Day by day log of a newbies 75 gallon, TBS startup tank

[wooglin]

I have moved my purple cap, and sold the cabbage... otherwise mostly the same. Also added two derasa's for growing out. They obviously wont be able to stay in the 75.


I am very happy with the flow of soft corals on the bottom, lps on the middle, and sps on the top. There are a few exceptions, with a LPS on the sand.


As far as equipment goes, I have added an automatic two part dosing system from reefdosingpumps.com, it works really well and I am dosing my homade 2 part from Dr. Holmes recipie. It seems to be working well. I am on my 2nd gallon. One 5 gallon batch lasts me about 6 months. Cost - 5.00, not a bad option for calcium and alkalinity. The dosing pump looks cool under the tank, with the two 1 gallon milk jugs that hold each of the parts.

So here are the pics....


Full Tank:




Another Full Tank Shot:




I love this side shot:




Chromis in action:




Baby from my Ball, and nice up down shot:




Shot of transistion from SPS to Softies to LPS




Donuts anyone?




Back left side of my tank... I have never taken pictures of this overlooked part of my tank. Thats all TBS hitchikers with the exceptions of the mushrooms.






Hawkfish in my elkhorn




SPS City

[wooglin]

Florida Christmas....

[wooglin]

Thanks Mike for the compliment....

[rjwilson37]

Outstanding pictures, that is some really nice growth. Boy we sure have come a long way wooglin from 2 years ago till now!

[wooglin]

Thanks for the compliment... I think I will post some pics of some the corals when they were small. So here goes....


Here is a picture of the Orange Montipora Capricornis just over a year ago.




Here is a picture of the Green Montipora Capricornis as well as the Orange, a year ago.

[fishdoc11]

Looking great Wooglin. I still love that leather on the sand

[danieljames]

No doubt. Looking really good alan. Have you been happy with your seio's?

[wooglin]

I only have one, and yes it works very well. I would rather it be a matching Tunze.

[rjwilson37]

Wooglin, we sure have come a long way. Remember when we both started off, you with the 30g and me with the 29g. I remember how we were both so proud of the color and how well they were doing. Now look at us, who would have thought we could make something so beautiful.

[wooglin]

Yours looks good RJ

[fishdoc11]

Hey Wooglin. What kind of dosing pump did you end up getting?

[Bax]

WOW!!!

wooglin ... looks just great!

Been missin this thread, keep us posted. I can't belive the growth!

I forget, are you running 175 MHs or did you upgrade to 250s?

By necessity, my office 75 will be up and holding the critters from my 26 with in four weeks (moving houses). I gotta say, the 75 has been VERY MUCH inspired by this thread and tank ... congrats!!!

[FastUno]

I agree what an awesome tank you have. I see you have a few toadstools, are you worried about them giving off toxins? I have heard that it can have an impact on the growth of other corals.

Also, just want to get some sense of how I am doing with my Monti Cap growth when compared to others. I have had this one cap for months & have not noticed any real significant growth originally. Perhaps because I had constantly moved it from place to place in hope of finding that perfect spot. It had not taken off until it attached itself firmly to the rockwork & still not at the growth rate that everyone else was reporting. Some report a growth of about 1/2' per day, which sounds insane.

March 19th


This weekend

[wooglin]

I upgraded to 250k's, and 110 watt vho actinic.

That cap looks very nice. My opinion is lack of growth in SPS is due to one or more of the following:

a. lack of light
b. lack of proper alkalininty and calcium (very important)
c. lack of proper nutrition.

I dont worry about the toady's. Or other things link that too much. I run calcium 24/7, and also run a phosphate reactor, which also will absorb other toxins. This is all part of what I think is required for a good mixed tank. You are right though, they can release toxins, and there is warfare going on. I just try to minimize it, but figure its a natural part of a coral reef.

I got a dual channel pump from reefdosingpumps.com, they are a sponser here, and it works very well. I have had some minor problems with the particular model I chose, but the owner has been very easy to work with, and sent me a replacement in a a nicer model very promptly. It is nice not worrying about dosing anything.

I also just upgraded my kalk/topoff container to 20 gallons, so I have enough capicity to run that for about two weeks.

[rjwilson37]

I think it looks like some nice growth fastuno, what is your lighting and where is it placed in the tank? (ie.. Upper, Middle, or Lower)

They some times go through growth sperts depending on the nutrition in the tank.

[FastUno]

My levels seem to fall in the acceptable ranges & I think I have enough light.
Here is a full tank shot, but with only the top 1/2 of the tank cut off. So the coral sits slightly lower than the 1/2 way point. I have a 6 bulb T5 setup (54W), but only run the 2 outer bulbs for dusk/dawn & only the 4 centers the rest of the day. Never all 6 bulbs, since I have experienced bleaching.



To give you an idea what I have gone through take a look at the small piece of orange/red cap that sits atop the larger one. It's only slightly higher up, yet exhibits a much lighter color. I have noticed this with other configurations of the caps, seems to be same results. The piece on the very top is one that broke off from the very bottom one & being that it was such a ridiculously small piece I am shocked to see that it has grown. The color ranges of the 3 caps goes from light, med, to darker from top to bottom ones. All 3 are growing.

[fishdoc11]

IME they will grow slower under flourescents than MH but still will grow fairly fast. 1/2"a day is stretching it a bit to say the least 1/2" a month is more like it

[rjwilson37]

Looks great FastUno, really nice and the the ridges on those look very healthy. What bulbs are you using with the T5's? (ie.. Sun,Blue Plus, Aquablue,Actinic)

[642642]

^^I would like to know aswell. Nice tanks guys.

[FastUno]

Yea, I can see 1/2" a month too, but a day... sorta made me feel inadequate (if you know what I mean).

Fixture is 4 1/2 inches from tank surface. All ATI bulb combo is as follows:
[back]
blue+
sun
aquablue
blue+
blue+
blue+
[front]

Wooglin's caps have really taken off it seems. Do you find that the growth is exponential? In other words, the more growth you get, the more you are going to get.

[wooglin]

In my tank it seems to be 100% a function of how much calcium and alkalinity I dose. I have dosed back abit, to slow the growth down. If increase, the caps grow very very fast.

[delta]

i agree when given the right conditions montis can be like having nuisance algea.

[wooglin]

True, that orange cap is very hard to frag, it seems like each time I frag around the edges it grows much thick the next time. It also grows ever closer to the glass.

[SmokeFish]

Hi! I've read a couple of threads recommending against getting a school of chromis as they end up not schooling as they would in nature and end up being a bunch of individual damsel fish that harrass each other to death and a school of 6 or 7 would end up being 1 or 2.

I was curious as to what your experience was with yours. THANKS!

[wooglin]

Mine stick together, and do not seem to harrass each other. They actually do this neat thing where they lock mouths and it looks like they are kissing. They then pull back and forth. Dunno, some sort of ritual or something.