As Cheap as I can get it - Ghetto Beauty?

[yardboy]

IT's been a little while since I've posted. The Ghetto Beauty has just been plugging along, 1g/week water change, topoff every day, a little experimentation with some coral food, but being very careful with that. I've put a rainford goby and a very small tomato clown, hoping he'll host the condy, but so far no go. All my sps have grown some, but not a ton. I keep up with calcium and alk with a two part by Seachem. Nothing in the tank has died so far, though a red Echino frag I got real cheap is on the watch list. Check the frag on the homemade return. He was brown and I got him for real cheap, and he's turning the most beautuful blue. All in all, this tank is doing great. Some closeups later, but I've been having trouble with my harddrive (got another bigger, but haven't installed yet), so they'll have to wait. Anyone else who is encouraged by my setup, go for it, but go slow. I think that is the secret.

[suppressive fire]

are thoes sps glued everywhere like by the bulk head input?lol

[yardboy]

Sure! No reason not to hide the return and overflow if you can. I"ve done it on larger tanks and it worked well, thought I'd try it on this one.

[clifford513]

Nice tanks! Really like the clown. I'm diy tarded, for the most part.

[LoBo]

isnt that a pain to clean the glass? if brown algae or coraline starts growing on it?

[yardboy]

Sorry for the delay in answering your question. I don't clean the back glass or overflow. The sides and front I use a Nimble to clean. I just edge it around the rock on the left side, I don't usually look into the tank from that side anyway.

One thing I've noticed with this tank is that without a skimmer, only the refugium, the polyps on all the sps, lps, and gorgonian corals open up great, as soon as the lights go out. I am also feeding a coral food slurry of my own making (Hey, this is a Ghetto tank, after all!) a couple of times a week. Given that, I decided to risk my perfect record of no deaths in this tank by putting a really pretty blueberry gorgonian into the top corner, where the light is lowest and flow is high going into the overflow. I'd thought about a Tubastrea, but couldn't find one with only a few polyps. Anyways, about an hour after lights out I snapped this shot of the corals polyps fully extended. Please wish me luck with it as it's such a pretty coral.

 

[wildernesstank]

nice

[yardboy]

Just another little update. The blue and orange Acan seems to be quite happy. He's sitting on the sand, with his polyps beginning to spread out like a skirt. Would it be best to sit him on a flat rock so he could encrust that?

 

[yardboy]

Must be eating something in there, this is what it looks like after lights out

 

[BJK2]

dude i love this setup! it is soo well planned and accomplished!!! Your fuge is beautiful and must be amazing to look at in person with all of the life it must support.

[yardboy]

Thanks BJK2, I'm glad you like it. I've learned a lot about reefkeeping with this tank, and I hope I can keep it going for a long time. 9 months is jsut a drop in the bucket!

One thing I find continuously fasinating is how much polyp extension I get with this setup. This very small frag of Turbinaria reniformis started with just a couple of polyps, but has grown quite well, and seems to be increasing its growth rate lately. Notice how much the polyps are out, much more so than the parent colony ever does.

[10" Red Devil]

You going to put a skimmer on this thing?? Sorry I couldn't resist! GREAT LOOKING SETUP though!!

 

Oh and its not that ghetto.

[yardboy]

This tank has gone from an experiment in going skimmerless (yes, every other tank I've ever had uses a skimmer) to a longetivity experiment. I seriously can imagine this thing going for years, as long as I keep up with water changes!!!!

[jsuprise]

Put that acan on a flat rock or something larger and watch it spread. Nice tank, feels good do have a DIY be successful i bet.

[yardboy]

Thanks. It does feel good. I still stare at it every day. And that's with 9 other tanks to keep watch on!

I'll post some more pictures soon. I scored a nice Pachyseris, but it's too big and I'm trying to decide how to frag it to get it in proportion with the rest of the tank.

[BJK2]

once again this tank is insane. if i wasn't switching to dorm life i'd build a similar set-up as yours.. i have pretty much all the pieces besides the lights and pump. well props to you. also i love the frags glued on the back and overflow.

[strangelove]

What kind of check valve did you use on the return pump line and did you need any adapters to fit it to the retun tubing?

[Drez]

Liking the simplicity of your set up! Given that the sump appears to have no baffles, do you have any micro bubbles? I notice there is no skimmer and so thats one bubble source gone, but if you don't have bubble issues I think I could drop the baffles in my set up too.

keep up the good stuff!

-cheers

[yardboy]

What kind of check valve did you use on the return pump line and did you need any adapters to fit it to the retun tubing?

 

No checkvalves, just made sure that the return discharge is just below the surface so when the pump goes off (powerloss) only a small amount of water goes back down into the sump.

 

 

Liking the simplicity of your set up! Given that the sump appears to have no baffles, do you have any micro bubbles? I notice there is no skimmer and so thats one bubble source gone, but if you don't have bubble issues I think I could drop the baffles in my set up too.

keep up the good stuff!

-cheers

Thanks! No baffles, no microbubbles. Flow is spread over entire width of refugium wall so no problem. This tank is an experiment in no skimmer, so far so good. Just put two mangrove propogules from strangelove, think they will add another interesting element to the landscape of the refugium! Glad you liked the spaghetti worm Marc!

[strangelove]

Just curiouse what is attached to your return line, the white and grey thing?

 

 

No checkvalves, just made sure that the return discharge is just below the surface so when the pump goes off (powerloss) only a small amount of water goes back down into the sump.

Thanks! No baffles, no microbubbles. Flow is spread over entire width of refugium wall so no problem. This tank is an experiment in no skimmer, so far so good. Just put two mangrove propogules from strangelove, think they will add another interesting element to the landscape of the refugium! Glad you liked the spaghetti worm Marc!

 

Your welcome, what are you doing with the other four mangroves? The trade for the cheato and the zoa frag with spaghetti worm was great, they are an waesome addition to the clean up crew.

[thecowkid]

you have done a great job. There is one problem that I see you might have in the future. With a single drain you have the potential to have a flood. If one snail, crab gets into the drain they can cause it to back up and overflow. If you want to solve this pm me and I will send you pics and instructions on how to eliminate the problem and make it the quietest drain system that you have had.

[yardboy]

The white and grey thing is a threaded union with two barbed fittings. That way I can change out the pump quickly. The vinyl hose goes up to the top of the tank and connects to the return tube, which consists of three 1/2" street ells, a female adaptor and another male threaded barbed fitting.

Earlier in the life of the Ghetto Beauty I had a standard U-tube fitting for the return but it sat too low in the tank and when the pump shut off it drained a 1/4 of the tank! This works much better. Sorry for the bad picture. The cls end is so white because I cut the end to give me more flow without so much velocity.

[ReadyReefer]

how is that blueberry gorgonian doing, from what i've read if you succeed you might be one of the few to have success with these things

[yardboy]

Well I'm not giving up yet. It's not growing much but it hasn't died back either. I keep feeding it and hoping for the best. I'll post a picture soon.

[yardboy]

It's been nearly a month so I realized I better take time for an update, lots of things going on and changed.

First off, as many said, the condylactis anemone began to get too big for this nano. He never moved from his original spot, but he began stinging the edges of the echinophyllia, gorgonians and zoanthids. The tomato clown never bonded with him either, so they both got moved to Genie's 70, where they seem happy, but still haven't bonded. I'm in the process of trying to figure out how to detach a small BTA that's in another of our tanks and put him in there. May move the tomato back in if that works, though the tomato is mighty happy in the 70 with a small blue tang. A regular "Finding Nemo" setup. Yep, there's a cleaner shrimp too.

The blueberry gorgonian encrusted the rock it's on and was looking good, but July is a cruel month and he's declined since then. I also cut back on my experimental coral food as paranoia about excess nutrients in the tank worried me. Not because of any problems, but my 150 display with a large beckett skimmer was starting to show signs of excess nutrients too (some slime on a rock), and I was removing 2 qts./day of skimmate out of that tank. Dump too much crap in a tank and even a skimmer won't remove it all. Since the blueberry's right on the overflow, it's tough to even spot feed him as it whisks all the food right away. He's still alive, but not looking good.

Two problems I have with this tank are excess heat and no good topoff method. I've been so broke it isn't even funny, so even a small fan hasn't been an option. Hopefully very soon, as the tank got to 86 yesterday. I've had some bleaching, but the two that did (Turbinaria and Pavona), have since mostly recovered.

For topoff, I've not even tried anything yet, just keep pouring, and pouring, and pouring water out of a milk jug.

Other than that, everything is doing well. Growth has seemed to accelerate of late, maybe the metabolic rate is higher in the hotter tank, but it's funny how some corals just sat for a long time without doing anything and then suddenly took off. My orange monti is an example. I also wonder if there has been any conspecific stimulation going on. I put a frag of purple monti near the orange. The purple immediately started to encrust, and concurrently the orange began growing out from several points on it's edges. Weird.

I've had to prune the pink Seriatopora several times. Otherwise it would have stabbed the Pocillipora, and Favites.

Fastest grower awards go to the blue and the orange Monti digitata's. Conditions seem perfectly to their liking.

Thanks for looking.