Ron Reefman's new 90g build

[Ron Reefman]

I'd like to say I'm happy about turning 72. But the truth is, I'm just happy to be here at 72. There's a difference.

BTW, I'm happier than I've ever been at any point in my life!

 

[Ron Reefman]

Wow! It's been 3 months since I've posted here. But then in those 3 months, although I've been busy, I haven't done much of anything to the tanks other than regular maintenance and watched corals grow!

But I have seen an issue and now I am going to fix it. I have a locally collected Mottled File Fish in my 90g DT and it has been a proven aiptasia eater when it was introduced to the tank. After the aiptasia were gone, it was a good citizen in the tank. But over the last few months I've lost a few Rock Flower Anemones and it turns out the File Fish is the reason why.

Now I've had a 40g secondary DT set up for local stuff and not much has gone into it. This tank just has a big HOB filter. No sump, no refugium, no skimmer. It does have artificial black sand and a few zoas. So I'm moving the 25 RFAs and 3 Mini-maxi anemones from the 90g tank to the 40g tank. That should solve the issue with the File Fish and put the RFAs in black sand where I think they will look better. I also thing RFAs are a bit happier in less than perfect water, so the 40g tank with just a HOB filter should be OK for them.

That will free up about 20% of the footprint of the 90g tank at the front left corner which was a RFA garden (all in the sand in PVC end caps). I intend to add some more shelf rock and start adding some new coral frags.

This is the 90g tank after I had removed about 2/3rds the RFAs.

So i took a couple of pieces of shelf rock I had left over and will place them on the sand where the RFAs used to be. But fitting frag plugs into the shelf rock isn't very functional. Therefore I'll take the shelf rock and 'open up' some of the existing holes and create some new ones that frag plugs will easily fit into.

This is typical, more or less, of the shelf rock I have.

This is one of the two pieces I'll be adding to the tank with 11 'opened up' holes.

I've done this quite a bit with other rock in the past and it works quite well. It doesn't take very long for the rock to color up and the empty holes to almost disappear, or at least not look any different than the 'natural' holes in the rock.

 

[crusso1993]

Hey @Ron Reefman - I’ve been away for a while and recently got back on here. Hopefully you’ll remember me. I sure hope you have been well and fared through Ian without too much damage. Looks like it’s been quite a while since you’ve provided any updates to this thread. However, your other RFA thread looks to be more active. Do you still have your tanks set up?

BTW - I have experienced quite a number of changes since we last communicated. One major change was a change in location. If you take a peek at where I’m now located you’ll notice we’re neighbors!

Hope to hear back from you soon.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Hey @Ron Reefman - I’ve been away for a while and recently got back on here. Hopefully you’ll remember me. I sure hope you have been well and fared through Ian without too much damage. Looks like it’s been quite a while since you’ve provided any updates to this thread. However, your other RFA thread looks to be more active. Do you still have your tanks set up?

BTW - I have experienced quite a number of changes since we last communicated. One major change was a change in location. If you take a peek at where I’m now located you’ll notice we’re neighbors!

Hope to hear back from you soon.

OK, so it's a year later! Yikes!

I started to get out of the hobby late in 2022. But in early 2023 I started two 40g aio tanks. One is a40g breeder aio with mostly local stuff I collect in the Keys and at beaches and estuaries here in SW Florida. The other is a 40g cube I made myself with an aio insert. It's all sps & lps coral, anemones and some CUC... no fish!So at this point I think I'll close this thread out and start a new 40g build thread!