blecki
Well-Known Member
Current FTS (12/28/2023):
I don't think I realized just how much that leather has grown in the last year. Crazy.
Current fish:
1x Sailfin
1x Scopas (Both tangs are terrified of cameras ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
2x Engineer Gobies
3x Chromis (2 huge, 1 merely enormous)
1x Coral Beauty
2x Darwin Ocellaris
1.5x Six Line Wrasse (Counting the one living in the sump as half because I do not actually know if it's alive and every time I catch it it goes back over the overflow)
1x Canary Wrasse
2x Tri-color Wrasses
1x Xmas Wrasse
1x Vrolik's Wrasse
2x Stop Light Cardinals
1x Yellow Tail Damsel
1x Purple Dottyback
1x Blue Streak Cleaner Wrasse
Corals:
Previously Green Singularia, 'pink' for the past five years or so
2x Generic birdsnest I forget the name of
1x pink lemonade monti
~2ft^2 of GSP
Zoa colonies:
- Red ones!
- Pink ones!
- Other colors!
- Little green invasive ones!
- Some may be palys who knows.
2x Favias that haven't grown in a year.
Trumpet colony
Green hairy mushrooms
Ancient cabbage coral. Don't see those too often anymore.
3-6 BTAs
Green rock flower nem. Really like these guys; might get some more to scatter on the sand.
Clean up crew:
3-4 large turbos
Pincushion urchin
10ish of those little triangular snails
200-300 chitons
At least one large hermit and one small hermit, they kill each other.
∞ Brittle Stars
Too many bristle worms
Old post - jump to the end for more new shots:
Hey all, so I figured I should start a build thread at some point for this system. I previously had a softy-dominated 75 gallon reef (When you get to pictures, imagine those colonies packed into a much smaller tank)
Starting with what it looks like right now
I had some reinforcement installed in the crawlspace beneath the tank before the tank arrived. First up was mounting a canopy. I like the built in cabinetry look, and wanted to hide the lights, but also didn't want to sit all that weight on the tank so I went with mounting the canopy to the wall. These strips are screwed into the studs and then the canopy is attached to them
Filling it was an exciting day.
For christmas I ordered a bunch of fish. They came in the week between christmas and new years, and, I ******* knew better. I really did. But the tank briefly looked amazing.
Can I state again that I knew better? Well I'm an idiot who never listens to himself. I had an empty 75 gallon tank, still running, right there for quarantine and didn't use it. Within two weeks I had lost 80% of my fish to velvet. Now, I don't know that it actually came from the fish. Frankly it had never even occurred to me to quarantine frags, or inverts. I suppose I had always been lucky previously. I ran the tank fallow, treated the fish, and lost most of them. I began the ordeal thinking this was ich and went for hypo, which I had succeeded at before - but this time, I couldn't control the ammonia levels in the hospital tank and do to a faulty refractometer (Or just an old one) let the salinity go to 1.008. Whether it was the velvet or the salinity, I lost both tangs, my clown, coral beauty, and all but 3 chromis. By time I figured out that it was probably velvet it was too late. I treated the rest with reef rally which I've since learned was probably pointless, and only copper would have mattered. The survivors were 3 chromis and 2 engineer gobies. Frankly the gobies never seemed to give a **** the entire time. I fear they may have attained immortality. Velvet? Ich? Uronema? Botched hyposalinity? Ha, no, the only thing these guy get stressed about is not having enough sand to play in.
Here's how the tank looked during treatment, sad and empty. Cheato grew like crazy the whole time though and I got the last batch of rock in and added that.
While they were in treatment I left the tank fallow for 60 days and quarantined three new fish - a yellow tail damsel and two clowns, and successfully added them. Bolstered by this success I picked up a sailfin tang, who was eating great until he started to show signs of stress and dropped dead within 24 hours. Up until this point I had been mostly guessing at velvet. I saw a few spots, but not a coating; I saw only one symptom briefly on the yellow tang (swimming into a powerhead) but no others. I know I originally had ich (very recognizable spots) which I assume the botched hypo treatment took care of.
I picked up a yellow mimic tang and a fanged blenny, and started quarantine, and lost both to velvet - this time definitely velvet; unmistakable as both fish progressed to the peeling stage before death.
Also I learned yesterday that these diseases can spread in the air?? Seriously? Through the dang air if tanks are too close together? Well, my quarantine tank is right next to the big tank so - at this point I am assuming the big tank is still infected.
Right now all fish seem happy, and are eating normally. I have a 55 watt aquaultraviolet UV sterilizer on the tank running continuously which might be keeping any disease present in the tank in check, but of course every little spec that shows up on a fish has me pulling my hair out in worry. I also fear I may have contaminated my 25 gallon tank upstairs at some point during this ordeal.
I am currently waiting for the kit to arrive from Aqua Biomics - no new fish until I have a clean result from them. If it comes back as infected with velvet or I see the disease in the big tank I will have to break it down again to get the gobies out and put everyone through copper. Also keeping a close eye on the little tank.
Current fish stock:
3 chromis
2 darwin clowns
2 engineer gobies
1 yellow tail damsel
Inverts:
Generic zoas - little green ones, green grandis, armor of gods, generic bigger green ones, some kind of pink ones. All of these large colonies are about 8 years old and grown from single polyp frags except the little green ones, which started as maybe 3 or 4 polyps.
Some kind of leather?
GSP
Generic snails
There's an emerald crab or 3 in there in theory, I see one maybe once a week
Pincusion urchin (oldest thing in the tank, at about 9 years)
BTA (used to be 1, now is 4)
Couple cheap SPS frags, nothing special.
I like big colonies of polyps and would be delighted if the GSP covered all available rock so probably won't try any 'difficult' SPS like acros.
Few other frags
And the view from my home 'office':
Next step is to get some shelves inside the cabinets and finish the doors on them.
I don't think I realized just how much that leather has grown in the last year. Crazy.
Current fish:
1x Sailfin
1x Scopas (Both tangs are terrified of cameras ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
2x Engineer Gobies
3x Chromis (2 huge, 1 merely enormous)
1x Coral Beauty
2x Darwin Ocellaris
1.5x Six Line Wrasse (Counting the one living in the sump as half because I do not actually know if it's alive and every time I catch it it goes back over the overflow)
1x Canary Wrasse
2x Tri-color Wrasses
1x Xmas Wrasse
1x Vrolik's Wrasse
2x Stop Light Cardinals
1x Yellow Tail Damsel
1x Purple Dottyback
1x Blue Streak Cleaner Wrasse
Corals:
Previously Green Singularia, 'pink' for the past five years or so
2x Generic birdsnest I forget the name of
1x pink lemonade monti
~2ft^2 of GSP
Zoa colonies:
- Red ones!
- Pink ones!
- Other colors!
- Little green invasive ones!
- Some may be palys who knows.
2x Favias that haven't grown in a year.
Trumpet colony
Green hairy mushrooms
Ancient cabbage coral. Don't see those too often anymore.
3-6 BTAs
Green rock flower nem. Really like these guys; might get some more to scatter on the sand.
Clean up crew:
3-4 large turbos
Pincushion urchin
10ish of those little triangular snails
200-300 chitons
At least one large hermit and one small hermit, they kill each other.
∞ Brittle Stars
Too many bristle worms
Old post - jump to the end for more new shots:
Hey all, so I figured I should start a build thread at some point for this system. I previously had a softy-dominated 75 gallon reef (When you get to pictures, imagine those colonies packed into a much smaller tank)
Starting with what it looks like right now
I had some reinforcement installed in the crawlspace beneath the tank before the tank arrived. First up was mounting a canopy. I like the built in cabinetry look, and wanted to hide the lights, but also didn't want to sit all that weight on the tank so I went with mounting the canopy to the wall. These strips are screwed into the studs and then the canopy is attached to them
Filling it was an exciting day.
For christmas I ordered a bunch of fish. They came in the week between christmas and new years, and, I ******* knew better. I really did. But the tank briefly looked amazing.
Can I state again that I knew better? Well I'm an idiot who never listens to himself. I had an empty 75 gallon tank, still running, right there for quarantine and didn't use it. Within two weeks I had lost 80% of my fish to velvet. Now, I don't know that it actually came from the fish. Frankly it had never even occurred to me to quarantine frags, or inverts. I suppose I had always been lucky previously. I ran the tank fallow, treated the fish, and lost most of them. I began the ordeal thinking this was ich and went for hypo, which I had succeeded at before - but this time, I couldn't control the ammonia levels in the hospital tank and do to a faulty refractometer (Or just an old one) let the salinity go to 1.008. Whether it was the velvet or the salinity, I lost both tangs, my clown, coral beauty, and all but 3 chromis. By time I figured out that it was probably velvet it was too late. I treated the rest with reef rally which I've since learned was probably pointless, and only copper would have mattered. The survivors were 3 chromis and 2 engineer gobies. Frankly the gobies never seemed to give a **** the entire time. I fear they may have attained immortality. Velvet? Ich? Uronema? Botched hyposalinity? Ha, no, the only thing these guy get stressed about is not having enough sand to play in.
Here's how the tank looked during treatment, sad and empty. Cheato grew like crazy the whole time though and I got the last batch of rock in and added that.
While they were in treatment I left the tank fallow for 60 days and quarantined three new fish - a yellow tail damsel and two clowns, and successfully added them. Bolstered by this success I picked up a sailfin tang, who was eating great until he started to show signs of stress and dropped dead within 24 hours. Up until this point I had been mostly guessing at velvet. I saw a few spots, but not a coating; I saw only one symptom briefly on the yellow tang (swimming into a powerhead) but no others. I know I originally had ich (very recognizable spots) which I assume the botched hypo treatment took care of.
I picked up a yellow mimic tang and a fanged blenny, and started quarantine, and lost both to velvet - this time definitely velvet; unmistakable as both fish progressed to the peeling stage before death.
Also I learned yesterday that these diseases can spread in the air?? Seriously? Through the dang air if tanks are too close together? Well, my quarantine tank is right next to the big tank so - at this point I am assuming the big tank is still infected.
Right now all fish seem happy, and are eating normally. I have a 55 watt aquaultraviolet UV sterilizer on the tank running continuously which might be keeping any disease present in the tank in check, but of course every little spec that shows up on a fish has me pulling my hair out in worry. I also fear I may have contaminated my 25 gallon tank upstairs at some point during this ordeal.
I am currently waiting for the kit to arrive from Aqua Biomics - no new fish until I have a clean result from them. If it comes back as infected with velvet or I see the disease in the big tank I will have to break it down again to get the gobies out and put everyone through copper. Also keeping a close eye on the little tank.
Current fish stock:
3 chromis
2 darwin clowns
2 engineer gobies
1 yellow tail damsel
Inverts:
Generic zoas - little green ones, green grandis, armor of gods, generic bigger green ones, some kind of pink ones. All of these large colonies are about 8 years old and grown from single polyp frags except the little green ones, which started as maybe 3 or 4 polyps.
Some kind of leather?
GSP
Generic snails
There's an emerald crab or 3 in there in theory, I see one maybe once a week
Pincusion urchin (oldest thing in the tank, at about 9 years)
BTA (used to be 1, now is 4)
Couple cheap SPS frags, nothing special.
I like big colonies of polyps and would be delighted if the GSP covered all available rock so probably won't try any 'difficult' SPS like acros.
Few other frags
And the view from my home 'office':
Next step is to get some shelves inside the cabinets and finish the doors on them.
Last edited:
