Chucktown BC 29 Mixed Reef

[TUDIZZLE]

I use microsoft to resize my pics and always put a 400 in the first resize box so the pics fill the screen when viewed and doesn't require you to scroll around to see the whole pic.

 

 

 

 

and cropping is the key, at least with my camera, to get good shots

[nUgZ]

I think the auto-resizing is a good tool for the majority of people posting, but it can make some nice high-res shots look super grainy.

[divecj5]

I think the auto-resizing is a good tool for the majority of people posting, but it can make some nice high-res shots look super grainy.

 

I agree....sometimes pictures will look amazing on my screen at full resolution and look pretty bland once they are loaded to NR.

[c est ma]

Haven't we all felt that way!!

 

--D

[CBMullen]

nice tank but more of a support for chucktown than anything, went to college there and GREAT GREAT time wish I was still around the area (in Charlotte,NC) tons of girls, tons of beaches, tons of bars, what else can a younger guy ask for ohhh wait I can ask for a really sweet tank down the road.. Awesome

[CBMullen]

oh yea if u ever want to collect live fish go out to the end folly beach past the washout (to the iron gates) and walk out to the lighthouse, wait till lowtide then walk the sandbar towards the lighthouse till waist deep and then drop either seine net or just regular fishing gear with some shrimp or clam and within the hour I gaurantee you will have somethin, also a little secret to the lighthouse during the big tide change--- usually late summer/harvest moon, you can actually walk to the lighthouse via sandbar and there is a massive collection of inverts right by the base, where all the breakers crash during normal season. just a lil insider info if your interested, seen the biggest coolest hermits and assorted crabs ever there, well until I went to hawaii

[divecj5]

nice tank but more of a support for chucktown than anything, went to college there and GREAT GREAT time wish I was still around the area (in Charlotte,NC) tons of girls, tons of beaches, tons of bars, what else can a younger guy ask for ohhh wait I can ask for a really sweet tank down the road.. Awesome

 

Thanks for taking a look at the tank. I've been living here in Charleston, except when I went to college in Columbia, since I moved down here with my parents in 1992. I am still amazed that I hear people complaining about Charleston when there are thousands of people that die to try and vacation here. These of course are the people that live within a stones throw of downtown and never actually go downtown. Oh well, I just tell these people to move somewhere else....it's getting a little too crowded here as it is

 

oh yea if u ever want to collect live fish go out to the end folly beach past the washout (to the iron gates) and walk out to the lighthouse, wait till lowtide then walk the sandbar towards the lighthouse till waist deep and then drop either seine net or just regular fishing gear with some shrimp or clam and within the hour I gaurantee you will have somethin, also a little secret to the lighthouse during the big tide change--- usually late summer/harvest moon, you can actually walk to the lighthouse via sandbar and there is a massive collection of inverts right by the base, where all the breakers crash during normal season. just a lil insider info if your interested, seen the biggest coolest hermits and assorted crabs ever there, well until I went to hawaii

 

Nice info about Folly....I haven't actually been down to the end of the island in quite a while. I usually just hang out around washout and closer in. I might have to head down there and check it out during low tide...probably won't collect anything but I love looking in the tidepools, etc. I guess it's just the marine bio coming out in me.

 

Just noticed that yesterday marked the 8 month mark!!!! Woohoo

[JCBioCube29]

your tank is looking great nice pics

[divecj5]

your tank is looking great nice pics

 

Thanks bud....it is coming along and I can't believe it's at the 8 month mark now and still going strong.

 

I of course have the usual bubble algae spots and not necessarily all the algae I want but I've come to realize after having a tank in the past and now this one that there is really no way to have an algae free tank. Now that I've realized that I enjoy it a lot more. I used to freak out over the smallest patches of algae...well I still do a little bit.

[mister crabs]

how are your heat issues with teh sunpod? How much water do you evap on average per day? I am ditching my hood this weekend in favor of a 175w PFO pendant with 2x24w actnics. Still gotta figure out a way to steal the moonlights off the BC and retro them into my new pendant. thanks in advance!

[divecj5]

how are your heat issues with teh sunpod? How much water do you evap on average per day? I am ditching my hood this weekend in favor of a 175w PFO pendant with 2x24w actnics. Still gotta figure out a way to steal the moonlights off the BC and retro them into my new pendant. thanks in advance!

 

Thanks for taking a look at my thread. As far as heat issues with the Sunpod, I have had absolutely 0 issues with heat. I actually have had to turn up my heater in the tank and lessen the amount of time that I have my fans going to compensate. I'm not sure if you saw in the thread, but I have the Aquatek 2 fan unit and I think it works great. Although it is a tad on the noisy side, it's nothing that turning up the tv can't resolve and I've gotten used to it now. Plus, I just have it come on every hour for 15 minutes.

 

I do evaporate a good bit but a lot of that will depend on the humidity in your house/apt. I probably go through ~1/2 gallon a day. I'm not really sure though since I have my ATO working to keep up with it. It's just one less thing that I have to worry about with the tank.

 

Let me know if that helps and if you have any other questions. Do you have a thread yet?

[Alias1]

I go through about 1/2 a gallon top-off a day my sunpod even without the extra fans, but my humidity is very low usually ~ 20%. How much flow do you have running now divecj5?

[divecj5]

I am using the Rio 6HF instead of the stock pump and a Koralia 2....I think I could use a little more flow but it seems to keep all of the corals nice and happy in there.

[Alias1]

I was seeing the same thing in my tank. I have the stock + 2 K1s just now. I almost went with a vortech but i just keep seeing people complain about noise - probably not an issue at low flow but it's insane to buy unless you plan on upgrades that will incorporate those imo. I guess i'm at 900-1000 gph too.... It did get the attention of my acropora pretty fast - it really hasn't emerged since i bought it a few days ago, but it did have a couple sweepers out immediately after I added K1#2.

[Shawn D]

How do you like your tunze skimmer? Do you have any pictures of what you had to do to the stock hood for it to fit?

 

Didnt know what thread to ask so just did both

 

Thanks

[TUDIZZLE]

he runs topless

[divecj5]

How do you like your tunze skimmer? Do you have any pictures of what you had to do to the stock hood for it to fit?

 

Didnt know what thread to ask so just did both

 

Thanks

 

 

he runs topless

 

Thanks for answering for me Tudizzle....I do run topless with the Sunpod MH light so I didn't have to do anything special to accommodate the skimmer in the 2nd chamber.

 

To everyone else, I think that I am going to head off in the search of a bubble tip anemone for the tank. I really like the way that the RBTA looks and I think that the clowns could possibly host it as well. I think that the tank is plenty old enough now and the halides should cover its needs.

 

I know that my LFS is pretty lame so if anyone finds one locally, maybe we could set something up where I could throw an extra couple dollars your way and have you ship it to me.

 

Either that or I might look at getting a clam. Just need something to perk my interest and add some color.

[Shawn D]

Sorry I was following our other thread and forgot you ditched the hood

[divecj5]

No worries.

[divecj5]

Just wanted to update things around here since it's been about a week since the last post. After I last posted about wanting to get a green bubble tip anemone, I ended up finding one that someone was willing to trade to me locally and I also found out that the LFS also had four of them that they were looking to sell. You have no idea how tempted I was to get one of them since I had a pretty decent trade setup with the person.

 

As I've learned through this hobby, patience really does pay off sometimes. Well first the ones that were at the LFS were completely deflated...no real surprise there The one that the guy wanted to trade here locally looked good, well as good as a cell phone camera can take but I just was a little unsure about the whole time.

 

After doing some thinking, I ended up deciding against getting an anemone in general. Although I think that they are incredible specimens and I know that my tank is mature enough now for one, I just don't think it is the right fit for the tank. I think that I am going to take the tank in a more focused direction once I get some funds together.

 

Here is a list of the corals that I currently have and what I would like to get:

 

Now

-Purple polyped monti undata

-Orange encrusting monti

-Assorted zoas and palys

-Octospawn frag

-Birdsnest

-Green ricordea

-Green star polyps

 

And here is the direction that I would like to go with the tank. Although I really ended up liking how SPS looked in the tank, I just don't really think that they are my cup of tea per say. I am definitely going to keep the ones that I have and possibly get an orange monti cap, I just don't see myself getting any more in the future. Although they are really cool how they develop overtime, there just isn't really enough "action" in the tank.

 

That said, from here on out I am going to focus on getting nothing but ricordea of different colors (majority probably Florida rics), more Euphyllia species (hammer, frogspawn, torch), and some more zoas of course as I just love the color variety.

 

I plan on pretty much trying to convert the tank into a semi-softie tank and just cover large portions of the rock with varies soft corals. The tank just overall has a sort of barren look to it for me and doesn't have the life that my 55 gallon had with the small soccer ball sized frogspawn that I had.

 

I intend to stay away from xenia and anthelia as I had a really bad problem with it in the past...it got so healthy that it was dropping buds and the anthelia just pretty much took over the majority of the tank. Once it gets to a point, it's pretty much uncontrollable.

 

Another thing that I've learned over the past year and a half of having tanks is that there really isn't a way to keep things pristine in the tank....and I have become of the mind that it really kind of looks better with a little sprig of green here and there. I have spent way too much time trying to eradicate every little bit of algae that props up so for the last month I've just tried to enjoy the tank, observe the small things, and just not worry so much about everything that sprouts up. Now I have noticed a couple of vermitids and they have been giving me the heebee geebees again....time to start smashing those little guys again

 

What do you think? Any suggestions on where I might be able to find some cheap rics, etc.? I saw that Reef Scavengers had some nice ones that I could start off with so I might put in an order for those, some more snails, an emerald crab, and maybe some brittle stars if they have them.

 

I just love all of the inverts that c est ma has in her tank and some others I've seen.

[TUDIZZLE]

I like the way you think

 

http://stores.ebay.com/gatewayaquatics

 

 

these guys have a ricordea ten pack for $99.99

 

Seems like a good deal. I plan on getting one from them this spring. I was going to contact them directly and see if I could "help" pick the rics they would be sending. Heck I would even be willing to pay an extra $50 if they would only send premium rics(no drab blues and greens)

 

They also have other larger ric paks. Could buy a larger one, hand pick the ones you want to keep then sell off or trade the others.

[divecj5]

Thanks for the link...I will definitely have to plan on looking into this more as it looks to be a really good deal. I can't seem to find the site that I found before but it was a site that I guy runs in Florida and he sells rics and other items that he collects legally from the Florida Keys area and aquacultures them. Wish I could find it since I remember them being pretty cheap and he had some really nice corals.

 

I agree that it would be nice if they could guarantee that they wouldn't throw any drab ones...kind of like the ones I have now

 

Alright so please someone e-slap me the next time that I go 8 months without cleaning my return pump!!! I should have learned from Tudd how much these things can get clogged but it was one of those out of site, out of mind type of things. I was doing some pretty hardcore maintenance on the tank last night since I had about an hour to devote to the tank. I ended up terrorizing some vermitids (oh joy, I have them in this tank as well) and also ended up scrapping some coralline and cleaning the Koralia 2 that I have. Needless to say I've been way too slack on my regular maintenance of these things. I gave everything a good vinegar bath and I'll tell you what, I think the K2 actually works better now than it did when I first got it. You should have seen the detritus being kicked up in there....I was amazed.

 

After cleaning these, I noticed that my hydor-flo wasn't moving all that fast. I put my hand in front of the other output that just has a duck bill on the front and hardly anything was coming out!!! So I took the Rio return pump out and the part with the black sponge was completely covered in some of the nastiest stuff I've seen. I ended up taking and throwing the black sponge out since I'm not sure why the heck I left it there in the first place.

 

Needless to say things are looking A LOT better in the tank now that I've done some housekeeping and cleaned the pumps. I will try and grab some pics this afternoon.

 

Also, I was staring at my massive amount of chaeto and it is completely stocked with all sorts of microfauna. I immediately thought of c est ma and wished I had a nice macro lens.

[nUgZ]

Yeah it's easy to forget about things like that when you aren't constantly looking at them. I'm glad things are liking the cleaning. The increased flow should help out a great deal.

[divecj5]

Thanks Nugz. Things looked a lot better just when I went home for lunch. I am still interested in getting some corals from you sometime soon.

 

I grabbed some pictures but it looks like work is putting a damper on posting them up so I should have some up tomorrow.

[divecj5]

Just a small little picture post since I ended up getting some time. Sorry if the cropping is too much...just messing a little til I get a macro lens.

 

Some Zoas:

 

 

 

 

 

More to come tomorrow...