Matt LeBaron January 31, 2020 Share January 31, 2020 (edited) Did a mainly SPS tank for a few years but I started in the hobby with seahorses and not having them for a few years has been a disappointment. So I cleared out most of my SPS, moved what I wanted to keep along with my fish into my frag tank and I'm turning my 90G in wall tank back into a seahorse tank. I sold just about all of the corals in my tank, I only kept my gorgorians (which I've had since I had seahorses in this tank before 4ish years ago), most of my pipe organ coral, and then a few odds and ends that were left over when I sold my corals. Mostly pieces that fell to the bottom of the tank when I was pulling everything out, not sure how well they may do in the new setup but I'll give them a fighting chance at least. Here's everything stuffed into a very small space along with a coral banded shrimp and our "Highlander" Chromie. (He murdered off his 6 other friends within the first year we had him. There can be only one!) The Banggai Cardinal went into my hospital/quarantine tank so he could live in peace and since he'll be transitioning over to the new tank. (Let me know if any wants a Chromi or coral banded shrimp, free to a good home) Next was to start on new rock work. I ended up giving a significant portion of what I had away when I sold my colonies since a they were well encrusted. I wasn't bothered since I wanted to significantly change my rock work for the new tank. Ordered a bunch of Caribsea Life Rock since I liked the nice purple color it had along with some to make pillars. Some EMacro mortar and I had 5 rock pillars! I had an extra tank sitting around so I started curing 3 of the pillars along with my magnetic rock shelves while two other pillars will have to wait for now. Next thing I wanted to do was correct the errors (whether I knew it at the time or not) that I made when I set everything up last time. One of those was not sub dividing my sump into different chambers. No clue what I was thinking before but it was a bit mistake, so one new 40G breeder tank and a Fiji sump kit later I have a proper sump. I left the filter sock portion off because I am replacing my filter socks with a filter roller because I am honestly to lazy/forgetful to replace the filter socks as often as a should, which totally defeats the purpose. And then finally to empty just about everything out of the 90G to get it ready for new rockwork. That's it for now, I'll post an update later this weekend or on Monday since I plan to get the rock work and sand into it this weekend and if I can make enough salt water maybe even get some of the corals and the cardinal shifted back into the display. Edited January 31, 2020 by Matt LeBaron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YHSublime January 31, 2020 Share January 31, 2020 Very cool, looking to watching the big return! I bought quite a few trimmings from you a few years ago, that green hairy acro has out competed quite a bit of SPS! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt LeBaron February 3, 2020 Author Share February 3, 2020 On 1/31/2020 at 3:13 PM, YHSublime said: Very cool, looking to watching the big return! I bought quite a few trimmings from you a few years ago, that green hairy acro has out competed quite a bit of SPS! I would love to see a picture of it now, always interested to see what corals look like after a year or two in another tank. Seems like they always ends up looking a bit different, which is always interesting to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt LeBaron February 3, 2020 Author Share February 3, 2020 Did a bunch of work this weekend. Got the new sump installed along with my Clarisea fleece roller and started re-working some of the plumbing, need to pickup one more 1" union today for the DT drain and I'll be all set to finish the plumbing and connect everything back together. Then I got all of the rock into the display along with an extra 60 pounds of sand over what I had previously since I needed at least 3 inches for the seagrass I will be adding, and maybe some gobies I'll get in the future. I 3D printed a cover for my MP40, which fits well so once I print one for the MP10 below it the tank should be seahorse safe at that point. Going to try and get everything plumbed together tonight because keeping three tanks heated properly is becoming an issue due to heater/controller failures. I only have one heater/controller I am confident about at this point and two setups (sump with frag tank and QT/hospital tank) that have live stock in them. The Jager heaters I have still work but one heats to 79 the other 78 degrees regardless of what I set them too, which makes me worry about whether they may break further and cook/freeze my fish. And then my Reef Angel controller has totally flaked out on me either turning the heaters on and not stopping or not turning them on at all depending on the internal error it gets. I have a new Inkbird controller that I switched over to the sump/frag tank this morning because the Reef Angel heated the water up to 80 yesterday and then let it drop down to 72 overnight. Hopefully everything stays alive today so I can get the DT plumbed into the sump/frag tank and then move my cardinal over into the display tank and then just heat everything through the Inkbird. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KingOfAll_Tyrants February 9, 2020 Share February 9, 2020 very interesting. someday I hope to have a lagoon/seahorse type tank. (along with at least two others LOL). looking forward to more once it’s more set up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GraffitiSpotCorals February 15, 2020 Share February 15, 2020 Awesome! I setup a little 5 gallon that my wife is keeping some tiny seahorses in. What horses are you going with? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt LeBaron February 20, 2020 Author Share February 20, 2020 We plan to keeping Erectus. We've kept both Erectus and Reidi in the past and had a preference towards Erectus, they just always seemed to have more personality but that could totally just be the individuals we ended up with. Current tank shot, sorry about how blue it is, took it in the evening when my LED's were edging towards more blue for their sunset mode. I have the 3D printed seahorse feeder in on the left side, I plan on zip tying some macro algae to the pipe coming down into it to help hide it a bit. 3D printed covers for the MP40 and MP10 are working well. My pipe organ is adapting fine to the mini cycle but the purple and silver Gorg are having problems adapting and are dying back a little bit. Refreshed the clean up crew who are working on the small algae outbreak and the Cardinal is doing great. I have a Firefish in quarantine who is also eating very well. Got some seagrasses from a member who was kind enough to spare some for me, bit of die off there but that is to be expected, once the rhizomes recover it'll re-sprout and start spreading. Few more weeks and the tank should be ready for seahorses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GraffitiSpotCorals February 21, 2020 Share February 21, 2020 Looks good! How many horses are you thinking about keeping in there? We also kept the little pigmy indo seahorses that are tiny as an be, those were my favorite but I think maybe they were hard to find this time around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt LeBaron February 21, 2020 Author Share February 21, 2020 We'll probably keep two pairs. That gives us the room to have some fish too. Right now we're thinking the Cardinal, a Royal Gramma, and the Firefish. May get some gobies or maybe a couple of Pajama Cardinals but that will be later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt LeBaron March 24, 2020 Author Share March 24, 2020 (edited) Sorry that it's been a while but there are seahorses in the tank now and my Cardinal has some company. Tank is doing well, cycle is all finished up, all of the algae growth I had is gone and all of the corals I kept have recovered. My purple Gorg is still not 100% happy but the silver one is fine so hoping I'll see full polyp extension from the purple in the next couple of weeks. I got 2 pairs of seahorses, a Scissortail Dartfish, and a Royal Gramma from Seahorse Savvy and could not be happier. Both the seahorses and the fish were in excellent condition and were eating the same day I put them all in the tank. I was amazed because normally the Royal Gramma's are super timid and usually hide but this little guy was out, eating, and exploring, later the same day. There are the four seahorses, two started out black but are already turning a lighter color. Dartfish and Gramma have settled in well. I have been happy with the filter roller, on my second roll now and the first one was gross so it is removing a fair bit. Much easier to deal with than filter socks. Edited March 24, 2020 by Matt LeBaron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YHSublime March 24, 2020 Share March 24, 2020 The seahorses look gorgeous! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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