93 Gal rimless, euphyllia heavy tank

[woejillis]

I've been meaning to start a build thread for years but figure now's as good a time as any. My dad has been in the saltwater hobby since the mid-80's so I was raised with reefing in my blood. I've been actively reefing for over 10 years and am located in central Indiana.

I've had my own tank since 2008 which was a standard 75 Gal reef tank. I bought the tank and initial livestock from a friend who was exiting the hobby.

(circa 2008)

I discovered that craigslist was an excellent place to find discounted saltwater goods (filtration, live rock, livestock, etc.). I was patient and slowly built up my tank. Nothing extravagant but I was able to develop my sea legs.

(circa 2009)

In mid-2009 an acquaintance from work was tearing down his tank so gave me two clowns and a piece of branching hammer. It was about the size of a baseball. I specifically call out this piece because in my current setup (93 gal rimless) it's the centerpiece(s).

Fast forward to 2013 and I was anticipating moving to a new house and thus upgrading my 75 gal to a 93 gal rimless cube.

(circa May 2013)

My next post will be the details of the new 93 gal tank

 

[woejillis]

Please forgive the algae and fuzzy pictures!

 

[woejillis]

I don't have any pictures from May 2013-November 2014 (I hate past-me sometimes).

During the move I discovered that my branching hammer colony was much bigger than it looks in the picture. It was almost the size of a basketball. The colony mostly survived the move; nothing was harmed but the colony broke in two major pieces with a few smaller breaks. In the year and a half with no pictures I also added a Copper Band Butterfly and Fox Face Rabbitfish from craigslist. From the LFS I added a pair of Banggai Cardinals that ended up spawning for a few years.

I experimented with SPS (some red/green monti) but I never had long-term success. It would grow aggressively for many months but all of a sudden would disintegrate. It was about this time that I decided to stick with euphyllia since I can grow it so well (and easily).

(circa December 2014)

(circa May 2015)

Male cardinal with a brood in his mouth

(circa May 2017)
Euphyllia has grown into 4+ large colonies: 1 is larger than a basketball and 3 are softball size or larger. I've started adding different colors and types of Euphyllia at this point.

(circa June 2017)
Photo credit: Jacek Honkisz

 

[woejillis]

Another move:

Shortly after the professional pictures were taken in June of 2017, we moved again in September. I couldn't afford to move into a new tank so I moved the 93 gal into the new house. The move was a small disaster and I lost almost all of my fish. I didn't lose any coral but my largest colony (the size of a small beach ball at this point) fractured into countless pieces.

(circa November 2017)

I sold many of the smaller pieces (10 heads or less) on craigslist but still have a lot left.

Please forgive the algae. I'm finding that I don't have very good pictures of my tank when it looks pretty!