VicSkimmr

Some pics of the tank and it's home

Wow very nice! I'm actually trying to re-do my tank in a very similar fashion only I'm going to attempt to do it myself.

I'm looking to build myself a new tank out of glass (since I can't seem to stop scratching my acrylic setup). Here's the plan: Its the same size as my current setup (36x24x20) but the orientation will be different now (to please a nagging wife, haha). The front pane would be low-iron. I guess my questions would be: How plausible is it to make this a rimless setup and what thickness of glass would I be looking at to accomplish that? Does anyone know of a good glass shop in the area that could provide me with the glass?

This has gotten a bit off-topic, but I'll put my .02 anyway. I see two problems with this phenomenon. 1) If you're selling *insert LE named coral* and charging the going rate for it, you darn well better be able to show me lineage to the original colony. Why? Because if I'm buying one of those corals, I want to know that it is in fact the real thing that has been in home aquaria and passed down through multiple people. Why? Because if I'm paying a premium for that coral, I want to know for sure that it will keep its color and do well in my tank. If its wild caught or aquacultured in the ocean there's a much lower chance of that happening. I can't stand it when people ask whether the coral they just bought from the LFS is actually named. This is primarily with zoanthids, but it goes for everything. If you didn't buy it as a specific coral and you don't know its lineage, don't try to attach the name to it. I have a decent looking encrusting monti and people have told me, "Oh, thats a reverse pokerstar monti." I constantly have to tell them that no, its a wild specimen that might look similar to whatever you're talking about. 2) If someone is selling a high-priced coral, don't tell them that they're overcharging for it and that they should sell it to you for dirt cheap just because they have a large colony. If you don't feel its worth the price, don't... effing... buy it. Supply and demand, its not a hard concept. If you really want the nice, high end corals just shell out for one frag, grow it out, and start to trade for other corals with it. Like with everything in this hobby, patience is key.

I've been using Kent Pro Scrapers. They might scratch it a bit every now and then, but that'll happen with any scraper. Just remember that the longer the handle the less force you'll be able to use. I have a medium length and a handheld one for the really tough stuff.

Well, I ended up knocking out the lights for 3 days, which killed almost all of it, but it came back worse than ever over a 2 day period, so I went to the extreme and cut the light for 5 days. I didn't lose any corals, but most of mine browned out to varying degrees. Here's my new additions. Purple Monster: Purple rimmed, purple polyped Monti cap: Red Table Acro: Superman Monti - Since the coral is so blue and I didn't bother to set the white balance through my camera, the color got all messed up when I adjusted it in PS. Pink A. millepora w/ potential blue tips: Blue polyped Styllopora: I had more but I lost 3 of them to RTN for an unknown reason. I lost one overnight and the other 2 I lost over the next 2 days. Chemistry was spot on. Whats odd is that the PM was unaffected, so I don't think water quality would be a potential cause.

Wow nice! We definitely need to trade some corals. Have you had any issues with your Bi-Color nipping?

I've ordered from him, he was very professional in his emails and willing to work with me. I wasn't bidding for prices though.

I would go through Jeff, he's local and his tanks are of a much higher caliber than glass cages. P.S. I like the dimensions you're thinking about (mine is a 36x24x20 from NAGA)

Very nice!

I've got a question, how do you feel about the viper light? Is the construction pretty solid, do you think it will eventually lose its strength and not be able to support itself in the future?

I LOVE the aquascape, that looks really natural!

I didn't realize you were a member here too

Ooh a turkey baster would probably be a lot more effective at removing it!

I've been trying that but it never seems to help. I've tested the water I've been getting and its not reading anything on the TDS. Everything I've been reading so far says that they're pretty common in home aquaria but don't generally get out of control, but once they are its extremely hard to get rid of them. The two most efficient ways to treat them are what I posted above, the second coming from here, and the first one coming from an RC thread.

LOL! Ok so I've got a question. I'm still battling these darn dinoflagellates and I'm trying to figure out the best way to treat them. I just got a bunch of SPS frags from Leishman and the last thing I want to happen is to lose them from the treatment, so here are my 2 best options. 1) Cut out all light for 5 days. I honestly don't know how well new frags could handle that 2) Raise my pH to 8.5 until they're gone. I have a feeling my SPS won't like that either. Any suggestions? Can SPS successfully live without light for 5 days or will I lose all the frags I just got? :(

Jason Withers (VicSkimmr) My 75 gallon reef Nikon Coolpix 5000 Fromia starfish

I've got a generic ATO that I dump kalkwasser into. The sump consists of 2 10 gallon tanks plumbed together. I'll try to grab a pic tonight. My wife only agreed to let me have the tank in our living room if everything could be contained under the stand, so I couldn't fit a kalk stirrer/reactor or a calcium reactor down there, and my ATO reservoir is undersized (5 gallon bucket). Thanks for the compliments guys. Next I'll try to catalog my softies. Soft Corals Purple photosynthetic gorgonian: Zoanthids: AoG: Next gen Zombie Eyes Greenbay Packers Candie-apple Pinks Metallic Pinks (not actually named)

I'm trying to keep everything to scale as much as possible. I'm planning on letting all my SPS grow into large colonies so I'm giving them plenty of room to grow.

Ack I already ordered 2 of them :( Oh well, they're not but $10 pieces. Thanks for the compliments

Ok here we go. My goal with this tank was to create a shallow reef system dominated by SPS. It was to have a low amount of rock, and lots of room for coral growth, it was also to be viewed from 3 sides. Lighting: 36" 6 bulb Tek fixture. Bulbs are as follows: ATI Blue+ ATI AquaBlue+ Giesemann Actinic ATI Actinic ATI AquaBlue+ ATI Blue+ When the bulbs get too old, the actinics will be replaced by more Blue+ bulbs. Water flow is achieved by 2 Tunze Nanostream 6045s Mechanical filtration: EuroReef CS-1, Current USA UV Sterilizer (don't remember the wattage) So, on to the pics. First, the stand prior to painting: Then the tank, built by NAGA. Its dimensions are 36"x24"x20" Here it is freshly set up: 1.21.07 2.5.07: 3.16.07: 4.26.07: 9.12.07: 1.5.08: Sorry for all the pics, next post will be corals Corals: SPS: A. abrolhensis 4.26.07 1.5.08 A. millepora 4.15.07: 1.5.08: A. turaki 4.26.07: 1.5.08: Misc. acro (freebie from Reefer Madness) Misc. monti - I don't have frags of this at this time. Not phenomenal growth by any means, but considering how much this tank gets neglected, its not too bad. I've got a few new ones to add as well, but I won't take pictures of them till they're nice and settled in.

When it was first set up in January of '07 In September '07

I think I'd have the upper-hand with my iPhone, lol. It takes very clear pics.

The algae is kind of a maroonish color. Someone on RC who I knew back when I lived in Myrtle Beach said it looks like dinoflagellates, which I was somewhat thinking myself. I've got zoanthids in every different type of flow. Most of them are in very high flow zones it seems as their skirts are always moving.

Will do, it was such a small piece to begin with that I'm taking it really slowly. So far its been fragged twice. One is for the guy who shared the order with me (since it was a freebie) and the other for Leishman since he has a TON of corals I want. I thought offering that on the table might speed things up, but we can never seem to work out a time to meet, heh. It doesn't help living 2 hours away :( The next time I frag it I'm going to split it in 2, so I can have one colony strictly for fragging and one for show Luckily it grows like a weed.