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Cultivated Reef

The Laid Back Lagoon - NEW CAMERA NEW PICTURESS


Manbearfish

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Manbearfish

I loved the Fusion 10 and will most likely hang onto it for maybe a smaller build in the future, but I really wanted to expand on this minimal lagoon setup with a couple bommies and lots of open negative space so I went straight to work gathering supplies and I was finally able to upgrade. Next on my list is some additional stocking as well as hopefully a nice camera in the coming months so I can actually take some nice pictures.

 

Tank Specs

 

Display - Deep Blue Rimless 30g 24x24x12 Shallowwwwwwww

 

Lighting - AI Prime / IM Skyye 18w led(soon to be replaced with another Prime)

 

Circulation - Hydor Koralia Nano & Jebao WP10

 

Filtration - 50lbs Fiji pink/sugar fine aragonite and 10-20lbs live rock, Fluval 306 Cannister w/Lily Pipes

 

Heater - Hydor 200w Inline Heater

 

Skimmer - None, but looking into IM Desktop Skimmer or PicO 2.0

 

Livestock

 

Juvenile Yellow Tang

Scarlet Hermits

Anemone Crab

Cleaner Shrimp

Purple Plume Gorg.
Assorted Zoanthids

Ridge Coral

Kenya Tree

Frogspawn

Feather Caulerpa

Red Grape Tree

Gracilaria

 

 

I still have a lot to learn so please feel free to give me any sort of advice, even if its harsh. I try to be pretty well read before I do something to avoid any issues but I'm pretty sure mistakes are inevitable.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The Tank~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Post Upgrade

FTS 9/18/2015

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Old FTS

 

8/17/2015

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Pre-Upgrade

 

FTS 7/8/2015

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FTS 6/18/2015

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The only concern I have would be about coral placement. It looks like there isn't much space on the tower that is getting hit by the light. Especially if you're switching to a kessil which is a single point light source, the base of the tower is going to be pretty well shaded.

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Manbearfish

The only concern I have would be about coral placement. It looks like there isn't much space on the tower that is getting hit by the light. Especially if you're switching to a kessil which is a single point light source, the base of the tower is going to be pretty well shaded.

Yeah, its not quite as dark as my phone makes the picture look, that being said though I didn't glue it all down yet because I wanted to break the rock up into smaller pieces and restack it so it looks more natural and doesn't have as many overhangs, it'l probably be my weekend project. I'm hoping since ill be able to position the kessil a bit higher than this one that I'll get a better more even light spread.

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Manbearfish

Big diatom explosion while I was at work today, took me by surprise when I got home, but I guess its a fairly healthy sign. I saw some patches yesterday so I knew it was coming, hope it starves itself out soon. Gonna do a 35% water change in a few minutes to help it along. Thinking of ordering a CUC from reefcleaners. If I go with the 10g quick crew is it free shipping? It says orders under 50 I have to pay for priority shipping but it also says free shipping for quick crews. I think I might hold off until Monday though because its already late today and they wont ship on Sundays, that way there's less chance of anything dying. Some pics for today - wish I had a better camera than my phone.

 

The Damage

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Green Star Polyps doing their thing

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This guy's pretty funny to watch

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This is an Acan colony I picked up yesterday for 40 bucks, its got at least 16 heads. It opened up nice and big, I've got it sitting in a different tank, idk if anyone can ID? Picture isn't fantastic but its brownish-red with bits of green.

30ac6y1.jpg

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It's a strand of acan lord. For only $40, that is a hell of a deal. Great coloration too. Imagine it looks even better in person.

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Manbearfish

It's a strand of acan lord. For only $40, that is a hell of a deal. Great coloration too. Imagine it looks even better in person.

Yeah its one of the few lfs nearby that isn't a total ripoff.

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Yeah its one of the few lfs nearby that isn't a total ripoff.

I know the feeling... If you're interested in a nice online retailer then I would look at Salt Critters. It just recently reduced the price of shipping to $20 and anything over $99 is free shipping. They have 50% off sales about once a month too. The only issue I've had with them is that they tend to have a lot of the same corals and colors but lately they have been getting a lot better with a wider variety which is fantastic.

 

[Edit]

I've only ordered smaller frags from them and they've all done pretty well. I did lose one torch to brown jelly disease and I managed to save one head of another torch that also had brown jelly disease. I don't think I dipped them log enough when I first go them which would have helped. I got a bit excited to start placing all the corals and forgot that they needed to be in the dip for 10 minutes...

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Manbearfish

I know the feeling... If you're interested in a nice online retailer then I would look at Salt Critters. It just recently reduced the price of shipping to $20 and anything over $99 is free shipping. They have 50% off sales about once a month too. The only issue I've had with them is that they tend to have a lot of the same corals and colors but lately they have been getting a lot better with a wider variety which is fantastic.

 

[Edit]

I've only ordered smaller frags from them and they've all done pretty well. I did lose one torch to brown jelly disease and I managed to save one head of another torch that also had brown jelly disease. I don't think I dipped them log enough when I first go them which would have helped. I got a bit excited to start placing all the corals and forgot that they needed to be in the dip for 10 minutes...

I'll have to check them out, and I guess shipping would only be $15 to me since I live in Illinois which is really nice. I get payed on Friday so maybe I'll order a few frags from them, it looks like their stuff beats a lot of the stuff at the lfs's near me.

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Manbearfish

I messed with the scape a little bit today. I'm mostly happy with it, it feels a lot more open and seems larger, and the blenny is responding to it really well. He went from constantly hiding into the rockscape to now exploring and taking little breaks to perch somewhere which is cool and fun to watch. I might mess with the rocks on the right side a little more and see how I feel, but for now let me know what you think.

 

21ymqc.jpg

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Manbearfish

Scape looks 10x better IMHO. Looks like a good start. Keep it up.

Thanks, its getting there! Hopefully a new light by next week :D , trying to decide between a kessil or an ai prime.... Also looking into the PicO skim, so well see!

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Manbearfish

Looks really nice!

 

You REALLY should order from reef cleaners. They are super cheap but the CUCs can be the "Make it or break it" between a successful tank and a unsucessful one!

 

http://www.reefcleaners.org/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=productdetails&virtuemart_product_id=209&virtuemart_category_id=20

Thank you!

I've been planning to order a quick crew from them in the next couple days along with some macroalgae :D

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Manbearfish

I really like the new scape. A big improvement in my opinion.

Thank you!! I'm glad everyone's responding well :D:D:D

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Manbearfish

So I've been messing with the scape again, I just wasn't happy with the old one. I'm still not 100% happy with this one but it's growing on me a little bit, I think I'm just gonna have to go out and get some epoxy this weekend and mess with it till I'm happy, I think that's the only way I'll be able to get the shapes that I want. I really like big open sandy areas with islands/cliffs, very lagoon like, but its hard to get that on this small of a footprint.

 

Water was a bit cloudy because I was just feeding some frozen mysis.

 

This was a bit of the inspiration I had, I was trying to mimic this a bit with the shelf on the back right but on a smaller scale.

 

302whmt.jpg

 

So this is what I've come up with for now, more likely than not it'l change again unless it really grows on me over the next couple days.

 

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From a bit higher up.

 

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Someone was spying on me...

 

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Manbearfish

So this happened today... Loving it so far, gonna have to mess with the settings some more, but I've got it set up with their quick settings for now, sunrise sunset ramping is very cool, got some weather just randomly mixed in there with fairly low probabilities. The shimmer probably isn't as great as the kessil would've been but I love the control right out of the box. Wish I had a better camera to show it off.

 

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This is just my inexperienced and slightly tipsy opinion but I think you should add a bit more height to the rock work. If you look at the picture of the tank that's your inspiration, you can see how high the rock work goes relative to the height of the tank. I would shoot for the highest peak being 2/3 of the height from the sandbed to the water level. Something about the eye and human brain but 2/3 (or 1/3 from the top) is supposed to be more pleasing to the eye. The other thing is that you have that perfect low spot in the middle of the rocks but you have the acan colony there. If you leave that space open or put some flat corals (maybe a nice plate or low level ricordea garden) then you can provide a good height contrast with the surrounding rocks. Looking at that last picture, since it's far away, it just looks like you have two horizontal rows with three short rocks up front and then three taller rocks right that are sitting right behind it. Kind of like stairs. This is a bit of a shot in the dark since I can't play with the rocks myself and see how it turns out but what if you pull the rock in the front left and put that one on top of the rock structure in the back right (like you had it a little while ago) and then put the acan colony right where the rock was. Once you start getting more acan lords, you can make an acan island there with a variety of different acan lords. Another idea would be moving the rock that is in the front right and putting it on top in the back right corner and then moving the acan lord colony there. I think you could put the acan colony in either the front left or front right and make a nice acan lord garden.

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Manbearfish

So I messed with the rockwork for a few hours today and I just couldn't get the shapes I wanted with the rock I had, so I thought a bit about the recent vacation I took with my girlfriend and some shallow water snorkeling we did in the Caribbean and it brought me to this minimalist/reef bommie aquaqscape. Again, crappy iPhone pics still, going to look into getting a decent camera soon, but this is what I think I'm finally happy with. There is a lot more depth in the rockwork than the picture reveals, the color is also way off, but so it goes with this stuff I guess. I'm pretty happy with the in person look and I can really imagine a decent scape with a nicely cupped toadstool leather, some finger leather softies, and some more lps and sps as I get more comfortable with dosing.

 

2lywdf.jpg

Inspiration

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I might add one more piece to add additional height to the middle, but we'll see, I'm actually pretty happy with it as it sits, I wish I could post a better picture of it.

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Manbearfish

Also got my 10g reefcleaners package today, had the snails in the tank for a few hours now. Out of curiosity, at what point can I accurately label some as DOA. Most of them got up and going pretty quickly, but there are a few that still haven't moved. Instructions say some can remain dormant for 3 days? Should i risk 3 days of die off if they're truly doa?

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Manbearfish

That AI Prime is sexy.

 

 

Now all you need is like a thousand fish!

Hahaha I wish, it would be cool to move up to like a 35 rimless cube later on though and try the look on a bigger scale with some schooling fish or something though

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Manbearfish

I don't think any of the Nessarius made it, I'll leave them til tonight and take them out if they're still not responsive.

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