Let The Games Begin

[Reef Rover]

Well here it goes. The tank is 7 to 8 week old. Its a slow build being on the wife budget. Below is the plan and some photos. Please give ideas on fish and coral selections. Fish idea was to get two BIGish fish as show piece/tank draws and then fill in the rest with small fish. I almost did a FOWLER tank but wanted to at least try a reef. Coral preference is softies and Zoanthids. We decided to do the island setup because we saw allot of tanks with the full rock wall and the island look felt better to us so the swim room for fish was optimal.


Fish
1. Firefish - Already in. Wasn't going to add any fish until we got the corals going but needed some life.
2. Green Chromis X 5 or Bangai Cardinals - Something as a dither fish
3. Caramel Clown X 2
4. Royal Gramma – 3.1
5. Kole Yellow Eyed Tang
6. Yellow Tang or a Powder Brown Tang
7. Mandarin – at least a year down the road. Need the pods

Want two BIG show fish and then fill in with small fish. Tangs seemed to be the best options for reef safe BIG fish. I know I have to add them last with the Yellow/Powder Brown being very last and have to mix Genus

Shrimp
1. Peppermint Shrimp - Already in for Aptaisia control
2. Fire Shrimp
3. Skunk Shrimp

Coral
1. Softies - Undecided
2. Zoanthids - Undecided

Hardware
1. Hydor Koralia Evolution 1050 Pump - 1 is already in with a Maxi Jet 1400 but cant stand the suction cups so will replace it and use it for water mixing
2. Digital Aquatics Controller
3. Eheim Jager 150 Watt X 2 - Made the carnal boo boo and bought a single heater. Will move the current 300 watt to the water making station
4. 30 Gallon Sump/Refugium Probably DIY out of a 30 gallon long
5. Eheim 2000 - Return Pump for Sump
6. Protein Skimmer – Avast Marine CS1
7. Refractometer
8. Overflow Box – Lifereef Slimline
9. Light – Thinking T5 but dont know if I need 4 or 6 bulbs. Have seen some cheaper LED's like the SeaStar from LampCraft.
10. Auto Top Off – Tunze Osmolator 3155 or Avast Top off Kit
11. Red Sea Coral Pro Salt

 

[Reef Rover]

Here are the pics
Attachments Right IslandRight Side Tank.JPG (24.3 KiB) Not viewed yet Left IslandLeft Side Tank.JPG (23.4 KiB) Not viewed yet

 

[Reef Rover]

Attachments

 

[wysiwyg]

how big is your tank?

 

[bige]

Looks good. You got some space in there.

 

[Reef Rover]

Yeah I forgot the dimensions, sorry.

100 gallon
60"L x 18"D x 19"H

Yes I do. I made the mistake at first of buying all my rock cured at the LFS. Got really expensive, really quick. Have decided to back off and get a 30 gallon garbage can and buy the rest as dry rock and cure it out at half the cost. I guess I started learning the bad way of doing things early on. lol

 

[redfishbluefish]

Yeah I forgot the dimensions, sorry.

100 gallon
60"L x 18"D x 19"H

Those dimensions calculate out to 89 gallons.

That size tank might be a bit too small for a powder brown tang.

 

[OurReef]

Rabbit or soldier/squirrel fish might be a good sub for powder. Rabbits are full of personality, ours tries to punk me sometimes when I'm digging around the tank, other times eats food almost out of my hand, just watch the spines. And the squirrel/soldier fish reminds me of Kermit the frog when viewed from head on. Also watch the spines.

 

[revsgirl]

Lookin' good!

 

[revhtree]

Alright looking forward to watching it grow!

 

[Aqua fire/medic]

I like that open look of the aquascape. Really don't see that to much in larger reef setups.

 

[Reef Rover]

So I haven't updated in a long time so I thought I would bring everything up to date. I had 45 pounds of pukani rock in the first pics, so I bought another 23 lbs of pukani, 22 lbs of shelf and 10 lbs of rubble from BRS. Took some advice from Rev and I (Ok, OK I'll admit it, my wife) started hitting the used market here in town. She came across a 29 gallon tank that was already set up as a wet/dry sump for $50.00. We bought it, jettisoned the bio-balls and I have the 10 lbs of rubble curing out for it this weekend. I have stocked the fuge with Chaeto, Chalurpa and Agar so far. I still want Gracialara and Ulva if I can find it. She then found a DAS EX2 skimmer for $100.00 that needed a couple O-Rings. The beautiful part of this is that DAS is about 30 minutes from my house. I called them up and they had o-rings for me. I just soft plumbed the tank for now since I wasn't sure how I was going to do things. It was an interesting first experience and I will eventually hard plumb everything.

As far as the fish goes, the list has changed 100 times since I posted the original. We have added some fish but still no corals as I am still saving for the lights. We tried the Chromis bit. Bought six, they killed each other down to three now two. Needless to say we changed directions. We discussed how we wanted the tank to be and decided that we wanted to pick a “reef†destination of sorts and model everything after that specific location. We decided to at least attempt, more or less a Fiji type reef. We have since picked up 2 False Percs (The wife didn't like the skunk clowns, and I hear they can be mean) and we have 4 Lyretail Anthias. We just added 2 last weekend, but 1 isn't eating yet so we'll see how that goes. We will do an LPS dominant tank with something along the lines of the following for the rest of the fish:

1. Green Chromis X 2
2. Ocellaris Clown X 2
3. Lyretail Anthias X 4
4. Purple Firefish
5. Shrimp Goby/Pistol Shrimp
6. Lawnmower Blenny (Undecided)
7. Rabbitfish (Pencilstreaked or other) – Based on OurReefs recommendation
8. Copper Banded Butterfly - Unsure here – I really like them
9. Mandarin

Any suggestions on the above would be greatly appreciated. We have also played with the idea of doing an all smaller fish reef and eliminate the Rabbit and the butterfly etc altogether. I guess I need to stop now as this is getting novel length. I will try and update more often to keep it shorter.


Rover

 

[Reef Rover]

 

[Reef Rover]

 

[Zack]

Like that big flat ledge you have in the scape

Sent from my VS950 4G using Forum Runner

 

[skinz78]

Looking good, I love that big ol shelf. Do you know just how many clams you could potentially fit on that :wink:

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

Looking good. I see so many potential options for coral placement in that tank!!

 

[bkoppes]

Looking good. I like this rockwork much better. More room for corals

 

[MarvinsReef]

if you want another large fish and like tangs, you can look at the bristletooth family.. tomini, chevron, kole tangs stay on the smaller side so it should be alright in your tank. how about some fairy or flasher wrasses? some of the fairies can get up to 4"-5" so that can also be considered a large fish in your tank.

 

[Reef Rover]

I saw a filliment flasher wrasse at the LFS and it was really nice. I am sitting here watching the tank and may see what the deal is with the new Anthias not eating. My larger female which was already in the tank is being a real turd. She is even chasing the smaller one that was added with her a couple of weeks ago. She even chases and tries to fight her own reflection in the glass. Right now she is the biggest fish in the tank. I wonder if i put a bigger fish in if she would buddy up with the others, lol? She may need to go.