40gal reef and fish tank

[kamakazian]

Starting a new thread about my tank. Started it in August 2016. Here's a list of my fish... I'll fill in with the corals in another post!

2 percula clowns
2 Mandarin dragonettes
Diamondback goby
Orange shoulder tang (juvenile)
Six line wrasse
Bicolor chromis
Rainbow Bubble tip anemone

CUC - cleaner shrimp, 2 cherry shrimp, zebra hermit crabs, red and blue legged hermit crabs

 

[dbl]

Looking good. First tank?

 

[kamakazian]

Nope. I expanded from my 20gal and used it as a sump!

 

[dbl]

Nice...really looks good.

 

[kamakazian]

So here's a run down of my corals!

From left to right (currently):
Clove coral
Euphyllia (Frogspawn/hammer)
Candy cane
Birds nest
Leptoseris (green)
Flower pots
Mushrooms
Montipora (red leaf)
Mixed zoanthids
Duncan
Toadstool

 

[kamakazian]

I got some new corals during the black Friday sale at my LFS!

Frogspawn, acan, and some zoas

 

[Chrisfish]

Congratulations, tank looks really nice.

 

[kamakazian]

Also bought this flower rock anemone during black Friday weekend... He caught a ride on my zebra hermit crab!

View attachment 20161201_222731.jpg

 

[Chrisfish]

Looks awesome

 

[kamakazian]

Looks awesome

Thanks man! The nem ended up finding a happy place in the sand bed :)

 

[kamakazian]

Hoping to score some free coral from #reef2reef, #worldwidecorals, #mywwccontest

 

[kamakazian]

Soo sadly I'm losing corals...

Monty plate and birds nest are kaput. Leptoseris and candy cane are near extinction :( struggling to get rid of this dang green hair algae!

I've been using API's algaefix for two weeks with minimal results

 

[kamakazian]

Given up on the algae fix and finally got my fluconazole in the mail!

I'm gonna post pictures of changes as I notice them, so hopefully every 2-3 days :) ...unless it's gha and not bryopsis, in which case it might take longer. Here's a few pictures immediately after doing 10% WC

 

[kamakazian]

These pics were taken one week later... Results are good!! Although my RBTA is now on it's deathbed :( trying to help it recover in quarantine using antibiotics. I'll post with results on that too...

 

[kamakazian]

So octo aquatics is selling this acclamation/nem box... Might be a good thing to have in case I need to get a new bta :/

http://octoaquatics.com/the-shu

 

[kamakazian]

So I'm gonna retire the 40gal soon.... To make room for my new 135gal!!

My orange shoulder tang can hardly wait!

 

[kamakazian]

So I had some disappointing news... My leasing office with my apartment complex said I couldn't keep my 135 being on the third floor :/ so instead of moving right away, I've decided to disassemble the 55gal sump and turn it into a functional tank... So I'll have TWO tanks instead of one :) I'll keep you guys posted when I get it up and running. I'm hoping to use the same sump for both tanks.

 

[kamakazian]

So after playing around with the idea of having an aquarium bridge, I decided against it because it would require a lot more work for something that the fish potentially would never use... So instead I looped my sump/protein skimmer to the 55, rigged a couple canister filters to transfer from 55 to the 40. I'm hoping to find a more permanent and "safe" solution to replace the canisters. Will post pics soon!

 

[kamakazian]

Sadly, the system was too finnicky and I ended up flooding the fish room :X No more 55gal; back to the 40gal with 20sump
Even more sadly, I couldn't keep up with my orange shoulder tang's growth. She definitely needs to be in a 135gal or larger tank. I gave her to my LFS this past weekend. I just hope they sell her to a restaurant that the LFS services, so I can go see her whenever I want and know she's in good hands!

 

[kamakazian]

So things definitely feel like they've calmed down quite a bit. Everything is stable and I'm starting to focus my attention on my corals. Feeding more regularly and I changed my Hydra 26HD light schedule to include a significant amount of more "cool white" light and toning down the blues a bit.

Also, found out my orange shoulder tang found a new home in a residential house's 250gal tank that gets serviced weekly! Couldn't think of a better place for her to be (other than with me, of course!)