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Cultivated Reef

60 gallon plaything!


Aquanist

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Ok here it Goes. My 1st post on the forum and my 1st SW tank ever.

I've had (and still have) all sorts of FW tanks throughout the years including african rift lake, discus, SA, CA, different biotope etc tanks.

I had planned the make this 30l tank a caridinia/moss heaven but most os the stuff ordered were lost somehere between Germany and Finland (yup - the place between Sweden and Russia) for about 2 months during which time I decided to take a plunge into saltwater instead.

 

The tank is 30x30x35cm in dimension and I've rigged 3x 11W Arcadia ArcPods as lighting each with 50%/50% 10000K/actinic bulbs. I made a small "fuge" housing 2x eheim pumps (300+1000) and the bags with Activated carbon and phosphare remover.

 

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The tank took about 2 weeks to fully cycle and is now 3 weeks old. Yesterday I added some macro algae to remove the excess nitrate and this is what the tank looks today. And no - I didn't bother with cleaning the glasses for the pictures. The tank is still to find the balance. I'll be agging some more live rock soonish and maybe in a few weeks some softies too. The 1 zoa survived the trip from Indonesia to Finland (I got the rocks the same day the shipment came in) along with 2 aiptasia which have succesfully been taken care of (with NaOH).

 

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Any and All comments/questions/suggestions are welcome

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention there's also a HOB skimmer (Wave Niagara 280)

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  • 2 weeks later...
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I love the tank!

 

You may want to watch the camel shrimp or remove it totally, they're not generally considered reef safe and will pick at your corals if they get hungry.

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how much(per pound) did your live rock cost?

 

It was 16€ or 18€ (memory just isn't my forte) per kg. Indonesian rock.

 

I love the tank!

 

You may want to watch the camel shrimp or remove it totally, they're not generally considered reef safe and will pick at your corals if they get hungry.

 

Kindred spirit! :D I love it too!

 

Yup. I'm aware of their reputation. What can I say, I'm a sucker for aesthetics ant they're just too gorgeous not to try them out. I'm going with heavy(ish) feeding with mysis etc. frozen and plankton pellets.

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Paleoreef103
Yup. I'm aware of their reputation. What can I say, I'm a sucker for aesthetics ant they're just too gorgeous not to try them out. I'm going with heavy(ish) feeding with mysis etc. frozen and plankton pellets.

 

Honestly, I've lost a lot of stuff even to peppermint shrimps so I'm quite anti-shrimp. Yes they look neat, but ask yourself if it's worth it when your prized acans start getting ripped up. :( If you need a shrimp look at sexies (especially for a 8 gallon tank). They're reef safe and endlessly entertaining.

 

Otherwise, this is a neat little tank!

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  • 1 month later...

Not much progress here but the again I keep hearing patience is a virtue here.

The camel shrimp hasn't been up to any nastines (knock on wood) but I found - and eventually hunt down and got rid of - a small tan coloured crab which fed entirely on coraline algae.

Also the G. okinawae got into extreme sports and was found on the floor one beautiful day.

 

Couple pics of the tank from yesterday just to prove I still have some life in it. I'm expecting a shipment from Holland sometime next week to bring a bit more colour to the tank as well as new goby (G. histrio) which will hopefully pair up with the small pistol shrimp I've found.

 

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Is this hitchiker zoa making itself a friend here?

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  • 4 weeks later...

.My anthelia got nearly destructed by 3 unID'd hitchiker crabs of which I've since gotten rid of. And I'm currently in middle of a mild case of cyano. Doing a small daily WC to pull through.

 

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Thanks O-Breeze!

Kinda difficult in this part of the world to achieve anything really spectacular. Coral selections available are really small yet expensive. I mean like 5 times the US prices. I'd love to get colourful zoas but can't seem to find any.

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Just watch that electric blue hermit, the ones I've had are bulldozers & knock my Torches & SPS all over the place since they're not glued.

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Thanks for the heads up harthag12. I've noticed too that he might want to decorate his room by himself.

 

Anyways, I ripped the chamber thingy away from the back. I felt it took too much space compared to benefits. I currently run the tank with 2 koralia nanos and the HOB skimmer. Might go shopping tomorrow if I could find a HOB filter I could mod to a "coal chamber". And that's not going to be easy. Here people just don't use any HOB stuff at all.

 

On the other hand I now have MUCH more space for corals etc. Might need a nice pagoda type liverock thingy there too to heighten the structure a bit. I'll post a pic tomorrow when the tank has cleared up (and I have cleaned the glass.

 

Also, would I get away with putting another green clown goby (G. histrio) in there? I know they change sex to pair up, but I haven't found any info on whether a pair needs considerably larger tank (and if so, how large) tank or not.

 

And if you actually read it all the way here I thank you - go get yourself a nice cold beer/hot cup of coffee.

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Wrong current Pismo. Would burn the motor in no time with 230volts. But hey, it was a kind thought. Might have to order one from Germany.

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Bought a few frags today from a fellow hobbyist.

 

- Capnella

- Sinularia

- Montipora digitata (brown w/ violet polyps)

- Montipora digitata (green)

- Montipora capricornis

- Caulastrea

- Acropora

 

All those for 20€. I think that was a freat deal.

 

Pics will have to wait until tomorrow.

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Got me an aquaclear 20 HOB to keep my carbon and PO4 remover. It fit just snugly next to my HOB skimmer.

 

I'm already thinkin about upgrading this tank into a 4 footer 66gallon tank I have upstairs. Even ordered some streams etc already. Just need to find it a nice 4x54W T5HO or something. It's currently set up FW with 150W MH (6700k). Any ideas would 2 of THESE PUPPIES do the trick? At least they're cheap!

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The 30 liter is going on strong. The brown Montipora digitata seems to like it and is getting purple base coloration underneath the brown polyps etc.

 

The 66gallon upstairs project got a bit further today as I got me some equipment for it.

- coral sand

- Aqua Medic biostar flotor skimmer (modding the wheel away to keep carbon + PO4 remover there (maybe light it up and add some chaeto as well).

- a new RO-DI filter

- ATI sunmaster 6x54W T5HO (3x 11000K + 3x actinic)

- 2 large pieces of LR all covered up with mushrooms, palys and whatnot. These are going to be a my friends tank for the next 2 (or so) months until I feel safe I can take them back. Promised him small frags for tank rent. :D

 

Oh and I got a white legged hermit (legs aren't white so why the name?) too for my small tank. So there's now red-, blue- and white legged hermits there. Love them to bits!

 

I'll try posting some new pics soo(ish).

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Something new, something good and a mysterious disaster. (As if anyone actually reads my thread :lol: )

 

I got 15kg of good used (2yrs) live rock on tuesday for my 66gal. Loads of pods came along as well as bits of 7 different macro algaes (some of which look really nice). I also noticed that on one rock theres a colony of green zoas (10 heads) and on another there's 3 blue/green ricordeas. Also, last night as I was peeking in with my old trusty LED flashlight I got the sh*t scared outta me as I found a black crab (around 2-2,5 inches in size) with red eyes. Honestly, the bugger looks just like one would imagine what pure materialized evil from beyond of our realm whould look like. A friend of mine promised to take this (Jacob, I call it. You know from that old movie where son of Satan was born...) crab to his sump.

And tomorrow I'll be getting another 10-20kg of good LR more. Think I'll be good after that. Good thing is that I really don't expect the tank to take too long to cycle properly as all the rock really is the business already. Comments on this?

 

The 7,9gal nano would be going strong if only it didn't nearly crash this week. Everything seemed to be alright on thursday as I left to work. As I came home I noticed something just wasn't alright. All 3 montipora frags were bleached and my caulastrea was turning into slimy mush leaving it's skeleton empty.

I immediately did a 50% WC as I naturally assumed there had to be something wrong with my water. I saved some old water for testing purposes but there wasn't anything noticeably wrong with it. All parameters were holding steady. And all the other corals (acroporas, zoas, blastos, mushrooms, ricordeas) are doing just dandy. The green M. digitata is a lost cause now, the brown M. digitata might still yet pull through, monti cap is pretty much a goner also. About 50% of my turqoise caulastrea are now just bare bones but the rest seem to be surviving and doing ok (even if just).

I can live with these losses as no significant monetary loss was experienced but this whole thing just seems a bit weird and keeps bugging me. All parameters were stable and I just can't get my head on anything that could have caused this. Anyone?

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