Nebthet's 57g REEF-NEW Pix! 04-19-2011

[nebthet]

Well I am doing it again. Upgrading my tank, this time for the last time (unless I move into a bigger apartment where I can dedicate a whole wall to a larger tank. LOL).

 

I had the opportunity to get my hands on a 55g tank for $60 (Canadian). I have the feeling this tank is not a 55g but a 57g. The dimensions it was sold to me are 36l x 18w x 22h. Which makes it the same as Oceanics illuminata, but with a rim. Either way, for now I am going to treat this as a 55g. Just in case.

 

I will be moving everything in my current 29g into the new tank.

 

the final stock list and hardware I would like to include will be the following:

 

Hardware:

 

- 57g tank (old style oceanic w/trim)

- 36" 234w 6x39w Tek T5HO light

- 40lb pacific black live sand

- 65lbs live rock fully cured.

- Aquaclear 70 HOB Filter (200gph)

- Vortech MP 20 (1500gph max)

- Vortech MP 10 (1500gph max)

- Koralia 3 (860gph)

- AquaC Remora Skimmer w/ 1200+Drain

- 300w heater

 

Livestock:[

 

- 1 x SA Onyx Clownfish (Ordering an extra in case of issues. once paired. the 3rd will have a new home in my sisters' tank so it doesn't get picked on my the other two)

- 1x Picasso Clownfish

- 1 x Blue Devil Damsel (If overly aggressive it will have a new home elsewhere)

- 2 x Bengaii Cardinal.. (0xMIA)

- 1x Starry Blenny

- 1x McCosker's Flasher Wrasse

 

 

- 7 hermit crabs

- 20+ nassarius snails (7 large, 10+ small, 8 babies)

- 2 trochus snails

- 5 cerith snails

- 1 Turbo snails

 

- Pulsing Xenia on rocks beginning to really go nuts now.. time for frags.

- Aussie Duncan 24heads + New duncan frag now at 16 heads

- Candy Canes Green 8 heads and growing

- Zoanathids: Peach Eye and Radioactive dragoneye and Orange rimmed, Red blue centres, Yellow Centre Orange rimmed.

- Green Star Polyps covered over three rocks and sand.

- various SPS x 9 (MontiCaps, Digis, Bottlebrush, Tenuis, TriColor, purple haze encrusting, rainbow encrusting, pocillipora, green unknown acro, green porites)

- Dendrophyllia

- Toadstool leather

- Sebae (Heterachtis Crispa) Anemone

- Orange Green with tiny purple tipped (rainbow) Bubble Tipped Anemone

- Green ring Acan

- Pink and Teal Acan

- Bright red Acan

- Black Cherry Acan

- Lavendar Acan

- Olive Forest Acan

- Christmas Favia

- Green mouthed Yumas on a rock

- Assorted mushroom rock being held for a friend.

- 4 feather dusters

 

- Purple Octodes (Macroalgae).. little bits here and there but being eaten by turbo snail.

 

So please let me know what you think about my plans and stocking list.

 

When I set up the live rock I plan on making ridges to separate the LPS and soft corals.

 

Once it is set up I will add lots of pics.

[nebthet]

Bump for the afternoon members to comment if they would like.

[Paleoreef103]

Well I am doing it again. Upgrading my tank, this time for the last time (unless I move into a bigger apartment where I can dedicate a whole wall to a larger tank. LOL).

 

I had the opportunity to get my hands on a 55g tank for $60 (Canadian). I have the feeling this tank is not a 55g but a 60g. The dimensions it was sold to me are 36l x 18w x 22h. Which makes it over a 60. When I measure it myself I don't upgrade the inch so the height is 21.5 inches. Either way, for now I am going to treat this as a 55g. Just in case.

 

I will be moving everything in my current 29g into the new tank.

 

the final stock list and hardware I would like to include will be the following:

 

Hardware:

 

- 55g tank

- 36" 234w 6x39w Tek T5HO light

- 40lb pacific black live sand

- 55lbs live rock fully cured.

- Aquaclear 70 HOB Filter Modify it into a fuge.

- Koralia 1 Need more than just one Koralia 1. Try two Koralia 3s.

- Maxi-Jet 1200

- Coralife needle-wheel super skimmer 65g Super skimmers are awful. Get a better one. They're nearly impossible to keep "dialed in"

- 300w heater

 

Livestock:[

 

- 3 x SA Onyx Clownfish (Ordering an extra in case of issues. once paired. the 3rd will have a new home in my sisters' tank so it doesn't get picked on my the other two) Just get two young ones. They'll do their thing.

- 2 x Scissortail Goby

- 1 x Blue Devil Damsel (If overly aggressive it will have a new home elsewhere) Get rid of him. He will chase your firefish.

- 2 x Firefish Goby Go with only one

- 1 x Royal Gramma

 

- 1 cleaner shrimp

- 1 peppermint shrimp

- 6 hermit crabs

- 6 nassarius snails

- 3 astraea snails

- 2 turbo snails

 

- Pulsing Xenia on a shell

- Blasto Merletti

- Aussie Duncan 4heads with babies

- Candy Canes Green 6 heads and growing

- Mushrooms 4

- Zoanathids 36 polyps total

- Green Star Polyps 3 frags and large rock getting covered by GHA.

- Frogspawn frag

- Feather Caulerpa

- Halimedia

- Sun Coral

- Tiny Toadstool leather

- Acropora frag (will add maybe 4 fav frags later on) Going to be hard to keep until tank is very very established.

( Would like a hammer again and a BTA, I just want to ensure there will be no chemical warfare going on after the change and let the skimmer do it's thing first)

 

So please let me know what you think about my plans and stocking list.

 

When I set up the live rock I plan on making ridges to seperate the LPS and soft corals.

 

Once it is set up I will add lots of pics.

[nebthet]

Thanks for the info it really helps.

 

Yes, I have the AC70 half moded into a fuge right now and it is working great. I think I am going to add an AC mini to put polyfill in to filter the water.

 

I have been watching the blue damsel. He only bugged the current gobies for a day when they were first added, but now he doesnt bother them at all. But I am highly considering getting rid of him when I do the upgrade. It's a shame, as I like his blue colour.

 

Yes, the Acropora will be added last after it is well established. I want to ensure the others are doing fine first.

 

I wasnt sure about adding another Koralia or not. since I will have other water movement items from the K1, Mj1200, AC70, ACmini and skimmer. Totally over 600gph of water movement. I am definately going to look into this. Thanks.

[Paleoreef103]

600 gph for a tank is not good enough. 20-30X turn over is recommended for a LPS softy tank. 50X+ for SPS. I run 71X and my corals are all happy.

[nebthet]

Well yestarday I took down the other tank and set up the 55g. I ended up getting what I needed in the mail. I am just waiting for the T5 lights which should arrive in the mail sometime around 10:30am.

 

Here are some pics of my progress of setting it up.

 

This is the empty tank sitting on the stand. Yes. I managed to get it up there all by myself. It was really heavy, but I was able to manipulate it by getting the end up first and then raising the rest up.

For leveling I put two boards underneath. This also ensures that the front and back rims of the tank are securely supported as otherwise it would not have fit. Thankfully I had those boards laying around from an old tv stand I used to have.

 

Tank shot showing the live sand.

 

Close up of the live sand. Pacific Black Reef.

 

Foggy tank shot. Thankfully it is clearing up bit by bit.

 

Tank shot tonight. Water is getting clearer. Once I get more rock in there tomorrow I will update with more pics. For now though all my fish are happy with the new room they have, especially my clownfish.

[Kraylen]

awwwwwwww.. ALMOST another 4 foot beast clan member.

 

 

Tank is nice.. I like the size

[nebthet]

Thanks Kraylen.

 

I am really glad I got this size because any longer and it would not have fit in my apartment. LOL. I will have to move for the next upgrade or permanently sit on the floor.

 

Here is a quick update with the new lights and 30lbs of live rock added in.

 

 

Closer front tank shot

 

View slightly from the right side showing the added caves.

 

Left hand side of the tank showing the space I left back there for the more shy fish to hang out.

[nebthet]

Everything is progressing very nicely in this tank. I took some more pics tonight especially since I was feeding my sun coral.

 

 

Under the atcinics:

 

Blastos

 

Candycanes, Zoas and Suncoral

 

Cleaner Shrimp and GSP frags

 

Duncans

 

Frogspawn frag

 

Front Tank Shot

 

 

Suncoral Feeding Time:

 

Before

 

Using the top half of a 2Litre pop bottle to protect the coral and food during spot feeding. I use a mix of all frozen saltwater medly, brine shrimp and baby brine shrimp for the new baby heads appearing.

 

This Nassarius snail was adament he was gonna get something to eat.

 

He succeeded at it too!

 

After feeding

 

Suncoral looking much nicer and happy now!

 

and finally one of the scissortail gobies poking it's head out of one of the small caves on the left side of the tank.

[nebthet]

Here is a quick update:

 

New $10 sps frags. I don't know what they names of them are. I do know the bottom one glows a bright flourescent green when just the atcinics are on.

 

Zoa Garden

 

Octo Frogspawn

 

Mr. Urchin

 

2 baby Onyx clownfish bred by Erik of ChristoClowns. These guys are so cute. I totally fell in love with them.

 

Atcinic shot the babies. Wish I had a better camera for macro shots.

 

Metallic Green BTA 3" in diameter.

[nebthet]

Here are some pics, mostly of the acropora I got in from frag-a-lot. Gotta love $10 frag sales.

 

These pics I will put in succession from today showing the different colours the same acros give off under different lighting and different angles. If you know what the generic names of these acros are please tell me. I would greatly appreciate it.

 

Front shot

 

Back shot

 

Back shot with flash. The one on the left is definately showing more green and purple tip each day. I think it is the Acro Tenius. Not sure though. I am still trying to figure out the common names for all my acros.

The acro on the right has a much paler green to it which my camera has a hard time picking up. When all lights are on, it has a dark pink/red colouration. The same with the polyps.

 

Back shot atcinic. Sadly my camera takes poor atcinic shots. They are just too washed out. I am gonna have to work on that.

 

Here is the acro I have had since the AP24. It never did really well from the beginning and before it went into this tank it got RTN from the high salinity issue I had.

Thankfully, I was lucky and I didn't loose the whole frag. The encrusted base has stayed and all the polyps have actually come out. It is really beginning to colour up now and under the atcinics it has a nice pale lime green colour around the polyps.

 

One of the 8 brittle stars living in my live rock.

 

Here is a better pic of my baby onyx clownfish. They are doing awsome. I put the BTA in with them for security, but they didnt want anything to do with it so it is now in the main tank.

These little guys have so much personality. When I open the screen top of the tank they immediately come up to the surface. They both like to headbutt my finger when I put it on the water surface.

 

BTA when put in the tank. Of course it didnt stay there for long, but has spent the last 24hrs chasing my Big clown back and forth between it's two sleeping spots on the top right corners of the tank. I can only hope it picks one and stays there.

[nebthet]

Ever wonder why people would want an urchin?

 

Here is the answer;

 

And after he was done that spot. All nice and clean:

 

Once the other powerhead is done, it is on to this one next. Oh and you can just make out my BTA in the back right corner there. Happily sitting in his favourite spot away from the T5 lighting.

 

Feather Caulerpa growing nicely in the sectioned off back left area of the tank.

 

Couple close ups of one of my SPS I am thinking may be a tortusa.

 

 

 

Acro SP.

 

This Acro is starting to encrust back over itsself.

 

 

Zoa Garden again

 

Octo Frogspawn doing very well now. It likes the spot it is in.

 

 

 

Pods have significantly increased and there is no where I look where there aren't any. If things continue that way, I may consider a red mandarin goby.

 

The damsel is still being submissive to the other fish and has began to pick at the algae growing rather than eating the fish flakes. He remains to be fat and happy. He has a new territory around the skimmer intake and outtake (which the later I need to develop some s piping to reduce microbubble issues).

 

The baby Onyx are doing very well. It is a pain in the derier though to keep cleaning the breeding net. I am going to get one of those plastic critter keepers and drill small holes in it. I think with a little cleaning magnet it will help and the clowns will be big enough then not to slip through.

 

Of new hitchhikers I have with this tank there are 8 brittle stars, spaghetti worms. I have also been following along with the baby tubo snails I have had. There are still 2 of them in there and they have continued to grow steadily.

 

The sun coral has a bunch of new mouths growing on it. One of them is orange which was an awsome suprise. I would like to get a black sun coral eventually.

 

My Metallic Green BTA is happy in his spot on the top right corner. It doesn't seem to mind the water changes, when the water level goes down and then back up. So as long as it is happy, so am I.

 

Future plans for the tank:

- Red Mushrooms - only 1-2 to start they can do their thing on their own.

- Torch Coral frag

- Hammer coral frag

- SPS frags, for which I will hold out for an Oregon Tort.

- Black sun coral

- Firefish Goby

- Mandarin Goby (big maybe)

[nebthet]

Today I had the chance to upgrade the baby onyx clowns' home. The breeding net was getting too dirty too fast and after 24 hours you couldn't see through it, so while I was at Walmart they had a goldfish/betta bowl for $11 so I got it. Not only is it larger than the breeder net, it is made of plastic and easier to clean.

 

When I got home with it, I immediately took my rotary tool and drilled small holes in the side and bottom to allow the water to flow through more in addition to the flow in the top. This has actually allowed the water to cycle from top, to bottom and back to top in the unit and lets the extra food the babies don't eat in a few minutes to escape into the rest of the tank where the other fish have nicely taken advantage of it.

 

Going with the clear plastic also allows the established fish to see the babies and vice versa in the hopes when they are of adequate size to release freely in the tank, there won't many if any issues.

 

 

The big clownfish taking a quick glance at both of the little ones. Sad thing is she is not really interested in them, but the largest of the little ones is definately interested in her.

 

Close up of the two of them. The largest in the forefront.

 

Showing the smaller one a little clearer. It is finally developing some black on the pectoral fins.

 

Closer shot of the larger baby showing the black rim coming in around the white headstripe. Woo Hoo.

[PBUEHH]

omg, they are cuuuute. nice upgrade

[nebthet]

Thanks.

[TheStar]

Nice tank! Its really cool watching those baby clowns develop. Mine seem like they just started a growth spurt.

[Mojorizn]

Nice Tank

 

best-o-luck

[nebthet]

Update for mid-June

 

Suncorals doing awsome and out in the light.

 

Zoas happy as usual

 

Big Momma keeps trying to host these little mushrooms.

 

Update on my litte Onyx Clowns. They are growing and changing according to schedule. I spent some time tracking growth on some other members' pages and marked growth, bar development and colour changes based on number of days.

 

Here is the growth schedule I determined, give or take a week.

Received mine May 20th.

DAY. 45.

 

June 7th = 18 days – work on getting larger and start to develop some black at head strip.

June 16th = 9 days – continue to grow bigger. Thicker mid bar.

June 25th = 8 days – mid bar develops to thicker and a bit longer

July 10th = 15 days – smaller clown should start to develop white mid bar, should look like larger white dot or more.

July 26th = 16 days – smaller clown should start getting bigger

August 5th = 10 days – thicker white bar develop on larger and black should be starting on body btwn 1st and mid stripe.

August 18th = 13 days – Larger fish should have almost full white bar on at least one side. Smaller should have larger bar. Tail bar start. Little black starting on smaller clown at head stripe.

Sept 27th = 40 days – Black should be developed from 1st to mid bar on larger fish, about half down. Noticeable. Tail bar thicker.

Oct 24th = 27 days – smaller clown has more black to mid bar, mid bar starting from bottom and thick tail bar. Larger clown starting black after mid bar. Full tail bar, full black btwn head and mid bar.

 

 

When I first got my clowns, the larger one was about 0.68 of an inch. It is now 0.98 of an inch.

the smaller clown was 0.46 of an inch and is now 0.65 of an inch. (I used photoshop to be able to do measurements.)

 

Here is a recent pick of the little clowns and big clown. They are definatey looking a bit bigger.

 

Here is the larger of the babies. The white bar here is thicker and a little lower down.

 

Here is the smaller of the babies has continued to grow mosty and the black is still coming in on the pectoral fins.

 

New front tank shot from today

[nebthet]

Here are some more pic updates from today.

 

The red mushies are nice and happy now. They finally attached themselves to a rock.

 

The acro is doing great.

 

This big hermit likes bugging my candycanes.

 

Blasto is finally developing babies.

 

My MGBTA has finally (i hope) selected a permanent home.

 

Here is a sequence of pix showing me feeding my MGBTA silversides.NOM NOM NOM NOM....

 

And finally I got the set of blue LEDs in the mail today that I won on ebay. They make perfect moonlights and only cost me $35 Canadian, shipping included. They are made up of 4 connections of 3-led beam bulbs each and are waterproof.

 

The Metallic Green BTA

 

Frogspawn and Duncans

 

The front tank shot. In person the leds do not look that bright, but the camera setting I use lets more light in. I had a closer up shot of the red mushies under the Leds, but it was too blurry, but the red really pops out under these too!!

 

Let me know what u think.

[nebthet]

bump for afternoon.

 

Does this tank suck or do people like it?

[Thunil]

I like it so far, but there is still plenty of room for more corals, haha.

 

You might want to prune the macro algae around your sps frags, they could get irritated by it.

 

Nice rockwor, btw, planty of caves/tunnels and lots of places for corals, and very cute baby clowns, haha.

 

Daniel

[nebthet]

Yeah, I plan on adding more corals just after the summer when I have saved up enough to buy more.

I am planning on 5 more Acro frags, Hammer colony, Torch coral frags, and once I nip the aptaisia in the butt, I am going to add more on those rocks too. I haven't selected which other corals I want to add.

In addition to the corals, I will also be adding 2 firefish gobies.

 

The macroalgae in the front is driving me nuts. I proon it back once a week and it grows back in like it is now in no time. That stuff got carried in on a frag I purchased from fragalot.ca. It already killed my green acro frag so I am trying to keep it away from my other SPS. I will take bryopsis over this stuff any day!

 

I'm glad you like the baby clownfish. I love these little guys and they are growing at a pretty good pace. I love watching the weekly changes in them.

[TheStar]

The onyx clowns are coming along nicely. Check out my 9G to see the latest pics of mine...

[bubbles3660]

bump for afternoon.

 

Does this tank suck or do people like it?

 

 

Me like.

 

--bubbles

[nebthet]

Thanks Bubbles, I am glad you like my tank.

 

Star, I am always checking out your thread for updates to your pix, LOL. I have you saved in my favourites.

 

On a good note, my larger baby onyx is now developing the mid-bar from the bottom, evenly on both sides. Right now the white there is the size of a pinhead.