My 9 year old, 120 gallon reef

[Nomadic1]

So many gorgeous tanks here, really made it hard for me to decide to post pics of my reef, despite being a member here for a few years now. So, here goes.

120 gallon oceanic tank, started in December 2005, after losing my previous reef tank in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.
Lighting: 8 bulb TEK fixture, with two ReefBrite XHO blue LEDs
Moonlights: Fishbowl Innovations moon tubes
Flow: Tunze wavebox pump only, Maxspect Gyre 150
Return pump: DC6000
GEO 818 calcium reactor, LiterMeter III dosing calcium & alk, GEO kalkwasser reactor
Vertex Alpha 200 skimmer
Vertex media reactor with GFO
GEO 612 calcium reactor converted to sulfur denitrator
cooling via evaporation with a fan
AquaUV 54W sterilizer
Inhabitants: Longspine urchin, Flame Hawk, blue hippo tang, purple tang, japanese swallowtail angel (female), tomini tang, sunset wrasse, harlequin tusk, sixline wrasse. Several of these fish (the tangs and the flame hawkfish) are as old as the tank.
A bunch of maxi-mini anemones
I can't keep a cleanup crew due to the tusk, but, I love that fish, so, snail/shrimp/crabless I will remain

Recent FTS, early December this year. I lost all my SPS colonies which had been growing for 7 years from frags and were huge, about 2 years ago due to use of Chemiclean (died overnight). Things are slowly growing back to colonies, though I haven't been able to locate replacement frags of all the SPS I had before (such as the 30K Lokani). Everything in this tank was grown from frags, with the exception of the large Lobophyllias in the front of the tank. Pardon the cyano on the front left. It's sprung up as soon as I started feeding reef frenzy. All I had fed before were spectrum new life pellets.

 

[ARVERLY]

Beautiful!

 

[kknight]

Your tank is beautiful !!!

 

[Joe G]

[emoji106][emoji106][emoji106]thumbs up on your tank .

 

[erictorres0311]

Man that's my dream tank

 

[d2mini]

Looks great!
I love seeing tanks that are more than just a few years old. There's not many!
Approaching a decade is quite an accomplishment in this hobby.
Congrats!

Let's see some more pics. hoto:

 

[Nomadic1]

Looks great!
I love seeing tanks that are more than just a few years old. There's not many!
Approaching a decade is quite an accomplishment in this hobby.
Congrats!

Let's see some more pics. hoto:

In the beginning:



early on (back when you could buy HUGE chalice colonies like the one on top for under $100 -- dinner plate size):



more corals





may 2007:



January 2008



Feb 08



Sept 2008



Not sure when:





Top down July 2009 before removing the orange cap:




not sure when, but, after I removed the massive orange cap colony to put it into my 400 gallon system in my garage that was running then



miss this coral:





and this one (raspberry prostrata):



never should have moved this bed of rics to an LED lit tank. Melted them all in a few months time.



Side shot, circa 2009



The day the cap was removed:



Looking empty after removing the orange cap:



I know there is a lot of changing of corals over the course of these pictures. Many of them were not lost -- just moved to a bigger system until I finally took it down.

 

[Nomadic1]

Shortly before my tank crash after a chemi clean dose

 

[Nomadic1]

Red planet:

 

[Nomadic1]

the crash

 

[Nomadic1]

palys

 

[Bao]

Hi There,

Beautiful tank. How big is the Tusk? Do you think it can live comfortable in that tank for the rest of its life? I have the exact same tank and really want a Tusk but kind of afraid that it will grow too big.
Also the big fleshy LPS corals in the middle of the first picture, the red outside with green in the middle. Is that a lobo? I have something similiar but don't know if it is the same.. It looks really nice when it is all grown up. Do you have a close up picture of that coral by any chance?

Thanks

 

[Nomadic1]

Hi There,

Beautiful tank. How big is the Tusk? Do you think it can live comfortable in that tank for the rest of its life? I have the exact same tank and really want a Tusk but kind of afraid that it will grow too big.
Also the big fleshy LPS corals in the middle of the first picture, the red outside with green in the middle. Is that a lobo? I have something similiar but don't know if it is the same.. It looks really nice when it is all grown up. Do you have a close up picture of that coral by any chance?

Thanks

The tusk is about 5" long. I've had him 2 years now and he's not grown much.

The coral in the middle is either a lobo or a symphyllia. I don't know which for sure.

 

[ReefFreak@]

sorry to hear about all of the tragedy you suffered! You have a beautiful tank there. One consideration you can think about is you have a lot of nice green corals but when i look at your tank thats all my eye goes to. Maybe try and add some pinks to offset that. How is your purple doing with your other tangs? Heard there very aggressive and in some instances kill there tank mates?

 

[Nomadic1]

The purple ignores the other fish. There was the pecking order thing when others were added, but, I used a mirror on the tank to distract him when the others were added. I left the mirror up for a week, and, he all but forgot about the other introductions. All those tangs have been together for 8 years now. The blue hippo was quarter sized when I bought him. I tried to add another zebrasoma genus tang ages ago but the purple would have none of it. The key is not adding another tang shaped like him.

I like green . I am old school, having been in the hobby almost 15 years now, and bright green stuff was pretty much the bomb back then -- the only really colorful stuff.

 

[ReefFreak@]

The purple ignores the other fish. There was the pecking order thing when others were added, but, I used a mirror on the tank to distract him when the others were added. I left the mirror up for a week, and, he all but forgot about the other introductions. All those tangs have been together for 8 years now. The blue hippo was quarter sized when I bought him. I tried to add another zebrasoma genus tang ages ago but the purple would have none of it. The key is not adding another tang shaped like him.

I like green . I am old school, having been in the hobby almost 15 years now, and bright green stuff was pretty much the bomb back then -- the only really colorful stuff.

Haha yea thats true green is defiantly awesome i have a huge metallic green torch thats my center piice right now. How long did your hippo take to grow up i actually just bought now yesterday as the reef shop was having a 20% off sale. My yellow tang was a little defensive for the first hour but now there best buds swimming with each other. The yellow likes the parent showing the hippo the dos and donts of the tank.

 

[Nomadic1]

5-6 years.

 

[ReefFreak@]

Wow this is going to be a fun journey. Did you feed him the as the big fish? Right now i have nori in at all times when lights are on and feed omnivore frozen food as well as frozen cyclops.

 

[Nomadic1]

I really have never fed Nori. My fish actually ignored it. All they have been fed for years now is NLS pellets.

 

[ReefFreak@]

Really thats very interesting. I think my tangs would starve without it. They absolutely love the stuff. I feed my clowns spectrum pellets and very recently has he been eating them. Do you frag and of your sps?