Hoob's 30g Finnex

[Hoobahans]

How very appropriate. I would like to present my new stand and hood for the 5.5--both courtesy of jimi thing, Walla Walla's best carpenter, if I do say so myself. Enjoy:

Beer can for prospective, and the other tank is the 30g, kind of an odd angle there.

[ReefInChicago]

How very appropriate. I would like to present my new stand and hood for the 5.5--both courtesy of jimi thing, Walla Walla's best carpenter, if I do say so myself. Enjoy:

Beer can for prospective, and the other tank is the 30g, kind of an odd angle there.

 

i'm sure i'm just missing it in the fts's, but where do you have the viper mounted? i've got the same tank, same lighting, and i've been considering adding a viper as well.

 

looking really good so far!

[Hoobahans]

i'm sure i'm just missing it in the fts's, but where do you have the viper mounted? i've got the same tank, same lighting, and i've been considering adding a viper as well.

 

looking really good so far!

 

The viper is actually mounted behind/a bit under the stock lighting. In the last picture you can see the top of its "arm" sticking up above the light strip. I moved the t5s all the way forward and keep the viper as far back as I can.

[Hoobahans]

I looped the tanks today and all went well. I have probably around 200 gph going between the two with two extra 100 gph pumps in the 5.5 inside an overflow. I moved the chiller in the hob filter to the back of the 5.5, so the finnex looks cleaner. The 70watt mh looks amaxing in the tiny 5.5. I threw a few zoas, a chalice, and a gorgon into the 5.5 from the finnex and they are loving the new space. Tomorrow I will try to get a picture if I finish studying for my calc III test.

[Hoobahans]

Alright, I picked up some lr today and got the little 5.5 all set with all the loose frags I had floating around my 30g. The only problem is that my computer wont recognize any cameras that I plug into it, what a PITA. Anyone have a suggestion? I know nothing about this stuff... It wont recognize my wireless mouse anymore either.

[Hoobahans]

Ok, well I figured out the camera, so here goes:

The lfs had a BAD selection of lr, so I did what I could with it. I am not very happy with the results, but I'll rearrange later.

Both tanks:

Top-down:

Lights (70 watt 14k, two 9watt actinic, although I dont have the right bulbs yet)

Overflow and drain pipe from the 5.5

The pipe/tube along the wall is the return from the 5.5, and the other two are my ato and the output from the finnex to the 5.5

From the hall:

I just have a few left over frags in the tank now, I will get better ones soon

[Hoobahans]

Alright, two more, I couldnt resist. In the second photo you can see how much some of the zoas are liking the new tank, they have colored up a lot in the past day.

I also lined the canopy with foil to reflect more light into the tank:

[travisurfer]

looks great

[Hoobahans]

So I have discovered the drinking and having reefing as your hobby lead to hasty and expensive decisions. I came home from my friends 21st birthday party last night at two in the morning and ordered DTs oyster eggs. Total was just under $50 bucks because the stuff has to be shipped overnight on ice. I guess it'll be worth it if my coral likes it as much as many people say! Next time I'll wait until morning for the big purchase.

[jimi thing]

Haha, I ordered DT's reef blend, 7.5oz bottle $12.95 shipping $24.95 lol.

[Hoobahans]

Glen, tell me how that reef blend works out for you, I've wondered if I should try it myself. By the way, have you ever done anything with the local reef club? Like a frag swap or something like that. I think that I am going to order a pack of sps and zoas from yourreef.com and I am sure I'll have a few frags that I could trade or something. You think that ordering from yourreef is a good idea? The stuff you had looked nice, especially that green acro, a slimer maybe? You didnt get any zoas, did ya?

[Hoobahans]

So this weird looking stuff is coming out of my torch. It is hard to see in this photo but it looks just like the clearish, hard shell of a grain of wheat. It looks different than any coral poop I have seen before, so if you have an idea let me know. In any case, it was a picture and I have a issue with posting lots of pics.

 

I noticed that this zoa is loosing its color. None of the other zoas around it are doing this, does anyone know why it would loose its color? I noticed that the colorless region got bigger today than it was this morning.

Also, where should I put this echino frag? It broke in half when I got it, so this is only half. I got a little bleached but is coloring back up. I have three frags of echino now and dont know the best place for them. I have heard that they should be on flat surfaces, but I dont really have any in my tanks, atleast not where there isnt direct mh light. Should I put it in the sand or on the bare bottom of my 5.5? They get burried fast if I leave them in the sand of the finnex.

[Hoobahans]

I placed an order for a big frag pack of sps and zoas from yourreef.com yesterday. I am pretty excited, although I havnt seen anyone on this site post pics of sps they got from them, oh well. Anyway, he mentioned something about throwing in a small CA blue tort, hope he does! It comes on friday, I'll post pictures as soon as they come. I also got DTs Oyster eggs today and my sps loved them. Also, Im getting the actinic bulbs for the 5.5 in the next few days.

[Hoobahans]

Caught my first bristle worm today. The lr I got came with a lot of hitchhikers: clams, tube worms, some xenia (I think), and my first bristleworms. I dont like these guys, no matter how benign people say they are. Some of them are pretty big, so I've been hunting at night, and heres my first prey:

[jimi thing]

Hey Josiah,

 

here are some picks of some of the stuff that I bought from yourreef. You've probably already seen them.

P.S. your tanks are looking pretty sweet!

[Hoobahans]

New Order!

My favorite sight in the world: an overnight box and a couple of tanks

The sps:

I think I am going to use these clam shells for bases:

And, just for fun, heres some bubble algae with coraline growing on it. Wierd.

 

I'll get better pics of the coral as soon as I can. Many of the frags are really small, so I think I need to put them on a base tonight or they will disseaper into the sand/cracks overnight. I have 5 zoa rocks that I got from yourreef.com as well, and I will post pics as soon as they finish opening up.

[Hoobahans]

So, I am on duty tonight (as an RA) and I had nothing better to do than process my coral order. I got 20 small sps frags and 5 zoa frags from yourreef.com. I was really impressed with what I got, which included what I believe to be a CA Blue Tort (pic below). I got two monti caps, red and green, and a bunch of assorted acros, milis, ect. I need to identify a lot of them... Anyway, I mounted the loose frags (only two were mounted) on broken pieces of clam shell. They look kind of silly right now, all bright white and pure, but I am hoping that they get encrusted and covered in coraline soon.

 

The zoas are great looking, very bright and colorful--but two of the frags had dead/dieing zoas that looked infected. I scraped off the dead stuff and inspected the rest. They are opening now and look awsome.

 

Most of the sps are nice and colorful. There are a few that are mildely dull, but I hope that they color-up under my lighting. Overall I am very happy, especially considering that I paid under 10 bucks for each frag including shipping. Im really escited to watch the growth of these frags.

 

It was a pretty big order but I feel that I was ready to handle it. My paramaters are solid and the sps I got a while back is going great.

 

As usual, I had some close calls. I dropped a tiny, half-inch acro frag and my blenny took to be food and grabed up, carred into a cave, and droped after realizing how less than tasty I am sure it was. I took all of the coral off of the eggcrate rack to get it at, but while i was moving the rack one of the eggcrate tabs fell into my maxima clam which closed over the tab, holding the whole eggcrate sections fast. I coudlnt get it out and had to wait ten minutes until the clam opened. In the end, everything was alright and I think I got a lot better at glueing coral. I got superglue gel from yourreef.com. They actually sent me two tubes instead of one (BIG tubes). The stuff works SO MUCH BETTER than regular super glue which was so runny that it drove me crazy.

 

A couple small problems, the lr I got for the 5.5 ended up having a lot of "stuff" growing on it. That includes way too much macroalgae that it growing too fast for comfort. Anway, enough writing. Pictures!

 

Upper-left of the 5.5 Check out the tiny birdsnest frag. It broke off the bigger frag in the bag and I glued it onto its own shell. Probably only a centimeter or less.

Middle-right of the 5.5

Upper Finnex

Finnex, upper left

Finnex upper right

Sweet nean green birdsnest

 

CA Blue Tort, yes or no?

[sprite]

nice frags! hows the birdsnest doing?

[Hoobahans]

nice frags! hows the birdsnest doing?

 

Thanks! As for the birdsnest...well, as you can see, not so well:

 

I came back from class and found that the biggest remaining branch had ejected all its polyps into a strand that was floating away from the skeleton. I took the remaining tip, about 1/3 an inch and glued it to a piece of shell. It has some color...but not a lot. I am rooting for it.

[Hoobahans]

I have finally arranged my 5.5 as I want, and it has become nearly a strictly sps tank. There are a couple nice blastos that snuck in there and one zoa frag with some nice green zoas and a couple tiny red ones that just fit so nicely... anyway, here it is!

One of the bastos, can you believe I got this for 8 bucks?

Like just about everything I put under the lighting in this tank, my surviving nib of my birdsnest is showing some real color! (although the pictures all look a bit whitewashed. The shells they are on are not as blindingly white as they appear, and the coral has a lot more color that these show)

 

Finnex update:

I cleaned the back section and replaced all the chemical media. Also, I caught my peppermint shrimp that I have been hunting for weeks now. I have been putting food in nets, laying traps, and everything trying to catch this shrimp, and today I just stuck my hand in and grabbed it. The peppermint now resides in the fuge, live or die I care not--it was a pain, basically pulled my candy cane and pagoda's stomaches inside out.

[jimi thing]

Seeing how nice your 5.5 is looking makes me want to set one up.

[Hoobahans]

Alright, it has been months since I updated this, but I don't personally own a camera, and I have been bad about asking to borrow one. Anyway, I got a big order from marineflora.com which included a ten pack of palys, whammin wattermellons, rpes, and something they called "purple-red purple eaters."

 

Here are three people-eaters of some sort. I assume that two of them are the ones that I ordered, and the third looks like it will be green all over when it opens. In any case, It is pretty cool that I got such big frags of each when I only ordered frags of three, and they even included another type. In person it is easier to see that three of them have bright green mouths, and when they open I will get new pics.

 

Heres a pretty sweet paly that they included in the pack

 

All frags are opening and I will get more pics tomorrow.

[gsechen]

Excellent!

 

BUY FROM MARINEFLORA.com SAM is great to work with, I know I have gone to his place and he always has A+ stuff. quite generous too!

[jimi thing]

looking good man!

[Hoobahans]

Thanks guys, heres more:

 

I had an incident over spring break where my mh bulb burst over the 5.5 and the sps were without light for a week, so they lost some color, but it is improving quickly

 

 

 

And heres various shots of my marineflora order:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some frags I made from loose polyps:

 

 

I also got a couple emerald crabs, snails and a shrimp from sealifeflorida.com and ken sent me some free zoas! The four frags in front all came for free (I put them on plugs)