Tony's 72g Mixed Reef Build

[TonysReef]

Unfortunately lost my black widow BTA last night. Woke up at 3am to the tank making more noise than it should and found the anemone half squeezed through a few of the overflow teeth. It wasn't quite dead, but there seemed to be some real damage and I don't have a QT tank to separate it, so made the tough (not so tough when frustrated at 3am) choice to say goodbye.

I regret most not selling it, since I put it in the tank it hasn't stayed still for more than a couple of days and I actually just got a Nest home camera to keep an eye on it out of fear that it would stray too close to a powerhead (again). Everything else in my tank has found itself a cozy spot, but the black widow just wouldn't stop moving for anything. C'est la vie. Next time I won't delay making the move when I know it needs to be done. I would have thought maybe the BTA wasn't comfortable with the other anemones, but it didn't seem to mind touching my haddonis and the other small bta's haven't moved an inch since I put them in.

Anyway, did a solid water change this morning and nothing seems the worse for wear. Also added in my new carpets and so far, so good. They still haven't really settled in yet, so pics to come this weekend hopefully.

 

[TonysReef]

And now for some good news. After searching and searching and searching, I FINALLY found the source of the mystery clicking sounds. And the culprit is a little pistol shrimp that seems to live in a rock under my lavender carpet anemone. He is still annoying, but I'm relieved to not have to stress about a mantis shrimp anymore.

Doubt I'll be able to get any photos of him, but i'll try. And tank/anemone shots to come this week for sure.

 

[TonysReef]

Rearranged my sump a bit and plumbed the clarisea differently. My first fleece roll lasted me about six messy weeks (and got very dirty) and this one only lasted 3 and was never that soiled when spooling. So I raised the unit up from sitting in about 7" of water to about 3". Also it's amazing how when you are messing around with stuff like that how everything slips and falls and leaks when you don't expect it. If ever there were a motto for reef tanks it would be whatever can go wrong, will.

Been buying a bunch of chaeto and picked up an H380 to supplement my H80. The H80 wasn't terrible, but the chaeto wasn't growing with any urgency and the walls of the refugium didn't even have algae growing on them, so I knew it wasn't being too effective. With the H380 the walls are covered in algae and I'm now confident the chaeto will grow well.

And now for the tank, I picked up an ORA goniopora frag which seems to be doing well and everyone else is happy. I got a strange bicolor carpet that doesn't seem to want to go down into the sand and a blue one that hasn't put it's foot down properly. Although I think part of the blue one's issue was the icecap pump, also too much flow was upsetting the goniopora. So for now that pump is off. Going to probably post in the dedicated forum about the bicolor carpet behaviour. Still hoping the lavender will color up to be more purple and still loving the red one. Have one last carpet coming Friday, once that settles I'll try to take non-cell phone shots of the whole tank.

The clowns all continue to sleep in the ritteri (which hasn't colored up at all and I fear is completely bleached), so I'm considering getting rid of it as my dream for this tank was always tons of clowns in carpet anemones. They seem to know they can go in the carpets, but still hang out in open water during the day (except for the dominant few who can hang out in the magnifica). At night they all huddle together in the one anemone to sleep. So my thought is that by removing the ritteri maybe they'll fall back on the carpets.

 

[TonysReef]

Sold the Ritteri yesterday, updated full tank shot:

Moved the rock on the left back a bit to open up some space, although the lavender carpet is closed up:

Have a realistic frag rock coming for the few LPS as I think the egg crate is ugly, but needed for now.

Selling this blue carpet hopefully this weekend, it just never colored up the way I hoped:

And finally, after only one day without the Ritteri in the tank and one night homeless, they learned!!:

 

[Zach W]

Awesome tank! I have a couple questions, and I apologize if they have been asked/answered as I was skimming through. It appears you live in an apartment, did you have to get approval for a large tank weight wise? And if not how did you determine it was ok for the floor. Secondly how do you manage water changes with with limited space?

 

[TonysReef]

Awesome tank! I have a couple questions, and I apologize if they have been asked/answered as I was skimming through. It appears you live in an apartment, did you have to get approval for a large tank weight wise? And if not how did you determine it was ok for the floor. Secondly how do you manage water changes with with limited space?

I did get approval. Some leasing companies won't allow a tank, some will have limits. This one said I was ok for 50 gallons, so that's what I got . Seriously though, I wanted a much larger tank but didn't want to get kicked out. So you have to be realistic. But I wouldn't have tried to set one up without approval. Not the kind of thing you want to be told needs to come down or they kick you out and keep your security deposit..

As far as setup and water changes, I actually have two brute trash pails in the closet with some gear in them if I need to do a large water change, but I've recently only been doing 5 gallons once a week with buckets as it's so much easier to manage and with the clarisea/refugium I seem to be doing well with nutrient control.

 

[Zach W]

I did get approval. Some leasing companies won't allow a tank, some will have limits. This one said I was ok for 50 gallons, so that's what I got . Seriously though, I wanted a much larger tank but didn't want to get kicked out. So you have to be realistic. But I wouldn't have tried to set one up without approval. Not the kind of thing you want to be told needs to come down or they kick you out and keep your security deposit..

As far as setup and water changes, I actually have two brute trash pails in the closet with some gear in them if I need to do a large water change, but I've recently only been doing 5 gallons once a week with buckets as it's so much easier to manage and with the clarisea/refugium I seem to be doing well with nutrient control.

Awesome! Thanks for the reply. I also am in an apartment and have a Nuvo 20 right now which was approved when I moved in, but would love to upgrade to a 48” tank.. probably the waterbox or RSR. Would need to get approval. I also use buckets and it’s so easy, wasn’t sure how to manage a large water change though and I don’t have room for brute cans.

 

[TonysReef]

Grabbed a pipe organ which I've always wanted the other day:

Also after getting 0 nitrates on my last test I decided to get a canary in the coal mine SPS frag for $30

Started an acan garden, but waiting on frag plugs to organize it on my frag rock:

Also starting a Goni Garden:

And picked up two scolys today, because why not.

Sold my old dark blue carpet, which I'm somewhat regretful of and got a new blue one that i think I'll like much more. Part of me thinks I should have kept both... I need a larger/second tank. It's only been in the tank a day, so I'm looking forward to it coloring up. I screwed up placement also, should have put it in the corner.

Also got a second purple shaded haddoni with a bud off the side which you can see on the left!

Current full tank shot:

Rescaped the right side to let the red carpet open more. Going to sell the little forest green carpet on the right soon. Just hoping it moves off the rock so I don't have to fight it off. Should be organizing all the frags on the left into something cohesive next week. Just waiting on another frag rock and some plugs to mount stuff on.

Going to also break out the real camera next week and take some proper photos. Which reminds me, the clowns mostly have hyper melanization which I read a bit about, hopefully it passes soon. The black spots are ruining the beautiful patterns. Also aggression seems down since I got rid of the ritteri. Also that reminds me that I got rid of my second orange starfish this morning as the first one completely disappeared and must have become haddoni food. The clowns still only stick to one haddoni, but occasionally they seem to dip into a couple of others. I'm confident they'll learn eventually, but as babies it seems they like sleeping together.

 

[TonysReef]

Updated full tank shot:

Some close ups...

Bicolor haddoni:

BTA:

Goniopora Garden 1:

Goniopora Garden 2:

Rainbow Acan:

Large pink Alveopora:

I realized after getting the ORA gonipora how much I like those corals and have sort of dove off the deep end with colorful frags, have a bunch more getting delivered tomorrow. Ironically now the ORA is my least favourite and I'll probably sell it soon (ORA one is in the back of Garden 2 pic).

I did some sump work also and finally lifted the clarisea almost completely out of the water, seems to be far more efficient now.

 

[TonysReef]

Finally took out my actual camera for a few shots.

 

[Fudsey]

Great pics ! !

 

[reefiniteasy]

Gorgeous tank! Super jealous. Keep up the great work. I love reading your updates.

 

[TonysReef]

Gorgeous tank! Super jealous. Keep up the great work. I love reading your updates.

I'll start updating some more. I was beginning to think that this thread was just @Fudsey and I.

Went on a bit of a goniopora tear. Got 4 frags in this morning, three more acclimating now (two gonis and an alveopora) and have a few more coming in later tonight. Going to arrange my frag rocks to make a garden of them this weekend, also need to try to pick up a dremel to remove some of these things form the giant frag plugs they come in on.

Also my test SPS's are doing great, so I may try to pick up a pink milli this weekend if I come across something worthwhile.

 

[Jon Fishman]

Blue carpet still for sale?

 

[Bkab_Jay]

Very nice. Really liking this.

What made you go with so many clowns?

 

[hdsoftail1065]

You put together a great build thread, I really enjoyed reading through it! Do you have anymore agression issues with all those clowns?

 

[dbl]

What a beautiful tank and some great photography. You need to watch the photography thread for the POTM's (Photo of the Month) and enter....lol. Looking forward to watching this one mature.

 

[TonysReef]

Blue carpet still for sale?

No, someone took it the other week. I regretted selling it almost immediately, but so it goes.

What made you go with so many clowns?

I started with 22 which I figured was overshooting it a bit, but I knew all of them wouldn't last. One died early on, it was never healthy and a second was removed because it was too aggressive. So now I'm at 20. Seeing as I will only be able to have clowns I wanted as many as was possible, and from research it seemed the more the merrier, so to speak.

You put together a great build thread, I really enjoyed reading through it! Do you have anymore agression issues with all those clowns?

It's gotten much better since I got rid of the ritteri. Now that the clowns break off into different groups during the day they fight less. I still have one that's a bit of a jerk and I may remove, but otherwise there is definitely an improvement as they've grown. There are still some nipped fins, but it's not nearly as bad as it was. So I'm optimistic they'll all find a balance.

They still all sleep in one or two carpets at night, even though they use a couple of others during the day. So once they mature some more I'm hopeful they'll just pick their own territories and everyone will be happy.

What a beautiful tank and some great photography. You need to watch the photography thread for the POTM's (Photo of the Month) and enter....lol. Looking forward to watching this one mature.

Cheers, I'll keep an eye out. Now that the tank is nearly done and the clowns have stopped beating each other up I'll start taking more photos. The three things preventing me from taking lots of clownfish pics are the fact that the black storms were brown until very recently, all the nipped fins (which are improving) and the fact that many of the clowns have hyper melanization from the carpets, which I'm patiently waiting for an improvement with.

 

[hdsoftail1065]

No, someone took it the other week. I regretted selling it almost immediately, but so it goes.



I started with 22 which I figured was overshooting it a bit, but I knew all of them wouldn't last. One died early on, it was never healthy and a second was removed because it was too aggressive. So now I'm at 20. Seeing as I will only be able to have clowns I wanted as many as was possible, and from research it seemed the more the merrier, so to speak.



It's gotten much better since I got rid of the ritteri. Now that the clowns break off into different groups during the day they fight less. I still have one that's a bit of a jerk and I may remove, but otherwise there is definitely an improvement as they've grown. There are still some nipped fins, but it's not nearly as bad as it was. So I'm optimistic they'll all find a balance.

They still all sleep in one or two carpets at night, even though they use a couple of others during the day. So once they mature some more I'm hopeful they'll just pick their own territories and everyone will be happy.



Cheers, I'll keep an eye out. Now that the tank is nearly done and the clowns have stopped beating each other up I'll start taking more photos. The three things preventing me from taking lots of clownfish pics are the fact that the black storms were brown until very recently, all the nipped fins (which are improving) and the fact that many of the clowns have hyper melanization from the carpets, which I'm patiently waiting for an improvement with.

Amazing, I can't wait to see how all of these clowns progress over time.

 

[mta_morrow]

Just read thru your thread.......WOW! Absolutely love the nem and clown theme and your choice of corals to go along with them.

Great detail of your progress too.

Well done!

Following along!