4’x2’x2’ build… The Dragons’ Forest

[steveschuerger]

Here’s a shot of the torches. From left to right
SBB HG ,SBB Hellfire, SBB Tiger under the Hellfire, SBB Green Himalayan, SBB Dr. Strange, Yellow tipped Black Rasta, SBB Black Panther, SBB Gold Indo, SBB Green Indo, SBB Nickelodeon , SBB Indo, AquaSD Silver Hulk below them

 

[i cant think]

Here’s a shot of the torches. From left to right
SBB HG ,SBB Hellfire, SBB Tiger under the Hellfire, SBB Green Himalayan, SBB Dr. Strange, Yellow tipped Black Rasta, SBB Black Panther, SBB Gold Indo, SBB Green Indo, SBB Nickelodeon , SBB Indo, AquaSD Silver Hulk below them

Love the garden, it’s gorgeous. I wish I could keep Torches better than I can, they just seem to hate the two tanks.

 

[steveschuerger]

Love the garden, it’s gorgeous. I wish I could keep Torches better than I can, they just seem to hate the two tanks.

Thanks, I love them, but this tank is the first I’ve had as a reef that they really seem happy in. Not sure of par but the flow in the tank is supplied by 2 Nero 3 on the right side of the tank(both at 45%) on a 3/1 second pulse , a mightyjet 226 set on pulse at 2.6(max 2.9) on the same side, Jebao scp 70 on pulse at the second to lowest setting, and a Jebao mlw 20 set to 30 on the back to give some cross flow and swirl. For the lights on the left I have a ReeFi Uno Pro 2.0 set to 86 watts during the hours of 10a to 6:30p and on the right I have a ReefBreeders Photon v2 with a ReefBreeders Lumen Bar UV/Blue attached to it. The Photon has the settings G10/R10/LB70/W3/B70/V70 at peak between 10a-6p. The Lumen Bar is at 100% from 9:30a-6:30p

 

[i cant think]

Thanks, I love them, but this tank is the first I’ve had as a reef that they really seem happy in. Not sure of par but the flow in the tank is supplied by 2 Nero 3 on the right side of the tank(both at 45%) on a 3/1 second pulse , a mightyjet 226 set on pulse at 2.6(max 2.9) on the same side, Jebao scp 70 on pulse at the second to lowest setting, and a Jebao mlw 20 set to 30 on the back to give some cross flow and swirl. For the lights on the left I have a ReeFi Uno Pro 2.0 set to 86 watts during the hours of 10a to 6:30p and on the right I have a ReefBreeders Photon v2 with a ReefBreeders Lumen Bar UV/Blue attached to it. The Photon has the settings G10/R10/LB70/W3/B70/V70 at peak between 10a-6p. The Lumen Bar is at 100% from 9:30a-6:30p

I used to have a gorgeous candy floss torch that thrived in my 3’ tank. That used to be very similar to this tank as it had mushrooms, torches, frogspawn and maybe a hammer.
Wish I could find a full photo of the tank instead I have a couple partial tank shots of it.

 

[i cant think]

Here’s the 3 hammers today, as you’ll notice the hologram was moved. This was due to him getting too much flow so he was moved down to the rock next to my Orange hammer. He also looks less like a tiny frag of my regular green hammer now so I’m very glad with that. Hopefully as he grows he shows better and more colours.

 

[i cant think]

My green hammer went from this…

To this

Unfortunately it was in 3 weeks this happened. From high phosphates being dragged down too quickly and then resulting in an issue of almost no phosphates. This just shows why it’s recommended to not chase numbers if everything is thriving already.

 

[i cant think]

Well, unfortunately last night I lost my Diamond Tail - Atty. I am likely to get another one but it won’t be until I upgrade (And there is some exciting updates on this further down!), this is because I feel like I ran out of territory which caused him to hide and he hides in territory that the fairly boisterous fish can get to (mostly the tang).
RIP Atty…

Now, as I don’t want to keep you waiting on the news to do with my upgrade, the tank is decided and there is a (loose) date set to when it’ll happen!
So, first off you may be wondering what ive decided on going for, originally I had 3 main options;
Cade, Red Sea, Waterbox.

Now, Waterbox can only be sourced directly from them - and it’s quite hard to get them in the UK now. So they were quite quickly removed off the options.

Cade was the one I would’ve had. Just one issue… a 75cm wide tank and a 73cm doorframe. I have thought of every way to try get the cabinet in but nothing would’ve worked so unfortunately I had to remove that from the list.

Red Sea I am cautious of however, I feel like I can somewhat trust them now with the aluminium frames. The other downside I didn’t enjoy much about them is the pipework in the tank I would go for is through the dry side.

So, a 4th contender later appeared. D-D, after finding out these guys did a tank taller than ~18 inches - The tank I currently have is a D-D Reef Pro 1200 and this is my main issue I’ve found with them. However, as I already have a D-D I figured I’d go for something else.

And so… I settled for a;
Red Sea S-700 Peninsula!
This is 5’x2’x2’ yet has around 700l (185G) total volume. The downside is it has the pipework going through the dry side but there’s ways to work around that.

Now, I have a time frame of when the upgrade will pursue, this is around Easter - likely the week after. This upgrade may occur earlier but the latest will hopefully be the week after Easter.

And, the other great update… I will be getting a couple more corals soon! Yes, I think this will be a Euphyllia/Fymbriaphyllia dominant tank with Hammers taking the show (obviously). I may wait until the upgrade to add any new corals and just keep them at my LFS but, this is to be decided.

 

[Slocke]

Well, unfortunately last night I lost my Diamond Tail - Atty. I am likely to get another one but it won’t be until I upgrade (And there is some exciting updates on this further down!), this is because I feel like I ran out of territory which caused him to hide and he hides in territory that the fairly boisterous fish can get to (mostly the tang).
RIP Atty…

Now, as I don’t want to keep you waiting on the news to do with my upgrade, the tank is decided and there is a (loose) date set to when it’ll happen!
So, first off you may be wondering what ive decided on going for, originally I had 3 main options;
Cade, Red Sea, Waterbox.

Now, Waterbox can only be sourced directly from them - and it’s quite hard to get them in the UK now. So they were quite quickly removed off the options.

Cade was the one I would’ve had. Just one issue… a 75cm wide tank and a 73cm doorframe. I have thought of every way to try get the cabinet in but nothing would’ve worked so unfortunately I had to remove that from the list.

Red Sea I am cautious of however, I feel like I can somewhat trust them now with the aluminium frames. The other downside I didn’t enjoy much about them is the pipework in the tank I would go for is through the dry side.

So, a 4th contender later appeared. D-D, after finding out these guys did a tank taller than ~18 inches - The tank I currently have is a D-D Reef Pro 1200 and this is my main issue I’ve found with them. However, as I already have a D-D I figured I’d go for something else.

And so… I settled for a;
Red Sea S-700 Peninsula!
This is 5’x2’x2’ yet has around 700l (185G) total volume. The downside is it has the pipework going through the dry side but there’s ways to work around that.

Now, I have a time frame of when the upgrade will pursue, this is around Easter - likely the week after. This upgrade may occur earlier but the latest will hopefully be the week after Easter.

And, the other great update… I will be getting a couple more corals soon! Yes, I think this will be a Euphyllia/Fymbriaphyllia dominant tank with Hammers taking the show (obviously). I may wait until the upgrade to add any new corals and just keep them at my LFS but, this is to be decided.

I couldn’t decide on the proper reaction here. All would have worked

 

[steveschuerger]

Well, unfortunately last night I lost my Diamond Tail - Atty. I am likely to get another one but it won’t be until I upgrade (And there is some exciting updates on this further down!), this is because I feel like I ran out of territory which caused him to hide and he hides in territory that the fairly boisterous fish can get to (mostly the tang).
RIP Atty…

Now, as I don’t want to keep you waiting on the news to do with my upgrade, the tank is decided and there is a (loose) date set to when it’ll happen!
So, first off you may be wondering what ive decided on going for, originally I had 3 main options;
Cade, Red Sea, Waterbox.

Now, Waterbox can only be sourced directly from them - and it’s quite hard to get them in the UK now. So they were quite quickly removed off the options.

Cade was the one I would’ve had. Just one issue… a 75cm wide tank and a 73cm doorframe. I have thought of every way to try get the cabinet in but nothing would’ve worked so unfortunately I had to remove that from the list.

Red Sea I am cautious of however, I feel like I can somewhat trust them now with the aluminium frames. The other downside I didn’t enjoy much about them is the pipework in the tank I would go for is through the dry side.

So, a 4th contender later appeared. D-D, after finding out these guys did a tank taller than ~18 inches - The tank I currently have is a D-D Reef Pro 1200 and this is my main issue I’ve found with them. However, as I already have a D-D I figured I’d go for something else.

And so… I settled for a;
Red Sea S-700 Peninsula!
This is 5’x2’x2’ yet has around 700l (185G) total volume. The downside is it has the pipework going through the dry side but there’s ways to work around that.

Now, I have a time frame of when the upgrade will pursue, this is around Easter - likely the week after. This upgrade may occur earlier but the latest will hopefully be the week after Easter.

And, the other great update… I will be getting a couple more corals soon! Yes, I think this will be a Euphyllia/Fymbriaphyllia dominant tank with Hammers taking the show (obviously). I may wait until the upgrade to add any new corals and just keep them at my LFS but, this is to be decided.

Good luck with the upgrade. I am fortunate that I live in the US so all options remain on the table if I were to do so again. Other news for myself. I went to a Frag Farmer Market with friend and picked up some pieces at crazy prices. Like $10 a head hammers. The Candy Cane/Trumpet was a freebie.

 

[i cant think]

Well, this morning was a chaotic 2 hours of both joy and distraught.
I woke up at 6 and looked at the 4’ tank to see my Black Fox was laying in my anemone. The Yuma rock had fallen in the night as I failed to stabilise the base rocks it was sat on when I removed my DT’s body.
This caused my Black to end up with what looked like a spinal injury. He wasn’t swimming at all and had also appeared to be stunned by my nem. Fortunately, I had my RS max nano still and could quickly set that up - so I did. Now, he seemed to be getting better and had more movement in his fins, he even went into camo colours but unfortunately he began to do his death ‘display’. And shortly after, he unfortunately passed so I am back to 1 foxface - I have no doubts once I upgrade I’ll get another but I don’t know if it’ll be the Togan Black again.

 

[i cant think]

Here’s a shot of the torches. From left to right
SBB HG ,SBB Hellfire, SBB Tiger under the Hellfire, SBB Green Himalayan, SBB Dr. Strange, Yellow tipped Black Rasta, SBB Black Panther, SBB Gold Indo, SBB Green Indo, SBB Nickelodeon , SBB Indo, AquaSD Silver Hulk below them

Well, you’ll love this! I’m going to be trying out some gorgeous torches in my tank - coming from the same place as the hammers will be!

More to come about the hammers and torches this week hopefully - maybe other LPS will be trialled.

 

[i cant think]

I’m in love with this boy, he’s got some gorgeous colours developing very quickly!

I wish these photos actually caught the reds in him and the almost crimson colour in his tail.

 

[steveschuerger]

Well, this morning was a chaotic 2 hours of both joy and distraught.
I woke up at 6 and looked at the 4’ tank to see my Black Fox was laying in my anemone. The Yuma rock had fallen in the night as I failed to stabilise the base rocks it was sat on when I removed my DT’s body.
This caused my Black to end up with what looked like a spinal injury. He wasn’t swimming at all and had also appeared to be stunned by my nem. Fortunately, I had my RS max nano still and could quickly set that up - so I did. Now, he seemed to be getting better and had more movement in his fins, he even went into camo colours but unfortunately he began to do his death ‘display’. And shortly after, he unfortunately passed so I am back to 1 foxface - I have no doubts once I upgrade I’ll get another but I don’t know if it’ll be the Togan Black again.

Sorry about Foxy. Mine has quickly become a favorite fish. And I’ve had more rock tumbles than I’d like to think about. Mostly caused by the now “in detention” urchins (put them in the fuge chamber of my AIO).

 

[steveschuerger]

Welp I have my own bit of fish news. I didn’t notice because I was so focused on the corals this morning, but my Half Black/China wrasse is missing in action. My wife says cause if messed around the tank so much maybe hiding, but I don’t think so. It had a reddened abrasion a few weeks ago that looked like it healing fine. Maybe some thing internal? Was eating fine. Just don’t know. Might be cursed with these guys, second one I’ve had and apparently died.

 

[tbrown]

Wrasses can and will hide for weeks if they're stressed. My Garnoti hid for almost a full 3 weeks when I first got her.

 

[steveschuerger]

Wrasses can and will hide for weeks if they're stressed. My Garnoti hid for almost a full 3 weeks when I first got her.

I’ll hold out hope. For now.

 

[Slocke]

I have a couple wrasse that will hide for days from even the smallest amount of tank maintenance.

 

[tbrown]

When I use the magnet scraper on the front glass, my Leucoxanthus will hide for a day or two sometimes. He always hides for at least an hour or two.

It's weird though, he's not afraid of anything else. Hands can be in the tank and he's swimming through my fingers, but as soon as the magnet scraper is on the glass he's in the sand.

 

[i cant think]

My Jade is the biggest wuss of my wrasses, he will hide for the rest of the day after tank maintainance. Yet when I add other wrasses he’s all over the place wanting them to know whose boss and who is the best.

 

[Tcook]

I’ve had a Vivien hide for almost 4 weeks. The record is my jordani that had been hiding for 1.5 years.