The "15" Gallon Retirement Home

[Alexraptor]

Long story short: A couple of my old tanks were getting kind of crowded, so I ended up pulling out a bunch of rocks from them and throwing them all into an empty 10 gallon tank I had standing around.

The end result was this:


Here's some specs for the technophiles among us!

• 2x BLAU Nano Led lights, Marine & Freshwater versions.
  Freshwater: 19x 6500K White & 2x Red 0.5w LED's
  Marine: 14x 15000K White & 7x Royal Blue 0.5w LED's
• Hydor Koralia Nano 900 Stream Pump
• Red Sea Prizm Deluxe Skimmer

I'm feeling a little nostalgic as the Prizm skimmer, while not fantastic, was my very first when I entered the hobby over 11 years ago. Running carbon in the media basket and also have a small bag of Rowaphos slung over the intake tube, hanging in the water, as one of the rocks is leaching a fair amount of phosphates at the moment.

The lights are particular fun story. I originally got the BLAU Nano LED freshwater version with 6500k lights for my refugium but it didn't really work out so I dug it out and threw it on this tank when I set it up. Wasn't entirely happy with the amount of light I was getting, so I bought the Marine version as well to throw on alongside, just for the heck of it.
Here's a fun little picture series of them:

The lights.


Tank shot with both lights.


Freshwater light only.


Marine light only.


And finally for the obligatory lightshow, just the Royal Blues!


Now I think it's time for a little stock inventory.

• Pink Actinodiscus Mushrooms
• Red Rhodactis Mushrooms
• Orange and Brown Zoas
• Blue and Brown Zoas
• Yellow & Green Monti Digita
• Green Monti Cap
• Brown & Green Acropora
• Green Star Polyps
• 3x Dwarf Blue Leg Hermits
• Random Brittlestars, Asterinas, Bristleworms and at least 3 varieties of Hydroids.

The Acropora frag was a bit of an unexpected addition. It was heavily and completely infested with Zanclea Hydroids, but since polyp extension was good and all I didn't want to just destroy the fragment. So I figure I'd just toss it in here, away from my SPS reef and see how it goes.

 

Here's a few random livestock shots I took while messing around with my 40mm Macro Lens!

 

Right now the tank is Bare-Bottom with some frags scattered across it, but I'm not a fan. So I've ordered a bag of the same 0.1-0.5mm grain Live Sand that I use in the rest of my reefs to fill in between the rocks with. Awesome part with this is that with the rocks already in place, there is absolutely no risk whatsoever of the reef structure ever being undermined!

So yeah, new and at the same time mature tank, something of a retirement home for the old rocks and corals.

[reefernanoman]

Long story short: A couple of my old tanks were getting kind of crowded, so I ended up pulling out a bunch of rocks from them and throwing them all into an empty 10 gallon tank I had standing around.

 

The end result was this:

 

Here's some specs for the technophiles among us!

• 2x BLAU Nano Led lights, Marine & Freshwater versions.

  Freshwater: 19x 6500K White & 2x Red 0.5w LED's

  Marine: 14x 15000K White & 7x Royal Blue 0.5w LED's

• Hydor Koralia Nano 900 Stream Pump
• Red Sea Prizm Deluxe Skimmer

I'm feeling a little nostalgic as the Prizm skimmer, while not fantastic, was my very first when I entered the hobby over 11 years ago. Running carbon in the media basket and also have a small bag of Rowaphos slung over the intake tube, hanging in the water, as one of the rocks is leaching a fair amount of phosphates at the moment.

 

The lights are particular fun story. I originally got the BLAU Nano LED freshwater version with 6500k lights for my refugium but it didn't really work out so I dug it out and threw it on this tank when I set it up. Wasn't entirely happy with the amount of light I was getting, so I bought the Marine version as well to throw on alongside, just for the heck of it.

Here's a fun little picture series of them:

 

The lights.

 

Tank shot with both lights.

 

Freshwater light only.

 

Marine light only.

 

And finally for the obligatory lightshow, just the Royal Blues!

 

Now I think it's time for a little stock inventory.

• Pink Actinodiscus Mushrooms
• Red Rhodactis Mushrooms
• Orange and Brown Zoas
• Blue and Brown Zoas
• Yellow & Green Monti Digita
• Green Monti Cap
• Brown & Green Acropora
• Green Star Polyps
• 3x Dwarf Blue Leg Hermits
• Random Brittlestars, Asterinas, Bristleworms and at least 3 varieties of Hydroids.

The Acropora frag was a bit of an unexpected addition. It was heavily and completely infested with Zanclea Hydroids, but since polyp extension was good and all I didn't want to just destroy the fragment. So I figure I'd just toss it in here, away from my SPS reef and see how it goes.

 

Here's a few random livestock shots I took while messing around with my 40mm Macro Lens!

 

Right now the tank is Bare-Bottom with some frags scattered across it, but I'm not a fan. So I've ordered a bag of the same 0.1-0.5mm grain Live Sand that I use in the rest of my reefs to fill in between the rocks with. Awesome part with this is that with the rocks already in place, there is absolutely no risk whatsoever of the reef structure ever being undermined!

 

So yeah, new and at the same time mature tank, something of a retirement home for the old rocks and corals.

 

I like the outcome.

[YaBoyLaj]

Nice setup! Love the pics too

[Alexraptor]

Thanks.

The irony is I just randomly dumped the rocks in whichever way they could fit, temporarily. But it turned out so awesome right off the bat so I decided to keep it that way.

 

Now I just need to figure out what kind of fish to stuff in there.

[Alexraptor]

Such fun excitement, the 10 gal started leaking so I ended up getting a new 16g tank in a hurry, which is all they had.

 

 

New sand makes things a little hazy but the corals are just fine.

[Alexraptor]

There we go, cleared up nicely.

 

 

Interestingly the sand seems to reflect and "blend" the two lights a bit more, making the tone shift a bit more subtle.

[YaBoyLaj]

Nice! I'm in love with this!

[Alexraptor]

 

Decided to move my good old veteran Brain Coral over, to give more room for my SPS in the main reef.

This guy is one of the first corals I ever bought, been with me through every crash and heartache since the very beginning, 11 years!

 

[Alexraptor]

Huh, Something hatched last night, by the thousands!

 

 

My money is on one of my Dwarf Blue Legged Hermit's, on account of that I don't have any other crustaceans of significance in that tank. Definitely not Mysid shrimp.

[Alexraptor]

Yup! Definitely Dwarf Blue Leg larvae!

 

 

At least by using this as a reference for the genus.

http://www.mbisite.org/forums/tm.aspx?m=74632&mpage=1

[Alexraptor]

Aaawwwww! They got their blue eyes already when the are teeny!

 

[Alexraptor]

Sooooo.... Finally got a Background for the tank!

 

 

[Thunder Goose]

I did something really crazy with my freshwater 55 gallon - I used some batik fabric and velcro'd it to the back. No bubbles, looked surprisingly good and lasted as long as I had that tank set up (let's see, moved it from California and kept it until I "inherited" a 120 so that's (math, math, math) just about a decade.

[Lula_Mae]

Nice!  I used to have a tank kind of like that, an 18 gallon (dimensions of a 20H but the front corners cut off just like this tank). 

[Alexraptor]

Geez, I seem to have a fulgida worm "infestation"

Pulled out two worms the other night and a third last night! No wonder I can't keep snails alive for long in that tank!

[Weetabix7]

1 hour ago, Alexraptor said:

Geez, I seem to have a fulgida worm "infestation"

Pulled out two worms the other night and a third last night! No wonder I can't keep snails alive for long in that tank!

 

I've never even heard of these worms!! 

 

Hope you get em all out. 

Wonder if a Wrasse would be good about eradicating them from the tank. 

[Alexraptor]

Not likely, Fulgida worms have very good eyesight and react instantly to movement and are primarily nocturnal.

They also not only eat snails, but clams and other worms too!

[Alexraptor]

I don't believe it! Just pulled out two more worms tonight! That's three nights in a row that I've been pulling killer worms out of the trap!!!

[Lula_Mae]

Those worms are like...a disturbance in the Force or something!

[Alexraptor]

No Worms in the trap tonight, dare I hope I got them all now?

[Alexraptor]

These worms are the bane of my existence.

Two nights the trap came up empty, so I thought I was in the clear. Checked in on my new cleaning crew that arrived yesterday just now and spotted another of those damn orange demons crawling on the rock! >.<

 

Trap reset but dunno how effective it will be with tastier live morsels crawling around now.

[Alexraptor]

New light set up today! Should be interesting to see how this one performs on my system. It's something of a medium light lamp and looks promising on paper for my needs.

 

 

[WV Reefer]

56 minutes ago, Alexraptor said:

New light set up today! Should be interesting to see how this one performs on my system. It's something of a medium light lamp and looks promising on paper for my needs.

 

 

 

Everything looks better against that background. The light is giving out just enough shimmer.   

[Alexraptor]

That It does! I never bothered before with my T5HO tanks, but with LED I just knew I had to go with blue.

[Alexraptor]

Am I cheating by just re-posting Instagram posts here?