EnLight's 75g tank, from FOWLR to reef

[EnLight]

Hi all, first off thank you for your interest! I've been thinking about doing this for a long time, but just now found the right free time and motivation to start this thread, I think it will be interesting to document every change in my tank and share it with any who are interested. Feedback/criticism is encouraged, as always

When I got my first saltwater tank it was a bowfront 20-ish gallon tank. I put a porcupine puffer in there. He wasn't happy, I wasn't happy (bowfront on a small tank...can't see much.) so I took the plunge and upgraded to 75g. The puffer didn't last forever, but I'm happy that my tank is. Here's my journey, when I knew nothing about corals and only cared about those exotic fish.

The beginning of something expensive

Stocked up with some live rock, fake rock, fake corals, and some fish. You could tell I liked coral at this stage already, even if it wasn't real yet. Some of it looks pretty cool actually, but they lose color and fade very quickly.

I went hardcore into getting artifical coral, even making my own structures. I think the tank looks pretty sick at this point honestly, but the maintenance and life of the fake coral was pretty terrible. Who would have guessed, my live coral lives longer than artificial coral. It turned brown very quickly, I always had to take all of it out to clean, and all of it eventually just faded. It was awesome while it lasted though, I felt like I was on that 'Tanked' TV show while making it.

There we go, that's more like it. Ditched the fake stuff, and got the real stuff. Now I'm beginning to learn what true addiction is.

Boom, much better lighting. This picture doesn't even do it justice with how much better this lighting looks in person compared to what I used to have! In fact, none of my pictures do any of it justice because I'm only taking these pictures with an iPhone

Latest FTS (updated 10/12/15):

Stock:
yellow flanked fairy wrasse
some sort of pencil wrasse
coris Wrasse
lubbocks fairy wrasse
snowflake eel
mandarin dragonet
zebra barred darfish (pairs with the scissor tail, they are always together..pretty cool)
tailspot blenny
PJ cardinal
flame cardinal
flame hawkfish
royal gramma
2x platinum clownfish
Various CUC

 

[EnLight]

10/4/15

full tank shot of what I have currently. Not too many changes, said goodbye to my valentini puffer of over a year and picked up a small CUC, hope to get more soon.


side-ish shot, torch is doing great


Closer up of the that shelf looking rock, the beginning of my zoa garden coming together well, might have to space the frags out some more. also featuring my torch coral, crazy neon cabbage that isn't so crazy neon, and a snail


Anyone know how to take better pictures with an iPhone? I'm sure there's a way.

 

[EnLight]

Bummer day, lost that green brain coral I had in the sand bed. Was doing really well for a bit over a month and I woke up today and it's nothing but a white skeleton. Very strange and a tough and expensive loss for me. Anyone know of some nice coral to pretty up my blank sand bed? It feels really bare to me, but placing rock looks out of place.

 

[drstratton]

Looks really nice! I'd be afraid to house an eel with your stock list... with my luck it would have several really good meals!!! If it wasn't for that, I would totally put one in my tank!

 

[EnLight]

Here's some better pictures now that I noticed my blues were turned up a bit too high, hopefully these are a bit clearer

FTS

beginnings of my zoa garden

left side of the tank

 

[EnLight]

10/8/15
Did some minor work rescaping, and got some nice new corals courtesy of @AquaSD Check them out if you haven't gone through one of their live sales before! I got my first few acans, a goni, a blasto, and a few others. Here's some pics of a couple of the things I got!

One of the 4 acan frags I bought. Not my favorite of the 4, but the only picture that I could get that was somewhat clear. Still a good looking acan though! They just may be my new addiction now that my zoa garden is full of frags.


Aussie Blasto


I've had this torch for a while, but it's my favorite coral in the tank so I figured he deserved his own shot


Part of my zoa garden. coming along slowly but surely!


And I can never do an update without provided full tank shots of course!

(ugh that window glare..I need curtains just for taking these shots)

 

[EnLight]

10/12/15 update

LFS got their biggest shipment of the year, I picked up a flame hawkfish, royal gramma, and a pair of platinum clowns (for 50$ for both! don't they go for much more?) I also picked up a hammer colony, I'm not sure about the specific name but it has purple heads with green arms(?). However, with the addition of the 2 platinum clowns, I had to catch my maroon clown..which was a nightmare. I ended up having to take out almost every large rock. The left/middle side of my tank stayed the same for the most part, but I changed up the aquascaping on the right side. What do you guys think of the change? I'm undecided myself, but it's starting to grow on me.

Here's some pics!

Flame Hawkfish


Platinum clowns (pain in the butt to get a picture of these two)


Here's a hermit I found that stole one of my mushrooms!


And of course, a full tank shot. Starting to get some algae problems in the sand on the right side.

 

[steelheader.262]

Looks great!!!

 

[dh350twin]

Very good start......welcome to the obsession! By the way I am impressed by the coralline algae growth you have. Are the purple rocks covered in real coralline or is the fake live rock?

 

[EnLight]

Looks great!!!

Very good start......welcome to the obsession! By the way I am impressed by the coralline algae growth you have. Are the purple rocks covered in real coralline or is the fake live rock?

Thanks guys and the rock is real as far as I know, it slowly spreads to whatever rock it's touching. There was a few months where it spread super fast and covered that shelf-like rock and the glass a bit, but now I haven't seen any growth in quite a while.

 

[drstratton]

Everything is looking really good. I'm a fan of shelf rock and I think the new layout turned out really well. I love the new livestock you acquired they will be a great addition!!!

 

[EnLight]

Everything is looking really good. I'm a fan of shelf rock and I think the new layout turned out really well. I love the new livestock you acquired they will be a great addition!!!

Thanks! Hopefully I won't have to move it around for a long time I'm a bit worried about the clowns because they're a little on the small side, just gotta hit that 1 month mark and i'll be more confident about them