The evolution of my 60 Gal reef

[Reef Fever]

Ive been taking care of aquariums most of my life..a little over a year ago I got hired on with an awesome aquarium maintenance company and soon became the manager of the Vegas area. I never really had the cash to spend on all the saltwater stuff so I just kept freshwater tanks at home. I had a 60 gallon cube semi planted when i started with this company.

Working for them I get great deals on anything I want so I decided to start up a reef tank. Granted it wasnt my dream tank, but it was a start to atleast have a reef at home (and not just my cusomters tanks). The tank already had power compaqs on it when I got it so I knew I could use that with most of the coral I wanted. I got a Fluval G3 canister filter from a Rep at a store I used to work for (for free!) so I ran that setup for probably 3 months with a HOB filter. I thought I would keep some freshwater stuff so i consolidated it to my 29 gallon i had sitting in the garage.

29 gallon

That didnt last long so i decided to sell it all off and just focus on my 60 gal
60 gallon about a month or so after startup

About another month passed and i decided it was time to suck it up and get a real setup, refugium, skimmer, all that i was gonna just suck it up and pay for it...i started looking on craigslist and i found a 60 gallon acrylic tank, stand, hood, cooling fans, power strips, refugium, skimmer, pumps etc etc. I called the people up and they said they just wanted it gone so if i gave them 75 bucks it was mine, i told them i was on my way and i went to go pick it up. Well when i got there the tank was TRULY a diamond in the rough. the guy drained it and left it sitting in his garage for a little over a year. The thing was caked with super crusty coraline algae, old sand sitting in the bottom, dried hair algae it was pretty disgusting. not to mention it was extremely dusty and had quite a bit of salt creep in different areas. I said frak it...its 75 bucks its worth a little elbow grease.

I cleaned the poo-poo-caca outta it and thought i had it crystal clear, unfortunately once i filled it with saltwater transferred EVERYTHING over and the water cleared, a hazy "frost" started to apear on the bottom half of the tank. (didnt show up when i filled it with freshwater)

So i tore it all down and took it over to my buddies at ATM (from the TANKED show) and they polished it up for me and had it to me the following day

Since that ^^ pic it was 2-2.5 months to this one (august 26th) vvv

Sold my t5's and power compaqs and upgraded to two kessil A350W's (october 8th)

2 weeks ago (sorry for the instagram edits :P)

5 min. ago

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Wow cool! Great job and it looks like you definitely have a wet thumb! :)

 

[Reef Fever]

cant figure how to edit lol but i copied and pasted most of this from another forum but ive been with my company for about 2 years now

 

[Reef Fever]

Wow cool! Great job and it looks like you definitely have a wet thumb! :)

Thanks!! im gonna post a full livestock/coral stock list in a few

 

[Reef Fever]

Livestock List

Fish
(1) Dwarf Zebra Lion
(1) Dwarf Hawaiian Red Eye Lion
(1) Fortesque Waspfish
(1) Japanese Red Fin Waspfish
(2) Clarkii Clownfish
(1) Marine Betta
(1) Springeri Damsel
(1) 4 Stripe Damsel
(1) Talbot Damsel
(1) Yellow Breasted male Lyretail Anthias (females beat eachother up and didnt survive)
(1) Falco Hawkfish
(1?) Yellow Watchman Goby (guy goes MIA for weeks and pops back up again)

SPS Coral
Bali Green Slimer Acro
ORA Birdsnest
Purple Rim Monti
Flower Petal Monti
Red Monti Cap
Neon Green Hydnophora
Orange Digi
Strawberry Shorttcake Morph Acro
Blue/White Birdsnest (no name)
Green Monti Digitata
Pink Hystrix Birdsnest
Serpent Coral (AWESOME)
ORA Purple Stylo
Green Tip Birdsnest
Red Planet Acro
Random SUPER Green Acro

LPS Coral
Frogspawn
War coral
Neon Green Favia
Red/Green Welso Brain
Green Candy Canes
Misc. Acans
Turbinaria
Stunner Chalice

Soft Coral
Kenya Tree
2 types of Xenia
GSP
Various colored mushrooms
Orange/Blue Florida Ricordea
Blue Snowflakes
2 Types of Leather

Zoas/Palys
Kryptonite
Dragon Fire
Tubbs Blue
Nuke Green Palys
Eagle eye
Superman
Neon Green Palythoa Caribaeorum (very rare in the trade)
Other Misc. no names

Inverts/CUC
Astrea Snails
Turbo Snails
Nassarius Snails
Blue Leg Hermits
Halloween Hermits
Purple Reef Lobster
Emerald Crab
Feather Dusters
Micro Brittle Stars
Small Asterina Folium Stars
Pods and all the other little critters​

​

 

[revsgirl]

Wow!! Looks amazing!! Well done!

 

[Reef Fever]

thank you!!

 

[Reef Fever]

December FTS...got some new monti caps (i have a monti cap obsession)

 

[Reef Fever]

lost my favorite fish today...RIP Forty. Last night he was breathing heavy... didn't think much of it as sometimes he gets in turbo mode and zooms from crevice to crevice then stops for a breather. This afternoon found him on his side, no damage at all. I think he took a big piece of scallop last night and possibly asphyxiated. :pout:been blue all day about it. Params are all in check, all other fish and coral are in excellent health

 

[always reefin]

Bummer :( Sorry to hear

 

[Reef Fever]

its life i guess :/ I did order another from DD on Live Aquaria today though....so im memorandum Forty will live on


Also...was thinking of getting Forty mounted (taxidermy)....is that too weird?

 

[Zack]

its life i guess :/ I did order another from DD on Live Aquaria today though....so im memorandum Forty will live on


Also...was thinking of getting Forty mounted (taxidermy)....is that too weird?

Is that even possible on such a small fish? I dont know much about taxidermy...
You must have really loved that fish bro!

 

[Reef Fever]

Typically on a fish that small they either do a replica or a freeze dry mount. Depends on how much it would actually cost for me to go through with it.

 

[Reef Fever]

zoa garden starting to grow in

 

[tupes]

What's the size of your tank. It looks awesome. Do you have any closer up pics of your livestock?

 

[Reef Fever]

tank is 48L x 15W x 17H...so display is ~56 gallons, plus the fuge which holds about 11 gallons at full capacity. So about 67 Gal TWV


Ill try and post some up, anything in particular youd like to see?

 

[Reef Fever]

Alright thought i'd share these cause i think they are BA. I ordered a frag pack from a guy, he sent me the stuff and was tryin out some new heat packs. Sadly it cooked just about everything..except these zoas. They were at one point whammin watermelons, but the heat made them morph into these guys.. out of 15+ heads only 5 or so survived, but the result was oh so awesome...

 

[Reef Fever]

having trouble with my two milli's...both got STN. First one started so i chopped it up and the pieces i chopped have been doing okay since. Starting two days ago my second milli got it and it spread. All my params were good and I even did water changes yesterday and today. (usually do 5-10 a week, but did about 20 this week over two days) still was spreading, so i went and bought some lugols solution. did a dip exactly as directed and within the last hour majority of the tissue had melted off. I fragged this piece up in hopes can save some of it...real bummer for sure. all other SPS and every other coral look EXCELLENT

 

[sleeri]

Great looking tank!

 

[Reef Fever]

March FTS