Dpolt's 42 Gallon Caribbean and Pacific Islands Mixed Reef

[dpoltsdsu]

14 hours ago, vlangel said:

Very nice and so full of life.  I bet a video is stunning with the xenia and gsp waving in the current.

Thanks! I actually do have a short video I recently filmed, I'll link it once im off from work! 

[dpoltsdsu]

On 10/29/2018 at 2:31 PM, Travis said:

Looking good! You don’t see many full grown mature tanks these days. Good job!

Thanks Travis! I absolutely love the look of a "full" looking reef and that was one of the goals of this tank. Im glad its starting to get there!!

[Tamberav]

Grats on TOTM! Well deserved 🙂 Love all that xenia and the clams 

[dpoltsdsu]

On 11/2/2018 at 1:15 AM, Tamberav said:

Grats on TOTM! Well deserved ? Love all that xenia and the clams 

Thanks for the kind words!

[dpoltsdsu]

Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving

 

I may need to start pruning some of the branching GSP. It is getting huge..

 

 

[Red_Blenny]

Where do you get some of that branch GSP? It has an interesting growth pattern... Any special requirement for them?

[dpoltsdsu]

37 minutes ago, Red_Blenny said:

Where do you get some of that branch GSP? It has an interesting growth pattern... Any special requirement for them?

There's a bit of it in a couple Southern California reef stores.

 

It's an awesome coral. Low to medium flow and it seems to do well in all kinds of light but grows fastest in medium light conditions. 

 

I frag it quite a bit. If you ever want one you're welcome to PM me! 

[Red_Blenny]

On 11/26/2018 at 10:43 PM, dpoltsdsu said:

There's a bit of it in a couple Southern California reef stores.

 

It's an awesome coral. Low to medium flow and it seems to do well in all kinds of light but grows fastest in medium light conditions. 

 

I frag it quite a bit. If you ever want one you're welcome to PM me! 

That's tempting. Anaheim Hills isn't too far from me imo and I'd like to see your tank in person... Been tossing around ideas about tank upgrade and if I do upgrade, I've been thinking about going full on softy or mixed softy tank.

[dpoltsdsu]

1 hour ago, Red_Blenny said:

That's tempting. Anaheim Hills isn't too far from me imo and I'd like to see your tank in person... Been tossing around ideas about tank upgrade and if I do upgrade, I've been thinking about going full on softy or mixed softy tank.

You're welcome anytime! I'll send you a pm

[dpoltsdsu]

Made a quick overview video of the coral, fish and equipment in the tank! 

 

 

[vlangel]

Wonderful video!  I have always really liked the lush look of your tank and I also love softies.  I am a lover of fish as well and it was great seeing just how many fish you have in that tank all co-habitating nicely with each other.  I love seeing fat, healthy, and happy fish like yours.  Maybe I will consider a tomini tang some day seeing how well your is doing.

 

Another aspect I found interesting was your light fixture.  My 56 gallon column (fish fortress) is also 30" across.  Currently I am running HOT5s on it but I am finding 30" difficult to get.  I even had a lfs employee tell me they don't exist, ha ha!  ( I should take one of mine in and show him!).  Anyway, I will probably be replacing my fixture with an LED.  I am guessing the difference between your 42 gallon and my 56 gallon is height.  My tank is 24" high.  How do you think your light would do with a tank that high?  I would like a clam also and it will be on the sandbed as well.  If I ran the lights at a higher percentage would that get me 200 par on the sandbed?  I really know nothing about LEDs.

 

Thanks again for the overview.  It was helpful to me.

[Tamberav]

Love love love it! Xenia is one of my fav corals 😮 Great stock too! 

[dpoltsdsu]

8 hours ago, vlangel said:

Wonderful video!  I have always really liked the lush look of your tank and I also love softies.  I am a lover of fish as well and it was great seeing just how many fish you have in that tank all co-habitating nicely with each other.  I love seeing fat, healthy, and happy fish like yours.  Maybe I will consider a tomini tang some day seeing how well your is doing.

 

Another aspect I found interesting was your light fixture.  My 56 gallon column (fish fortress) is also 30" across.  Currently I am running HOT5s on it but I am finding 30" difficult to get.  I even had a lfs employee tell me they don't exist, ha ha!  ( I should take one of mine in and show him!).  Anyway, I will probably be replacing my fixture with an LED.  I am guessing the difference between your 42 gallon and my 56 gallon is height.  My tank is 24" high.  How do you think your light would do with a tank that high?  I would like a clam also and it will be on the sandbed as well.  If I ran the lights at a higher percentage would that get me 200 par on the sandbed?  I really know nothing about LEDs.

 

Thanks again for the overview.  It was helpful to me.

Thank you for the kind words. Your tanks have been an inspiration to me so that means a lot coming from you!

 

For the lights, I am confident that they would penetrate down to 24 inches. A ton of people use these on heavy SPS tanks. They are quite powerful and I have bleached corals before because I had them too high. They have an 18 inch version (mine is 16) that should have good spread for your tank. Because of the number of LED's, I don't get a lot of shading that I have had with other LEd's. 

 

I am actually currently in flight school so this fixture fits my budget. It doesn't have all the crazy features of some other lights in the market but it does have a good spread, spectrum, and track record.  The owner of the company imports black box LED's in and switches out the heat sink, replaces the stock cooling fans, adjusts the spectrum, and replaces some of the optics to greatly improve the original fixtures. So far, I have been really happy with them! They have a 2 year USA warranty as well which is nice. 

 

With that said, they certainty aren't the best looking fixtures on the market!

 

Hope that helps a bit

 

[vlangel]

23 hours ago, dpoltsdsu said:

Thank you for the kind words. Your tanks have been an inspiration to me so that means a lot coming from you!

 

For the lights, I am confident that they would penetrate down to 24 inches. A ton of people use these on heavy SPS tanks. They are quite powerful and I have bleached corals before because I had them too high. They have an 18 inch version (mine is 16) that should have good spread for your tank. Because of the number of LED's, I don't get a lot of shading that I have had with other LEd's. 

 

I am actually currently in flight school so this fixture fits my budget. It doesn't have all the crazy features of some other lights in the market but it does have a good spread, spectrum, and track record.  The owner of the company imports black box LED's in and switches out the heat sink, replaces the stock cooling fans, adjusts the spectrum, and replaces some of the optics to greatly improve the original fixtures. So far, I have been really happy with them! They have a 2 year USA warranty as well which is nice. 

 

With that said, they certainty aren't the best looking fixtures on the market!

 

Hope that helps a bit

 

Yes, that helps a lot.  I think they would be a good fit for me.  I actually prefer less features and it sounds like they have the main considerations covered.    Can it be suspended?

[dpoltsdsu]

Hello everyone

 

Unfortunately the time has come to break down this tank. I have accepted a new job and will have to take the tank down for now. However, I will be setting up a smaller nano in the meantime. 

 

I really enjoyed this reef and I hope you all did as well. I ultimately accomplished my goals for this setup and will use what I learned in future setups. 

 

Ill link the new setup once i make a thread for it! 

[Christopher Marks]

The end of an era @dpoltsdsu, sad to hear it's coming down, but I can understand why! This reef is a masterpiece. ❤️

 

Do you have plans lined up to re-home the livestock locally? Hopefully you can keep some coral frags going in your new nano reef though, that's an exciting project! Looking forward to seeing the new smaller system some online.

 

Congratulations on the new job! 

[dpoltsdsu]

4 minutes ago, Christopher Marks said:

The end of an era @dpoltsdsu, sad to hear it's coming down, but I can understand why! This reef is a masterpiece. ❤️

 

Do you have plans lined up to re-home the livestock locally? Hopefully you can keep some coral frags going in your new nano reef though, that's an exciting project! Looking forward to seeing the new smaller system some online.

 

Congratulations on the new job! 

Thanks for the kind words! I'm definitely sad to see it go. I sold a lot of the livestock but kept frags of all of the coral which are going to a close friend. He is going to keep it until I end up buying my own place and am able to maintain a much larger reef. 

 

In the meantime I will be keeping a 20 gallon AIO SPS tank and will be trying out the SPS side of things. I plan on keeping this tank and moving it when I move and then setting up a large reef that will be in the same "style" as the one I took down. I have a lot of plans for the future one and want to somehow integrate a mangrove and terrestrial area. That will be in a couple years though. Don't want to get too ahead of myself. 

 

I also kept a couple fish including Half Stripe the Clownfish who I have had for years now! 

[Christopher Marks]

Sounds like a great plan @dpoltsdsu, keep us posted! 🙂 

 

Glad to hear you kept that clownfish too, it's a unique one!