Vision
When I designed the tank I wanted to be different, a cave with lots of dendronephthya, sponges, tunicates and cool critters like basketstars, sea-apples, cucumbers and maybe a feather star. Fish wise i'm not completely sure yet, properbly a group of antias, helfrichi firefish, blochted antias and a small group of assesors because of their unique upside down swimming in caves. Fish and corals will be AC or maricultured whenever possible.
I build the cave with styrofoam and concrete which I'll elaborate on later. I plan on growing mangroves out of the canopy
Equipment
Tank: 80 gallons 48x18x21 1/2
Sump: 2x 10 gallons, one mechanical and the other cryptic fuge.
Feeding: a fridge with bottles of shelfish diet rotifers and oysterfeast will be used to feed the tank. Which is inspired by aquabacs system. An dry food fishfeeder will be used to dose Fauna Marin (FM) products. Foods will be dosed to the tank throughout the day.
Filtration: with the crazy amount of food added to the tank a lot of filtration is necessary, a Octopus 150 skimmer will be used along with mangroves, LR, LS and frequent water changes
Flow: flow will be provided by a closed loop, and I'll properly buy one of the new Sicce Voyager HP 8 or 9 pumps.
Return: mag 9 pump
Light: since NPC don't have zooxanthellae no light is needed, I'll be using cheap led spotlights, blue and white for during the day and a red bulb for at night. But for now I just have a vho fixture on the tank I had laying around
Stand: the stand is DIY from 2x4, it's 43'' high. Eventually I'll skin it, but I'm focusing on the tank itself right now.
Sand bed: I'm going with a 1'' SB, and a 6'' or so RDSB. The sand bed will provide a lot of micro fauna which will provide a food source for the corals and inverts.
Inspiration
I'll end this post with some inspiration:
(screen shot form this video: The Maldives in RED on Vimeo (a must watch!)
-Joost
When I designed the tank I wanted to be different, a cave with lots of dendronephthya, sponges, tunicates and cool critters like basketstars, sea-apples, cucumbers and maybe a feather star. Fish wise i'm not completely sure yet, properbly a group of antias, helfrichi firefish, blochted antias and a small group of assesors because of their unique upside down swimming in caves. Fish and corals will be AC or maricultured whenever possible.
I build the cave with styrofoam and concrete which I'll elaborate on later. I plan on growing mangroves out of the canopy
Equipment
Tank: 80 gallons 48x18x21 1/2
Sump: 2x 10 gallons, one mechanical and the other cryptic fuge.
Feeding: a fridge with bottles of shelfish diet rotifers and oysterfeast will be used to feed the tank. Which is inspired by aquabacs system. An dry food fishfeeder will be used to dose Fauna Marin (FM) products. Foods will be dosed to the tank throughout the day.
Filtration: with the crazy amount of food added to the tank a lot of filtration is necessary, a Octopus 150 skimmer will be used along with mangroves, LR, LS and frequent water changes
Flow: flow will be provided by a closed loop, and I'll properly buy one of the new Sicce Voyager HP 8 or 9 pumps.
Return: mag 9 pump
Light: since NPC don't have zooxanthellae no light is needed, I'll be using cheap led spotlights, blue and white for during the day and a red bulb for at night. But for now I just have a vho fixture on the tank I had laying around
Stand: the stand is DIY from 2x4, it's 43'' high. Eventually I'll skin it, but I'm focusing on the tank itself right now.
Sand bed: I'm going with a 1'' SB, and a 6'' or so RDSB. The sand bed will provide a lot of micro fauna which will provide a food source for the corals and inverts.
Inspiration
I'll end this post with some inspiration:
(screen shot form this video: The Maldives in RED on Vimeo (a must watch!)
-Joost
