Daniel's 4 year old 55g "four foot beast" *updated 09/09/09*

[Thunil]

Hey N-R.

 

I've been a member her for a fair while (since '04) I dont post all that much but I check and browse almost everyday. Anyway I gave my tank a WC today and thought it'd be a good opportunity to post some pics and start a journal (albeit 4 yrs late)

 

I started this tank in '05 when I was 14, and made a fair few mistakes with it.

This is how it looked then

 

This was it in '07

 

and current pics are a bit further down

 

Currently the tank is running:

2x koralia copies 3000l/h each (plus return from fuge)

2x 20,000k 150watt halides

reef octopus hang on skimmer, i forgot the number, will check tomorrow

And a 20g sump/fuge

 

I'm not dosing anything (don't, as of yet, have a huge amount of SPS so calcium doesn't drop quickly) I just do 20 litre water changes every week and that keeps my levels in check

 

Fish list is:

2x Occelaris clowns (black one is male, orange female, they spawn every couple of weeks)

1x Male Exquisite wrasse

1x Sixline wrasse (he's going to be sent to the frag tank as soon as i can catch him)

1x chromis

1x Western Australian carpet blenny (Istiblennius meleagris)

 

I'm thinking I'll look for a potters angelfish after the sixline goes in the frag tank and a longnose hawk

 

anyway, onto the good part... pics

 

Here's a FTS

 

and a nicer shot of the RHS:

 

Fishies:

 

B&W clown

 

Orange clown

 

Chromis and exquisite wrasse

 

best pic I could get of the sixline

 

blenny

 

And here's a pic of the latest batch of clown eggs with the proud father

 

Corals:

Cataphyllia (picked this up from a LR tank, it's coming along nicely)

 

Some green shrooms that I can never focus on

I'd really appreciate it if anyone can ID these as to what species they are

 

My massive Rhodactis (I'm starting to get nervous about my fish with this guy getting as big as he is)

 

My red and blue shrooms

 

Sarcophyton and Moseleya

 

My sarco frag that ws done over a year ago

 

Torch

 

Trachy (pics a bit over exposed, the colour is better in real life)

 

Turbinara

 

Forgotten the name of this guy and I'm too lazy to check atm

 

My first successful SPS frag, I've had it for around about 1 month and its coloured up really well and encrusting nicely. I think my old one didn't do well because of my flow (both volume and pattern or lack there of)

 

and lastly a nice blue/purple macro that's shown up on my 4 yr old LR

 

Anyway, that's my tank to date, thanks for looking and feel free to leave any comments you see fit

 

Daniel

[dtfleming]

Tank looks great, it has filled in nicely. I like the fish selection also.

[Thunil]

thanks for the comment, I love your 40br. I prefer to think of my tank as "filling" in, still plenty of room left on the LHS as I had a fair bit of trouble with the ballast, ignitor and bit that holds the globe in the past but now it's all running smoothly so I'm thinking I need to add some more corals over there, haha

 

Daniel

[nebthet]

Very nice looking tank indeed. Glad you finally made it over to NR.

[Thunil]

thanks nebthet. NR is a top site, been lovin it for a while but never really posted much. (as you can see, ~300 pots in ~5 years, haha)

[Film]

Nice tank indeed have you thought about doing acans? That could be a sweet filler in the spots you have left to fill

[Thunil]

definitely keen on acans, and they are pretty cheap here in Australia. The only problem is that the majority of acans you see are larger colonies and I prefer frags, but I guess I could always buy colonies and frag them down, haha. Thanks for the suggestion

[Raszagil]

Beautiful tank!

 

I love the red mushroom garden! I need to get ahold of that color of shroom someday.

[Thunil]

Hi everybody,

 

I finally got around to getting a card reader so I can finally upload some new pics taken on the 31st of July. But first some written updates.

 

I had a bit of a fish disaster a while ago, I lost 3 fish. First to go was my whitetail angel. I accidentally left my hood off while I was at work one saturday and came home to find him on the ground, I quickly picked him up and moved him backwards and forwards in the water but it was pretty obvious that he was well and truly dead.

Next was my exquisite wrasse. He always ate well but never gained weight, possibly an internal parasite. I think that this and bullying from the sixline killed him but I never found a body. He may have jumped through the eggcrate and my new kitten could have gotten him.

I also lost my Blenny. I'm not sure how he died but I found him one morning perfectly intact but dead. I saw that my cataphyllia had dropped a decent sized bud the night before I found him and that disappeared so he may have eaten it. Could this have killed him?

 

Anyway onto the good news. All my other fish are doing well. My clowns lay new eggs each week or two, chromis and sixline are happy and healthy but I want to get the sixline out and into my frag tank.

 

 

Here are the pics:

 

FTS

 

new corals from GB on an aussie forum

Pocilloporas

 

 

Possibly a millepora?

 

a couple of acros

 

 

 

 

Here are a newish acro and shroom that I picked up from my LFS a couple of weeks ago. I'm really happy with the growth the acro is showing

 

 

(sorry for the blurriness but I couldn't focus on him)

 

and an orange plate (again sorry for the blurriness I'll try to get a better pick soon)

 

better pic of my trachy, colours are pretty close to real in this one

 

and lastly a pick of my favourite acro, you can see some nice growth especially around the base and the branch coming forward. SOrry about the darkness

 

As you can see in the FTS I ran out of aqua-knead it so that's the reason that some of the new additions are still on eggcrate

 

anyway thanks for looking and as always any comments are greatly

appreciated.

 

Cheers,

Daniel

[Mr. Grinch]

hey you have the same leather coral as me. What is it called and do you know anything about it? Is is a Mushroom leather?

[Kraylen]

Orange plate is awesome, I have one too!

 

Looks like the SPS bug bit you.. won't be long until you start another tank to throw all your softies in so you can get more SPS!

[Thunil]

sorry guys, haven't updated in a while, been pretty busy starting at a new university this semester. but here's an update...WITH PICS!!!

 

Tanks still going really well. I've been keeping up with the weekly 20 odd litre water changes.

 

I got a new fish, Long nose hawkfish. I've wanted one for a while and glad I waited for this guy. He'd been at the LFS for 3 months, eats like a pig and is generally awesome. The LFS I picked him up from was equally awesome. I was told by one of the managers that they quarantine all their fish when they come in and won't put them on sale until they are eating prepared foods. It was my first visit to this LFS and I was very pleased

 

Onto other news, a few of my newer sps frags were a bit brown when these pics were taken but they are colouring up now (looks like i'll need some updated photos, haha). I blame this on myself, leaving them down low on a makeshift frag rack for too long.

 

Final note is that my black tubastrea got nastily stung by my torch coral one day when I was at uni, he lost quite a bit of flesh but has now been moved and has picked up quite a bit

 

Here are some pics:

 

FTS as of the 20/08/2009

 

new hawkfish

 

finally a decent pick of the sixline

 

and a decent pick of the chromis

 

onto the corals

 

sps

 

the next two actually have more of a greeny/blue tinge to them than in the pics

 

 

 

 

Can't wait till this guy gets some green back

 

 

Cataphyllia

 

The torch that is growing every day

 

Trachy

 

orange plate coral

 

little zoa and rhodactis rock from GB, the rhodactis look like they should be getting some nice colours,

 

'shroom garden

 

To finish up with, some growth shots of my first SPS

 

25/06/09

 

01/08/09

 

19/08/09

 

Thanks for looking, and any comments/questions/suggestions are really appreciated.

 

Cheers,

Daniel

[Mr. Grinch]

cool new pics thanks for the pm

[Thunil]

I was doing a water change today and decided it was a good chance to take some cool top down shots, let mee know what you think.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and my favourite coral

 

Any body have any tips for getting rid of the reflection from the lights without turning them off?

 

Cheers,

Daniel

[xcracer]

maybe try a CPL (circular polarizing filter) will take the reflection away completely.. allthough i think it depends on your camera wweather you can use it or not.. also maybe look in the setting like sport and night and portrait, and set it to "window" if you have it..

[Thunil]

Update with new stock

 

Tanks still going strong. Got some new additions.

 

Picked up a $69 maxima, sps frag and zooanthid frag from an aussie online shop. All were shipped perfectly and arrived in awesome health.

 

I also bought a piranha algae magnet which is the best $50 I've ever spent.

 

Lastly, I picked up a little scopas tang from my LFS last Thursday, he is also going really well, eating everything like a pig.

 

Onto pics.

 

Firstly, Updated FTS:

(sorry bout the reflection)

 

New maxima:

 

new zoanthids:

 

new SPS, pic doesnt do it justice has more of an over all yellowish colour with pale blue surrounding the polyps

 

clownfish eggs:

 

New scopas:

 

 

these pics show the improving colour of my SPS frags:

this

 

compared to what it used to be

 

still waiting for this guy to get some more green but he looks to be a quick grower, most of his tips are already forking

 

earlier photo

 

see the difference?

 

Last photos are of my fave sps, he grows pretty quickly:

from this on the 25/06/09

 

to this today

I love how green his polyps are becoming

and that's it for photos

 

Just a quick Q for everyone, does my clam look like it's gaping. It looks wide to me but he still responds really quickly to stimuli and can close up quickly. Also he's still showing the fronds on the edge of his intake siphon.

 

Thanks for looking comments always appreciated.

 

Daniel

[levitationDrew]

How's this tank doing?

[Thunil]

I managed to crack the back pane when re-doing some plumbing and lost all of my SPS frags, so I had to get a new tank and swap everyhting over. Dont know why but a day or two after the swap I lost most of my other corals, So all I have in there atm is the female clown, longnose hawk and scopas, the clam is still going strong and so are my leathers. After I had the mini crash I ogt a bit disheartened and had uni exams so the tank got a bit neglected.

 

Getting back into it now though, kust finished making the sump so I should have that up and running in a ocuple of days, Thanks for looking