110T Tank

[NY_Caveman]

Is it normal for clowns not to sleep in rock work?

One of my ocellaris used to hang out at the overflow grate all night. Furthest point from the rocks. I suspected the bleed through from the refugium light attracted him.

 

[Nick C]

One of my ocellaris used to hang out at the overflow grate all night. Furthest point from the rocks. I suspected the bleed through from the refugium light attracted him.

Yeah.. strange animals. The lights go out at 1030 And about 1015 all the other fish are going to bed in the rocks. Not the clowns. Chilling up near the top by a gyre. Out of the current, but still.. kinda strange.

 

[Sean1986]

Welcome to R2R!

Looks great! Beautiful set up.

Smart man! Definitely get her enjoying it as well. Buy In is everything.
[emoji4]

I love the look of a tall tank.

Scape looks great! But way to close to the glass.
Lol make sure you can safely reach the bottom of the glass with a long handles scraper to clean it.
You want at least 3 or 4 inches free space to work inside the tank. Especially with a tank that tall.
I wiffed on this one horribly.
[emoji17]
Definitely learn from my mistake.
[emoji4]

You can let the very bottom row get a little closer to the glass but at least leave room for the thickness of the scraper at an angle.
Get on your 4' or 6' stepladder and stick your hand in the tank while it's still dry and practice cleaning motions before you get too far with the build.
Don't tumble the rock scape and break the glass!


I use a clean (never used otherwise) plastic (mostly) 4" wide razor scraper from Lowes (maybe Home Depot?) We have a lot of coralline.

You will want to get some long handled grabbers and tools (and get proficient with them) soon.
18" stainless steel tweezers, tongs are a must have. $17 on Amazon.
I get a lot of use out of them cause I can't fit my fingers in between the rocks and the glass.
[emoji849]

As part of setting yourself up for success, you may want to predrill a bunch of 1/2" or 5/8" holes for frag plug bases into your rock now, while it's still dry.

The tall tanks look absolutely beautiful! But they are more work to work inside. Good news is you will keep your hands out of the tank more.
Never a bad thing.
[emoji4]
You will spend a lot less time saying "oh, I'll just move this over a few inches."

I like everything on live rock rubble for a more natural look but we have plenty of frag plugs in our tank.
I use tile nippers to rough up the edges of most of the frag plugs to help them blend in a little better.


A half dozen (max) small trochus snails, no hermit crabs, will keep fewer frags from falling.
[emoji4]



Not trying to scare you but something to consider.
Tall thin tank on top of tall thin stand. And it's salt water besides.

We have a tall 37 gallon similar to yours.

I took 2 long metal framing straps, bent them in a U shape and screwed the back side of the stand into the wall stud about 4 inches from the wall.
It's not foolproof, but it gives me a lot of piece of mind.
Our house is on crawlspace and the tall tank only jiggles a little bit with heavy foot traffic or rough housing nearby.

Nope, I lied. The 75 stand has the metal straps.
The tall 37 just has two 1.5" hooks screwed into the wall studs and thin velcro straps double wrapped around the top of the back 2 legs of the 4 leg stand.
Hardy foolproof, but 1/8" movement beats "timber".

Ok, sorry if this is scary. We have never had any issues! I just felt better taking precautions.

The set up looks beautiful.
You got it at a great price.
Your wife is into it.
You are taking your time and moving slowly and it should be a fantastic build!
[emoji4]
Congrats!

If you have a crawl space spend the $50 bucks and support under your tank. Will help level the tank, and stop all the jiggle in the floor. I’ve done this for all my tanksnin a crawlspace

 

[norfolkgarden]

If you have a crawl space spend the $50 bucks and support under your tank. Will help level the tank, and stop all the jiggle in the floor. I’ve done this for all my tanksnin a crawlspace

Great idea!

My main concern is we have older people in the house who tend to grab onto something to steady themselves.

Grabbing the wrong thing can be bad.
[emoji53]

 

[Nick C]

LFS is getting some fish in today. One i really want to see is a Malinarus Wrasse.. It will be tempting!

 

[Nick C]

ALSO, my Apex should be here today, as long as the filter for my phone so i can take actual decent pictures something else too... but i don't remember what i ordered... i guess it will be a surprise!

 

[Nick C]

So it was a very busy night... The other thing I ordered were some new heaters I went from 125W to 150w but I don't know if it is going to work the "water line" make on the new ones is a little but out of the water. There is like a 1 inch difference in the length of the heater.

But I spent the night cleaning out the bottom of the cabinet and connecting the Apex. I just needed to get it up and running. Don't mind the wire mess ill take care of it today after work but I am very happy with it and very happy all of the wires are out of the bottom.!! I also took a picture with my new polyp lab lens and holy crap is it amazing the difference!! Idk if it's worth 30 dollars but it's going to make life a lot easier for taking pictures!

 

[Nick C]

Didn't get very much done today. I got a few corals in from Top shelf Aquatics. And my LFS got some designer clowns in... I bought a pair of midnight lightnings. Beautiful clowns. Unfortunately it was a little too blue to get a decent picture. But that's okay.

I've also found my cat likes the fish tank...

I've decided that I want to get a mounting board for my equipment that is outside of the tank, then zip tie that cable mess and stick it behind the equipment it should look decent.. I just have to find something I can use that is going to be my project this weekend.

 

[Nick C]

Here is a better picture. All 4 frags are softies. I got a Green Bay Packers zoa (this can be seen up above in the bottom of the other picture), which didn't open up until lights out, a Nirvana paly which was opening slowly.

And 2 CB rainbow infusion zoas.

I like these rainbows a lot.

 

[Nick C]

The fish store got a bunch of designer clowns in last week. I loved one pair so much...

Midnight lightning Clowns. There hasn't been any aggression between the two pairs, only the female lightning to the male. But it has been minimal.

 

[Nick C]

I'm going to steal something I saw on @Brew12 thread. His monthly FTS for his records to look back on! It's a great idea! So here we go! ( I actually changed up the Rock last night after I snapped this picture)

 

[sp1187]

I think my blasto is dying a few of the polyps are still bright blue, but a few have turned basically black.. it's in a low light low flow area

turn the pumps off and feed them directly every other day. I have a 2 polyp frag at the top. a small colony at the middle and a large colony aprox. 6" off the bottom. all are doing well.

I have a 150T. (48x24x30)
2 Maxspect Gyres 230's. mounted back corners of side glass facing each other.
30% max OC setting on the controller. return flow is back left corner facing right front corner.

 

[Nick C]

turn the pumps off and feed them directly every other day. I have a 2 polyp frag at the top. a small colony at the middle and a large colony aprox. 6" off the bottom. all are doing well.

I have a 150T. (48x24x30)
2 Maxspect Gyres 230's. mounted back corners of side glass facing each other.
30% max OC setting on the controller. return flow is back left corner facing right front corner.

Do you have your Gyre's vertical or horizontal? and i have been broadcast feeding reef Chili, but i will target feed it. It is either dying slower, or is doing better, should i see color start to come back to the parts that already look dead? Or will it end up growing over? For reference, It is the frag dead center on the sand bed.

 

[sp1187]

Do you have your Gyre's vertical or horizontal? and i have been broadcast feeding reef Chili, but i will target feed it. It is either dying slower, or is doing better, should i see color start to come back to the parts that already look dead? Or will it end up growing over? For reference, It is the frag dead center on the sand bed.

Gyres are vertical. Can be seen...sorta In my build, Mike's 150 Tall post #28.
Rear pic left gyre is behind the heater.
If the flesh isn't gone, and just discolored, color should return.
If not, it could still regenerate, as long as the mouth is still there so it can feed.
I turn all the pumps off, gyres and return, for about 1/2 an hour when I'm feeding the corals.

 

[sp1187]

since you are new to this awesome hobby, you are aware of potential, but not probable, dangers with keeping zoas/palys?

 

[Nick C]

since you are new to this awesome hobby, you are aware of potential, but not probable, dangers with keeping zoas/palys?

Yes I am. Thank you for the concern though

 

[Nick C]

Here is the updated picture I took at lunch just to see the updated scape. Not a big change, but I'm happy with it. Assuming my nem stays where I put it..

 

[Nick C]

Not too many updates in the last little bit. I think my hermits killed my Florida there is like nothing left on the plug...

My nem found it's way onto one of my gyres, I have the guard on so I don't think it got hurt but it was looking ROUGH for a few days. All looks better now, just hasn't completely come out of hiding. Or maybe it just likes where it is. The clowns Haven't gone near it though. Dang it.. I'm going on vacation in a few months and am starting to get worried a little. I need to do some research on what good practice is. I went ahead and bought a foscam wireless camera so I can watch the tank live. That eases me a little, but I will be in the middle of the ocean! So probably no wifi on the ship

My LFS is getting settled shipment in this week. I'm lending them my Seneye so they can measure PAR, I'm hoping they give me a deal if I find something I like I need to move some frags around, I have a lot going on on my sand bed and I need to get them onto the scape.

I'm also considering a change to the sump. Either removing filter socks (I've heard good and bad things) or ditching socks for a KlirFilter 7inch in Jan when the come out. I work in IT so new things always attract me. Probably not a good thing haha any one have experience with a no sock method?

As for the live stock comoco in, I'm not really looking for anything. I don't need any fish, or coral for that matter. But who knows maybe I will see something I really want!

 

[Nick C]

I think this clown is beautiful. Quickly becoming my favorite fish in terms of color,

But my yellow Tang cracks me up!!

 

[Nick C]

So I don't think I ever posted a picture of my control board and the mess of wire I fixed. I stole the idea from someone else. I bought a white cabinet from Target, mounted some board in it and mounted everything. It's not perfect but a lot better than what I had!!

I got some frags in from unique corals and their live sale over the weekend:

1 ultra torch
1 Duncan
1 teal stag
1 purple island tort,
1 blue island tort (was doa.)

Water temp was right around 60 when I got these unfortunately.. I won't be buying any live stock online until it starts to warm up a bit.

But the other recovered very nicely. Here are some pictures.

I am also planning out a muximi station in my garage. Currently my set up doesn't allow me to have any extra water on hand which makes me kind of nervous. (I have my ATO with 10-18 gallons of kalkwasser di water.)

I bought 3 55 gallon drums off of Craigslist that we're were used to store cooking oils that I will be cleaning out and repurposing for a mixing station. I'm in the middle of planning, we will see where it takes me!!