Gulfsurfer101's AP24 now AP12

[gulfsurfer101]

I've been a member here for a little while and have never got around to starting atank thread so I figured since I tore this one down and decided to rebiuld it after a few mods I'll finally get around to doing it so here it starts. Light over this tank is 150w sunpod but plan on uprading to a 250 watt MH fixture pretty soon after I get a chiller installed so I won't have lot's of evap from fans on lighting schedule.

 

here's the list:

AP 24 w/sump

150w sunpod

toms deco light and 36" 24 watt grow light for fuge

20# of LR in mian display

35-40# of LR in sump

favia brain coral

lots of frags

red shrooms

varois paly's

various zoa frags and colonies

Red acropora unidentifeid

one small true perc

one small damsel

two tiny sargassum anglers

I know I'm forgetting somethings but I will get to them later.

 

 

frontal shot with dirty glass, I don't kow if you can see the maxijet mod I placed about halfway up the left side. What I did was simply drill a hole and place my maxijet in the return chamber and silicone the nozzle in place to provide mid level current.

 

Next thing differently I added was this overflow box given to me by glennr1978

 

It's plumbed straight down into the sump for max gph with no 90's or angles whatsoever. I love this thing and is probbly my favorite addition so far, thanks Glenn.

before

after adding about 25-30 pound of LR and a handfull of cheato also thanks to glenn

crppy pic, couldn't get the glare off this pic and was the best one i could get, better ones will follow when I update this thread later.

 

The return line drilled straight up through the stand.

 

Good surface agitation going on

 

frag rack made out of clear acrylic drilled for plugs

 

A few inhabitants: one small sargassum angler looking through a hole in the dark

probably looking to ambush something on the sand bed down there.

His bigger brother or sister and my personal favorite

 

Some of the things you can find in my tank

 

That's it for now but will try to keep this thing updated as often as posible for new additions which are sure to come since I have lots more room from this

(ap12under70w Hqi)

I basically want something to look back at and see how far I have gone from intial set up to where it is I get with this tank.

[glennr1978]

That stuff looks much better being put to use than it did in a box in my garage!! Glad I could help.

 

Btw, that acro I got from you is doing great, and the tips are turning more, and more purple everyday.

[gulfsurfer101]

I bet, the one I have pictured here is almost going completely teal blue from the last time I snapped these photo's. Thanks for the stuff It's working like a dream. I can't wait to see what color that green polyp frag I got from you will turn. Can't wait to get back up to San Antone to pick up some more stuff and start to fill out all the space I have in here.

[gulfsurfer101]

My old aquascape, I just can't seem to break the cave in the middle of tank look for nothing.

Who thiks I should leave it as is and who thinks I should do some more aquascaping.

[gulfsurfer101]

Here's a shot of my little dark angler swimming in heavy flow. I saw him just swallow a shrimp that looked bigger than him. He swped it right out of the water. These guys have hawk eye vision since he was on the other side of the tank when he saw the opportuntiy to strike.

[gulfsurfer101]

Boredom=Random pics

I have a long way to go to get this thing where it used to be. One peice at a time though.

I will be getting a DIY auto top off tommorrow when I get time to run to lowes and pick up a

float switch. I got all the other things I need laying around here somewhere. Now if I could just

get a good DIY calc reactor diagram or something I'd be pretty happy and lots less bored trying

to get it peiced together.

[ddr_phish]

Awesome tank man! I love your anglers, I bet they each have a individual personality huh?

[gulfsurfer101]

Awesome tank man! I love your anglers, I bet they each have a individual personality huh?

Yeah, the bigger browner one has tried to eat the smaller one already twice and I have had to interfere and save him. I'm currently working on a trade with somebody on here for the smaller one for some frags to fill out space in this tank and to split them up before they end up killing one another.

[gulfsurfer101]

Just picked up two new frags to add to the mix. I visited a LFS that I rarely inhabit any more just to see what's new and if new compition has got them to lower prices yet and I was able to talk the girl there to give me two of thier 15 dollar frags for 20 bucks so looks like I scored. Here's a pic of the zoas and paly's I got. They are all closed up from the move but I will get some of them open tommorrow. You can also see the green mushroom I had her throw in the bag as well. I lucked out sice it was attached to a snail shell I was able to glue it to a rock I made out of the black sand and superglue. Not bad, three different coral species for 20 bucks. Shroom, Zoas, and Paly's!

frontal veiw, I plan on cutting around that dead part of that favites brain with a tile cutter when I get some huge montipora peices to frag soon. It got blasted with my sunpod for three days when my timer broke and I was away from my tank. Everything got blasted and I lost most of my shrooms and all my rics

Zoa garden

some unidentified conch that came out to get his pic snapped.

shot of some zoas

I will get some ones of my latest additions opened up tommorrow and post them here.

[gulfsurfer101]

A shot of the frag I brought home yesterday fully opened incase you guys haven't seen it already. I like it since the frag disk it is on is 3" wide and I get good coverage already. Not bad for fifteen bucks along with a 5 dollar shroom.

I am proud of getting this tank started back up but is still nowhere near the way it looked when I used to have it at my old place. Kinda dissapointing but I guess this time I will have more choice of stuff I will want to add instead of throwing anything I would see at the LFS in there. I give it about six to nine months to get where I want it to be.

[gulfsurfer101]

Here's the latest garb on my tank.

Some new paly's I got

Placed this about halfway up on a pvc disk and it's turning more blueish green everyday.

A shot of a frag of it turning really nice and blueish green, used to be the same color as the acro next to it

Finally fragged around the part of the brain that's still got some tissue alive on it. I'm hoping it will come back and color up as nice as it was before it got toasted.

A couple of shot's of the bottom of my tank

That's it for now till I get some more stuff. BTW looks like the smaller angler finally became lunch for the bigger one since I haven't been able to find him for about two weeks now. I was hoping to grow him out but at least I still have the darker one.

[dahliaheartsyou]

I would take out both those anglers, if the one didn't already eat the other, they're gunna eat your clown and damsel for sure.

 

do you know the brand or anything on the overflow box thing?

I want to do that to a fuge in a spare 5 gallon hex I have, but want to make it to show of the fuge...

any help?

[gulfsurfer101]

They are both smaller than a pinkie nail so my clown is fine for a while. After I move I will most likely upgrade my thirty into a seventy or larger so he or they will go in there. I feed them live tiny sargassum shrimps I bring back from my surf trips and they pretty much don't bother my other fish they just kinda hide all day. I think it was a territorial thing than anything else. The overflow I got hooked up to this tank is a CPR overflow I got from a local reefer. It works great for me and keeps up with my pump with no type of adjusting at all. I was always looking into getting a fuge for this tank since I had it running last august and this answered all my questions and problems. I'll pm you with an idea for show fuge in on of my latest projects.

[EnjoiFish]

Love the zoas. What kind of bulb are you using in your Sunpod?

[gulfsurfer101]

Love the zoas. What kind of bulb are you using in your Sunpod?

I'm on the last leg on my stock bulb. It has about six thru eight months of burn on it. I will eventually dish out the cash for a german 20k or just wait till I get a 250w and wait till I need to swap out that bulb.

[HideMe]

I was about to ask where you got your frags and then by reading your purchase experience, I figured it out. The frag options in CC are pretty slim and have been for a loooong time. I'm really hoping for the new guys in town to make a difference! Keep posting pics, I might start begging for some of your frags! I like your zoas!

[gulfsurfer101]

I was about to ask where you got your frags and then by reading your purchase experience, I figured it out. The frag options in CC are pretty slim and have been for a loooong time. I'm really hoping for the new guys in town to make a difference! Keep posting pics, I might start begging for some of your frags! I like your zoas!

A new guy here from town, sweet! I get most of my stuff up in San Antonio, especially SPS. I've dealt with those new guys and they have a few of my frags and were good enough to take a nasty morray eel off my hands for store credit. PM me a link to your tank and stuff you got, maybe we can work out some trades. I will be fragging some things like those zoas in a few days.

[HideMe]

A new guy here from town, sweet! I get most of my stuff up in San Antonio, especially SPS. I've dealt with those new guys and they have a few of my frags and were good enough to take a nasty morray eel off my hands for store credit. PM me a link to your tank and stuff you got, maybe we can work out some trades. I will be fragging some things like those zoas in a few days.

 

Hey there, sorry I never PM'd the link to my tank, cuz I don't have a link for my tank. I've only got like a couple of mushrooms and some zoa's. I recognize one of your zoas as one that I have too. It's the one with the long green skirt and purplish center. Picked that one up from Bruce a couple of weeks ago. Nice piece, yours is bigger than mine so I'm kind of jealous!

 

I also read your post on the Dallas Coral Farmer's Market, and you're right, it stinks that there aren't more choices around here. With the price of gas the way it is, even a trip to SAT is an investment!

 

Anyway, give me a chance to get my new tank set up, should be a couple of months. I'm finally giving up my 10 gallon that I've had forever and going to a AP28 HQI or Red Sea Max. (still weighing my options) I would really like to meet more reefers who frag here in CC so that my choices aren't so limited.

 

Take care! I'll enjoy watching the progress of your tank!

 

HM

[GrandpaFeathers]

your rockwork is amazing.

 

get lotsa color on it!

[kenny1]

I'm from Corpus as well. Your frags look great.

[gulfsurfer101]

Just dropping some a random pic or two to keep up with the the progress on this tank which is going severily slowly after getting my little shroom project going. I have a feeling things will change after I make a trip up to my favorti LFS up in San Antone this weekend and swing by the Zoo to take my daughter to see some pengiuns and possibly Shamoo. Plan on bringing back some monti's or more acropora to frag out.

This acro has taken on the colors of sunrise morphing from a bright red to a super green with red polyps and I couldn't be happier with it.

I am also thinking of swapping everything out of this tank and placing it into another tank for a little bit while I remove the sand and do a major WC and let the tank stabilize before dropping my stuff back in there. I think I will definatley be going BB soon to help control some of the nutrients.

[glennr1978]

Just curious, what water do you use for wc's, and top offs? Also, what salt are you using?

 

I hope you don't get it form TFH. I had alot of issues with algae in my tank until I started mixing my own sw for wc's and using ro/di for top offs.

 

Are you still going to be able to help move my tank? I'm thinking sunday the 14th. Will that work for you?

[gulfsurfer101]

I use water from those little windmills that are all over town. I just fill up 2-5gallon jugs and use one for water changes and one for weekly top-offs. I got some nasty green algea in my tank from that new place on Sarotoga and haven't been able to battle it out so I decided to do a complete rock swap and go BB. Here are the new pics of this tank as of yesterday night. As far as helping with your tank any sunday sounds good for me since it's now officially my only day off for shure but no complaints about all the new overtime I'm getting since it means more to spend on better coral for this tank.

 

FTS BB

I decided not to run those return surface agitator things since they were algea factories to begin with.

side shot

some new additions, green velvet montipora

some browned out superman montipora, It was growing on a frag disk but the shape was preventing light from hitting the base so I decided to snap off the huge growth and place the disk on the bottom and the peice that was growing upwards on a rock to grow outwards.

In about two months this thing should be fully overgrown and no sign of where I snapped it. Just gonna make a bookmark stamp in my thread to see how it comes along.

I got those two peices for over the weekend for the price of a small frag and will be watching for their true colors to pop through since I seen them at their very best three months ago but were to high priced then. I'm shure they will color back up since I've been keeping up with all my prameters and dosings.

 

I got this little thing today for fifteen bucks and decided to frag a small peice off for my 5g mushroom house that is doing a lot better than most people expected it would. It was in a local hospital tank under T5's, it should do nicely under my sunpod though. I'm not too shure if it's a colt coral, kenya or leather so any help would be appreciated.

The small frag I'll be putting in my shroombox

Got these about a month or two ago and have exploded all over the frag disk I put them on

 

So after a long night of removing my sand and peforming about 40% water change and removing all my old existing rock and swapped it out for rock I had in my thirty that appears to be aptasia and algea free, I'm pretty exhausted but finally happy with how the tank is running.

[revaltion131]

That monty doesn't look too bad at all. For 'browned out' you can definitly tell what it is. Nice find!

[gulfsurfer101]

Thanks man, but when I was there a few months ago it was true blue skinned with purple growth and red polyps. I would have never guessed it was the same thing if it wasn't growing on the small peice of liverock I saw it attached to in the guy's SPS tank so he was left with a small frag. Everything I seem to bring back from his shop colors up really nice nice though under my sunpod. I imagine after a month or two it will be back to normal.