112 gallon mixed reef is looking like a reef again

[andrewkw]

So my big leather fell again - it's just so heavy I couldn't even get it out of the water easily or I would have attempted to guess it's weight. After pushing it right against the back glass it looks a little smaller but actually gave everything a little more space.

I decided to redo both corners of the tank. The left side had far too many corals that were no long visible and not in good long term positions ie blastos right up against the base of a toadstool and my branching cyphastrea being overgrown by mushrooms. I carefully fixed all that up and gave everything tiny bits of space to grow.

Somehow I managed to add about a dozen frags. I'm not overly fond of frag plugs going in the tank a few of them are somewhat visible but they blend well. I got some new stuff last month that had been in my frag tank and I had some frags I never got around to adding earlier.

I also took some live rock from my frag tank's sump to create a new mini island on the far right. This area really doesn't get a lot of light so I may have to add an additional light or space out my existing lights better. With that in mind the new corals there are lower light encrusters. I feel like I'm squeezing everything possible out of this tank size and aquascape but if you have ideas or suggestions on how to improve please feel free to share.

In the pictures it does not come across as that different but to me at home all the time staring at the tank it definitely looks a lot better. I will shoot a monthly update video of the tank soon.

My nearly 5 year old Jeabo powerhead stopped working, although not completely it no longer operates on the wave function which I prefer. I swapped it for a coralbox qp16 which provides slightly more flow. Not a drastic improvement but works fine. I thought about buying a gyre finally but don't really see it as an option that would be 3x better.

Finally debating adding my 2 barred rabbitfish to the tank. He was bought for my frag tank to eat a specific macro which he never completely eliminated but got rid of most of it. I mostly want to add him because I want more fish but they are hard to get / very expensive these days.

 

[Blutspitze]

Beautiful pics and video as always. Sorry that you've had to re-do some of the arrangement, but it's looking great!

 

[User1]

Looks great! Keep up the good work!

 

[andrewkw]

June video plus a few top down pics.

Constructive criticism welcome!

 

[Tahoe61]

What a fantastic tank, I really enjoyed the video. Great movement.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Looking great!

 

[Blutspitze]

Such gorgeous pics as always! Thanks for sharing!

 

[jeffrey750750]

Very nice looking!

 

[andrewkw]

Thanks, one of these days I really need to get a few more fish. I would love to add a few more corals but each time I add more it gets harder and harder to find space. I wish I had more room but don't want a new tank at this time..

 

[andrewkw]

Wow looking at the pictures from last month I can really see my stylocoeniella has grown.

The elegance really needs more space too. It's stinging a lot of duncans plus touching other corals.

New short polyp goni

New lepto on the ugly tile but look at the blue one above, this will encrust in time as well.

I gotta make some room as I have to find space for my new friend :

Currently in the frag tank but I will move it over soon.

 

[dwair]

Love it man, great movement, great tank. Jam packed. LOVE the elegance, want one so bad.

 

[andrewkw]

Video for July :



It's also been 4 years since the worst mistake of my life moving to the country. I moved in with my parents who are not too far from me here for 6 weeks before moving into this house. During that time my reefs were setup like this :

Obviously I have obtained quite a bit of my livestock since then, and this is the reason I am lightly stocked in the fish department but a fair bit of stuff and the foundation of my reefs - the liverock is all from them. In addition to that picture I kept much of my live rock in the garage for 6 weeks + the big bucket had a haddoni anemone that got stuck in the powerhead just before I was going to move it back into a tank.

I'm over all this stuff as it was a while ago, but it is a reminder that even if I do eventually move away from here it's not going to be fun tearing everything down and transporting it many hours away.

 

[andrewkw]

Love it man, great movement, great tank. Jam packed. LOVE the elegance, want one so bad.

I moved the elegance to accommodate my new acanthophillya. It was really unhappy to the point I started to worry about it dying. Now it puffs up more then ever. It's great I got a new big coral in, but I'm starting to accept there might not be many more new additions. I lost a couple of frags as they were overgrown, or fell off rocks where they can't be reached. Nothing major but still annoying. I would love to upgrade, but I really want to move next year. Hopeful it will happen and dread tearing everything down at the same time. Given that I've done it once before I can certainly handle it.

Of course I say that and then I add a breeding setup since my lightning maroons in another tank are laying eggs. My frag tank has also overfilled to the point where I have a 10g overflow tank. I do want more fish and I would buy some moderately priced ones if the opportunity arose but I feel like the fish are harder to move than corals. At the same time me saying I want to move next year doesn't mean it's going to happen and obviously still want to enjoy my tanks since anything can happen as 2020 has shown us.

 

[andrewkw]

Some pics :

 

[Marie7]

Tank is continuing to do well. Ever since photobucket went away I haven't been taking as many photos. Instead I've been taking more videos.



Almost every coral is growing. I've even managed to add some new things.

I added things while I was visiting Toronto. I brought some frags back wrapped in wet paper towels and they all survived the trip without incident. See

A couple of pics :

Looks awesome!

 

[andrewkw]

Did some annual stuff today. Cleaned out the entire skimmer body, lots of fun. Impeller seems to be wearing down but should have a few more months before it needs to be replaced (psk 600). My 2006 ehiem 1262 impeller still looks fantastic considering its been in operation for more then 14 years 24/7 less a day where I moved. Took a ton of detritus out of my sump and especially my marine pure block.

Also took this photo post feeding while all the pumps were off.

 

[andrewkw]

Just shot a top down video of my reef



The video really shows how packed things are. I know I should be fragging but I love the full tank and my frag tank is also a full mess these days. Once I get that cleaned up I probably will do some frags as realistically I don't plan on changing tanks for at least another year. Assuming things somewhat resembling normal next year I will look to move which is why I am hesitant to start thinking about upgrading when I desperately need to, and why I don't add more fish. This is not to say I won't add any fish but I won't get anything too extreme while my long term status is uncertain. Of course every week I am adding dozens of baby maroon clownfish to my house raising them and I have not been able to visit a fish store for the entire year so those are also factors.

Constructive criticism is always welcome on my tank. I want this to be the best looking overall display I can make it, given the corals I have and the size that it is. I will post some updated photos in the next couple of days. Even looking at the last ones I posted in August a few things have noticeably grown.

 

[andrewkw]

Updated pics from September :

While the tank does look full from the front, looking at it from the top down really shows this.

I wanted a top down of this short polyp Goni, but easier said then done.

It's one of the few specs in my tank filled with larger colonies, but it's encrusting well. Hopefully enough light shines through the pink goni and I can cut off some of those rhodactus mushrooms under it so they don't end up covering it. Generally speaking I look at my tank and what I'm going to do on a month to month basis. While I photograph it all the time I try and do a set roughly a month apart as well as a video. This is enough time to see changes, but not so long that I realize something bad is happening. Something bad did happen, but its not critical. My skimmer pump died. I finally ran out of random psk 600 parts and ordered a new pump not just a new impeller. I've probably changed the impeller 3-4 times on the pump but now I'm finally starting from scratch. Eventually I'll order a spare impeller but I figure I should get at least 2-3 years out of the new pump. Surprisingly or unsurprisingly there have been no negative effects of 5 days without protein skimming. I skipped my weekly heavy target feeding but have otherwise continued to feed the tank as normal. New pump should arrive today. I also thought about discontinuing carbon dosing but 5 days doesn't seem long enough to cause a bacterial bloom.

I love this tank, but it's just so full, however I don't want to part with much and I still want to add more corals. How is that going to work? Short answer is it won't. I'll continue to stare at it and eventually just go in and cut some stuff back. I hope to move in 2021 which is why I am not actively considering an upgrade but who knows if that will happen. The first thing I will need to do is clean up my frag tank so I can at least accommodate new frags.

Constructive criticism on my reef is always welcome. I'm always looking at ways to improve my display tank as a whole. I'm not really chasing a certain coral, or a certain colour or a particular fish. The most important thing about this tank for me is the reef as a whole continues to captivate me.

 

[andrewkw]

I need encouragement to cut everything back! The tank is just too jammed pack. Of course my frag tank is equally packed.

I'm not sure if its shifted a bit, or just due to slight realignment of my powerheads after giving them a good clean but my giant green leather colony has shifted down a bit, completely shading out some corals. I can't even physically see them unless the leather is shrunk. It's touching a countless amount of corals, most of which don't mind but some are getting damaged, like the gorgonian. A big reason why I rarely frag this coral is it's so huge. I love having a huge piece, but I also dream of the day where I get the forever tank and I put a huge colony that is already a couple feet big in the tank day one. However since that dream tank is so far away I should just bite the bullet and make half a dozen or so frags...

A lot of my encrusting LPS are running out of space too. I think there are only 2 maybe 3 months until that big mr. freeze lepto starts encrusting up the front of the glass. My elegance coral has significantly expanded lately and it too is touching several corals, and while it's not a problem now and probably won't be for a bit my prized acanthophyllia expands to basically the entire size of the area it's in (it's deflated in this months fts).

The thing is I'm not one to throw out corals ever really. There really isn't anyone to give them away to here as the local market is very small. Typically I'm happy to trade simple corals for a couple of dollars credit as long as a place takes them all but the pandemic has basically stopped my LFS visits since my LFS are really really far. I guess I have to try harder to get rid of some of these corals.. Like most reefers I still want to add stuff to my tank, but right now it just isn't possible.

The last picture is where I actually cut off some mushrooms so the leptastrea has some space.. I will post a video of the tank either later today or tomorrow.

 

[andrewkw]

Video update. I am also starting to clean up my frag tank a bit and will try and unload some frags so I can frag again... Really tired of living in the middle of nowhere.