My tank's first birthday - pics to celebrate!

[jacksonpt]

My tank is 1 year old this week, so to celebrate, I took some pics. More pics can be found here (http://www.cycle-cny.com/Pictures/Tank/1year/), but here are some teasers...

http://www.cycle-cny.com/Pictures/Tank/1year/FullTankShot.jpg

http://www.cycle-cny.com/Pictures/Tank/1year/SPS.jpg

http://www.cycle-cny.com/Pictures/Tank/1year/Clam.jpg

[new_world_disor]

beatiful tank. love the corals !

[REDDAWG43]

That's really nice.....
Thats a very interesting Aquascaping...I like it alot.
Maybe you could post about your tank a little more.
Like feeding, lighting, mods... and so forth.

[Rosseau]

Nice work.

[jacksonpt]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11134144#post11134144 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by REDDAWG43
Like feeding, lighting, mods... and so forth.
Will do...

Tank Basics
The tank is 12g Aquapod with the 70w HQI fixture. The halide runs from about 11am to 7pm, and I flip on the moon lights when I feel like it. I keep the tank between 74 and 78 degrees (my heater can't keep up when I let the house get cold... will be adding another heater to compensate soon).

Upgrades and Enhancements
I replaced the stock pump with a MJ900 and covered up the lower 2 intakes so all water enters the rear chambers via the surface skimmer/overflow. I removed all filter media from the rear chambers and put some smaller pieces of left over LR in instead. Enough light spills over into the rear chambers to allow hair algae to grow. I haven't bothered doing anything about it so I guess you could say I have the beginnings of a very basic refugium going.

I've also added a very basic auto top-off system. Next to RO/DI water, this is the most important part of my system as it keeps the salinity far more stable than it would be if I did topoffs by hand.

Livestock
Fish - a Maroon Clown and a Black Sailfin Blenny.

Corals - a mix of polyps, mushrooms, LPS, and SPS.

Cleaners - a couple dwarf zebra hermits, a couple redlegs, a couple of turbo snails, a couple margarita snails, a serpent star and an emerald crab.

Feeding
I feed flake food twice a week and frozen meaty food (usually mysis) once a week.

Maintenance
I don't dose anything. I have Kent Tech CB, but I've found that it's more hassle than it's worth at this point, so I don't bother. My ca levels could probably stand to be a bit higher/most consistent, but my tank is happy so I'm not going to mess with it.

I do water changes when I think of it. I try to do them once a week, but it doesn't always work out that way. Sometimes I do a 1g change every few days, sometime I don't do water changes for 3 weeks.



I think that's the meat of it... any questions, feel free to ask.

[AzaZeL]

Your tank is beautiful. You helped me out alot with the setup of my AP12 and it's nice to see what I have to look forward to. My tank is still cycling but hopefully I'll get it looking as good as yours by its birthday :D I'm also glad to see that you are keeping a healthy clam because I've heard debates about whether the 70w halide is enough light.

[Goongs]

Wow...you got a nice tank there. Happy Bday:cool:

[DidYouSayReefer]

You only feed you tank 3 times a week? Do you feed the corals or clam any?

[Slice of Ocean]

Your tank looks great. I love the lighting.

[InLimbo87]

Looks fantastic! What kind of clam is that?? Great coloring :D

[SMfishyman]

I like the setup of your tank and it gives me inspiration when i set up mine. The pics really help and your tank is real nice.

[nietzsche]

love the maxima

[jacksonpt]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11149158#post11149158 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by DidYouSayReefer
You only feed you tank 3 times a week? Do you feed the corals or clam any?
Nope - I don't dose anything, and I don't feed the corals/clam anything directly.

And in reality, I'm not very good about feeding the mysis, so most weeks I probably only feed 2x.

[jacksonpt]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11151387#post11151387 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by InLimbo87
Looks fantastic! What kind of clam is that?? Great coloring :D
Thanks - it's a maxima