Manny Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 Although I would have loved to have started taking pictures from the very beginning of my build, the sad realization is that I did not. I wasn't on any forums and it wasn't until about a month after the cycle was finished, that I decided I wanted to record my progress. So these pictures are not from the very beginning but I only missed a month or so of my progress. So far my tank is only 3 months old. I didn't know exactly what I was getting into so I started out with the basic requirements. I wish I had gone all out and spent a bit more money and got a tank with overflows and already drilled. It's ok I guess. I am already looking into getting another aquarium (about 100g or so). I will make sure I get one that is reef ready and I will be setting up a sump to go with it. As far I what I now have Equipment: 29G glass tank Reef Octopus HOB skimmer Cobalt Neo-Therm heater WP-25 Powerhead AquaSun 30" T5 HO W/ZooMed Bulbs (ultra sun & coral sun) Digital Thermometer Livestock: Black Ocellaris True Percula Royal Gramma Orange Spotted Goby Fire Shrimp Several different hermits Turbo/astrea/sarius/trochus snails Emerald Crab Candy Cane Coral Pulsing Xenia (freebie from Bpb) Yellow Polyps Some kind of zoas Jade Torch Coral Green Tip Torch (I got this guy in very bad shape. I was in Petco getting frozen food and noticed it was dying. I decided to make the manager an offer and told him I was willing to lose $10 to try and nurse the torch back to health. He accepted. It was doing very well until 2 days ago one of my hermits punctured some tissue of it and i believe it to have gotten brown jelly. I treated it this morning and it looks to be recovering. It did lose some tissue but I believe it will bounce back up once again. You will see the picture below) Finger Leather Toadstool Kenya Tree Unidentified favia Umbrella Mushroom Regular purple mushroom Green Ricordea Orange digitata Green montipora cap Hammer coral. A friend gave this to me. It started as a 5 head (HUGE) colony and by the time he gave it to me, I was only able to save 1 head. I had to frag the dead pieces off. He asked me to try and nurture it and if it worked, in the future give him a frag off of it. So far it is recovering nicely. Parameters: Calcium 450ppm Alkalinity 11dKH Magnesium 1240 ppm Nitrates <10ppm pH 7.9ish Temp 78 consistently So here go the pictures. You will see that I started with a horrible aquascape that included an ugly arch. I took that down as soon as my diatom bloom (very apparent in the pictures) was gone. I am now much happier with my scape. I think it will stay this way for a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted December 18, 2013 Author Share Posted December 18, 2013 Here is my first coral Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted December 18, 2013 Author Share Posted December 18, 2013 And the rest of the pictures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted December 18, 2013 Author Share Posted December 18, 2013 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted December 18, 2013 Author Share Posted December 18, 2013 How about that comeback? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted December 18, 2013 Author Share Posted December 18, 2013 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted December 18, 2013 Author Share Posted December 18, 2013 My new aquascape Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glumslum Posted December 19, 2013 Share Posted December 19, 2013 Nice set up bro! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dustin Pedretti Posted December 19, 2013 Share Posted December 19, 2013 Geez...at first I was like "my poor hammer" but in the second picture it looks soooo much better...nice tank man...looking good! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subsea Posted December 19, 2013 Share Posted December 19, 2013 I like your rockscape. The open look promotes good water circulation. That shrimp is very red. The yellow polyps will grow fast. They could cover the back glass very easily in a year or two. Welcome to the hobby. Let your tank cycle longer. IMO, mini cycles will continue for the first year. Patrick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Planeden Posted December 19, 2013 Share Posted December 19, 2013 Looks good. I like the new rock work, too. Of course, it kinda reminds me of mine, so I guess I better like it . Although, I think the ugly arch is kinda neat. Too big fr the 29g, but I'd consider trying to use it in the bigger one you are planning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted December 19, 2013 Author Share Posted December 19, 2013 Geez...at first I was like "my poor hammer" but in the second picture it looks soooo much better...nice tank man...looking good! Ya he had a nice comeback. Sadly, 3 days ago my largest hermit decided to claw at it. He made some punctures on the tissue and it got brown jelly. I treated it and it looked like it was making a nice comeback withing a few hours. Sadly, he didn't make it through the night. The whole top was again covered with the disease. i didn't want to risk it spreading to nearby corals or have some of the hermits possibly spread it so I decided it was not worth the risk to try and keep nursing it. He was about 90% gone already anyways. I like your rockscape. The open look promotes good water circulation. That shrimp is very red. The yellow polyps will grow fast. They could cover the back glass very easily in a year or two. Welcome to the hobby. Let your tank cycle longer. IMO, mini cycles will continue for the first year. Patrick Thank you Patrick. My fish seem to enjoy the openness as well. My fire shrimp has only been in the aquarium for a month now and has molted every week. With each molt, however, he seems to get brighter. I will slow down on the purchases while the tank continues to cycle. Next upgrade is going to be an auto top off. I need a bit more stability in my tank. I will purchase that the first week of January. I will do my best to keep the polyps under control. Looks good. I like the new rock work, too. Of course, it kinda reminds me of mine, so I guess I better like it . Although, I think the ugly arch is kinda neat. Too big fr the 29g, but I'd consider trying to use it in the bigger one you are planning. I am much happier with this rock work now too. I still have the arch in there but it is hidden (broken right down the middle). It is full of pods and I didn't want to throw it out. I figured if I get a friend who gets into the hobby, I can hook them up with that live rock to help get him going. If not, it might still go into my new aquarium, whenever I do get it. Not sure if you guys noticed or not but half of the rockwork in there is DIY rock. You can see on some of the pictures how white the rock was. That is the DIY rock. The arch I made as well. The rest I ordered from BRS. I got the dry rock over live rock. I wanted to make sure not to get any unwanted pests in there. Well everyone, thanks for the kind words. I am anxious to see what this aquarium will look like a year from now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted January 16, 2014 Author Share Posted January 16, 2014 Here is the newest resident to my tank. I went out of town for a few days and came back to a missing orange spotted goby. Its OK though because this banded goby is now my favorite resident. Got him for a killer deal. I also spotted the very first patch of coraline algae on my back glass yesterday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted January 16, 2014 Author Share Posted January 16, 2014 Here he is! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted January 16, 2014 Author Share Posted January 16, 2014 Hmmmm having a little trouble with doing this on my phone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Planeden Posted January 16, 2014 Share Posted January 16, 2014 gobies just always look so grumpy. all of them should be given old men names. they are such great fish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lorien Posted January 18, 2014 Share Posted January 18, 2014 Nice! Be sure to post updates so we can see how your tank progresses. I love when folks do that, it gives me something to look forward to in my own tank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted January 18, 2014 Author Share Posted January 18, 2014 Nice! Be sure to post updates so we can see how your tank progresses. I love when folks do that, it gives me something to look forward to in my own tank. I absolutely will keep you guys updated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted January 20, 2014 Author Share Posted January 20, 2014 I was doing a water chagne last night and I realized that my rock is finally starting to get coraline growth all over it. It is actually quite exciting to the the growth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted February 19, 2014 Author Share Posted February 19, 2014 Ok guys so I think an update is due on my aquarium. Everything has been going good for me. I have not had any significant problems or setbacks. There have been a few changes. So here it goes. Additions: Fish I obviously recently posted the picture of my goby Now for the tang police out there, bear with me. I purchased a yellow tang. Why? Only because I had already decided to purchase a bigger aquarium. I have purchased a 75 gallon setup and it will be getting delivered here next friday. I will make sure to start a thread on that build as well. So my yellow tang will be going into my new setup. When I went to the store, he was so skinny and had no seaweed on the glass. They were only feeding flake food. He is only 2 inches long and I knew if I bought him he would not be in my tank for much longer than a month, so what did I do? I saved it's life:) It's my favorite fish. I have been feeding him a 3x3 seaweed strip every 2-3 days since I got it and it has filled up nicely. As for corals, thanks to Niko's Reef: Don't know the specific name but I got a red acan 2 watermelon zoas (not pictured)/and a few solid maroon ones (again, I am not up to par with specific names) Birdsnest SPS (supposedly this originiated in jeeperTys tank) 3 Red Monti Cap frags And from a different seller I got two duncan frags. Losses: My Orange Percula drank some redbull and flew out of my tank. I found him dry on the ground the next morning The hammer coral I was nursing back to health took a turn for the worse and died My green tip torch died but i blame it on the way it was fragged but my jade torch is flourishing in an amazing manner A huge turbo snail. I am however happy about this though. He was always knocking over my frags. I didn't like him anyways. Problems: I am still battling a cyano outbreak but it is not really a big deal. It isn't too bad and have been able to keep it under control. My favia took a dive onto my torch and was stung down to the bone. Instead of throwing it away, i put it in the back of my tank and forgot about it. When I remembered about it, it had just about completely recovered and had almost doubled in size. Good news: Well what can be better than me saying my coral are growing? They might not be the fastest growing in the world but I have seen some serious growth since I first started. Oddly enough, my xenia and kenya tree are among some of the slower growing ones. It doesn't make sense to me but I am cool with those two staying under control. My green monti cap, jade torch, and finger leather have seen the biggest amount of growth in the last month or two. My goby is a big eater as well. He is not picky and swims up to meet the sinking pellets. He lets me fire shrimp clean him constantly. Parameters: No ammonia or nitrites I did have my nitrates go up to 20ppm after i thought I could do a water change after two weeks instead of one. Didn't work so I am back to doing water changes once a week and keep nitrates below 10ppm. Ca is at 430ish and seems to drop to about 390-400 by the end of the week. So I am dosing Ca right now. I have a liquid solution and only add 1ml a week. Alkalinity is slowly coming down but as of this week it is at 10.8dKH. Mg is constant at 1220ppm I do not test for phosphates yet. Look for my new build thread within the next week or so. I will be sure to keep you guys posted. Here are the pictures. http://i869.photobucket.com/albums/ab254/MannyFreshh0813/IMG_0439_zps151cce60.jpg http://i869.photobucket.com/albums/ab254/MannyFreshh0813/IMG_0440_zps1fc8bf3d.jpg This here has kind of unofficially become my sps rock http://i869.photobucket.com/albums/ab254/MannyFreshh0813/IMG_0441_zps42007696.jpg http://i869.photobucket.com/albums/ab254/MannyFreshh0813/IMG_0442_zps88d47a28.jpg Another shot of my beautiful acan http://i869.photobucket.com/albums/ab254/MannyFreshh0813/IMG_0445_zpsbb68dec8.jpg http://i869.photobucket.com/albums/ab254/MannyFreshh0813/IMG_0446_zps69fca634.jpg http://i869.photobucket.com/albums/ab254/MannyFreshh0813/IMG_0447_zpsd287c150.jpg Now this picture doesn't do justice to my torch. When fully extended, it is about 6 inches long. Look at the difference from when I first started adding coral http://i869.photobucket.com/albums/ab254/MannyFreshh0813/IMG_0449_zpsc06587de.jpg Compared to http://i869.photobucket.com/albums/ab254/MannyFreshh0813/IMG_0405_zps94b29f43.jpg And lastly the coral on steroids Before http://i869.photobucket.com/albums/ab254/MannyFreshh0813/IMG_0388_zps09c44b77.jpg After (He is in the center) http://i869.photobucket.com/albums/ab254/MannyFreshh0813/IMG_0449_zpsc06587de.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted February 19, 2014 Author Share Posted February 19, 2014 Anyone know why the pictures are not showing up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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