Rascal's Reef

[Rascal]

My intent is for this to be mostly a pictorial story of the progression of my tank since its inception in August of 2006.

 

First some basic specs:

150G glass cages 5'x2'x2'

4-6" DSB (partially hidden by molding tied in to the stand at the bottom of the tank.)

Lighting: 3 x 250W DE 10K Ushios, 2 x 54 Geisman blue plus T5, 2 x 110 URI super actinic VHO, 3 x 3/4 W LED moonlights, 2 blue, 1 red.

Flow (approx gph): 800 return (Blueline 70HD dialed back and diverted); 3000 Dart on CL; 1000 x 2 OceanFlo MJ Mod 900; 1000 x 2 Tunze 6055 [conservatively at least 7500 gph when everything is on]

Filtration: ASM G4+ recirc, mesh, gate valve mods; 15W current UV; 25W aqua UV; GFO + carbon in reactors

Supplementation: ATO through GSA kalkstirrer; DIY Ca reactor

Temp maintained by fans, 1/4 HP chiller, 2 heaters

Sumps: 16 gallon skimmer sump, 55 gallon main sump (3/4 of which is fuge w/ 8-10" DSB, part chaeto, part live rock and sponge).

Everything now on ACIII

 

On to the pics:

 

8/06 Initial set-up FTS:

 

3 months later, due to some old problems carried over from my former tank combined with all new ones, I had what I like to refer to as "algaetank":

10/06:

 

By 2/07 I had the algae at bay, but things were still not growing or coloring up very well:

I realized around then that I had redbugs - quickly fixed with interceptor treatment and things were looking up.

 

6/07:

 

8/07:

 

 

 

The best this tank has ever looked is reflected in these pictures from 10/27/07, taken by my dad with his Nikon SLR:

 

 

 

 

A week later I realized I had AEFW and, rather that risk losing all of that to a natural predator, I decided to kill it all myself. :(

FTS 11/4/07:

 

So now I'm in the recovery process. The survivors went back into the tank but all the acros were really browned out.

11/17/07:

 

Starting to come back slowly but surely:

1/4/07:

 

Thanks for looking, more to follow.

[zotzer]

Wow....I LOVE this new forum!! Thanks for sharing. We are pulling for what looks to be a strong recovery.

 

Tracy

[gmubeach]

What is aefw?

[gastone]

What is aefw?

 

acropora eating flat worms

 

cute little buggers.

[gmubeach]

Do they eat other corals?or just acorpora?

[Valeria]

Very nice recovery Rascal

[treesprite]

You'll get back to all the flashy color .

[Rascal]

A few more shots - these were taken 3/1/08:

 

FTS:

 

Thought this was a cool angle - side view with reflection.

 

Some others:

 

 

 

 

Edited March 14, 2008 by Rascal

[flowerseller]

Dude,

What are you doing over there?

That tank looks GREAT!

[Rascal]

Dude,

What are you doing over there?

That tank looks GREAT!

 

Thanks.

 

There's a lot to be said for benign neglect I guess.

 

There's also a lot to be said for having a dialed-in Ca reactor, auto top-off through a kalk reactor, and a system that makes it easy to do a 20 gal water change in 10 minutes, especially when weeks go by in which 10 minutes is all the time you have to spend on the tank.

 

Still, water quality has definitely suffered, so I do have a bubble algae problem now. If I didn't have 3 tangs I'm pretty sure I'd have a HA problem too. For the most part the corals have done OK and continued to grow, although I think the colors could be better if my water was cleaner. It's the more time intensive things like changing water filters on the ro/di, more water changes, keeping the skimmer cleaned, etc. . . . that I have really had to let slide. But it could be a lot worse, and in the greater scheme of things, it is just a fish tank. My daughter really loves watching it though.