RollaJase's 30G Custom Cube - Tank Torn Down

[RollaJase]

Good luck man. Cool that you can share that with her.

Another night and another session trawling the web for new fish .

 

Sorry about the recent losses Things can only get better, right?

 

I vote for some cardinals!

Thanks, I hope things pick up, its been a rough week so far.

 

So good news, the female clown has settled down as lot, still trying to find a nem replacement though (trying to get the rock the nem was on to host her, poor thing). I'm debating getting her another mate, either a juvenile ocellaris clown or a juvenile black and white ocellaris clown, any thoughts on this? I'm leaning towards the black and white ocellaris juvenile if I can find one easily. As for the other fish I am leaning towards a pair on bangaii cardinals or possibly a school of 3 yellowstriped cardinals. I also really like the idea of a midas blenny (hard to find) and as much as I would like to have a shrimp/goby pair they are very rare and quite expensive here in Australia. Mum was utterly devastated when I had to tell her a powder blue tang would just not fit in my tank, maybe this will entice her to donate some of the living room space to a 300L SPS dominated display tank full of tangs and anthias .

 

I have also decided i'm going to bite the bullet soon and order the upgrade kit for my AI Sol, I can't decide whether to go for the Hydra or the Vega upgrade. The difference is only $25USD but I don't think I really need the 20 channels of control and the option of the custom powerpucks. Considering how badly our dollar is faring right now as well its going to be an expensive ordeal anyway for me anyway (About $270AUD shipped for the Hydra upgrade and a spare Sol fan, Sol and controller cost me roughly $500 shipped already). Hmm, maybe it would be best for me to order a refurb Vega from AI and sell my Sol locally.

[RollaJase]

What do we do when our tank has got us down? We splurge!

Blood Red Chalice:

Neon Green Zoas:

'Flourobscene' Zoas:

Green Plating Monti:

Watermelon Cluster Coral:

Blue Staghorn:

Red Mili:

 

All will ship next Tuesday and will arrive at work on Wednesday, would usually ship Monday arrive Tuesday but we have a public holiday on Monday here in Australia. I'm happy about the purchases BUT I spent the best part of what was needed for the Sol-Hydra upgrade kit . This public holiday should give me the chance for another solid day working on the stand/sump. Things should fall into place nicely very soon (waiting on a few small orders to arrive).

[jack1978]

What do we do when our tank has got us down? We splurge!

 

Nice stuff man! Everyone of them looks like they'll glow in your tank.

[markalot]

Nice stuff! Watermelon cluster coral looks like a Rainbow Stylophora. Good luck! Regardless of maintaining color once it settles in it will grow fast. Be sure to keep up on your params, they tend to suck up all the Alk and calcium.

[RollaJase]

What do we do when our tank has got us down? We splurge!

 

Nice stuff man! Everyone of them looks like they'll glow in your tank.

Thanks, I'm pretty happy with the purchases, they will help fill in some holes I have found/created. Your right, they should all look great under actinics .

 

Nice stuff! Watermelon cluster coral looks like a Rainbow Stylophora. Good luck! Regardless of maintaining color once it settles in it will grow fast. Be sure to keep up on your params, they tend to suck up all the Alk and calcium.

Thanks Mark, I think your right it being a Rainbow Stylophora. I have had my eyes on one of these frags for a while ago, at the end of last week they had 20 for sale, I got the last one on my order. I also got the one and only frag of the staghorn and both zoas, pretty lucky really. Thanks for the tip, I'll make sure to keep an eye on my params. My alk and cal tend to be pretty stable, even without dosing, its my other params that have been suffering lately. I'm going to test the params Friday night and compare them to the fresh batch of water I'll mix this weekend for my water change. That way I can try to calculate how much I lose daily and try to decide if dosing a 2 part or kalk will be beneficial.

[ninjamyst]

nice picks! i like the green monti. very bright.

[RollaJase]

nice picks! i like the green monti. very bright.

Thanks ninja! I hope the monti stays as bright in my tank. I plan on mounting it on my overflow box once it is installed.

[Zia]

Sorri for the crazy lag Finally got all caught up up n hur! Dude i had no clue you had mad DIY skills That sump and overflow box came out freakin awesome!! The best part is you made it look easy. trust me, i've tried messing with glass like that and epicly failed. So is the sump finished and when are you bringing it online?

 

Bummer to hear about your nem soup and the losses that came because of it That sh!t just happens in this hobby man. Like a champ you didn't let it phase you, you dusted your self off and bought new candies

 

Love all the new candies! Dayum that Rainbow Stylo That is one of the nicest pieces of SPS ive seen in a while and you scored a huge chunk/mini colony of it. Something like that would cost a small fortune over here

http://www.jasonfoxsignaturecorals.com/product_p/sty-03.htm

40.00 for a 1/2'' nub and not even half as nice as the color on yours. Smuggle some of that on your plane ride over next January

 

Ohh and your folks property The views, the vineyards

[gena]

Wow....awesome splurge you did. Every single thing in your order is fantastic!!!!! The watermelon one is my fav!!!!

[RollaJase]

Sorri for the crazy lag Finally got all caught up up n hur! Dude i had no clue you had mad DIY skills That sump and overflow box came out freakin awesome!! The best part is you made it look easy. trust me, i've tried messing with glass like that and epicly failed. So is the sump finished and when are you bringing it online?

 

Bummer to hear about your nem soup and the losses that came because of it That sh!t just happens in this hobby man. Like a champ you didn't let it phase you, you dusted your self off and bought new candies

 

Love all the new candies! Dayum that Rainbow Stylo That is one of the nicest pieces of SPS ive seen in a while and you scored a huge chunk/mini colony of it. Something like that would cost a small fortune over here

http://www.jasonfoxsignaturecorals.com/product_p/sty-03.htm

40.00 for a 1/2'' nub and not even half as nice as the color on yours. Smuggle some of that on your plane ride over next January

 

Ohh and your folks property The views, the vineyards

By the looks of things you've been a busy guy as of late, thanks for stopping by though . My skills aren't that great, I have been making things with my hands for years now, I just over tinkering and have picked up a few tricks along the way. Glass isn't that hard to work with, not on this scale anyway and especially if you leave the cutting to the pros. Working with acrylic is much easier to work with, especially when it's slightly thicker stuff. The main body of the sump is done and I have glued in all the other glass pieces. The acrylic baffles I have measured out on acrylic pieces (most of them anyway), I just have to cut them and glue them in as well. I have been held up with things lately and haven't made any progress on the sump, this long weekend we have just had was supposed to give me some time to work on things. That didn't end up happening as I worked most of the public holiday and had to help out with some family matters (my grandmother is quite ill in hospital).

 

Yeah a real shame about the nem and the losses but I made a few purchases over the weekend which should make up for things, pictures during the week when my order arrives.

 

I was really lucky with that rainbow stylo, would you believe it only cost me $18.00 for that piece . I'm not 100% sure how big my piece will actually be, the picture I posted is their stock image, my piece will probably be bigger (from experience with this seller anyway). I'll try to smuggle you a piece over in January (if it survives shipping out in this 41c weather tomorrow).

 

Yeah I'm pretty lucky with where I live, fantastic views. Here is a pic I took a few years ago, a storm coming across at sunset:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonbottin/7169223981/'>

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonbottin/7169223981/'>Stormfront at Sunset by http://www.flickr.com/people/jasonbottin/'>JasonBottin, on Flickr

 

Wow....awesome splurge you did. Every single thing in your order is fantastic!!!!! The watermelon one is my fav!!!!

Thanks Gena, the Rainbow Stylo is probably my favorite from that order as well .

 

I made a few purchases yesterday, picked up a nice acro (like I needed another with my order coming in this week) and replaced a few fish. I'll do a big update when my order arrives later this week including what I brought over the weekend and a nice piece I brought a few weeks ago.

[RollaJase]

Coral order arrived a few hours ago, only had a chance to open it now (on lunch break). Everything looks amazing, no recession or disgusting soup bags for me. The only piece that looks a little worse for ware is the blue stag, is really pale but I attribute some of that no actinic light. The chalice is really fluro, even under office lights, the zoas both looks great and are half open in the bags. The rainbow stylo also looks fantastic, really nice piece. I'll post some pictures up later tonight when I get home hopefully.

[RollaJase]

Got the coral order home ok, no losses and some really nice pieces. I float acclimated them for 30mins and then drip acclimated for a further hour to be safe. But not the new goodies just yet, first my acquisitions from the weekend.

Saw this piece and loved it, really liked the bright blue accents over the pink/dark red body.

 

New fishies!!! Longspine Cardinalfish or Splitfin Cardinals as they are also known. No elaborate colours on this trio, just a beautiful silver body with blue highlights and some subtle yellow markings. They seem to be doing quite well (one has a torn tail but I think that occurred in transit home) they school constantly and the female clown likes to follow them around, it really is quite cute to watch her almost mother them. I was intending on picking up a black and white clown but 2 of the 3 that arrived were DOA and the third got eaten by a carpet anemone I was told by the LFS. I have not seen either of these 3 eat yet but saw them take frozen brine at the LFS, I have tried a number of different food combinations and no success that I can see. With that said they aren't looking thin and are very energetic so they may be scavenging or just don't need to eat as often as my pig of a clown.

 

Now for the rest of the goodies. I couldn't get a decent shot of the SPS through their transport bags but got a couple of great ones of the zoas:

Definitely worth the premium for this pair, the colours are amazing and both quite reasonable sized frags for the money.

 

After I got everything in the tank I snapped some top down shots for your enjoyment :

All pictures were shot as RAW and tweaked to make them look as accurately as I can to how they actually look in person, I'm actually quite surprised at the vibrance of these pieces under standard light. You should see them under actinics...but that's for another day .

[markalot]

Your acro, straight from the store, looks better than any acro I've ever had. Every purchase, mail order or from a LFS, is browned out.

 

Beautiful pics, I'm insanely jealous. Damn Australians and their reef anyway.

 

I hope that stylo colors up better, I was a bit surprised to see all green polyps.

[4x5]

Awesome new additions. Those first zoas look exactly like mine Super cool.

[RollaJase]

Your acro, straight from the store, looks better than any acro I've ever had. Every purchase, mail order or from a LFS, is browned out.

 

Beautiful pics, I'm insanely jealous. Damn Australians and their reef anyway.

 

I hope that stylo colors up better, I was a bit surprised to see all green polyps.

I have always had luck buying acros and SPS pieces, they tend to travel quite well and I have only ever had them brown out once in the tank. It helps as well that msot of the places I buy SPS from grow them under LEDs so the pieces adjust a little better to my tank. Thanks, we do have it pretty good reef but I can tell you that this order is 100% aquacultured pieces . The place I purchase from has a licence to collect pieces from the ocean off of Perth, Western Ausralia. However the majority of their mother colonies were either donated or purchased with only a small percentage wild harvested. It's pretty cool, on the items listings on their store it tells you where and when the original colony was collected or who and when they were donated/traded/purchased. The picture doesn't really do the stylo justice, under slightly bluer light it has a pinkish tinge around the the edges. I am expecting it to colour up over the next week or so, I took a look at it this morning before work and it was looking a little happier with some more PE.

 

Awesome new additions. Those first zoas look exactly like mine Super cool.

Thanks mate, I love the zoas, a nice pop of colour. Pretty cool that you have the same ones haha.

 

I also forgot I haden't updated you guys on the MP10 saga. Did I get it repaired by the distributer? no. Did I try? no. Why? I fixed it myself becasue communication was nearly nonexistant. After tankign the wetside appart numerous times I found the cause of my noise issues. Those who are familiar with the MP10 would know that the plastic cover that holds the magnet/propellor assembly in is quite average in design. The 3 clips only hold the cover in place and it doesn't take much to pop it off. One of my clips was slightly bent so I heated it up with a lighter, bent it back and dunked it in water to hold its shape. Problem 1 fixed. The second issue I found was that there was a couple of casting marks on the inside of the same cover which would interfere with the rotation of the magnet and cause it to knock. I trimmed off these casting marks and filed them smoothe and the majority of the annoying sounds have gone. There is still some vibtarion but nothing that I can't put up with, I can hardly hear it now, pretty much blends into the ambient sound of my room. Besides those issues the pump is doing quite well providing nice intermittent currents through out the tank, although I still believe the Tunze I upgraded from did much better at providing random flow. Later down the track when I upgrade I plan on using both the 6015 & the MP10 to provide the waterflow that I will need for an SPS dominated tank.

[ninjamyst]

how did you fix your brown out issue before??

[RollaJase]

how did you fix your brown out issue before??

Nitrate & Phosphate control is the key. Browning out has only really occured for me on wild harvested pieces which are used to better and more stable water conditions. Some of the guys at my LFS has told me that on the occasion some pieces they order in will brown out completely for up to 1 month before starting to regain their colours. I believe propper acclimation is also a contributing factor, I drip acclimate more sensitive species after float acclimating them to the correct temperature.

[gena]

You sure have an eye for picking out nice pieces .

[RollaJase]

You sure have an eye for picking out nice pieces .

Thanks Gena , glad you like them (my wallet sure doesn't like my taste in corals haha ). I look forward to playing around with some placement positions this weekend, after I cut the corals off the ugly ceramic frag rocks (they are HUGE!),

[gena]

Thanks Gena , glad you like them (my wallet sure doesn't like my taste in corals haha ). I look forward to playing around with some placement positions this weekend, after I cut the corals off the ugly ceramic frag rocks (they are HUGE!),

Yeah....my paypal account is on edge this week. It will be shedding some tears by the end of the week, I'm afraid. I purposely didn't use it to buy groceries today because I have better plans for that money .

[RollaJase]

Yeah....my paypal account is on edge this week. It will be shedding some tears by the end of the week, I'm afraid. I purposely didn't use it to buy groceries today because I have better plans for that money .

Haha, corals before food, I like that mentality .

[RollaJase]

Two picture updates in as many days, gee I must like you guys . I was feeding my corals tonight (twice weekly ritual) so I thought I'd snap some macros of a few of the corals feeding. Also lets me show off some of the new arrivals that are colouring up a little better.

http://img17.imageshack.us/i/6xtk.jpg/'>

http://img838.imageshack.us/i/rqs8.jpg/'>

 

All the new stuff is looking quite nice. The stylo and milli had mad PE when I got home and both definitely enjoyed their feed of rotifiers. The chalice ate veraciously (brine) and I saw a single polyp on the monti tackle a whole baby brine. Not much from the stag but it is getting its blue colour back. The stylo looked more pink today, particularly along the edges, has lost a lot of the green from yesterday. The flesh seems to be what is mostly green with the polyps pink and purple at the moment. The last two pics are of my garf bonsai (uploaded at full res), taken at a low ISO of 100 and a shutter speed of .30 for clarity. My favorite things about these two shots are that they look actinic but there not, they pretty much turned out that way and really show off the green tips and the blue tinge. Enjoy .

[DannaM]

OOOohhhhhh all that color !!!!! Drool . Everything is loooking really great :0

[RollaJase]

OOOohhhhhh all that color !!!!! Drool . Everything is loooking really great :0

Thank you very much, I'm glad you like what you see .

[RollaJase]

Tonight I decided to reduce some of the size on the frag plugs the new arrivals came in on. So I busted out the Dremel and went to town. Everything was going really well until it came to the blue staghorn. It hadn't fully encrusted to the plug and as I cut the plug split and shot the stag onto the ground into the dust (was outside). The tip of the stag got a little crushed and got pretty gunky. I cleaned it up and glued it back onto a tiny piece of live rock so I can mount it in a few days. I hope it isn't damaged too badly, I was really looking forward to growing that piece out . I also finally divided the branching torch and mounted it where I wanted it, giving me back a chunk of my sand bed for the fungia to spread out and a new zoa rock.