xtlosx Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Hi everyone!! I'm relatively new here, and in general new to the reef keeping hobby, but am hooked... I started with a Fluval Edge which is still my test\learning tank, and enjoyed it so much, decided to upgrade to a much larger tank when our new office was built.... Anyways, on to the goods of this work in progress! Tank: Aqueon 36 Bow (Petsmart had them on sale locally for $90, not a bad score). Substrate: CaribSea live sand, ~60 lbs, and some Pacific black reef sand as well for color. There is ~5" of sand at the highest point, but it is between 3-5" for those guys who like to burrow themselves. Rock scape: Nothing yet, but picking up some nice Premium Fiji rock at a local reef place tomorrow for $2.50\lb... They picked up a LOT, and are passing on the savings, which is good to hear! I'll be picking up ~35lbs of this nice rock as a primary means of filtration for this tank. Lighting: 1x Coralife Lunar Aqualights Compact Fluorescent Strip Lights 24"... 1x 65W 10000K bulb, and 1x 65W actnic bulb. This fixture also includes moonlight LED lights. With the tank also came a 15W 50\50 bulb, so that is in there as well. This should provide a nice amount of light for what I plan on having in this tank, and can upgrade if my needs change... I could always just get another Coralife fixture.. It might blind me while I work :-) Heating: Marineland Stealth Heaters, 1x 100W, and 1x 50W, both set to 80F and temperature is showing ~78-80 which is fine for now. Powerhead: 1x Koralia Nano 425, and likely adding another one real soon on the other side of the tank to really get the water moving nicely. Stock: Nothing yet, but planning on an extensive janitorial crew, Nassarius snails, emerald crab or two, peppermint shrimp, or other shrimp, etc... Eventually, I would like to have a starfish of sorts, maybe a seahorse, and some sort of fish, but that is once everything is absolutely at a perfect level... So it won't be for a while! Corals: I plan on having a mixture of corals in there, right now in my edge, I have frogspawn, and duncan, as well as a couple of SPS corals... I'm working more with the hardier corals at the moment until I get my wings. I am looking at picking up a Marineland Canister filter, or some sort of external filtration, but want to get everyone's opinion on whether it is necessary with so much live rock, and live sand, etc? I have no issues picking one up, but wanted to see if it was necessary at this point. Attached are a couple of pictures, first two is when the water was put in, cloudiness, and the third was just taken (2 days later) and the cloudiness is subsiding.. When I get my live rock in tomorrow, I'll post some updates! Link to comment
bioload Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Overall things sound pretty good except I would skip the canister and instead spend the money on a good protein skimmer and an aquaclear hang on filter since you aren't using a sump. You could put in some floss that is easily changed every few days and whatever other media you want to use such as chemipure elite. Link to comment
CollegeNano Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Now you get to compete with the other new 36 G build Good luck with the new tank! Link to comment
xtlosx Posted January 29, 2011 Author Share Posted January 29, 2011 Couple of new updates... We were lucky enough to pick up 40 lbs of live rock, premium fiji goodness, for $2.50 lb (Woohoo Midwest Coral Farms!!) My wife did a bad ass job of making the rock scape, so kudos to her! Some additions to the tank include....... - 40 lbs of live rock, stacked and looking really neat. - another coralia nano 425 Janitorial Crew - 2x Peppermint Shrimp - 8x nassarius snails - 2x green emerald crabs - multiple other snails (they sell a 30-50 gallon cleanup crew package) - snails, snails, and more snails Corals - Galaxia frag (all the way at the top so he won't be stining anyone... his tentacles are always flying everywhere, looking great!) - Mushroom Ricordia frag.. 3 heads, and a forth growing. - Frogspawn from my other 6 gallon nano tank - Star Polyps, also looking real nice so far in the middle section We plan on adding some fish in the next couple of weeks, just wanted to get the tank stable, running, and all happy.... I will need some suggestions as to corals that will be happy on the bottom of the tank with less light... The great thing is, the rock scapes are SO porous, and room for sooooo many frags toward the top of the tank... pictures after the break (mspaint is giving me hell right now, will post pictures shortly when I can get them below 1MB) Couple of new updates... We were lucky enough to pick up 40 lbs of live rock, premium fiji goodness, for $2.50 lb (Woohoo Midwest Coral Farms!!) My wife did a bad ass job of making the rock scape, so kudos to her! Some additions to the tank include....... - 40 lbs of live rock, stacked and looking really neat. - another coralia nano 425 Janitorial Crew - 2x Peppermint Shrimp - 8x nassarius snails - 2x green emerald crabs - multiple other snails (they sell a 30-50 gallon cleanup crew package) - snails, snails, and more snails Corals - Galaxia frag (all the way at the top so he won't be stining anyone... his tentacles are always flying everywhere, looking great!) - Mushroom Ricordia frag.. 3 heads, and a forth growing. - Frogspawn from my other 6 gallon nano tank - Star Polyps, also looking real nice so far in the middle section We plan on adding some fish in the next couple of weeks, just wanted to get the tank stable, running, and all happy.... I will need some suggestions as to corals that will be happy on the bottom of the tank with less light... The great thing is, the rock scapes are SO porous, and room for sooooo many frags toward the top of the tank... pictures after the break (mspaint is giving me hell right now, will post pictures shortly when I can get them below 1MB) Link to comment
xtlosx Posted January 29, 2011 Author Share Posted January 29, 2011 more pictures.... these were taken with my Droid, so they aren't as nice as I would like, but you get the idea :-) edit: Just discovered that we have 3 brittle sea stars (not green!) that must have hitched a ride on the live rock, very cool to see one scurrying across the sand this morning... Our frogspawn is not closed up, not looking tremendously happy, his tips are fat, and his body is just like, swollen... he looks bloated as all hell! Maybe he's hungry? Link to comment
CollegeNano Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 Rock scape is looking awesome! I wish I could have found rock like that for 2.50. I received a lot of flat and boulder-like rock in my shipment. Nothing like what you have! Link to comment
xtlosx Posted January 31, 2011 Author Share Posted January 31, 2011 Rock scape is looking awesome! I wish I could have found rock like that for 2.50. I received a lot of flat and boulder-like rock in my shipment. Nothing like what you have! Yea, the shop by me is really really cool... I didn't really even know about it until I google'd it and found a review on here as well, but SO glad I did... in the next 1-2 weeks, I'll be adding an anemone and 1-3 little clownfish... any suggestions? I was looking at a bubble tip anemone, but they might not be ideal hosts for clownfish? Link to comment
xtlosx Posted February 1, 2011 Author Share Posted February 1, 2011 Added a Duncan Frag today, and moved a couple of guys around... The Emerald crab likes to knock things over :-) Link to comment
xtlosx Posted February 8, 2011 Author Share Posted February 8, 2011 Alrighty, some updates as to what is going on in my world.... I had a nice diatom bloom over the weekend, but my turbo snails took care of that rather quickly... The tank is going through it's paces, and quickly! I added a nice SeaClone 100 Protein skimmer... this bad boy was installed last Friday, and has been cleaning up the tank like crazy. I usually empty the cup of sludge once every day or two... good to know it is working well :-) I added some damsels over the weekend, and a total noob mistake that was.... They were bossy to each other, and just didn't work out... So I had to pull all of the live rock yesterday, catch the bastards (they are NOT easy to catch), and replace everything. Needless to say, things are moved, and my wife's lovely job has been demolished... Although she did give me the seal of approval yesterday when she got home. There are now 2x tank raised percs in the tank enjoying life and swimming. They are nice and peaceful (unlike those bastard damsels) and don't bother each other. They were added yesterday after the untimely departure of the damsels and are doing great! These guys love to jump on the powerhead current, or on the exhaust of the protein skimmer and ride the wave across the tank, very fun to watch! I added another Cuncan frag I picked up when getting some water yesterday (they are certainly my favorite corals, bar none). This one has 2 heads on it, so a couple of weeks down the road we should be seeing some nice progress on both of these duncans. Our galaxia are starting to come out nicely of the exoskeletons, good progress all around there. I'll take some pictures once the dust settles a little bit more, looking better already this morning just need to get my act together With the 36G tank, are there any more peaceful fish I could add to the tank to accompany the 2x percs? I obviously want a nice peaceful fish as I really don't want to experience the damsel situation again.. Is the tank not big enough to support another pair of percs? Thanks again for all of the advice guys, appreciate it. Link to comment
xtlosx Posted February 8, 2011 Author Share Posted February 8, 2011 As promised... pictures... They are kinda lousy pictures as they are taken with my camera phone, but will work on getting better pictures... In the pictures you will see the middle structure with frogspawn front and center, and duncans safely away on the top and sides.... I also took a picture of my pink pincushion urchin cruising around the rock, destroying algae... he ROCKS!!! The clowns had to get in the way too, little buggers Link to comment
xtlosx Posted February 13, 2011 Author Share Posted February 13, 2011 Some more updates including pictures.... the pictures are cloudy still (I am in the midst of water changes and things are still settling in), and my camera isn't the best... Additions.. - Tongue Coral - Toadstool - Torch - Additional Duncan Head I will also be adding an additional lighting fixture tomorrow, T5 HO, so should do wonders for the corals in the tank.... Now on to the pictures! Toadstool Frag ($20) Tongue Coral ($20) Duncan Frag ($10) Frogspawn Frag ($10) Green Star Polyps ($10) Torch ($10) Mushroom Ricordea ($10) I absolutely promise to start taking better pictures once everything clears up... Turns out i didn't rinse out my arganite, and that is the cause of my cloudiness, so hopefully after enough water changes things will be much better.... Pictures really don't do anything justice, looks much better in person! Thanks everyone, hope you enjoy. Link to comment
xtlosx Posted February 14, 2011 Author Share Posted February 14, 2011 So, timed of the cloudiness of the water, I went out and picked up a Fluval U2 underwater filter.... It is behind a rock, so it's hidden relatively well, and hoping that within the next day or two the water should be clear as can be! Pictures will be MUCH easier then. Link to comment
iAquanaut Posted March 5, 2011 Share Posted March 5, 2011 Cool tank! Any updates or pics? Link to comment
xtlosx Posted March 5, 2011 Author Share Posted March 5, 2011 Yea, aquscape changed completely, and replaced the lights with a 135W BoostLED Mu fixture.... oh and added a bunch more stuff.. Guess I'll take some pictures later, I'm just feeding my acans at the moment Didn't know anyone was interested anymore, no replies in weeks! Link to comment
Blue Demp Posted March 5, 2011 Share Posted March 5, 2011 Got to finally see your thread! Man! your rocks kicks my rocks in the balls. You are definitely moving faster than I am. I'm subscribing to your thread. Good luck! Link to comment
iAquanaut Posted March 6, 2011 Share Posted March 6, 2011 Yea, aquscape changed completely, and replaced the lights with a 135W BoostLED Mu fixture.... oh and added a bunch more stuff.. Guess I'll take some pictures later, I'm just feeding my acans at the moment Didn't know anyone was interested anymore, no replies in weeks! Nice! I can't wait to see what the LEDs look like on your tank and whatever else you've added! I have recently added some galaxia to my 10 gallon and wanted to know how you deal with yours so that it doesn't sting your other corals. Also, does it grow fast and encrust the rocks? Link to comment
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