Kodski's 80gal office lagoon

[Kodski]

Thank you for the tips! My @Biota_Marine yellow tang isn't going anywhere; Jeff Goldblum is my favorite fish and eats nori out of my hand. I might try putting Jeff in the sump for a week or two while I introduce two other tangs, and then move Jeff back into the display. That's would be some time down the road though, after one or two of my current fish move on to greener pastures, as everyone is very happy right now and I don't want to mess with that.

I actually did try that with my orange stripe tang, he was in the sump for almost a month. Sadly it didn’t work in my case but I wish you best of luck!

 

[Projects with Sam]

I actually did try that with my orange stripe tang, he was in the sump for almost a month. Sadly it didn’t work in my case but I wish you best of luck!

I heard the rockscape needs to be moved around enough to trick the seasoned fish; they remember their turf; even after months.

 

[Kodski]

I heard the rockscape needs to be moved around enough to trick the seasoned fish; they remember their turf; even after months.

I did move a few rocks around before I reintroduced him, but I didn’t change the whole tank. I’m sure more change would have helped.

 

[Kodski]

Look who’s acclimating currently!!

 

[Projects with Sam]

Look who’s acclimating currently!!

wow; pretty fish. what is it?

 

[Kodski]

wow; pretty fish. what is it?

Its a male Breast Spot Swallowtail Angel. I have a female and have always wanted a male. I tried once a few months ago and the male didn't make it. This time is much more promising.

Here is the female

 

[Kodski]

I’m so excited to have my dream fish! Everyone is doing great and getting along just fine! No aggression besides each fish letting the new guys know who’s hiding hole belongs to who.

 

[Kodski]

Figured I'd make a full list of fish in the tank.

Current (10/14/22) Stocking List:
Gold Line Rabbit Fish
Sailfin Tang
Gold Rim Tang
Purple Tang
Pintail Fairy Wrasse
Christmas Wrasse
Pair of half naked mochaccino clown fish
2x Female Lyretail Anthias
Male Lyretail Anthias
Midas Blenny
Pink Spot Goby
Blue Mandarin
Royal Gramma
Female Spot Breast Swallowtail Angel
Male Spot Breast Swallowtail Angel


I'd say I'm due for a bigger tank. Luckily, I have one sitting the garage which I hope to start a build thread for tomorrow...

 

[TheWB]

Look who’s acclimating currently!!

That's really cool. I'm upgrading soon and I want a pair of those as the centerpieces of my tank. That one looks really healthy. Good luck.

 

[Kodski]

That's really cool. I'm upgrading soon and I want a pair of those as the centerpieces of my tank. That one looks really healthy. Good luck.

Thank you! Yes this is one of the nicest specimens I’ve come across. Nice and fat already, plus he is very large in size. Somewhere around 7-8 inches. My female I thought was large but he is almost twice her size.

As far as swallowtail angels as a centerpiece, my female has always been my favorite fish in my tank. I catch myself staring at her lazily swimming around the tank and admiring her streamers. Such a beautiful fish, and well behaved too. I’m sure the male will take over as my new favorite but the pair is what makes them extra special in my eyes.

 

[TheWB]

Thank you! Yes this is one of the nicest specimens I’ve come across. Nice and fat already, plus he is very large in size. Somewhere around 7-8 inches. My female I thought was large but he is almost twice her size.

As far as swallowtail angels as a centerpiece, my female has always been my favorite fish in my tank. I catch myself staring at her lazily swimming around the tank and admiring her streamers. Such a beautiful fish, and well behaved too. I’m sure the male will take over as my new favorite but the pair is what makes them extra special in my eyes.

You nailed it about having the pair. I really like pairs and trios of fish, I think the behaviors are just really interesting. Up until some recent losses I had a pair of clowns, a pair oz zebra barred dartfish and a trio of chalk basslets living together. When I upgrade I’ll definitely do the dartfish and chalk basslets again. Besides the swallowtail angels I’m also hoping to get a pair of Starki damsels.
That’s a pretty impressive list of fish you’ve got going there. You’re tight though, you’re going to need to upgrade. I’ll look forward to following that new build thread.

 

[Kodski]

My new build thread is finally here! Its going to be a fun build!

Large Build - Kodski's L-Shaped 240 gallon Reef

Hello fellow reefers! I was browsing facebook marketplace a few months back when I saw this strangely unique tank. I knew immediately I had to have it, as I have a habit of needing to stand out and be different. But with a track record of buying new aquariums every few weeks, I had to strike a...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Kodski]

WOW it’s been a year almost to the day since I’ve updated this thread. Seems like just a few months ago..


Anyways, long story short the new L-shaped tank got turned into a terrarium for my juvenile Reticulated Python, Loki. It still resides in my office but in a better manner than it would have been as an aquarium. I had another large tank ready to go but sadly I’ve decided I just don’t have the space for a tank that large. So that leads me to this update.


The 80gal tank had a crash about 6 or 8 months ago. I lost almost all the coral except a few small pieces here and there along with a few fish. Two months ago I took the tank down and transferred what little coral I had left to a 38 gallon tank I set up. (You can follow along in my build thread, check out my profile) The livestock then was transferred to a holding set-up comprised as a 100 gallon Rubbermaid and a 50 gallon Rubbermaid for a sump. I was originally going to put a 7ft 210gallon tank up as an upgrade. Unfortunately, it’s just going to be too tight in my office with my desk, Loki’s enclosure and that large of a tank. So I’m going to compromise. I’m going to be setting this 80 gallon tank back up, but I’m doing to be changing several things.

1) I want a nice-ish frag tank attached to the system.
2) I also want more space for filtration and a refugium in my filtration room.
3) I want an SPS dominated display.

That’s going to be it for now, but I plan on getting this going quickly as I’d like to get my fish out of the holding tank. I’ve gone through and cleaned up the tank already and put the stand in place. I’d like to redo a few outlets around the fish room before I get too far. I’ll post more updates soon. For now here is Loki and some of his beauty, the whole reason this tank will be back soon.

 

[Kodski]

So I’ve been chipping away a little at a time on the to-do list.

- I added two wall outlets in waterproof enclosures to the wall. (I still have to wire them into the existing circuit but that can be done in a matter of minutes)

- I sorted out a stand situation for the sumps, skimmer, and frag tank. I used a 7ftx2ft stand I had made recently that I wasn’t going to get to use.

- I took apart the old 40 breeder sump and drilled the side to hook up to another 40 breeder in parallel. This gets me enough extra volume in the sumps to prevent an overflow in a power down situation. For both the display and frag tank

- drilled a 75 gallon tank to use as a frag tank and painted the bottom white. Turns out I don’t think it looks nice. It’s fine for the frag tank but not the look I wanted for the display tank.

- bought some 1/16” HDPE for the bottom of the display tank. I need to silicone that down yet but it’s on today’s agenda

So today and yesterday I got both sumps and the frag tank into the basement fish room. I added some studs to secure plumbing to. Then I cleaned all the tanks up as they were quite dirty from sitting in my garage for so long. Here is how everything sits currently.

The idea for the sumps is as follows:

Water drains into the bubble chamber on the far left. Then overflows in to the egg crate tiers. On the first layer of egg crate will be filter floss for easy mechanical filtration. Below that, sitting atop the other piece of egg crate will be live rock rubble and biospheres. I want it to sit off the bottom of the tank as this will avoid trapping detritus. The next chamber will be for chaeto, and the idea behind the outlet placed higher up the baffle (but below the water’s surface) is to help tumble the chaeto.

The last chamber in sump 1 will be used strictly for live rock rubble.

The secondary sump Is basically an equipment chamber and a pump chamber. The equipment chamber is sized large enough to fit my external protein skimmer if I decide to place it in the sump. I do think I will end up placing the skimmer up above on the top of the stand directly above the equipment chamber. But I’m still undecided at this point. In the picture you can also see the acrylic heater holder I made as well. I used some 1/4” white acrylic left over from the baffles along with some eheim Jager suction cup mounts. I love the eheim Hager’s and have great success with them. But their suction cups harder and fail after just a few months leaving the heaters just floating around in the sump. So I came up with the heater holder!

Up next:

- level and shim the sump stand

- clean up the display tank and silicone the hdpe sheet

- wire the outlets into the house

- clean the display tank stand and cut a hole for plumbing.

- aquascaping the display

- plumbing

- hanging the lights

 

[Projects with Sam]

Looking good! Love the wood finish!

 

[Kodski]

Looking good! Love the wood finish!

Thanks Sam!

Its easy to do and seals the wood pretty decently. I don't do a finish over the burn and have had great success long term with it.

 

[Kodski]

I did manage to get the HDPE sheet siliconed down today as well. I really tried to make nice clean silicone lines, a few places are not as neat as I’d have liked but I’m still happy with it overall. I’m hoping tomorrow I can bring the tank inside and see it in its final resting place.

 

[Kodski]

Tank has been sitting inside for about two weeks now. Today I’ll start on the aquascape. No idea how long it will take me. I’ve just been trying to pace myself with this to hopefully avoid some of the pitfalls I’ve encountered in the past with setting things up as fast as I can.

Main goals I’m shooting for in the aquascape.

1) Fish habitat.

2) coral real estate.

3) flow

4) growth

The plan:

I’m going to be building my aquascape using the same method as one would use for a NSA. Little chunks of rock glued together. HOWEVER, I do not like the NSA style for one reason. I don’t feel that it gives enough territory for fish. At least not right away, I’ll touch on that again later. Being my main goal is fish habitat, I plan on make more tight knit rock structures. In the end I don’t really plan on it looking much different from stacked rocks, but as you look closer you’ll see a network of caves and hiding places. I do like how well NSA works for coral placement though. It forces you to spread placement of corals out giving them space to grow freely and allowing you to “grow in” the overall look of the tank. Another thing I like about NSA is that as the coral grows it adds layers of new habitat for the fish, though like I said before, it doesn’t create what I would consider “good” habitat right away. Growth takes time but with it, New overhangs, crevasses, and holes to swim through and create a safer feeling environment for the fish. Lastly for flow, the whole point of being bare bottom is to minimize detritus laying around. So I plan on as little of the aquascape as needed touching the bottom allowing for good flow beneath the structure. Along with that, I want to maximize flow that the corals receive. I believe flow is more important than lighting to SPS and I plan on enacting on that fully. My idea is to create a raised tier structure. Allowing flow to freely as possible pass around the corals. This will likely be the most difficult part of the aquascape due to the shallow height of the tank and wanting to allow height for the coral to grow in. Which leads me into #4, growth. I feel that the above ideas will help play into growth of the corals, but I’d like to limit the structure height to around 9-10” tall. That will allow 5-6” of height for the sps to grow.

 

[Kodski]

This should be plenty of rock to get me started…

If not I’ve got another 100-150lbs in the basement..

 

[Kodski]

This is where the day took me. Different from my initial plan but hey, you don’t tell the rock how to fall, it just falls the way it’s going to fall.

It’s not done yet, I’ll go back through tomorrow and fill in a lot of the gaps to create more sectioned off hiding places for the fish. There are quite a few already but I’d like to close it up a bit yet.