TFish77 Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 FTS October 2017 ~ Removing larger colonies to make space for new frags! FTS October/November 2016 The new 150! FTS 3/19/16 The 20 Gallon So this is the culmination of my entire reefing journey poured into one tank. I got into this hobby by accident and still remember buying my first ten gallon tank for $5 and dumping some xenia and GSP in there thinking it was all I would ever need.... God was I wrong. This has become much more than a hobby for me. It's an obsession. I can't tell you how long I have just sat and stared into the tank completely mesmerized by the beauty and elegance of both the corals and fish. I am so glad I was introduced to this hobby and can honestly say that there will most likely never be a time in my life where I don't have a salt water reef, even if it's just a vase :-). I want to give a very special thanks to Larry, Brian, and Jeff of Aquatic Design who introduced me to this incredible hobby and let me constantly pick their brains for reefing info. They are some of the best in the industry. Another very special thanks goes to Al of Dynamic Reef Systems who I have gotten the majority of my corals from and always has some of the sexiest stuff around. I don't think there is anything this guy doesn't know! He also introduced me to Jason Fox which for me was like meeting Brad Pitt haha. Lastly I want to thank all of the incredible people here on Nano Reef who have given me so much advice and inspiration over the years. Alright so on to the good stuff! My very humble beginnings. Bought this 10g for $5, threw some rock in there, and thought I was good to go. I still have one of the two clowns, the sand sifting star, the xenia, the hammer, and the tiny monti frag in the top right. My inexperience does show a bit here with the Swallowtail in there but hey we all make mistakes. This was filtered with the same biowheel 150 I still use to this day. I also had a hydor koralia 240gph powerhead in there (The bigger one I pulled out on the left). The tank was also lit by the 24" dual HOT5 fluorescent fixture with stock bulbs. The only other thing I did was weekly 50% water changes. Fast forward a bit and I started to get a little crazier with the tank. The light was upgraded to a wave point quad fluorescent fixture with blue led stunner strips for moonlight. I also ran a fan on the side to deal with the heat. This is around the time I really started to realize the massive amount of different corals out there. Pretty soon I realized that 10 gallons just wasn't cutting it and I wanted more room for corals! Enter the 20 gallon. Now unfortunately my phone was stolen and I lost ALL of my initial setup pictures of the tank. I was beyond upset and needless to say I automatically backup every picture I take now. This a couple months in and as you can see it was already starting to fill up too lol. I also traded in the wavepoint to go all LED. I built a nice DIY one thanks to the help of a certain Jedi on this site but traded it to someone who really, really wanted it. A good friend of mine also gave me an extra AI Nano he had sitting around so I ran that for a while. I love the control I could get with it and the colors were just incredible. It's what is above the tank in this picture. A couple more months Soooo I don't really know what happened around this time but I went absolutely nuts with corals. I got everything I could get my hands on any way I could (Will work for coral ). I also started to have to pull things out to make room for better corals. Pretty soon I ended up with this. The current setup Mechanical Filtration: Marineland Biowheel 150 with wheel removed and filter floss changed weekly. That is it :-) Chemical Filtration: 1 small bag of chemi pure elite that gets rinsed probably on a monthly basis and changed every four months Biological Filtration: 35-40 pounds of live rock (stacked to the ceiling :-)) and 30 pounds of live sand Flow: Jaebo RW-4. I absolutely love this powerhead Lighting: AI Vega Black run for 8 hours a day with 2 hour ramp times at these levels: Cool White: 5% Violet: 50% Deep Red: 15% Green: 15% Deep Blue: 50% Royal: 50% Ultra Violet: 40%.For the last 5 months I have also supplemented with 4 additional 39w ATI bulbs run for 6 hours a day: 1 Aquablue Special, 2 Blue Plus, and 1 Purple Plus. I am really liking the additional coverage I am getting from the fluorescent's as the LED's tended to create a lot of shadowing. I have even contemplated throwing two AI primes on either side for a full 180 degrees of light lol. Maintenance: Weekly 8 gallon water changes. With displacement 8 gallons is about 50-60% of the total water volume. I can count on 1 hand (ok maybe two) how many times in this tank's life I have ever gone more than 1 week without a w/c. Never longer than two weeks. Feeding: -1 cube a day rotated between PE Mysis, PE Colonapeez, Hikari Spirulini Brine, Hikari Reef Nutrition, and Hikari Mysis with daily strips of varying seaweed from Two Little Fishies. -3ml each of Red Sea Amino Acid A/B every other day. - 3 drops Reef Nutrition Oyster Feast, 3 drops Reef Nutrition Roti Feast, 5 drops Reef Nutrition Phyto Feast all dosed daily. -Recently started using a small amount of Zoa food as well just because. Dosing: - 15ml of Red Sea part C (mag) , 11 ml of Red Sea part B (alk), and 8 ml of Red Sea part C (cal) dosed daily in 15 minute increments. - Aqua Vitro's "Balance" as necessary to help bring my PH up without throwing anything else off. - And for full disclosure I do dose about 1ml of Aqua Vitro's Vibrance (Iodide) just because I need to get rid of it. Never really saw a noticeable difference and I really, really don't like dosing anything I can't test for. Water Parameters and Testing: - I test weekly for Magnesium, Alkalinity, PH, Calcium, and Salinity using either the Red Sea Reef Foundation test kit or the NYOS test kits (sometimes both just to be sure). While most people don't test that often I have found it very necessary since I have started dosing. I am constantly changing the amount of each chemical to maintain a perfect balance. Water Parameters are maintained as follows: Magnesium- 1500 Calcium- 500 Alkalinity- 8.5 (Really I would like it at ten and am trying to bring it up) PH- 8.4 Salinity- .024 (tested with refractometer) Nitrates, Phosphates, and Ammonia are tested monthly with API test kits but I never had an issue so these are more of an afterthought now. Current Corals as of 2/27/16: 100 Pictures below! 1. Branching Green Hammer 2. Green Body Pink Tip Frogspawn 3. Green Clove Polyps 4. Kaleidoscope Clove Polyps 5. Sun Polyps 6. Red Finger Gorgonian 7. Duncans 8. Green Sinularia 9. Pink Sinularia 10. Christmas Tree Feather Duster 11. Pulsing Xenia 12. Meteor Shower Cyphastrea 13. Mint Alviapora 14. Mystic Montipora 15. Rock Flower Anemone 16. Blue/Green Mushroom 17. Speckled Green Mushroom 18. Red Mushroom 19. Superman Mushroom 20. Blue St. Thomas Bounce Mushroom 21. Candy Apple Goniopora 22. Jason Fox Garfbonsai Acropora 23. Rainbow Montipora 24. Tyree Toadstool 25. Green Nepthea 26. Sunset Montipora 27. Tyree Bubble Gum Monster Chalice 28. Seasons Greetings Montipora 29. Tyree Red Dragon Acropora 30. Tyre Strawberry Shortcake Acropora 31. ORA Appleberry Montipora 32. Red Blastos 33. Blue Staghorn Acropora 34. Rainbow Nesudo Acropora 35. Scripps Acropora 36. ORA Red Planet 37. Jason Fox Strawberry Shortcake Acropora 38. ORA Green Elkhorn Montipora 39. Wildfire Digitata Montipora 40. Yellow(ish) Susahroni Acropora 41. Rainbow Birdsnest (Rainbow my butt. Still pretty) 42. ORA Green Birdsnest 43. ORA Birds of Paradise 44. Orange Setosa 45. Fascination Favia 46. Pink Goniopora 47. Ultra Red Goniopora 48. Unknown Indonesian Orange Chalice 49. Micromussa 50. Green Acan 51. Red Acan 52. Orange Acan 53. Tyree Watermelon Chalice 54. Jason Fox Jack-O-Lantern Leptostrea 55. What I think is a Jason Fox Maiden Hair Chalice 56. Unknown Red Chalice 57. Orange Finger Gorgonian 58. Orange Gorgonian 59. Tyree Ponapes Birdsnest 60. Halloween Favia 61. War and Peace Favia 62. Dragon Soul Favia 63. Green Hydrophona 64. Orange Monti Cap 65. Purple Monti Cap 66. Green Monti Cap w/ blue polyps 67. ORA Appleberry Montipora 68. Green Star Polyp (because why not) 69. Tiger palys 70. Eagle Eye Zoas 71. Radioactive Dragon Eye Zoas 72. Gorrilla Nipple Zoas 73. Rasta Zoas 74. Smurfs Blood Zoas 75. Bam Bam Zoas 76. Cornbred White Zombie Zoas 77. Utter Chaos Palys 78. Electric Oompa Loompa Zoas 79. Rainbow Hornet Zoas 80. The sexiest $3 zoa I ever bought 81. Mohawk Paly 82. Scrambled Egg Zoas 83. Flower Tree Coral (Pretty sure its an Umbellulifera) 84. Unknown Indo Green/Red Palys 85. Blue Hornet Zoas 86. One of those mushrooms 87. Some sort of blue Turaki I think 88. Unknown Orange Zoas 89. Another Unknown orange zoa 90. Unknown Indo Zoa 91. Aussie Gold Torch 92. Kryptonite Candy Cane 93. Poker Stars Montipora 94. Pink Zoas 95. Unknown Acropora 96. Unknown Stylopora 97. WWC Super Paly D 98. Burning Banana Montipora 99. Purple Plasma Acropora 100. Forest Fire Digitata Fish/Inverts: 1 Female Clown Fish(Ethel) ....It was a very sad day when her mate(Fred) of two years just disappeared. No body, no sign of him, no nothing. I haven't had the heart to replace him yet but will eventually. 1 Spotted Mandarin 1 Six Line Wrasse 1 Hippo Tang *** A note on this fish. I do not in any way shape or form recommend putting tangs or angels in any small tanks. I saw this tang in a group of three about 8 months ago at an LFS and they were all covered in ich, breathing heavily, and on their last legs. I struck up a conversation with one of the workers and asked him what the situation was. He said their wasn't much they could do at this point so they were just going to freeze them that night. I made a deal with him and took one home. I know I didn't have space and didn't even have a QT set up at the time but took the chance anyways. I hate the idea of just killing something because you either don't know how to care for it or are just too lazy to care. I set up a 10g QT in hypo salinity and ran small amounts of copper in there for over a month. I also gave her plenty of places to hide and made sure she always had seaweed to nibble on. Slowly but surely she started to get more active and clear up. After a while in QT I dropped her in my main tank because I didn't have anywhere else for her to go and sure as hell wasn't taking her back to the LFS. She was also not even an inch long so her size was fine for now. I kept her happily in the tank for 6 months until she really started to get big. I put a fish trap in the tank recently and she currently resides in a beautiful 210g that a friend of mine owns. So on that note (pardon me being rude) but the tang police can go screw themselves. I saved this fish from an early grave and would do it again in a heartbeat*** 1 Yasha High Fin Goby (Lando Calrissian, Lando for short) (Searched for over 1 year to find. Have one arriving in two days!!!) 1 Candy Cane Pistol Shrimp A number of different snails(Turbos, astreas, nerites, etc) all of different shapes, sizes, and coloration A number of different crabs(Red Sea Reef hermits, blue legs, other randoms) all of different shapes, sizes and coloration 1 sand sifting starfish 1 porcelain crab 3 sexy shrimp 1 electric flame scallop 3 peppermint shrimp 1 cleaner shrimp 1 emerald crab I am sure I am forgetting some stuff but oh well. HAPPY REEFING EVERYONE! FTS 3/19/16 17 Quote Link to comment
TFish77 Posted February 23, 2016 Author Share Posted February 23, 2016 1. Branching Green Hammer 2. Green Body Pink Tip Frogspawn 3. Green Clove Polyps 4. Kaleidoscope Clove Polyps 5. Sun Polyps 6. Red Finger Gorgonian I actually have 2. The smaller one has a much better picture though :-) 7. Duncans 8. Green Sinularia 9. Pink Sinularia 10. Christmas Tree Feather Duster 11. Pulsing Xenia 12. Meteor Shower Cyphastrea 13. Mint Alviapora 14. Mystic Montipora 15. Rock Flower Anemone 16. Blue/Green Mushroom 17. Speckled Green Mushroom 18. Red Mushroom 19. Superman Mushroom 20. Blue St. Thomas Bounce Mushroom 21. Candy Apple Goniopora 22. Jason Fox Garfbonsai Acropora 23. Rainbow Montipora 24. Tyree Toadstool 25. Green Nepthea 6 Quote Link to comment
TFish77 Posted February 23, 2016 Author Share Posted February 23, 2016 26. Sunset Montipora 27. Tyree Bubble Gum Monster Chalice Almost no tissue left when I got it 28. Seasons Greetings Montipora 29. Tyree Red Dragon Acropora 30. Tyre Strawberry Shortcake Acropora 31. ORA Appleberry Montipora 32. Red Blastos 33. Blue Staghorn Acropora 34. Rainbow Nesudo Acropora 35. Scripps Acropora 36. ORA Red Planet The intense green came from montis shading it pretty badly. The montis have been fragged back and it is starting to color back up. 37. Jason Fox Pink Lemonade Acropora (crappy pic) Purchased directly from the man, the myth, the legend himself. 38. ORA Green Elkhorn Montipora 39. Wildfire Digitata Montipora 40. Yellow(ish) Susahroni Acropora 41. Rainbow Birdsnest (Rainbow my butt. Still pretty) 42. ORA Green Birdsnest 43. ORA Birds of Paradise 44. Orange Setosa 45. Fascination Favia 46. Pink Goniopora 47. Ultra Red Goniopora This is one that pictures never do justice. 48. Unknown Indonesian Orange Chalice 49. Micromussa 50. Green Acan 2 Quote Link to comment
TFish77 Posted February 23, 2016 Author Share Posted February 23, 2016 51. Red Acan 52. Orange Acan 53. Tyree Watermelon Chalice 54. Jason Fox Jack-O-Lantern Leptostrea 55. What I think is a Jason Fox Maiden Hair Chalice You cant tell in this pick but there is a distinct yellow coloration starting to form around all of the eyes. 56. Unknown Red Chalice 57. Orange Finger Gorgonian 58. Orange Gorgonian 59. Tyree Ponapes Birdsnest 60. Halloween Favia 61. War and Peace Favia 62. Dragon Soul Favia 63. Green Hydrophona 64. Orange Monti Cap 65. Purple Monti Cap 66. Green Monti Cap w/ blue polyps 67. ORA Appleberry Montipora 68. Green Star Polyp (because why not) 69. Tiger palys 70. Eagle Eye Zoas 71. Radioactive Dragon Eye Zoas 72. Gorrilla Nipple Zoas 73. Rasta Zoas 74. Smurfs Blood Zoas 75. Bam Bam Zoas 2 Quote Link to comment
TFish77 Posted February 23, 2016 Author Share Posted February 23, 2016 76. Cornbred White Zombie Zoas (Most expensive coral I have ever bought and currently own. Merry Christmas to me 2015!) 77. Utter Chaos Palys 78. Electric Oompa Loompa Palys 79. Rainbow Hornet Zoas 80. The sexiest $3 zoa I ever bought 81. Mohawk Paly 82. Scrambled Egg Zoas 83. Flower Tree Coral (Pretty sure its an Umbellulifera. Say that five times fast) 84. Unknown Indo Green/Red Palys 85. Blue Hornet Zoas 86. One of those mushrooms 87. Some sort of blue Turaki I think 88. Unknown Orange Zoas 89. Another Unknown orange zoa 90. Unknown Indo Zoa 91. Aussie Gold Torch One of my proudest saves 92. Kryptonite Candy Cane 93. Poker Stars Montipora 94. Pink Zoas 95. Unknown Acropora 96. Unknown Stylopora 97.WWC Super Paly D 98. Burning Banana Montipora 99. Purple Plasma Acropora 100. Forest Fire Digitata 5 Quote Link to comment
TFish77 Posted February 23, 2016 Author Share Posted February 23, 2016 Fish/Inverts: 1 Female Clown Fish(Ethel) ....It was a very sad day when her mate(Fred) of two years just disappeared. No body, no sign of him, no nothing. I haven't had the heart to replace him yet but will eventually. 1 Spotted Mandarin 1 Six Line Wrasse 1 Hippo Tang (I will explain this in detail later but it was either let her get put in the freezer by a LFS or take a chance on her) Her current home 1 Yasha High Fin Goby (Lando Calrissian, Lando for short)Thanks Mirya for the name! (Searched for over 1 year to find ) 1 Candy Cane Pistol Shrimp 1 Flaming Prawn Goby Grant it I haven't seen him since I dropped it but I SWEAR he's in there lol A number of different snails(Turbos, astreas, nerites, etc) all of different shapes, sizes, and coloration A number of different crabs(Red Sea Reef hermits, blue legs, other randoms) all of different shapes, sizes and coloration 1 sand sifting starfish 1 porcelain crab 3 sexy shrimp They really like the electric flame for some reason. 1 electric flame scallop 3 peppermint shrimp 1 cleaner shrimp 1 emerald crab 3 Quote Link to comment
TFish77 Posted February 23, 2016 Author Share Posted February 23, 2016 I think I finally got it working Harry lol. Now I just have to re-post all 200 or so pics lol. Well great now I got all kinds of room. Might as well do 25 a post then so I can do some progression shots as well. 1 Quote Link to comment
TFish77 Posted February 23, 2016 Author Share Posted February 23, 2016 This is taking way too long Quote Link to comment
TFish77 Posted February 25, 2016 Author Share Posted February 25, 2016 Done! ..... well at least with the text lol. Quote Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted February 25, 2016 Share Posted February 25, 2016 comcast just called and said I exceeded my monthly limit of awesome pics downloads.... great looking tank! 1 Quote Link to comment
TFish77 Posted February 25, 2016 Author Share Posted February 25, 2016 comcast just called and said I exceeded my monthly limit of awesome pics downloads.... great looking tank! HAHA you have no idea what a nightmare it was trying to get this all organized. I had another thread but I and I quote "exceeded my maximum photo uploads". Had to split them up in different posts. Still have about 75 more pics incoming 2 Quote Link to comment
spectra Posted February 25, 2016 Share Posted February 25, 2016 Might be time for a bigger tank........ Quote Link to comment
TFish77 Posted February 25, 2016 Author Share Posted February 25, 2016 Might be time for a bigger tank........ NEVER! No you are 100% right. However I am about to move into a house here in the next couple months so I don't want to start anything knowing I will have to move it so soon. I already know its going to be a nightmare just trying to move this one. I think I will always run this 20 though. It just looks so perfect at the foot of my bed 1 Quote Link to comment
yoshii Posted February 25, 2016 Share Posted February 25, 2016 "Wow that went from 0 to 100 real quick " -Scrolling through the FTSs in the first post Amazing tank!! The variety and colors are so beautiful. Spectra is right, time for an upgrade!! (and 100 more corals ) 3 Quote Link to comment
TFish77 Posted February 25, 2016 Author Share Posted February 25, 2016 "Wow that went from 0 to 100 real quick " -Scrolling through the FTSs in the first post Amazing tank!! The variety and colors are so beautiful. Spectra is right, time for an upgrade!! (and 100 more corals ) I swear I took progression shots every month up until that point. I even did a timelapse of me doing the original rock stack. If I ever find the guy who stole my phone I am going to feed him to the sharks. I feel like that would be poetic justice. 1 Quote Link to comment
Nano sapiens Posted February 25, 2016 Share Posted February 25, 2016 That is a lot of corals! Looks like they are all doing good, too. Quote Link to comment
TFish77 Posted February 25, 2016 Author Share Posted February 25, 2016 That is a lot of corals! Looks like they are all doing good, too. I don't play around with my babies I consider myself a reefer on a budget so I often purchase corals that are heavily damaged or so small they are considered trash frags and do everything I can to bring them back. Wait until you see what I did with my new aussie gold torch. The guy at the LFS tried to frag it and shattered the whole skeleton. He then proceeded to drop it on the ground as well so he gave it to me for free. Quote Link to comment
Nano sapiens Posted February 25, 2016 Share Posted February 25, 2016 I do the same and many of my corals were 'saves' or teeny-tiny pieces. Has bitten me on occasion, though, so I'm careful not to buy anything that has a brown-jelly/protozoan infection. I've picked up a few 'diamonds in the rough' from the low price bins at the LFS. Quite satifying to see a coral go from 'Blah' to 'Wow' with good care and enough time 1 Quote Link to comment
TFish77 Posted February 25, 2016 Author Share Posted February 25, 2016 I do the same and many of my corals were 'saves' or teeny-tiny pieces. Has bitten me on occasion, though, so I'm careful not to buy anything that has a brown-jelly/protozoan infection. I've picked up a few 'diamonds in the rough' from the low price bins at the LFS. Quite satifying to see a coral go from 'Blah' to 'Wow' with good care and enough time Right! It's also fun when some LFS' don't know what they have. I had a nice colony of utter chaos that I lost every single one of when I tried to frag them up. Was browsing through a LFS when I saw a colony of about 10 polyps listed as "Ultra Palys" for $50. That's why I try and check each LFS in my area once a month. You never know what you may find. Quote Link to comment
PieMan2k Posted February 25, 2016 Share Posted February 25, 2016 AWESOME TANK!! One question, how do you deal with the chemical warfare and sweepers? I know chalice have large sweeper tenticals and I caught mine reaching a good 2 inches and the coral is only the size of your thumb. Quote Link to comment
TFish77 Posted February 25, 2016 Author Share Posted February 25, 2016 AWESOME TANK!! One question, how do you deal with the chemical warfare and sweepers? I know chalice have large sweeper tenticals and I caught mine reaching a good 2 inches and the coral is only the size of your thumb. Being careful and trial and error. For example if you look at the Watermelon Chalice it is missing 1/4 of its green ring from me stupidly putting a mycedium near it. Also my frogspawn really likes to pick on my Majestic Monti. Some of my chalices have much longer sweepers than others which I keep in mind during placement. I am a big proponent of pushing the limit of what is "acceptable" in a small reef. When someone tells me I can't do something I usually find a way to make it happen. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. That doesn't mean I throw corals in there and hope they make it. I am constantly monitoring the tank and documenting what corals are messing with others. This tank has honestly gotten to the point where I am pulling more stuff out than I am putting in. I frag the shrooms, xenia, montis, and many zoas probably once a month to keep them from taking over. I am pretty sure I told myself a year ago that this tank was already full. In regard to any potential toxins released from the chemical warfare I have never had any issues. Oh yeah and thanks for the compliment! 1 Quote Link to comment
LeCharlesMuhDickens Posted February 25, 2016 Share Posted February 25, 2016 Wow 1 Quote Link to comment
Snow_Phoenix Posted February 25, 2016 Share Posted February 25, 2016 Your tank looks wonderful. I'm envious of your Montis! I've been dying to get a purple monti here, but no one would sell me one. Quote Link to comment
Sunar357 Posted February 25, 2016 Share Posted February 25, 2016 Great looking tank! 2 Quote Link to comment
Newstead Posted February 25, 2016 Share Posted February 25, 2016 Just amazing. Can't decide which pics are best. And good for you for saving that tang! 2 Quote Link to comment
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