really special green slimer frags, fragged from the mother in the city's public aquarium.

-I also now have a montipora frag called "LA lakers" ... though i swear it looks more green to me than yellow, but maybe that's just my distaste for the lakers shining through.

-I also made off with a baby plate coral (or two) that I'm hoping will grow big and happy with me. They grew out of the dead mother skeleton. Pretty awesome find.

 

So, coral additions galore and I'm super stoked about them.

This inspired me to change up my rock work. I like it much better this way. Pictures to come (everything was cloudy and pissed last night and this morning I had to immediately dash off to work)

 

Biggest update ever--- THE Gen 3 XR30 Pro COMES TODAY! I'll be messing around with it happily all evening and definitely have some photos and my initial impressions posted this weekend. I'm so excited I can barely contain myself. My students think I'm insane. (Well, they had suspicions before. But now, they're sure.)

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thecoralbeauty

Nice looks good nice nem! keeps the cat entertained!

actually the wrasse likes to tease the boy cat. he'll come up to the glass and do his little flasher thing at him, and the cat starts meowing at him and tapping his paw on the glass.

 

The girl cat just launched herself at the glass a week ago and almost knocked herself out, so she passively watches now instead of concussing herself further. The boy cat tends to be much more gentle in general. He loves watching that wrasse, and when he bats at it, there aren't any claws involved. Doesn't chatter like it's something he wants to catch and eat. He's just curious about it.

 

Have you heard of hawkfish and cats having a similar connection? I've heard of them both chasing after laser pointers.

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CatfishSoupFTW

nice tank. Hopefully those Radions do you just! I bought xr15w pro to replace my kessil a160we over a 18 cube, but I was pretty disappointed, returned the light, and kept my kessil. <3

 

your old tank had nice stocking too !

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Welcome to denver! Check out marinecolorado.org its your local reef club! We have a meeting this saturday. Info is on the site. Hope you can make it!

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thecoralbeauty

Update:

Got the Radion xr30 pro installed and am in love. spent a good lot of time messing with it with my friends and ooh'ing and aah'ing over the huge spectrum. I finally settled on a 14k spectrum for a 10 hour photoperiod. I'm running them at 35% intensity and using the acclimation feature for the coming week to make sure i don't shock or bleach anything.

 

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Livestock updates:

-superman montipora

-pink birdsnest

-peach-colored chalice

-pearly jawfish- has set up camp around the back of the tank, poor little guy is scared! third and final fish. =)

-maxima clam (less than 2 inches- so tiny!)- it feels so good to have my clam game back on. he's not quite fully extending his mantle, but, I've only had him half a day so far. I expect that he will be happy as a clam tomorrow, fingers crossed.

 

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I apologize for the lack of quality photos (and horrible disco effect due to the light setting I used in order to keep everything from washing out blue)- I only have my iPhone to take photos with, and they aren't great.

 

Daisy (girl cat) fell asleep in the office chair in front of the tank. Guess reefs are just as soothing for her too.

 

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your old tank had nice stocking too !

thank you! I loved it so much, I'm so happy to have it back now!


Welcome to denver! Check out marinecolorado.org its your local reef club! We have a meeting this saturday. Info is on the site. Hope you can make it!

Haha, 5th generation colorado native, wouldn't live anywhere else. =) I'll check it out, thanks!

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