The Water Box

[Jacob042426]

frag it.

[JamesHL88]

Got some new corals yesterday! Trying to step up my sps game a little.

 

Very nice sized green birdsnest colony. (My favorite of the bunch)

 

A green monti cap frag. (To lessen the blow of recieving that pittiful purple cap.)

 

Ora hyacinth birdsnest frag. (Actually got this a few days ago with that dieing monti cap. Just didnt uave a picture up.)

 

Some kind of chalice? Regret buying this. I dont have a good placement for veiwing it in my tank. Probably going to trade this one. It looks great though.

 

And a ten dollar splash of collor to add to the zoa garden. Yellow polyps.

[JamesHL88]

ok so yesterday was a stressfull day for my tank. my coral beauty had decided to break bad and start picking on softies over the past few weeks . so i decided to catch him and trade him in for some store credit. long story short it took an hour and a half and the left side of my tank has a new rockscape. im glad i finally did this though, my soft corals immediately looked healthy again today, and i like the new scape better too! i did find an empty turbo shell in the back of the tank so apparently i lost one sometime recently. but the biggest suprise of all was finding the porcelin crab i thought was dead months ago! i even got a glimps of him filtering water under a moni cap today so maybe i will see him more with this layout.

 

here is the new scape. im not crazy about how square and even the top looks, but the rocks look almost seemless in person the way they are now plus the coral placement is more pleasing to the eye. i also added another large swimming hole behind the bubble coral. its hard to tell how big it is when the bubble coral is inflated.

 

this is just the rearanged part

 

 

this is just a picture i took with my phone of my red monti cap. i thought it turned out cool

 

[JamesHL88]

Today i noticed a patch of red slime on my substrate. It was about two inches across. I syphoned it all up and did a 15 gallon water change. I guess its because of the turbo that recently died, but im keeping my fingers crossed. I hope this doesnt become a fight.

[Vort]

Cyano is one of the most persistent and irritating thing I've dealt with so far, even apitasia doesn't bother me as much, kill all your phosphate. Kill it with the fire of the gods

[GTi]

Nice tank - especially the rockscaping. I'm stepping up to a 60g and looking for aquascape ideas. Yours is cool!

[JamesHL88]

Im feeling like a ninja! I just caught a blue hippo tang in like 15 seconds with a net without disturbing anything else in the tank. This cyano is turning into a battle and im downsizing my bioload by giving away my tangs so i can feed less. I should have some GFO in a couple days and im keeping up on heavy weekly water changes.

Oh and something is eating zoanthids polyps in my tank. I suspect some pods of some sort.

 

Nice tank - especially the rockscaping. I'm stepping up to a 60g and looking for aquascape ideas. Yours is cool!

Thank you. I like arches and lots of swimming room. Kind of minimalist. I would say thats only about 35lbs of rock in my tank. What are the deminsions of the 60 gallon you are getting? If i could go back i would have gone with a 75 because the 12 inches front to back is limiting in the 55.

[GTi]

[quote name='JamesHL88' date='Jun 13 2012, 10:29 PM' post='3915838'

 

 

Thank you. I like arches and lots of swimming room. Kind of minimalist. I would say thats only about 35lbs of rock in my tank. What are the deminsions of the 60 gallon you are getting? If i could go back i would have gone with a 75 because the 12 inches front to back is limiting in the 55.

 

Mine will be 36x18x22". I'm thinking along the same lines. More open, more sand bed, artistically arranged rock and choice corals. I'm sure it won't work out quite like that but that's the plan!

[JamesHL88]

I like those deminsions. With the 18 inches front to back it will be easier to get a stable base for a taller rock structure. I try to avoid rock leaning against the back glass so i can get the mag float back there. 55 is a horrible tank. Its too tall and too thin. My next tank is probably going to be a 75 and ill turn the 55 into a sump with a massive fuge.

[JamesHL88]

Tank update

 

New FTS

 

New arrival! I have a crazy video im going to post later of this hammer inflating in my tank after i took him out of the bag. You can see what looks like intake syphons or tentacles of some sort pumping water into its mouth in the video.

 

Ive been fighting cyano for a few weeks now. I swapped from RO water to distilled and left the lights off for two days. I have syphoned it all out and added phos ban in my hob filter. I have cut back on feeding and seem to be getting the upper hand now.

Im also planning an acrylic sump build. I have ordered weldon #4 and priced the acrylic. Im planning on these deminsions 43L×9W×15T. I will have to assymble it under the stand because there is no other way to fit one in there. Im going to house a skimmer, ATS, and the heater in it.

[Rehype]

Looks great

[JamesHL88]

Ok the video of this strange hammer coral is uploading. Its not that great of quality. But i just got back from work. The lights on the tank had already gone off. So i turned them on to inspect this coral. And i snapped this picture of the thing that pulses out of its mouth.

 

 

I have no clue what it is. Im starting to question if it is something that lives inside the coral. The coral seems happy though. It inflates fully when lights are on.

 

Ideas?

[JamesHL88]

Bump

 

What is that thing?

[nickjqz]

Looks like some sort of a bivalve or something....could be wrong of course haha

[JamesHL88]

here is the video. Weird stuff. Sorry for the video quality its from my phone. Watch the mouth closely.

 

video

 

EDIT: resolved in ID thread. Its a barnacle.

[JamesHL88]

Got my acrylic for my sump today. Cut it and taped it up to make sure it fit right. It will have four baffles. I havent decided the layout yet. The deminsions of the tank are 36×15×9. Its .25 inch acrylic. The baffles are 8.5×12.

 

 

Im going to have to assymble and glue it together under the stand. Also i have some scrap acrylic that ill probably make a center brace and a frag rack out of.

[JamesHL88]

I assymbled and taped the tank together under the stand last night. Just started glueing it. Everything is glued except the bottom seem of the front pane. It has a gap that is giving me some trouble. But otherwise its looking really nice. Im pumped that im going to have a nice organized medium sized setup. Im planning on letting all of this cure and leak testing it before adding the baffles.

 

 

[JamesHL88]

this is a "nobody likes my build?" troll

[GTi]

this is a "nobody likes my build?" troll

Looks sweet!

[JamesHL88]

My ego thanks you

[JamesHL88]

Leak testing

 

[GTi]

Leak testing

 

Looking good!

 

So you started with HOB filtration and are adding a sump now?

 

My tank is on order an I was planning an all-in-one insert from Pico Aquariums. I like the all-in-one because it is simple, can't leak on the floor and is cheap. I like the idea of a sump because it allows everything to hide away, allows more tank space and adds stability with more water volume.

 

Was the HOB just a temporary step along the way to a sump or did you change your mind? I'm looking for help to make a final decision because the insert isn't ordered yet I'll start a separate thread so I don't clog yours up but I'd be interested to hear your reasoning.

[JamesHL88]

GTi, my resoning is this. I havent been using a skimmer because i HATE micro bubbles in the display tank. I made it sumpless at first because i dont have tons of money to throw at my hobby. (Im 24 with a wife and three kids) My tank has.suffered a little from these choices because changing 20 gallons of water a week gets tedious and i slacked for two weeks. I decided to make a sump with a beefed up bubble trap so i can run an oversized skimmer in it and not have the bubbles in the display. But mostly i just wanted to build something.

I think the AIO is a great idea. I actually have been wanting to build a 100 gallon AIO, but i figured i would upgrade what i have instead of building something new.

 

I added the baffles last night

[JamesHL88]

I rehabed this tank yesterday for a friend. It was horrible, couldnt even see in the tank. I wish i had got a before shot.

 

[GTi]

Thanks for the info. I do like AIO but when I was planning my rockscape, I realised I would lose 4" or so of width, leaving only 14" available. I think I am going to go with a sump.