Downgraded :)

[dan10342]

18 gallon Rimless Zoanthid tank

well, here is the new tank.

the plan was, to get a 40 breeder, but that plan ultimately failed. haha

here is what i ended up with after i was through:

here is the 55 when i got home (After trading 3/4 of my rock to phil)

:sad:

Then i got the new tank in return from phil :) i had to remove the built in filter area, and massively clean it, and paint the back.

the glass is ultra thick for its size. (18.2 gallons)

set it on the new stand to see how it looked:

I LIKE IT!

corals in tub

here is the tank after drilling

modded light (2 x 24 watt t5s w/ individual reflectors and a POWERBRITE actinic LED strip

today (day after finally setting it up) rocks and corals and stuff are in. pray to god the mini cycle wont be too bad. i will be home again in 2 weeks to clean, monitor, and add corals to it pending its still healthy.

 

[MarvinsReef]

nice nano... :)

 

[dan10342]

thanks... :)

 

[dan10342]

well, long story but here is goes.

upon my return from college (for christmas break), i come home to:

-leaky bulkhead (salt creep EVERYWHERE from it)
-bottom of the tank decided to come detached from the side panes, so there were massive leaks on the left side of the tank. since the bottom was acrylic, and acrylic doesnt stick to glass well (silicone doesnt work well on acrylic), i suppose the pressure from the water was enough to detach it. needless to say, emptying my new tank was the last thing i wanted to do.

fast forward to next day:
next day was a day in hell. i had to remove the bottom from the tank, and disassemble the side panes. removing the silicone took forever. at the same time, i had to find a glass store, and have them cut and bevel a new bottom pane for me. oh, and i had to find safe silicone etc. (i live in the middle of nowhere, so that is what made all of this difficult. anyway, i had to resilicone the tank together, redo the bulkheads, etc. and to top that all off... i found that my skimmer which was external to my sump, was also leaky. a quick fix though, i simply put it inside my sump. so it leaks back into the sump instead of all over the stand.

fast forward 30hours:
according to the silicone (loctite brand... says right on box its aquarium safe) it takes 24 hours to cure. so i let it cure for 30. the smell was gone, and it was quite hard. (not tacky... im not that dumb haha).

so i put FW in the tank. NO LEAKS thank god. so after another day, i emptied the FW out, and put my salt water i saved, back into the tank. also the LR went in. i also put a small zoanthid frag in there. overnight, the zoanthid lived, so i took it that the tank was safe for livestock.

anyway, fast forward again to today, all livestock been in the tank for 12 hours, and looks very very happy.

here is a pic after all the hard work: (the green brain was too big for the tank, so i traded it for some zanthids. it was a sad day to lose such an amazing piece).

 

[TyreeUM]

good save for sure, what a mess

 

[revhtree]

Dang! Sounds like you went through some pain like I did with my Nano. Glad it worked out for you. The tank looks beautiful!

 

[dan10342]

thanks guys. i hope to add a bunch more corals in the next few weeks:

-pastel green and pink hammer (kind of reverse of my current hammer.. only my current hammer is dark purple instead of pink)
-nuke green zoas
-tub blues
-purple deaths
-kedds reds
-yellows

-possibly a torch coral if there is room

and thats about it. im going for a simplistic minimal look. i just want to watch the frags growout into colonies, and cover the rocks.

 

[revhtree]

Simple is better IMO....

 

[dan10342]

simple is definitely better!

 

[dan10342]

This thread is in need of major help.

i hope these pics can revive it:

some cool green zoanthids

 

[dan10342]

my attempts at some topdowns

i like these a lot

 

[dan10342]

here were a few cool pickmeups! or diamond in the rough as people call them

 

[dan10342]

red zoanthids that i like a lot

envy orange (thanks ktar) it's a bad pic, too long with shutter open, and it doesnt look quite as orange as i would like. in reality they are bright orange with neon green mouths.

yellows

farther back (the back glass hadnt been scraped sorry)

 

[dan10342]

and old group shot (they have since grown or been moved into the rockwork)

 

[dan10342]

FTS (too dark thanks to the LEDs... and looks ultra photoshopped... sigh. its the powerbrites that give it that surreal color)