The Frogman Commeth... Or starteth

frogman_reefer · Jun 12, 2015

Alright, here are my two setups.

1- 56 gallon tall dedicated to soft corals, Xenia varieties, shrooms, polyps and a couple fish. This is and was my learning tank I did everything on this tank to learn how, what, when, why and how much can be lost when you don't listen. :mad:

My second setup is a 125 SPS dominated tank but contains Frogspawn, Duncan, Hammers, toadstools, shrooms, and a few polyps. My SPS are Bali slimmer, Oregon tort, yellow porites, orange setosa, lime green undanta (I think), German blue monti, red cap, encrusting purple something or other, seriatopora, and a few others I don't know the names of.

The tank is about 6 months old at this point and the life is thriving. Here are some pics.

kschweer · Jun 12, 2015

Looking good. Great pictures!

frogman_reefer · Jun 13, 2015

Ok, so I did this kind of backwards. But I wanted to show how my tank progressed and what I did. Any feedback on changes I can continue to make, suggestions on adding corals, live rock, fish. Please feel free to chime in!!! Help is always appreciated!

When I started this project I was fortunate enough to find a 125 gallon tank from someone who needed to get rid of it. Fortunately I got the deal. Ice cap light fixture, 250 watt metal halide (I run 20k), 2 T5 Actinic, and 2 Moonlamp LED: 125 gallon tank and oak stand: 4 blade cooling fan, 29 gallon wet dry sump (converted to normal sump with coral pro skimmer and 25 pound of live rock stocked with 5000 copepods and 2500 amphepods): Get this. Delivered to my door for 550.00!!! CHAH CHING.

the tank needed lots of cleaning (see images). And I took off all the trim and made it rimless. I made all my own rock and added various sizes of sand. After a month of freshwater cycling to ensure the agocrete rock had cured and removed most of the waste byproducts, I started my cycle using waste water from my 56 gallon tank. One month later I added my first fish, coralline shavings, cleanup crew, and a couple worm rocks (micro feather duster) to begin. I also purchased GARF GRUNGE from Sally Jo Headlee (friggin awesome lady and great friend) from GARF. To help seed my tank with all the goodies.

Piece by piece, slowly progress was being made. Here are a few of the starting images.

frogman_reefer · Jun 24, 2015

Just a couple more, trying to work on photo skills, its tough in this spectrum.

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frogman_reefer · Jun 26, 2015

A few pics taken this morning with sunlight while feeding the tank. All lights off.

I altered the contrast slightly so you can see the tentacles better. Color is natural

Valtida? Looks deep blue under actinics.

Image 2

Bad pic, focused on wrong coral. Pachyseris corals, brownish purple coloration, yellow porites, peach digi

Bad color but nice little favites, with feeding tentacles extended - German blue in the back looks nasty under natural light! It's much prettier under 20k lighting

My rescue: yellow porites that had some serious tissue loss. Looking so much better. And you can see the new growth.

I'll post more and I work on my skills. Tanks coming along nicely.

Any suggestions on rock work layout etc. is always welcome!

frogman_reefer · Jun 26, 2015

Ok, got in a coral today from https://www.reef2reef.com/members/bsa-corals.44913/

and it's looking stellar. They do a good job packing up their shipments and they have a good instruction sheet. I'll buy from them again!

Let me know what you think

Yeah, iPhone not so good for tank pics. But hey.

frogman_reefer · Jun 26, 2015

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/m...-reservoir-giveaway-deadline-06-30-15.202192/

Check it out

frogman_reefer · Jun 27, 2015

A few more images of the 125

Euphyllia corner

Photosynthetic brown/purple gorgonian

Sorry the image is a little washed out
Digi rock

Bam bams I believe along with my cleaner goby.

My favorite fish

Well. That's it. Nothing really new other than changing stuff around.

frogman_reefer · Jul 8, 2015

Ok, not much to update, but I did get a new fish. Flame Angel, it took me a little while to get the other fish in the tank to accept it. For some reason my fish were not at all happy about the new addition.

I have a few corals from the Coral Kings that should arrive in the next week, and another order from a nice little Mom and Pop shop where I acquired a nice jack o lantern lepto frag for a STEAL!!!

I am looking at adding some more flow to my tank, can anyone give me some good recommendations regarding oscillating power heads?

csreed · Jul 8, 2015

Can anyone tell me what this little white anemone-looking guy is? I'm new to saltwater tanks (bought a 200-gal from my neighbor) & this was hitch hiking on the live rock...

csreed · Jul 8, 2015

Sorry - that last post was meant for the photo that frogman posted up above...

frogman_reefer · Jul 8, 2015

csreed said:
Can anyone tell me what this little white anemone-looking guy is? I'm new to saltwater tanks (bought a 200-gal from my neighbor) & this was hitch hiking on the live rock...

Post a pic. I don't mind. Let's figure it out and the moderators can move it later

ou12004 · Jul 8, 2015

frogman_reefer said:
Ok, not much to update, but I did get a new fish. Flame Angel, it took me a little while to get the other fish in the tank to accept it. For some reason my fish were not at all happy about the new addition.

I have a few corals from the Coral Kings that should arrive in the next week, and another order from a nice little Mom and Pop shop where I acquired a nice jack o lantern lepto frag for a STEAL!!!

I am looking at adding some more flow to my tank, can anyone give me some good recommendations regarding oscillating power heads?

Good luck with the flame, I had to rehome mine because it liked SPS polyps

frogman_reefer · Jul 8, 2015

I'm keeping a close eye on it.

ou12004 said:
Good luck with the flame, I had to rehome mine because it liked SPS polyps

ou12004 · Jul 8, 2015

I'm in Austin if you end up needing a trap or want to trade frags.

frogman_reefer · Jul 8, 2015

Awesome! Will do, that's good. Trying to still build my reeding network here in SA.

Appreciate the offer.

ou12004 said:
I'm in Austin if you end up needing a trap or want to trade frags.

csreed · Jul 9, 2015

Frogman - mine is hiding in a corner & I can't get a pic from any angle. It looks exactly like the one in your photo - white, anemone-like shape, single. That description may not be helpful enough, & I appreciate your patience as I learn my way (& manners) around this site....

frogman_reefer · Jul 9, 2015

Call me Jeremiah: it's probably a non photosynthetic coral called denro. dendrophyla. (Be careful with spelling because the wrong spelling refers to someone who "loves trees" and I don't mean tree hugger!!!

Google Dendrophyllidae coral. And look at the white or clear colored species. The key is to look closely at the tenticals to see if they are smooth or have patterns. Dendro will have some really cool pattern variation while Aptasia or Majanos are fairly smooth. You can also look at the tips and see if they have a ball type apparatus. If so, you might be looking at a pest. But not always.

The dendro is not provocative and can be voracious feeders. They will grow in small colonies and are one of my favorite coral, especially the strawberry colored centers as they grow larger. Here is a better image of one of my hitchhiker dendro colonies I love.

Note the image below is Aptasia, bad news, stings corals, fish, diminishes copepod and amphipod populations.

Hope this helps! Get a pic if you can

csreed said:
Frogman - mine is hiding in a corner & I can't get a pic from any angle. It looks exactly like the one in your photo - white, anemone-like shape, single. That description may not be helpful enough, & I appreciate your patience as I learn my way (& manners) around this site....