Swannyson7's 180g mixed reef

[swannyson7]

Swanny, I liked the pic with the arch but I think its gonna look funny for a while no madder what you do. Either way its gonna look white and outta place. Hows that cement to work with? Your tank is looking really good and your corals have real nice color, cant wait to see it progress. Nice job.

It wasn't so much the color as it was the way it sat in the tank. I'm contemplating taking a die grinder to it and chopping it in half so that it butts up against the back glass. Then I can add a couple sure-grip magnets and I think it will look better. It seemed to wreak havoc with my flow due to its size, so that should help with my flow pattern as well.

Yo wassup bro i finally made it over here lol got the boot from you know where!!

Tank is looking great man, how is the purple monster doing? sorry we were not able to meet up for a frag. Hopefully yours is doing good!

Glad you made it over here. This is by far the best reef forum I've found, and you'll like it much better here. The only time I ever go to the "other site" is to check the local forum. Hopefully we start getting more local people on R2R and then we can start a CTARS section over here! I wondered what happened to you over there. I tried sending a PM and never heard back, so I thought you might have gotten the boot. The purple monster is still doing well, although the one from Pacific East still has a bit of coloring up to do. The one from Sexy corals has colored up and it's starting to encrust on the tile. I hear that the PM is a painfully slow grower, so it may take a bit, but I've already got a spot picked for it once it grows out.

 

[swannyson7]

Just got a great deal on a pair of flame wrasses up at the LFS! They also had a rhomboid that was very tempting, but I've gotta space out the purchases to stay under the wife's radar... I'll have to get it next time if they still have him. :spin1: Here's a couple of quick pics and I apologize for the poor quality. They're still kinda skiddish in their new home.
The supermale:

And the female, still in hiding:

 

[johnanddawn]

tank looks good
cool wrasses too
i like the arche but they can be quite difficult to make look right

 

[swannyson7]

Caughty my clarkii today and brought him back to the LFS, along with a pinkface wrasse that has been steadily wiping out my cleanup crew. With the credit, I came home with a beautiful solorensis wrasse. Heres a couple pics:

 

[Aquaph8]

I love solors, how is he with other wrasses?

 

[skinz78]

Definatly a beauty, and on my to get list, congrats!

 

[swannyson7]

Thanks guys! He's a beautiful fish and seems to be getting along well with the othe wrasses, although the male flame insisted on chasing him a bit when he first went in the tank.

 

[Paul_N]

Very nice additions! Both have some beautiful color.

Diggin' the arch also. 1smile1 I want to do something similar with my rock.

 

[swannyson7]

Very nice additions! Both have some beautiful color.

Diggin' the arch also. 1smile1 I want to do something similar with my rock.

The arch didn't quite work out for me, so as of right now, the project is on hold. It protruded from the back wall too much to look even remotely natural, so I pulled the plug until I can figure something out. I might cut the back half off of it so that it sits flush with the back of the tank and then use some sure grips to hold it in place, or I may just scrap the project entirely. I think I can cut it in half with an angle grinder, but the arch might fall apart if I try that.

I've got another Vortech cover for the right MP40 coming from Gooch this week, so that should allow me to pull the last of the frag racks out of the tank. I was really happy with the last one Scott sent me, so I may just look into having him build me a magnetic arch for the back of the tank. Some things are just better left to the pros...

 

[nater]

swanny , tank is looking sick. great pictures to boot :) thanks for sharing

 

[swannyson7]

swanny , tank is looking sick. great pictures to boot :) thanks for sharing

Thanks nater!

This past weekend, my reef club hosted CMAC and I picked up a few goodies. Here's a couple quick pics.
A pair of Arafura percs from midnight mariculture:

Yellow Lantana monti:

Red wellso that's starting to get a bit of rainbowish coloring along the rim...interested to see how this colors up:

Strawberry shortcake that browned out a bit after sitting in the cooler all day:

Black & white Maxima clam!:

Blasto Wellsi:

I also got a frag of everlasting gobstopper palys, but couldn't get a decent pic of them...

 

[Paul_N]

The arch didn't quite work out for me, so as of right now, the project is on hold. It protruded from the back wall too much to look even remotely natural, so I pulled the plug until I can figure something out. I might cut the back half off of it so that it sits flush with the back of the tank and then use some sure grips to hold it in place, or I may just scrap the project entirely. I think I can cut it in half with an angle grinder, but the arch might fall apart if I try that.

I've got another Vortech cover for the right MP40 coming from Gooch this week, so that should allow me to pull the last of the frag racks out of the tank. I was really happy with the last one Scott sent me, so I may just look into having him build me a magnetic arch for the back of the tank. Some things are just better left to the pros...

I hear ya. I wish I had the skills to make the things he does. They are truly a work of art. I'm interested in seeing the covers in action also.

WOW! You really scored at CMAC. Nice selection, especially the B&W maxima, the wwellso, the....ah hell, they are all nice! LOL!

 

[swannyson7]

I hear ya. I wish I had the skills to make the things he does. They are truly a work of art. I'm interested in seeing the covers in action also.

WOW! You really scored at CMAC. Nice selection, especially the B&W maxima, the wwellso, the....ah hell, they are all nice! LOL!

Yeah, Alternative reef's stuff looks amazing. If you go back a page or two, there's a pic of the left Vortech cover. Today the one for the right should come in and I'll take an updated FTS.

CMAC was awesome this year, with a ton of vendors. For speakers we had Marc Levenson talking about reef tank pests, Murray Camp spoke about probiotics & carbon dosing, and Ron Shimek spoke about feeding & nutrition in reef aquaria. It was the first time that I've been able to make it to the conference, but certainly won't be my last.

 

[swannyson7]

I got a couple new toys in yesterday, so I figured I'd post a couple pics. I got my Bubble Magus BM180-CS in from the Great Forum Challenge. A huge thank you to TB Aquatics & all the other vendors for the generous donation to the contest!

Also got a CAP AIR-1 so that I can finally set up a ventilation fan for the room with the tank.

 

[fsu1dolfan]

Nice looking pickups Swanny...love the wellso!!

 

[swannyson7]

I got my other piece in from The Alternative Reef yesterday, so here's an updated FTS:

 

[skinz78]

Very nice!

 

[swannyson7]

Thanks Chris! The pieces from the Alternative Reef look great and they let me get rid of the last of my frag racks in the DT. I think I'm going to ask Scott about building an arch for the back of the tank that goes around the MP10s seeing as the arch I attempted never looked quite right.

 

[REEFCRAFT]

Beautiful tank!

 

[Captain Nemo]

WOW!!!! I think I am in love! Goregeous tank bro!!!