SEPTEMBER NTOTM: 5 Finalists :: VOTE NOW!

[PurpleUP]

I am very impressed by the large showing of nanos in this month's contest. It is obvious that everyone here has dedicated considerable time to the setup, design, and husbandry of their tanks. I think most will agree that there are easily 3 or 4 other entries that could've/should've made it to the final stage of voting. But the rules stated that only 5 would remain, so here they are:

*and take a goood close look cuz this is not going to be easy...

In no particular order we have:

Joesmoe517



bluebastion



lindyck



BecomesOcean



exigency



Finalist may post 4 ADDITIONAL pics, and please feel free to give us more details about your tanks. Voting ends midnight Sept 30th. Good luck all. Thanks again to all who entered.

[erickrm]

this is such a hard decision!!!!! these tanks are all so great!

[BecomesOcean]

This rules. Thank you.

More about my tank...
Fourteen-month-old 24 gallon Aquapod with 150 watt and 70 watt HQIs. I've been running skimmerless for about two months now, which is nice because my living room is less noisy, but also means more water changes.

I re-did the aquascaping in early August and am very pleased with the results. I used four pieces total. The goal was visually interesting but not over-crowded. I like that my corals have room to grow and the fish have plenty of caves and ledges to interact with. The pygmy angel in particular is such an interactive fish. Speaking of which, here's the list:

Sunburst anthias (one of my top three favorite-ever fish)
Pygmy angel
Purple firefish
Yellow watchman goby
2 Moon gobies
3 Masked gobies

Fromia starfish
Sexy shrimp
5 Large nassarius
A whole slew of strombus snails

I reeeeally like LPS but am a sucker for SPS although I'm not as successful in that area as I wish I was. The only softies I have are gorgs (so under-used in this hobby for as cool as they are) and a ric or two. The majority of my corals are propagated from local folks and I'm pretty proud of that (although most folks prolly are at this point).


Left side view. This is the view from my couch. I love my couch.



A view from the right side. Or, the view from the stove where burn food cos I see something in the tank that needs immediate puttering with. I love the overhang and crevices. Again, pretty proud that my rockwork = four total rocks.



Sunburst anthias. He's been in the tank about four months now. He runs the roost, demanding submission from the purple firefish every now and then. I swear, these fish and their egos...



I've got one more pic left so I'm gonna try and get a good shot of my moon gobies. I've not seen them in anyone's tanks before so I'll try and showcase them here.

Thanks again for the nomination! With this new fame and the resulting corporate sponsorships and talk show appearances, the wife might start liking the tank...

[PurpleUP]

Yes, this one is gonna come down to the wire. erickrm, your aquascaping is saweeet. Yours was definitely a contender, and I think as your newer frags start to develop you should enter again.

[erickrm]

yea i knew i would not be nominated as my tank is still kind of fresh specially since i fragged most of my corals when i downsized to this nano u will see me again thanks for the kind words though i appreciate it....

I can seem to figure out which one to pick! it is down to two of them for me right now!!

[joesmoe517]

Man I'm pretty excited about being a finalist. I guess i will list some inhabitants and misc info then post a few more pictures.
The tank is 18 months old now, I only recently upgraded to 96 watts from the stock 48 in the beginning of July '07. I run a maxi-jet 900 with a hydor flo, live rock rubble, chemi-pure, fritz phosphate remover, and dls pad for mech. filtration. I also have the middle sump modded into a small fuge with chaeto.
Inhabitants:
Purple Pseudochromis
Male Tomato Clown
Emerald crab

Thanks and enjoy!

Left side of the reef, acan lordhowensis (slowly bringing it back, wasn't doing so well in my roommates tank but now its growing new mouths), baby blue maxima, white goniopora growing off base of pink lobophyllia, and an orange yuma.

so hard to pick a picture that captures the zoas well, this will have to do.

pink yumas

and finally the top down shot again

[bluebastion]

Special thanks to those who have supported my tank thus far... especially the ones who have seen my tank grow from the beginning. It's been a wild and enjoyable ride.

My aquarium is a discontinued 20g Finnex Glass M-Tank. The display is actually only ~15 gallons, while the rest of the tank (just like your run-of-the-mill all in one systems) is broken into two separate chambers. I decided to do an SPS dominant reef because it was an upgrade from a 2.5g all softies aquarium, and I wanted the challenge of trying to keep these difficult corals.




SPS Coral List:
Rose Millipora
Tubs Table
Garf Bonsai
Slimer
ORA Delicate
Tenuis
ORA Blue Tort
Scripps (2 different color variants)
Red/Orange Montipora
Idaho Grape Montipora
Rose/Purple w/ Yellow Rim & Polyp Scroll (This coral was added later and maturer than the others)
ORA Tricolor (still recovering from when I bought it brown @ LFS)

LPS Coral:
Euphyllia Hybrid (cross between Hammer and Frogspawn)

Fish:
True Percula Pair
Royal Gramma

Invertabrates:
Crocea Clam
Zebra Turbo
Mexican Turbo
2x Cerith
3x Blue Leg Hermits
3x Peppermint Shrimp
Skunk Cleaner

Refugium Plants:
5x Mangrove Young Trees
Chaetomorpha

Filtration: I use a HOB Aqua C Remora to skim 24/7. However, I believe a significant amount of my filtration has been through my HOB CPR Refugium.

HOB CPR Refugium housing my Mangroves




My lighting is a 250w Aqua Medic Ocean Light w/ magnetic ballast. I run a 10k Reeflux DE bulb. That is why it has been so difficult to get decent, not washed out photos with my new camera. Luckily, the past 2 weeks playing with it, I'm starting to get some good shots. Most people would call the lighting overkill... I just call it curiosity.




90-95% of my coral have been grown from 1-3" frags.
From the beginning, this tank has always been about a naturally grown in reef. I think the best looking ones are grown in, not bought. That will always be my philosophy in this hobby.

FTS 9.21.2007

[Bigbyrd]

holy crap...i think its safe to say i changed my vote from what i said before thanks to these extra pics...its an extremely hard choice...but bluebastion's got my vote...very nice tank

[ezcompany]

bluebastions got my vote as well. great job

[erickrm]

Go blue!!!!

[bluebastion]

Yay underdog me! Thanks guys.

[uhuru]

all beautiful tanks, but bluebastion's definitely got my vote.

[erickrm]

this is comming proly from all the SPS freaks... i love the other tanks as well but i am all sps all the way!!

[Kigs]

bluebastion, beautiful tank! u have my vote

[PurpleUP]

Just as I expected, this one's gonna be a TIGHT race. It might be even CLOSER if lindyck and exigency posted some close up shots of their tanks too! We're only 3 days into voting, and the way I see it, everyone's got a real shot. Good luck fellow reefers.

[PurpleUP]

Oooh, this has got to be stressful for some of you. It's neck and neck and NECK.

[joesmoe517]

haha, i love it! I didn't even expect to get this far, especially with exigency's superclean pico looking the way it does. When does voting officially end?

[Jimbo327]

I liked joe's tank since it's got some nice yumas in it. And love the look of coralline on the background. I'm a sucker for coralline.

Joe, do you dose calcium?

[GrandeGixxer]

Exigency is making a comeback. Go Exigency!

[joesmoe517]

Yea i guess i forgot to mention my dosing schedule. I dose kent marine nano part A and B calcium/alkalinity supplement. I also use a product called coraline stimulator about twice per week, it supposedly stimulates zooxanthellae growth as well as coraline growth.
For the record i feed the corals twice to three times per week with frozen cyclopeeze, rotifers, and prime reef (and the fish at the same time).

[ActinopteryGuy]

I went with Joe, since it had the best color variety to my eye, but it was a hard choice.
I will get my tank re aquascaped for next month, since the size limit just jumped up.

[exigency]

hey ladies and gents, i've finally gotten away from the books and the library. i took my last exam of the week for zoology and now i have tried to take some decent pictures. they are a little bit whack, so bear with me. thanks for the support!







and finally, the new FTS

[lindyck]

Hey I am so sorry, I recently went into labor with my second little boy and have been in the hospital until today. Well, I got home today. My nano has officially been shut down! I will miss it but I got a new 95 gal with metal halides and the works for filtration, in order to support more of a variety and maintain what I do have to the highest extent. Sorry, I didn't get to post any more pics before the breakdown. Good luck to all and again, I am so sorry, I just didn't see maintaining 2 boys under the age of two and a 95 gal and my little nano. Congrats to all who made it this far and those who will in the future.

[exigency]

congrats with your new baby boy and congrats to joesmoe for winning!

[joesmoe517]

Thanks exigency, and thanks to everyone who voted, regardless of who you voted for. This NTOTM contest needs to get even bigger next month!