33 Long 2009

Questin · Mar 22, 2009

The old thread was started a year ago and much has changed. I have made the tank for soft coral because I love them the most. Fish have come and gone for all sorts of reason and I have had the same thing with coral, but things have finally relaxed in the tank and with a year of time past I figured it was update time for you members and for myself. The last thread was all from a camera phone, so I have upgraded to a Canon PowerShot SX10IS to see if I can get the hang of pictures of a very blue tank.

The tank is a 33 long with two 150W HQI 14,000k bulbs and two 96W compact fluorescent. If you interested in the the filter system just let me know, but nothing wonderful there. I was given 3 very old square tanks that I turned into a 3 level waterfall filter system. Anyways on with the pictures.

Here is the tank overall

This is a pic of the one odd ball of the tank, a Duncan. I am having trouble getting the green to come out correctly in this picture, but this is what I am trying to learn out to do better.

Here are a pair of Yumas that I have near the top, as you can see. The one on the right is a very hot pink, and after a year it has moved over to make room for its baby it has left on the rock. The baby is a neon yellow but I can not get the colors correct on this picture either. Being right under the 14,000 bulb I am sure has something to do with that.

A field of Zoas, and these guys just don't stop growing. I could easily fill an entire tank with just this one zoanthid because it grows so well and fast. I may do that someday too because I think a tank like this with nothing but one zoanthid would look awesome, make it cover all the rocks and have pure white sand all around.

My hunter of the tank made an apperence. He has been going for 8 months I would have to say, happy little dude

These Rics are my favorite rics just because I never see yellow. LFS had them under not so wonderful lighting, so I was able to get them. The yellow is a bit off in the pic, but pretty close still.

A couple of nice topdown shots of a sweet color clam I have had for a year+ now. I wish that color would come out from the front of the glass, but clams never allow us to see them that way hehe, but that color is dead on for how it looks to the naked eye.

A Squamosa that just does its thing every day, he never likes how he sits for very long, but after a year of this clam tilting every way it can, I guess that is just what it does.

My little cleaner use to have a buddy, but things happen, so he is the lone cleaner now.

Enjoy

mnherper · Mar 22, 2009

wow great tank.can you show some pic of your filter system it sound cool.

newly salted · Mar 22, 2009

NICE TANK. I'm interested in the filter system also.

pakora · Mar 22, 2009

ditto, i wanna see some waterfalls

Questin · Mar 26, 2009

By waterfall filter I might have mislead you. I have three 22 gallon tanks setup like stairs and I allow gravity to get the water from one tank to the other mostly.

Here is my waterfall:

Level one of this waterfall filter is full of liverock that gets little light. I did this to try and promote sponge growth. Sponges are a pretty good filter and I always found them on the underside of rocks in my tanks that got very little light, so that is what I tried to do on purpose here:

Next is my refugium full of macro algae. A very large ball of chato, and a few Halimeda:

Level 3, the final level of the waterfall is the equipment tank. Here is where I keep the heater and skimmer. The skimmer is a HOB right now, but it seems to do the job just fine. This tank is also the one I empty out when I do water changes. When its empty I just toss in a new batch of saltwater I mix in another tank and I turn on the heater and skimmer to get it warm and flowing around a bit. When its ready, I turn on the main pump and get the new water flowing thru the rest of the tank:

They are all connected with a very simple overflow system and tubing:

One thing I wanted in the refugium was flow to be spread out more evenly so I made this spray bar. It has small holes in the top to let out air, and large holes in the side for the flow thru the tank. I added one of these to the equipment tank as well just to have as a backup for the refugium if I ever needed:

So as you can see, its a pretty simple setup. Its a bit on the ugly side, but this is my basement tank, so looks are not what matters here, its about fuctionality as I one day get a large tank to do this with.

The tank itself is full, the coral are running out of room, so once in a while I have a ric floating free so I have to give it something to grab onto. This pic has a ric that I just put in "safe room" so it can relax and grab hold of something that can be glued down. To the side is a pink ric I just took out of the safe room since it grabbed onto a rock I had placed in there with it.

This is another ric from the saferoom, you cant see the plug its on but Mr Yellow there has a nice plug ready to be glued down under it.

If you look around, you might find a Nassarius snail in this pic =)

Questin · Mar 29, 2009

I did some mushroom trimming today, just too many, and I moved a single rock around to try to make a little room for more zoa to grow out. I ended up making a little cave:

My Anthius loves anything new, and even an old rocked moved to a new place make this one take notice:

Hmm, seems the Anthius liked the cave so much that he wanted to guard anyone from go inside and blocked the way with his arms:

And when I would not go away he gave me the evil eye!

Guess I will let him claim the cave, what do you think?