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Dpolt's 42 Gallon Caribbean and Pacific Islands Mixed Reef


dpoltsdsu

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Really great tank and great job with the composition; I'm thinking of acquiring one myself.  Would you mind posting a picture of your sump?  Curious how the fuge/cheato look in there and am curious what your weekly maintenance routine is?  Really nice mix of coral and fish.

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On 7/11/2018 at 10:35 AM, Zuma said:

Really great tank and great job with the composition; I'm thinking of acquiring one myself.  Would you mind posting a picture of your sump?  Curious how the fuge/cheato look in there and am curious what your weekly maintenance routine is?  Really nice mix of coral and fish.

No problem, ill post one as soon as I get home

 

I do a 30% water change every 3 weeks or so, harvest Cheato every 2 weeks, clean the skimmer cup once a week, and dose every couple of days for the clams. Pretty low maintenance actually!

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Here's a current FTS as of July 13th, 2018! I am pretty happy with how the tank is looking right now. I am planning on keeping it like this for a while. I got a new camera so the pictures will be better from here on out!

20180713_145937.jpg

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On 7/11/2018 at 10:35 AM, Zuma said:

Really great tank and great job with the composition; I'm thinking of acquiring one myself.  Would you mind posting a picture of your sump?  Curious how the fuge/cheato look in there and am curious what your weekly maintenance routine is?  Really nice mix of coral and fish.

Heres a pic of the sump! You can get a good idea of the layout by looking at this!

Screenshot_20180714-161022_Gallery.jpg

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On 7/15/2018 at 12:00 AM, Zuma said:

Very clean, now I see how a fuge can work in that sump, thanks!

No problem! Its not a large refugium by any means but it gets the job done

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2 hours ago, Patrick17 said:

Beautiful tank! How do you find you tomini tang goes in a community? 

Thanks!

 

The Tomini has been fantastic. Not aggressive at all and seems to get along with everyone in the tank. Doesn't bother new fish either which is great.

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The Orange Spotted Filefish is starting to eat a good amount of mysis in the water column now! Things are looking up for him

 

The coral seems to be doing well! Although the scape now has Caribbean and Pacific coral more mixed, there is still quite a bit of coral that is featured from both areas. 

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Reef Update 7/22/18

 

I am very pleased with the direction the reef is going. Soft Coral, Gorgonians, and Clams now completely dominate the rocks, but it has made for a very unique looking tank in my opinion. Although I had initially wanted one side of the reef only for Caribbean corals, it was impossible to separate the coral in a smaller tank like this one. Now there is a pretty even spread of Caribbean and Pacific soft corals in the display. For now, I plan on keeping this display dominated by soft corals. 

 

This week, I replaced the Kessils that were on this tank for an 16 inch SB Reef LED. I sold one Kessil and I am going to use the other in another nano build. I have been pleased with the light so far.

 

Fish stocking - I think I have a good mix of fish in this tank and everyone seems to be doing really well. I do plan on adding a couple of small Anthias in the future to give the tank some more splash of color.

 

Here's the fish list as of today:

Tomini Tang

Orange Spotted Filefish

Pair of Blue Striped Pipefish

Pair of Clownfish

Target Mandarin

Falco's Hawkfish

Talbot Damselfish

Royal Gramma

Yellow Watchman Goby

Melanurus Wrasse 

 

Equipment - I am happy with the current equipment on this tank and I do not plan on changing anything as of now! Despite pretty heavy feeding, my nutrients generally run pretty low so I am going to keep my current fitration as is with the Cheto refugium and the Curve 5 Skimmer!

 

Hope everyone's tanks are doing well!

 

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
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Last week, I noticed that my male Blue Striped Pipefish had eggs on his stomach that the female must have transferred there. Throughout the week, the eggs have gotten bigger and bigger and I felt as if any day they would likley hatch. Well, when I checked the tank tonight, I saw that the eggs had hatched and that fry were swimming in the water column. I was able to catch 16 of the Fry and transferred them to a rearing tank. 

 

I have heard that these fish can be possibly reared using baby brine shrimp so I am going to see if the fry can eat them. The fry are a bit bigger than expected and swimming relatively well so there is a small chance they can take to the baby brine shrimp. I will update everyone with what happens and try and get a couple of pictures!

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Christopher Marks
5 hours ago, dpoltsdsu said:

Last week, I noticed that my male Blue Striped Pipefish had eggs on his stomach that the female must have transferred there. Throughout the week, the eggs have gotten bigger and bigger and I felt as if any day they would likley hatch. Well, when I checked the tank tonight, I saw that the eggs had hatched and that fry were swimming in the water column. I was able to catch 16 of the Fry and transferred them to a rearing tank. 

 

I have heard that these fish can be possibly reared using baby brine shrimp so I am going to see if the fry can eat them. The fry are a bit bigger than expected and swimming relatively well so there is a small chance they can take to the baby brine shrimp. I will update everyone with what happens and try and get a couple of pictures!

That’s incredible @dpoltsdsu, I hope you can get a few photos!

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This is such a cool tank! I cant believe I haven’t seen it before. Love your fish and coral selection. Do you have any issues with your heavier bioload and feedings?

 

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All the Fry seemed to have survived the night and are swimming in the water column in the "rearing tank" which is a sterilized 5 gallon bucket with a small bubbler for aeration. A couple of the bigger fry seem as if they are eating the small brine as they will do a quick movement toward the brine. 

 

Im going to see if I can get my hands on a small kreisal style tank for them as that would make it much easier for rearing. This is my first time attempting something like this so there will be a bit of a learning curve as I find better food and equipment for it.

 

I was able to get a picture of one of the Fry this morning

 

 

 

 

Screenshot_20180814-113808_Gallery_1534272215229.png

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On 8/14/2018 at 8:02 AM, Hobbs said:

This is such a cool tank! I cant believe I haven’t seen it before. Love your fish and coral selection. Do you have any issues with your heavier bioload and feedings?

 

Thanks for the kind words! Despite the larger bioload and heavy feedings, the reef stays relatively clean and I usually have a very small amount of nutrients. The refugium, skimmer, and large water change once a month keeps things in check. I also believe the large Derasa clam helps clean the water as well 

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  • 2 weeks later...

A couple of updates

 

The pipefish larvae didn't make it as my air bubbler stopped working. I plan on getting a tank specifically for rearing the larvae so I will update everyone once that happens. The Pipefish are already carrying eggs again so it seems as if this will be a regular occurance. 

 

Unfortunately, the Filefish started nipping at the Gorgonians so I had to sell it to prevent coral loss.

 

In it's place, I wanted more color to the reef so I got 3 female Lyretail Anthias. I am really enjoying them so far and they brighten up the reef like crazy!! All of them are eating Mysis already so thats a good sign. Ive been feeding them three times a day.

 

 

20180824_203820.jpg

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On 8/25/2018 at 8:57 AM, Christopher Marks said:

Those Lyretail Anthias are beautiful! Have they been getting along with all the other fish? That's too bad about the filefish, but better safe than sorry!

Thanks! I agree, I am loving them so far.  All the fish seem to be getting along well. The tang chased them a couple times but gave up after about an hour and I haven't seen anymore chasing for the couple of days

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