treesprite February 26, 2008 Share February 26, 2008 (edited) UPDATED 1-12-09 - go down thread for updated info, things are changed. Got a real camera so lots of pics now! I get overwhelmed everytime I come to this board - there are too many tank threads to get through. Anyway, so I'm adding one more. - 65 gallons not drilled. - CPR overflow box with 2 - 1" bulkheads. - GenX 6000 return. From the floor this 1600 1587gph melts into more like 900, so I have re-arranging to do. - Sump & fuge together in a 38g... got about 33 gallons of water in it. - Odyssea PS160 skimmer - UV - only 9 watts need another one in future. - Using RO/DI... finally! - Lighting with T-5s - Current Nova Extreme fixture. Immediate Future Plan: - switch from the 38 to 2 separate 20's for sump and fuge. - get the return up off the floor - re-do the loop and get the freakin' powerheads out of the tank (at least I'm only using 2 now... I was using 5 small ones) Farther in the future... gotta think more on that Livestock: - pair of mated tomato clowns - fridmani psuedochromis (orchid dottyback) - small yellow tang (smaller than the clownfish) - cherub angel (currently still in QT) - Smallish BTA (big enough for male, too small for female) - red fromia star - 1 peppermint shrimp left, which eventually will become dottyback food. - a lot of miscellneous hermits - a lot of miscellaneous snails - I need more in the way of corals. RIght now I've only got a few LPS and SPS frags, small pulsing xenia (I cut and took half to work but the stuff grows fast), few zoas, disc of cat eye palys, shrooms, and the only thing that is bigger than 3 inches (except for xenia) is frogspawn - shoot, I almost left this guy off - have to edit to add him.... a small brown urchin Pictures aren't very good - the only camera I have is only 2.4 megapix. I had to fiddle around with the lights - the tanks lights and the various room lights - to try to get half decent pics. One day I'll get some better pictures. front - right side Front center front - left side looking in from left end (left side of pic is the back of the tank) looking through right end (the right side of the pic is the back of the tank) Meet the fish: Female clown (for perspective - this pic is looking down the back of the tank) male clown - mostly only comes out from back there when it's time to eat tang fridmani - it's impossible to get this guy to be still for even a second to take a pic female clown with tang buddy - this tang thinks it's a clown... I'm waiting for it to get a nem sting. FYI, the white spot is the picture, not something on the clown. Edited January 12, 2009 by treesprite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmubeach February 26, 2008 Share February 26, 2008 Your clownfish looks huge:) very nice tank! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wreck February 26, 2008 Share February 26, 2008 Your female tomato looks like mine. the tank looks good, next time try to keep your hand still when you take a picture, just kidding . Wreck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treesprite February 26, 2008 Author Share February 26, 2008 Thanks guys. I love my clowns to pieces. It would be nice to have some cute little occis or percs, but I could never give these guys up for them. So, how do you get fish to stand still for a picture? Maybe better quality cameras are faster? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason the filter freak February 27, 2008 Share February 27, 2008 I like the arch aquascape... what holds it in place to prevent a fall? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treesprite February 27, 2008 Author Share February 27, 2008 (edited) I like the arch aquascape... what holds it in place to prevent a fall? It was sitting exactly the right way to not get knocked over by fish, then once when I was doing something I knocked it down myself. I ended up putting putting putty on all the contact points. The only rocks that are re-arrangable are the ones on the right end cave/tunnel where the tang is in the tang picture. Edit: just realized I put "putting" twice instead of "putting putty" Edited February 27, 2008 by treesprite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Highland Reefer February 27, 2008 Share February 27, 2008 I can tell you put a lot of thought into the aquascape. I too like the arch and the ledge you made. I gives alot of character and appeal to the whole layout. I'll bet you do good in landscaping too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treesprite February 27, 2008 Author Share February 27, 2008 I can tell you put a lot of thought into the aquascape. I too like the arch and the ledge you made. I gives alot of character and appeal to the whole layout. I'll bet you do good in landscaping too. Thanks. I wanted the tank to have never-ending swim space which it does, and wanted the fish to have secure places without ever being trapped in if, for example, someone starts being a bully. The fish can swim on forever without ever having to turn around. I thought about my rockscaping long and hard before I decided to put a tang in there - the tang is much better off in a 3 ft tank that has never-ending swimming space than in a 4 ft tank that forces a fish to pace unnaturally by having the rock too close to the back wall and only dead-ended caves. Also, I was thinking about good flow and preventing detritus buildup which would contribute to nitrate problems... this is very important given my over-feeding habit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmubeach February 28, 2008 Share February 28, 2008 Looking good I get my clowns to stand still by holding food above them while someone else takes the picture! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treesprite February 28, 2008 Author Share February 28, 2008 (edited) I should give some tank history. This tank replaced a very old very beat up 45g that is now either a sump or fuge or something for Raf. This is the tank that I got in a trade for an LCD comp monitor, and also in that trade got some additional rock and cleanup critters because I needed more for a bigger tank. I don't need 3 monitors for one computer, right? The stand for this tank... here's a story for you. This stand was built with the tank already on it. I was too impatient to wait to have a stand built, so what I did was put 4 2x4 legs on a thick piece of plywood 19" (old stand was for 12" - this extended 6.5 inches out on front and back, same length though) that were exactly the height of the old stand, and sat it on top of the old stand. It was a good thing I decided to do this, because when I started to break away the old particle-board-construction stand, I found that the particle board was literally crumbling in my hands!!! Lord only knows how long it would have taken for my tank to crash to the ground Here's a pic of the old stand as i was pulling it out from under the new stand framwork: Scary, huh? Most of that I pulled and broke off with my bare hands! I can't get a picture of the stand stained because it's dark and glossy hence reflects light onto the camera, so here's one of it while I was building it: Oh oh, this is the first tank stand I've ever built and had no plans but my own, just went by general requirements for stand construction and added a lot of overkill support. I did a terrible job staining, using polyshade which is stain and polyurethane mixed - big mistake... it's the reason I ended up having to stain so dark and was messy and gloppy. It is however, extremely sturdy and will be hard to move because it's also extremely heavy for it's dimensions. Oh, and it has shelves underneath! Here we go, couple days later... can't get a pic outside of stand so here's one on the left of the inside - the other side doesn't have all the wire mess, just shelves and junk. That 10 is not in the stand it's behind it. I think one day I will strip thestain/varnish off and re-do some other way. Edited March 1, 2008 by treesprite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treesprite March 13, 2008 Author Share March 13, 2008 (edited) Here's my updated list of equipment I'd like to have for this tank that I don't have and at present, almost all of which I can't possibly afford right now. These are in order of plans. Let me know what I've left off or if my order is totally out of wack. 1. Refractometer. 2. More lighting... inhabitants are happy with what they have but I am not. I need full coverage front to back of tank with the T-5s. Right now to cover the back of the tank (behind the liverock) I have temporarily put a 2-bulb NO flo. fixture behind the T-5 fixture, because if I put the T-5 fixture centered the light in front of the tank will be decreased. The BTA must think there's enough light in the back, because it refuses to be anywhere other than back there on the bottom of the tank. If ever I have a bigger tank I would want retro-fits. 3. Auto top-off system - right now I'm doing "keep a bucket of ro/di next to the tank, add some before work and some when I get home. 4. Larger (or second smaller) UV sterilizer. 5. Something to deal with nitrate - maybe a sulpher denitrator as James has mentioned. 6. Kalk stirrer or reactor. 7. Enough additional liverock to scape almost to the surface... and someone talented to do the work for me. 8. Diatom filter. 9. Calcium reactor because in the future I hope to have some beautiful humongous corals that are grow at an insane rate. Right now my Calcium is never too low and I use nothing but water changes to keep clacium stable. Shoot left off ATO.... am adding it. Edited March 13, 2008 by treesprite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason the filter freak March 14, 2008 Share March 14, 2008 That looks like one heavy duty stand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treesprite March 14, 2008 Author Share March 14, 2008 That looks like one heavy duty stand yeah it's probably going to be a real bugger to move Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treesprite January 12, 2009 Author Share January 12, 2009 (edited) Updated info, including pics now that I have a real camera! - changed from using 38 for sump/fuge to using a 20L for sump and 20H for refugium (38 now clown tank) - added a 10g to system, was supposed to be xenia fuge but x won't live in this system, so now is "sort of" a frag tank - added a WAV for main return flow - re-did rockwork - livestock changed I "had" a problem with cyano on the sand but it never grew on the rockwork so I was thinking too much detritus or something, and there was too much chunkiness with old shells and rock "crumbs", so I took most of the sand out the other day to clean in some tank water, and sifted it several times through a kitchen strainer to take out anything not "sand particle" sized. Sand is now clean and pretty and completely free of detritus (the sandbed was/is only .5 to 2" deep depending on spot, so I wasn't worried about disturbing anaerobic areas that would have drastically polluted the water. Sad to say, I'm having a green hair algae problem. Got some pics. My SPS frags are a bit brown at the moment because while having been dosing a little vinegar, I accidently overdosed causing a sudden growth in xoanthellae (sp?). I need to improve my camera skills some. Lanman pocci Dbartco pocci Fish livestock in 65 right now: 1 percula, 2 firefish, 2 pajama cardinals, 1 clown goby. I have hundreds of these serpents in my tank Serpent crawling over nassarius snail Fish "want" list is a royal gramma & cherub/pygmy angel to replace the ones I recently lost, and want either a small yellow tang or some other algae-eating fish. I need some more SPS frags and a lot more color! Edited January 12, 2009 by treesprite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coral Hind January 12, 2009 Share January 12, 2009 Nice pictures. There were a few pictures that I couldn't get loaded. You were close on the spelling. It is spelled, Zooanthellae. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
extreme_tooth_decay January 12, 2009 Share January 12, 2009 You were close on the spelling. It is spelled, Zooanthellae. I thought it was zooxanthellae... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coral Hind January 12, 2009 Share January 12, 2009 Good catch! I forgot the "x" I can see all the photos now. Looking good Forrest! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sugar Magnolia January 13, 2009 Share January 13, 2009 Looks really nice Forrest! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoozilla January 13, 2009 Share January 13, 2009 Love the Re-Done AquaScaping, Forrest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smoothtriqueter January 13, 2009 Share January 13, 2009 I realy like the new scaping, the duncan looks realy healthy. Keep up the good work. How is the tomatoe clown tank doing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treesprite January 13, 2009 Author Share January 13, 2009 (edited) Thanks for the compliments. I didn't have to have any big cave openings after I took the big female clown out of the tank, so I did the rockwork to give more open space, better flow, less likelihood of losing frags, less places for detritus to build up, ease in catching fish when needed, give me better places for corals, and whatever. I had to take a little bit of rock out of the tank to do it and then had to take it out of the sump for the clown tank so I'm short on having rock for filtration purposes. I guess now that I have a camera I should do the clown tank thread. There's not much to look at presently. Edited January 13, 2009 by treesprite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treesprite January 14, 2009 Author Share January 14, 2009 Unfortuneately, because I am in an apartment I have no choice but to have all of this stuff in the livingroom distracting from the display tank. Hopefully that problem will one day be resolved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason the filter freak January 14, 2009 Share January 14, 2009 Much improved, the pics and the tanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smoothtriqueter January 14, 2009 Share January 14, 2009 Unfortuneately, because I am in an apartment I have no choice but to have all of this stuff in the livingroom distracting from the display tank. Hopefully that problem will one day be resolved. One of those folding wooden screens would put all focus right back on the DT! But I'm not one to talk my livingroom looks the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcreefer January 14, 2009 Share January 14, 2009 Hey the Tank is looking Great! What type of Putty are you using for your rockwork? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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