RollaJase's 30G Custom Cube - Tank Torn Down

[eitallent]

Wonderful tank. Lovely colors.

I like your choice of fish! The Rainsford is a great looking addition.

 

Are you still planning on a Citron? I hope so because I love mine (Skipper). You will love the Citron especially when they suction themselves to the glass with the abdominal fins to keep an eye on you. That is how I got of picture for my avatar.

 

More pictures please!

 

Following...

[RollaJase]

Wonderful tank. Lovely colors.

I like your choice of fish! The Rainsford is a great looking addition.

 

Are you still planning on a Citron? I hope so because I love mine (Skipper). You will love the Citron especially when they suction themselves to the glass with the abdominal fins to keep an eye on you. That is how I got of picture for my avatar.

 

More pictures please!

 

Following...

Why thank you .

 

I am still planning on the Citron to keep my Green Clown company, he is still on order. Actually I was supposed to call my LFS tonight (they receive fish stock Thursday afternoon and are open to 9pm) to see if it had arrived, I forgot to last week as well .

 

They really are great fish to watch, they stick themselves in the most awkward of places haha. I really do like your avatar pic, it's a fantastic shot .

 

I am planning on heading to the LFS this weekend so if I come home with anything there will be some pics .

[eitallent]

Here is what you have to look forward to.

 

[RollaJase]

They really are a beautiful fish. Can't wait to get my hands on one haha.

[RollaJase]

A few big picture updates today everyone.

 

My brother has been having a rough 12 months and has been really down in the dumps lately. He has really taken a liking to my tank and helps me out with tank maintenance and feeding when I am unable to do it. Saturday I suggested that we go to the LFS and he pick out something new for my tank. We went to the LFS and spent a good hour looking at everything and I picked up a few pieces for my tank and we got a few plants for his FW Betta tank.

 

This is what I came back with:

This was my choice, a Tri Colour Acro I was told. It has light blue tips, a pinkish red stem and yellow/green polyps, it also came with a resident acro crab. I did accidentally break a piece off while trying to remove some of the base rock with pliers. I'll glue this to a frag disk when I order some in this week. It is a decent sized piece (about 2") and should grow well.

 

This was my brothers choice. I have always talked about getting a sea star for my aquarium and I have had my eye on this one for a while. The LFS have had it for well over a month now in their Pony tank with their mandarins. The missing leg has been there from day one but it has healed and it is growing back. I believe it is a Fromia sea star but it could also be a red Linckia. I drip acclimated it for 2 hours and it has been happily roaming the glass since introduction to the tank.

 

In other aquarium news. The Birdsnest I introduced about a month ago has started to STN from the base. I put it down to the blue tipped acro I added about a fortnight ago blocking it's water flow.
You can see the damage here:

I have moved the piece from the right island to the left (mushroom) island and it is looking much happier already. The polyps are extending more and the yellowish tips are starting to come back (they had faded). I will monitor it over the next week to see how it goes. I haven't had much luck with birdsnests so if this one deteriorates I'll probably add them to my 'love to own but can't list' with that mandarin I have always wanted haha.

 

That Pocillopora frag I saved a few weeks ago also looks to be doing quite well. There hasn't been any further tissue loss and all the polyps are extended and happy. If/when it starts to regenerate I will remove it from it's ceramic base and move it to the mushroom island.

Here is a picture of it now:

 

I also noticed that my Torch has been stinging my elegance coral that is in the rock work. I have moved the elegance and it looks to be much happier now.

 

I also finally got around to cleaning up my stand since I removed the sump. I had kinda just thrown in everything so I went and got some plastic draws and it looks a million time better. Not much room for an ATO reservoir any more so I may have to make my own when I get around to making my own DIY ATO.

Nice and Clean:

 

I decided I would take some top down shots of some of my favorite pieces because I found the colours were much more realistic with very minimal touch ups needed. These will be in a follow up post .

[RollaJase]

So I took some top down pics of some of my favorite pieces and a few other random shots. Enjoy .

 

A 360 view of the tank? Why not!

 

And a FTS:

 

I'm wanting to start taking a few more macro shots as I love the patterns that are on the flesh of pretty much all my corals. Macro lenses aint cheap so I ordered a 10x macro filter for one of my lenses. Only cost $5 so we will see how it goes. It should hopefully arrive this week.

[markalot]

That anemone scares me.

[RollaJase]

Yeah the anemone has gotten massive haha. If it gets much larger without splitting I may have to trade it in for a BTA. The issue I have is when the flow is off it drapes down like you can see in the pics. It can potentially sting the SPS and makes putting corals on that back rock a delicate procedure.

[Giga]

love the starfish!

[Gramophone]

The star looks like a spotted linckia. Not 100% sure on that though.

[RollaJase]

love the starfish!

Thanks , definitely something I have always had my eye on for the tank.

 

The star looks like a spotted linckia. Not 100% sure on that though.

I'll have to take a closer look tonight. I was leaning more towards it being a Linckia, I'll try to give it a propper ID.

[Felicia]

Wow! Great new photos! I think my absolute favorite coral in there is that gorgeous orange plate coral Its such a pop of color in the FTS. You anemone is absolutely a beast! Oh, and I am really impressed with how well organized your stank is.

[eitallent]

Simply beautiful.

 

I agree about the pretty patterns on the corals when viewed up close. There are things you see with a macro lens that you never even imagined were there.

 

Thank you for sharing your tank with us.

[RollaJase]

Wow! Great new photos! I think my absolute favorite coral in there is that gorgeous orange plate coral Its such a pop of color in the FTS. You anemone is absolutely a beast! Oh, and I am really impressed with how well organized your stank is.

Thanks Felicia . The orange plate is definitly an eye catcher. It seems to thrive in that high flow area, you can see in the pictures how inflated and 'domed' it is. It was much smaller at the LFS, I was quite surprised how it reacted to the tank haha. Haha yeah the Anemone is a beast, has grown a lot since I first got it. The stand has definitly been a long time coming haha.

 

Simply beautiful.

 

I agree about the pretty patterns on the corals when viewed up close. There are things you see with a macro lens that you never even imagined were there.

 

Thank you for sharing your tank with us.

Thanks . I can't wait to get the macro filter and see how it performs. If it's no good a reverse lens mount will be my next port of call. I'm glad you like it and thanks for viewing .

[Veng]

Digging this tank, not sure how I didn't have this thread followed before, sure am following it now though! I love the scape.

[Deleted User 4]

Love the sps collection you got there.

[RollaJase]

Digging this tank, not sure how I didn't have this thread followed before, sure am following it now though! I love the scape.

Thanks Ven, I'm glad you like it and appreciate the follow .

 

Love the sps collection you got there.

Thanks illu. The collection is getting there, I haven't put the new pieces in their final locations yet, still monitoring them.

 

Well it has been brought to my attention from family members that I haven't named any of my fish. I tend to have a thing for not naming fish as I always went through them really quickly when I had FW tanks. I'd either change what I had in the tank on a frequent basis or they would die off.

 

So I am asking the community to help me name my fish . A few names have already been provided but there are plenty of fish to go around .

 

Clowns:

The clown that is hosted by the anemone has been named 'Leeroy Jenkins' by my brother because sometimes it will randomly stop what its doing and bolt straight towards the anemone. It doesn't care what's in its way, it just plows straight through everything to get to the anemone, scares the hell out of the firefish haha.

The second clown has not yet been named.

 

Firefish:

The firefish has affectionately been named 'Clicker' by my mother due to how they flick their top fin.

 

Rainsfords Goby:

Yet to be named.

 

Green Clown Goby:

Yet to be named.

 

Starfish:

The starfish has been named 'Patrick', that's a no brainer haha.

 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Veng]

I know this is a long shot, but do you have a link to the product you are using as substrate in this tank? I'm really digging the look and I've been thinking about ditching the bare bottom in my tank.

[RollaJase]

I know this is a long shot, but do you have a link to the product you are using as substrate in this tank? I'm really digging the look and I've been thinking about ditching the bare bottom in my tank.

Off the top of my head I can't remember the exact brand I used (I used two) but I can tell you I used 10kg or 1-3mm crushed coral and about 4kg of 1mm fine sand (not crushed coral). I only added the fine sand as I found the 1-3mm crushed coral too coarse. If I were to do it again I would go 1mm crushed coral as I really like that look but I am very happy with how it turned out this time round. I will try to find the brands I used for you.

[Veng]

My dream look is bleached white sand jewelers sand (i.e. smallest you can buy). Of course, within 10 minutes that would become 100% suspended sandstorm sand of tank death! Your tank makes the closer to gravel stuff look solid, almost like it belongs.

[RollaJase]

My dream look is bleached white sand jewelers sand (i.e. smallest you can buy). Of course, within 10 minutes that would become 100% suspended sandstorm sand of tank death! Your tank makes the closer to gravel stuff look solid, almost like it belongs.

Yeah that is the downside really, the fine stuff gets everywhere. I do agree, personally I think my substrate looks 'natural'. I really think this is due to my substrate being mostly crushed coral as apposed to just sand. I know when I went to the Barrier Reef anyway, there was crushed coral around the base of the coral formations, there wasn't an abundance of sand until you started to move into the open water a little more. This was a look I wanted to try and replicate.

[Veng]

I've never been scuba/snorkling. I'm hours form the beach, much less a reef, much much less the great barrier reef . I put some of the ultra fine sand in a tank once a BC14. And with nothing but stock pumps, that sand went friggen EVERYWHERE. Never even let the tank fully cycle before someone else I knew came by and bought it from me.

[RollaJase]

I've never been scuba/snorkling. I'm hours form the beach, much less a reef, much much less the great barrier reef . I put some of the ultra fine sand in a tank once a BC14. And with nothing but stock pumps, that sand went friggen EVERYWHERE. Never even let the tank fully cycle before someone else I knew came by and bought it from me.

I have never gone diving before but I highly reccomend trying your hand at snorkling if you ever get the chance. It really is an amazing experience seeing a side of nature usually only seen through books.

 

Yeah I can imagine dealing with ultra fine sand being similar to throwing a handful of flour at a ceiling fan haha.

[Red_Blenny]

Beautiful collection. Love the Fungia and your SPS pieces.

[RollaJase]

Beautiful collection. Love the Fungia and your SPS pieces.

Why thank you, I'm glad you like them .