7 year anniversary

[Ef4life]

May 28th 2013 is the day my tank was filled with water. I’m pretty new to r2r, but been in the hobby a long time. This was my first tank setup after I moved cross country to Phoenix.

The Day I picked up the tank, pretty dirty but it was cheap, I think I paid $150 for it, the light, and the stand that didn’t fit. The tank was a 24g aquapod aio, 70w metal halide, and a stand that didn’t fit. I ended up just making a new top for it and used it.

Cleaned up to like new and added my dual locline return. Modified the tank with 2 mj pumps in the back, one on the locline one on a hydor flo nozzle.

Here she was may 28th filled with water. Started with brs dry rock and black sand.

 

[tsouth]

On to 7 more! Hip Hip!

 

[Ef4life]

So after the tank was running for a bit to cycle, I added my first 2 fish. Some little ocellaris clowns

The tank went through many changes over the years, this wasn’t My first tank, but it was my first tank I kept any coral in.

This is about 1 year old now, lots changed from the white dry rock, some losses like the purple gorgonian and most of the ricordea were eaten by a big crab that was supposed to be reef safe. I skewered that ***** for eating my favorite corals.

 

[Ef4life]

January 2014 I started up my second tank, but we will showcase that tank later. Any of the Stoney corals I had eventually made there way into the other tank out of the aquapod. This reef was destined for just being a simple softy tank.

I just knew at this point it needed to be mushroom dominant, I had to add in some bob Marley for effect

 

[KrisReef]

Very nice development.

 

[Ef4life]

On to 7 more! Hip Hip!

Very nice development.

Thank you

 

[Ef4life]

The saga continues.

Thus is about 2.5 years old, tanks starting to mature a bit, things are growing, fish are happy. The clowns killed a lawnmower blenny and a cleaner shrimp that I tried to add, so it really became a tank just for them. And they started biting, there behavior earned them the names of Bonnie and Clyde.

This is January 2018, i wasn’t keeping up with maintenance really and letting the tank go, there is some dead candy cane coral skeleton, But the mushrooms were doing great. Lots of red algae on the back wall

August 2018 - clean up a bit and looking full of shrooms

 

[Ef4life]

2019 the tank was really starting to look good imo, everything was happy, tank was just mushrooms and Ricordea Yuma at this point and some gsp on the back wall.

Then disaster struck
Well not really a disaster, the aquapod had a good run, it started leaking around one of the silicone seams. This is the last picture of the aquapod I took. March 22, 2019

 

[Ef4life]

March 23, 2019
Tank transfer to the biocube. Picked up a very nice used biocube 29. I kept the metal halide. I hate closed up tanks so the stock biocube light hood just sits in a closet.

First full tank shot after the transfer, everything is mad, clownfish survived but weren’t happy

Few weeks went by I did a little photo shoot for the 6 year anniversary

 

[Ef4life]

6 year anniversary full tank shot

I believe 2019 to be the best looking year for this tank, the clean black background of the new biocube, good growth, happy fish and corals.

Hands down my favorite photo I ever took of this tank. I’ve posted this one a few times already on r2r

 

[Ef4life]

The beginning of 2020, I had some weird bacterial bloom or something, it affected both my tanks, the 40g has cloudy water and slimey build up all over everything, the biocube didn’t get the cloudy water but got the slimey build up on the filter floss. Nothing really bad happened from it, but the red and green mushrooms did not like it and started just detaching from the rocks. They didn’t die, but just let go. Took a few months for them to pretty much be gone. (I have them all in my frag tank still) but the tank lost its glory and looks pretty sad compared to last year.

Most recent photos, still looking good, but not great

And some videos of the tank at various times

 

[Ef4life]

And today’s anniversary full tank shot, I didn’t get home until late today and didn’t have time to clean the glass or anything.

 

[Ef4life]

Tank #2 this one got wet January 18th 2014

This is my 40b setup with another 40b as a sump/ refugium/ and currently a frag tank. The “sump” is on top of my safe, so it acts like a giant hob filter. I have a small overflow box siliconed into the corner of the display, a mj900 pumps water up into the sump, then a bulkhead drilled into the side returns the water via gravity. The upper tank holds the filter sock, heaters, skimmer, and whatever other equipment I need which has changed over the years.

This tank is in my bedroom, and I wanted to be able to view it from bed easily, so it’s on a really tall stand, which is a solid wood dresser I reinforced and modified. Being really tall, all maintenance has to be done from a ladder. It’s so annoying, but my Saturday/Sunday lazy days where I just lay in bed and have a great view is worth it.

 

[Ef4life]

The 40 has went though many changes over the years, been aquascaped at least 3 times. It’s been more of my expirimental tank.

Currently it’s a mixed reef with soft, lps and sps corals all doing well.

Current equipment
Orphek atlantik v4 display light
Jabeo ow25, 0w10 wavemakers
Mj900 “return” pump
2 heaters
Aquamaxx hob skimmer
Penguin hob filter
Reefbreeders photon v2+ over frags
Jabeo rw4 wavemaker on frags

Pretty simple, low budget setup besides the lighting. Definitely running out of room in the tank and being over 5 years old now it’s almost ready for an upgrade.

Livestock list
2 clowns (black misbar, black ice)
Watchmygoby
Green clown goby
Starry blenny
6 blue/green chromis
Small yellow tang

Corals
Zoas and paly
Couple mushrooms
Ricordea Yuma’s and Florida’s
Trumpet corals
Acan lords
Blasto
A bunch of montipora, plating, encrusting and branching
Some acropora
Gorgonian
Chalice
Leptastrea
Cyphastrea
Psammocora
Porites
Leptospirosis

 

[Ef4life]

A coral pictures. Everything was grown from small frags. Most the growth was from this past year when I got serious about testing and dosing.