Custom 48 x 30 x 30 mixed reef peninsula

[pudge]

Here’s my tank. Custom acrylic about 180 gallons.

About me:
Been in the hobby for 25 years. I have spent most of that as a beginner with FOWLR and some softies. Finally been having success at keeping corals for the past 5 years. This tank represents an upgrade from a 72 gallon 4 ft frag tank. I wanted a tall tank because of my height (I’m 6’5”) and needed to give my 5 year old yellow tang more space. So I started with the space I had and having the top water line being 6 ft high (approximately eye level when standing). I have sump behind the wall.

The sump is a trigger system triton 44 - V2. I am not using the triton system. I use the 1st chamber for the reefmat and skimmer. 2nd chamber as a refugium and the 3rd chamber for the return pump.

 

[rcpiv93]

Stunning! I'm short, so thinking about having to clean it gives me nightmares. But it doesn't sound like you'll have that problem.

Love the stand and canopy as well. Is the canopy ventilated?

 

[pudge]

Fish:

5 year old monster yellow tang named Bubbles. Has a little HLLE which I blame on living in too small of a tank and/or stray voltage coming from a refugium light. Had been getting better since the move. Had big erosions around his mouth which are gone. Leveled off recently to it’s current state.

2 Ocellaris clowns: standard colored female named Nemo and black and white named Oreo. Who, because they are clownfish, will not venture more than a few inches from the overflow or the MP40

1 Blue Damsel named Bluey. I think the most beautiful fish in the tank, but nobody likes him because he’s a jerk.

Purple Tang named Luke. One of 2 tangs added since the move.

White tail tang named Parker. 2nd of 2 Tangs added since the move.

Coral Beauty Angel named Spike. Had him for about 4 years. Hasn’t caused any problems so far.

I also have a tiny 2 year old algae eating Blenny. He’s harder to get a picture of.

Future Directions. Been in the hobby a long time. There’s always room for one more fish! But I will hold off until I get corals more established.

Here’s what I’ve considered (and why I don’t have them):
1. Magnificent Foxface, might eat bubble algae (but the Angel already occupies the reef safe with caution niche and if you roll the dice enough…)
2. Another Tang such as a Blue tang, Gem tang or Sailfin (but I feel lucky to have 3 that aren’t killing each other).
3. Blue Jaw Trigger because I love trigger fish and kept a Picasso trigger in a prior tank for 7 years (but I assume it would destroy my urchins, crabs and snails)
4. Something that eats aptasia, such as a copperband (no chance in my tank, would be harassed to death), Klein’s butterfly which I have kept with success before and gobbled up aptasia (but very likely to eat corals) or a filefish (see above reef safe with caution).
5. A school of square Anthias (never have tried and I am afraid I might not be able to meet their needs, I hate when fish die)
6. A mandarin (but the tank isn’t mature enough and even though they are poisonous and fish generally leave them alone I’m pretty sure Bluey will harass to death or outright kill it).

For now I will stay with my current group, but I’d love to hear comments about any of the above.

Thanks for reading.
Brian

 

[pudge]

Stunning! I'm short, so thinking about having to clean it gives me nightmares. But it doesn't sound like you'll have that problem.

Love the stand and canopy as well. Is the canopy ventilated?

The canopy is currently open on top and in back. I may cover and install fans at some point.

Depth definitely creates challenges. I can just reach the bottom, but I’ve also gotten very good at using my ‘Pikstick’.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Here’s my tank. Custom acrylic about 180 gallons.

About me:
Been in the hobby for 25 years. I have spent most of that as a beginner with FOWLR and some softies. Finally been having success at keeping corals for the past 5 years. This tank represents an upgrade from a 72 gallon 4 ft frag tank. I wanted a tall tank because of my height (I’m 6’5”) and needed to give my 5 year old yellow tang more space. So I started with the space I had and having the top water line being 6 ft high (approximately eye level when standing). I have sump behind the wall.

The sump is a trigger system triton 44 - V2. I am not using the triton system. I use the 1st chamber for the reefmat and skimmer. 2nd chamber as a refugium and the 3rd chamber for the return pump.

Very nice custom-looking tank!

 

[pudge]

Thought I would update this thread.

Fish:
I have added a mandarin. Very excited to have him. Doing well, fat and happy for 7 months now. Named “Lemmy” by my six year old which may be an obscure character in the super Mario world I’m not sure.

Added an aptasia eating file fish 7 months ago. Name is Ugmo because of his great personality. Added to control aptasia. There were a few before I added him. I have had tanks overrun by aptasia. I actually never saw him eat one but within a week they were all gone and I haven’t seen one since.

He does nip at zoanthids and acans. Not done any serious damage to the acans although those are fairly large colonies. He preferentially eats the green and yellow zoas (rastas I think) and has thinned those out but has allowed the bright orange ones (I think utter chaos) to rebound. So far he has been well worth the trade off.

Corals:
I am working hard to grow Acros with mixed results. I have a yellow tipped purple acro (I think WWC) that has done very well.

All of the other Acros I added at the same time were wiped out. I had a cyano outbreak. Cyano didn’t seem to bother the acros very much but I treated with chemiclean and that process killed 5-6 frags. I’m not sure it was the chemiclean that killed them. I put 2 massive air stones in and was running them at full blast. I wanted to make sure there was adequate oxygenation, and I may have overdone it. I don’t think I’ll use chemiclean again. I have succeeded in keeping cyano at bay with manually blowing it off of rocks and sand and adding small powerheads (Nero 3 on one side and tunze turbelle nanostream 6040 on the other) to blow right over the sand surface.

Current challenges:
1. Lost my small algae eating blennie. He just disappeared. Was hoping he would just turn up but I’ve given up.
2. Getting Acros to grow. You can see some of my small sticks in the background of the above picture. I’ve added an Avast Marine Kalk stirrer. Alk runs pretty stable 8.7-9 and Calcium 420-450. Mg never changes 1350-1400. Nutrients are always very low. I dose phosphate and nitrate to maintain 0.02 and 2 as minimums. Not sure if this is holding me back. PAR is 275-400 where the acro frags are.
3. Flow. I am balancing aesthetics with function. I would prefer to have all powerheads on the back wall of the tank. There are MP40s at mid height back wall on either side of the overflow running reefcrest at 100% in antisynch mode. I added the small powerheads at the bottom as described above. I’ve considered a gyre on the opposite side or a tunze orca in the middle of the tank but for now I am trying to keep the powerheads on the back.

Here are full tank shots of all 3 sides. Thanks for checking it out.