Gerber77 Posted February 24, 2009 Share Posted February 24, 2009 your tank looks awesome Goodluck with the contest! What does the winner get? Link to comment
angelacbishop Posted February 25, 2009 Author Share Posted February 25, 2009 your tank looks awesome Goodluck with the contest! What does the winner get? Thanks! The winner gets a gift certificate (not sure how much?) to a NR sponser. By the way, it looks like your 5.5 is off to a nice start! Link to comment
angelacbishop Posted February 27, 2009 Author Share Posted February 27, 2009 Well in interest of stirring up the water surface a little better I decided to break down and pull the koralia nano out of my tank at home, clean it up, and put it in my contest tank. The minijet 606 just wasn't creating as much turbulance as I would have liked. The used value is $14.99 so it's just under the wire and doesn't have to be included in the budget. Woo! This pump works so much better and even though it's 240 GPH vs. the 160 GPH that I took out, it's not creating any problems since it's a softer, more spread out flow. Being able to adjust the angle of the flow really helps a lot too. No pics...gotta save them for the end of the contest which is only a little over 2 weeks away! Link to comment
angelacbishop Posted March 17, 2009 Author Share Posted March 17, 2009 FINAL CONTEST SUBMISSION So this is it! I'm so excited to see how everyone's tanks turned out in the end. Without futher ado: Previous Tank Pictures 9/16/08 9/24/08 10/16/08 11/13/08 12/17/08 1/16/08 2/17/08 Photos from Today FTS: View from the left side, this is what I can see from where I sit the most at my desk: Top down shot. The acro burnt a little spot on the monti cap but it’s slowly coming back to life in that spot: The blue cloves have grown like crazy and spread all over to different parts of the tank: These zoas have grown extremely well! Started with just a few polyps: Here’s a progression of the green acro. Not only has it pretty much tripled in size, but it also went through a phase where it browned out and has since colored back up: Summary The timing for this contest worked out perfectly for me. I had just decided to take down the guppy bowl on my desk at work and put up a little saltwater tank. I had originally planned to use the 3 gallon picotope w/ 12” PC fixture that is so popular but soon realized that the 5.5 gallon with T5 lights would be cheaper, more stable, and capable of growing a larger selection of corals. So I ordered my light fixture and behold…the next day the contest was announced! I had decided this was going to be a mostly gorgonian tank with various macro algae’s intermixed. While I do still have a couple gorgonians and macros, I’ve adjusted my stocking to what does best in this tank. SPS and leathers seem to love the high flow and intense lighting so that’s what is dominating my coral selection now. Really the only thing I wish I would have done differently would be to nail down my coral selection sooner as to allow the frags even more time to grow out. Once the contest is over, I have a few additions planned. I want to add a couple cool inverts (maybe a pom-pom crab and a pistol shrimp) and a few more frags that I ran out of budget for. I have really enjoyed having this little tank on my desk at work and it’s been a great conversation piece for my co-workers and visitors. My boss calls the the peppermint shrimp “that tiny red lobster”…gotta love that! Sitting in front of it for 40 hours a week has made for many opportunities to closely observe. Final Budget, $1.02 to spare! Item From Value details Top Fin 60 Filter already had $22.49 already had, originally $29.99 from petsmart Nova Extreme 18" T5 DFS $62.99 Koralia Nano already had free originally $19.99 from Marine Depot, value $14.99 5.5 gallon AGA already had free magnet cleaner already had free glass tops already had free timer already had free fuge light already had free 8 lbs live rock already had free 8 lbs live sand already had free Pico CUC from Reefcleaners Reefcleaners free 1 hermit LFS $1.00 1 green striped mushroom hitchhiker $5.00 wild caught mystery anemone already had $5.00 http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...=160198&hl= yellow fiji leather, quarter sized already had $15.00 Nano Spiny Orange Sea Rod Gorgonian Sea Life Inc $9.50 Masked Goby Sea Life Inc $7.50 Hi-Fin Goby LFS $10.00 peppermint shrimp Sea Life Inc $5.50 Purple Sea Feather (1/3 of 15.00 piece) Sea Life Inc $5.00 small gorg frag already had $5.00 22 misc. zoa polyps already had $22.00 titan macro algae NR Classifieds $5.00 http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...=172014&hl= orange zoas LFS $10.00 finger leather LFS $10.00 neon green leather LFS $5.00 orange monti cap local reefer $8.00 blue cloves local reefer $15.00 small green acro frag already had $5.00 birdsnest, pocillapora, digi, green kenya local reefer $15.00 TOTAL $248.98 Link to comment
Gerber77 Posted March 17, 2009 Share Posted March 17, 2009 The tank looks amazing Good luck with your tank in the contest Thanks! The winner gets a gift certificate (not sure how much?) to a NR sponser. By the way, it looks like your 5.5 is off to a nice start! Thank you, you should see it now, way different lol Link to comment
angelacbishop Posted March 17, 2009 Author Share Posted March 17, 2009 The tank looks amazing Good luck with your tank in the contest Thank you, you should see it now, way different lol Thanks! Off to check out your tank thread now Link to comment
cracker Posted March 17, 2009 Share Posted March 17, 2009 I love what you are doing with your tank! Link to comment
spanko Posted March 17, 2009 Share Posted March 17, 2009 Your tank came out beautifully, good luck with the voting. Link to comment
BibleSue Posted March 17, 2009 Share Posted March 17, 2009 You have really done a lot for this low budget tank. You can tell how healthy it is by the growth. Great work! Good Luck! This tank also gets the Sponge Bob Thumbs Up Award! Link to comment
debbeach13 Posted March 17, 2009 Share Posted March 17, 2009 Tank is sweet I can not beleive how many corals you got for cheap money. Good luck in the contest you will definately be in the running. Link to comment
Weetabix7 Posted March 17, 2009 Share Posted March 17, 2009 This tank is awesome, I love it! Link to comment
Needreefunds Posted March 17, 2009 Share Posted March 17, 2009 What a beautiful little tank of sweet stuff! Great job and good luck! --Richie Link to comment
angelacbishop Posted March 17, 2009 Author Share Posted March 17, 2009 Wow, thanks for all the compliments everyone! So many of you have helped inspire me with your own gorgeous tanks! Link to comment
angelacbishop Posted March 17, 2009 Author Share Posted March 17, 2009 wow your tank looks great Thanks, can't wait to see your final photos. You still had quite a bit of budget left last time you posted so I bet you've got some cool new additions now! Link to comment
got2envy Posted March 17, 2009 Share Posted March 17, 2009 Wow! looks great Angela! I still wantz those cloves Good Luck!! Link to comment
dshnarw Posted March 18, 2009 Share Posted March 18, 2009 nicely done. blue cloves are very very nice good luck with the vote Link to comment
angelacbishop Posted March 18, 2009 Author Share Posted March 18, 2009 Blue cloves all around! Seriously though, it's getting close to being warm enough to safely ship stuff Link to comment
DBTReefer Posted March 18, 2009 Share Posted March 18, 2009 that looks amazing! that acro really took off Link to comment
angelacbishop Posted March 18, 2009 Author Share Posted March 18, 2009 that looks amazing! that acro really took off Yeah actually I was a little shocked myself when I was putting together the growth progression. Funny thing is that the first couple months I didn't think it was doing well since it was browning out so I almost removed it. Now it's one of my favorite pieces since you can practically see the growth daily. Link to comment
Needreefunds Posted March 18, 2009 Share Posted March 18, 2009 Blue cloves all around! Seriously though, it's getting close to being warm enough to safely ship stuff Yes please, Kthanks. Link to comment
angelacbishop Posted March 19, 2009 Author Share Posted March 19, 2009 I'm so excited, voting is finally live! I feel like we need a commentator for this! http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...191011&st=0 Link to comment
Jasoncgnu Posted March 20, 2009 Share Posted March 20, 2009 You got my vote! Oh and I'd love to get some of those blue cloves if you feel like sharing. Also the gorgs are very impressive especially in a 5.5. I've never had much luck with them so I've given up trying because they all just end up dead anyway. Link to comment
angelacbishop Posted March 23, 2009 Author Share Posted March 23, 2009 You got my vote! Oh and I'd love to get some of those blue cloves if you feel like sharing. Also the gorgs are very impressive especially in a 5.5. I've never had much luck with them so I've given up trying because they all just end up dead anyway. Thanks for the vote. It was a close race! I plan to eventually put some blue clove frags up in the selling forum. Keep an eye out! Link to comment
angelacbishop Posted April 8, 2009 Author Share Posted April 8, 2009 Update time! Now that there's no budget to stick to I'd added some more fun things: Candy Stripe Pistol which has paired up with the hi-fin goby. She's been carrying eggs since I got her a week ago. Here's the hi-fin goby hanging out in the freshly dug home she shares with the pistol shrimp. Got a little cyano issue going on in that corner...stepping water changes up to 2x a week until it's gone. One tiny eye of Christmas favia (red centers with green around them) and zoas that have orange skirts and speckley pink centers Bright orange & purple "Halloween" Yuma. Link to comment
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