My 50 gallon build thread

[mochaclownlover]

Meant to post these a couple days ago, but never got around to it.... so here they are!
(Sorry for the dirty glass)

 

[mochaclownlover]

Sooooo, three weeks on vacation. Thank goodness I have a great tank sitter! This was a shot I took as soon as I got home.

And just did a nice big 6gal WC and everyone’s happy! I did unfortunately loose/almost loose a couple corals. I completely lost my disco ball lepto. I have some tissue left on my tangerine lepto, high voltage, and rainbow monti. Must have had a big alk swing while I was gone, but hopefully I can bring them back. Aside from that everyone else if great and happy to have me home lol!

 

[mochaclownlover]

Update! So clowns laid another batch of eggs that’s about too hatch today or tomorrow so some of the nems aren’t exactly happy as usual. Most of this past week was spent getting back into my college schedule and getting the tank all cleaned up from my time away. Unfortunately I managed to once again drop an mp10 wet side and bust the ceramic piece that goes around the propeller shaft. So I went to get my original wet side I kept as a spare and after running for a minute that ceramic cover busted too!!! So I managed to get the one to work long enough for my new one to come in today. And there goes 75$ down the drain. Ugh. However aside from that mishap, everything else in the tank is doing fine!

 

[mochaclownlover]

Finally decided to try adding some sand back to the front of the tank! Never realized how great the tank looks with it till after going without for so many months, just hoping I got the cyano under control so it doesn’t cover it again. Also been stepping up on my testing of alk and I have too say that doing so has had a drastic change in my corals. I’m honestly shocked at what they looked like before and now,( granted my alk was at 5.9 dkh….) and I’ve still only got it at about 6.9-7 dkh. Planning to get it to 8 over the next couple weeks.

Now another issue.
My teal hammer has CRAZY polyp extension, and it’s millimeters away from the side powerhead. I really don’t want to frag this guy so my only option’s going to be to move the PH up slightly and for long term may end in a change to the main scape to allow for these colonies. Not sure, but we’ll see what happens.

 

[mochaclownlover]

Update: So the tank turned 4 yrs a couple weeks ago, and I completely forgot!!! Made lots of changes since my last update. For starters, I upgraded my return pump to an IM mighty jet 538 to add better control ability and more turn over through the sump for the other addition. That other addition being a co2 scrubber. I couldn’t get my pH up past 7.8 to save my life, so between that and upping my alk dosage, I’ve been able to keep it at 8-8.2. On that note, I’ve also gotten my alk to a consistent 9dkh. Not seeing the growth I was a couple months ago so I still have some things to tweak, just hard getting the time to constantly test with college HW:/ Also started seeing some recession on my teal hammer, so I moved it back as well as split the framer and put some lower down. Really not sure what’s going on lately, lps looks good, but is having issues, sps won’t grow, softies and nems are fine. AND to top off all that, I can’t seem to get rid of cyano….ugh. It’s very frustrating, one thing after another, something happens to something, then something else comes up, it’s never ending. I definitely had an easier time with my little 14 gal than I have with this tank lol. Just hoping I can figure everything out, had higher hopes for the 4 yr mark, but nonetheless I’m still happy with the tank.

Current:

 

[mochaclownlover]

Update: The tanks been doing very well lately. We’ve finally gotten some cooler weather down here in FL so we were able to open some windows and my pH struggles were over! Within hours it shot up back to it’s pre usual 8.4-8.5. Now I’m only running the skimmer for a couple hrs per day, usually at night. Definitely seen a difference in the lps and nems, but the sps is still kinda just hanging in, hoping I can get some growth out of them soon. Not too much of a change as far as livestock. I did recently pick up a gold hammer from WWC as well as two fish that unfortunately passed in QT, initiated from an equipment issue. So aside from loosing them, everything’s been pretty good.

 

[mochaclownlover]

Update: Been about a month since my last update and changed things up a bit since last time. I removed the left rock structure (now in the sump) and replaced it with some stacked shelf rock from BRS. I did this for two reasons: the first being I wanted more/better coral placement and second I wanted to get rid of those horrible mushrooms!!! Also got a magnetic rock/frag rack for the gold hammer to be over with the rest of its kind Also picked up quite a few new coral additions: a couple cyphastrea and a war coral from WWC, and a jack-o-lantern lepto and zoa plug for $25 a piece. These last two are still under QT observation since it was from a store i don't 100% trust and will probably be there for about a week or so, just to be safe. And then I had to patch up the rear area of the screen that was open since my wrasse decided to just about jump into my hands as I walked by the tank today. I'm taking away his carpet surfing privileges lol. Nems and clowns are happy as always!

 

[InactiveAcct]

Saw this tank in person today doing a frag swap - pretty stunned. A lot of folks have commented on how nice the scape is, and I can say that the pics don’t do justice on how nice it actually is, with amazing depth - great mix of corals that have really nice movement, and everything looks really happy. I like the fish stocking as well, on the light side but you don’t need much with all of the coral movement. If you get time post a video, and keep up the good work

 

[polyppal]

Sooooo, three weeks on vacation. Thank goodness I have a great tank sitter! This was a shot I took as soon as I got home.

And just did a nice big 6gal WC and everyone’s happy! I did unfortunately loose/almost loose a couple corals. I completely lost my disco ball lepto. I have some tissue left on my tangerine lepto, high voltage, and rainbow monti. Must have had a big alk swing while I was gone, but hopefully I can bring them back. Aside from that everyone else if great and happy to have me home lol!

nice work!

 

[mochaclownlover]

Saw this tank in person today doing a frag swap - pretty stunned. A lot of folks have commented on how nice the scape is, and I can say that the pics don’t do justice on how nice it actually is, with amazing depth - great mix of corals that have really nice movement, and everything looks really happy. I like the fish stocking as well, on the light side but you don’t need much with all of the coral movement. If you get time post a video, and keep up the good work

Thank you! It's always great meeting local reefers!

 

[mochaclownlover]

Just short update! been really busy at work lately so I've pretty much got the tank running on autopilot. Alk has continued to be fairly stable, between daily testing, opening windows, and using a co2 reactor. I can see growth on most of the LPS but still kinda struggling with sps. And for an update on my favorite piece: the gold hammer is doing Ok, not great as I can't seem to find a happy spot for it as far as flow and light along with view ability, same goes for the jack-o-lantern but I have a spot in mind just haven't placed him. And RBTAs are happy as usual and the clowns with them

 

[mochaclownlover]

Time for an update! Classes are about to start for me so updates may be less frequent. On my last trip to TSA and WWC, I picked up a couple frags as well as some fish.

I’ll start with the fish first, I picked up a Atlantic salicin blenny which is the closest thing I’ve found to one of my favorite fish, the magnificent shrimp goby. So far he’s eating like a champ and has been very friendly since day 1. Now for the second fish…a ruby red dragonet…that was not eating frozen food. However, I have gotten him to start eating diced frozen mysis which is a good start as well as baby brine which I’ve been hatching and feeding everyother day swapping with the mysis. Fingers crossed he does well, but the biggest thing that bugs me is I’ll have to modify my QT schedule due to how delicate he is. I’m planning to try for at least 2-3weeks of copper ONCE I get him on frozen &/or a schedule of baby brine. My yasha also had this schedule so I’m not tooooo concerned, but definitely prefer the 3month route that the blenny will be on since he will be going in the 40 first while the ruby is in the 14 being trained better on prepared foods. Also I've heard that due to their slime coat thickness they aren't as susceptible to external parasites (not entirely tho hence me still treating with copper) so that is also comforting a bit.

As far as corals, I picked up a blue tipped short tentacled torch(it's not actually a torch but a close relative but i forgot the actual name), a green kenya tree, a potato chip coral, and some nice zoas which have finally been doing well in my tank!

My last update is said how my gold hammer could seem to find its happy spot and shortly after that it began to drop some tentacles so I moved it to the good old 14 and it is happy as can be. I honestly have no clue as to what the difference could be between the 40 and the 14 so I just sent off an icp test for the 14 to try and figure that out. My last ICP test only showed cal being a bit low and just a couple other minor trace elements in the ppb's low so I'm honestly not sure what's going on with some of these guys.

Dino's are gone for now so the uv sterilizer is actually coming out today. Clowns and nems are happy as usual, some aren't as dark as others though so I'm trying to figure out if that's light based or just differences in the anemones themselves. The wrasse has been doing great however he has been quite skittish lately and i find myself not being able to keep the lid off all the time in fear that he'll go air born.

 

[mochaclownlover]

So it’s been awhile since my last update. Everything actually doing pretty good. Corals and nems growing, most fish are happy, ph and all are stable finally. I did sadly loose my flasher wrasse, he somehow jumped out of a hole the size of a quarter. And then lost my ruby red dragonet, who finally made it out of HTTM and he got stung to death by my anemones. Guess bottom dwelling fish are out of the question for this tank. Anyways, here are some quick update shots! (Also got a new phone so pics are WAYYYY better

 

[mochaclownlover]

Haven’t done an update in awhile so figured I’d drop some pics of the new pieces! Picked up 5 milli frags from TSA about two weeks ago and they’ve all been doing really well! Good PE but nothing in terms of encrusting yet but it probably too soon to expect that. Only issue I’m dealing with is low pH, managing to keep it around 8-8.1 but that’s as high as it gets. Looking into kalk dosage to see if I can use that to curve my pH in the right direction

 

[mochaclownlover]

Been posting updates on this tanks IG page!

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[mochaclownlover]

A while lots changed with this tank in recent years! Getting to the point where I’m gonna need to do some serious trimming or upgrade! There’s honestly too much to write so I’ll just post some photos!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

A while lots changed with this tank in recent years! Getting to the point where I’m gonna need to do some serious trimming or upgrade! There’s honestly too much to write so I’ll just post some photos!

Tank is looking Incredible!!! I say get a bigger tank, so you can keep growing everything out!

 

[mochaclownlover]

Hardly been on R2R but I still try and get on here for bi yearly updates lol. Tanks been doing pretty good, had some water issues awhile back that upset the hammers but everything else was fine. Not that that’s fixed they’re on the rebound! Overall very happy with how the tank has been!