July NTOTM Helfrich's 18g ADA (Dial up beware! Lots of pics!)

[Helfrich’s Chic]

Hey all thanks for voting for my tank last month! I was told to put a brief description of my tank with more pics. So here ya go!

Plumbing: (or lack there of lol)
-Tank is a ADA 18gallon. Dimensions are 24x14x16
-Lighting is a 70w Metal Halide Viper 14k bulb
-I have a rio 400 (just upgraded from a 180) that is attached to a sufrace skimmer to remove the "oil" from the surface
-1 Additional rio 180 for more flow
-No filtration or skimmer on this tank, BUT when I do a WC I throw on a small "Liberty" filter to clear up the water for a few hours.

Livestock:
-Approx a 2 inch sandbed, seeded with, Fiji, California, Florida, and aquacultured live sand.
-Approx 15 lbs of live fock, Fiji, Kalini, and Tonga, a couple peices of Marshal Island as well.
-A pair of ORA picasso True Perc. Clownfish ($170.00 for the pair... I know someone will ask lol)
-1 very tiny six line wrasse.
-1 Blue Linckia Starfish about 6inches
-4-8 Scarlet Hermits
-1 Hawaiian Blue Banded hermit
-Mics. snails, astrea, nass. and some un-id snails.
-Approx. 35 Florida Ricordeas
-TONS of diffrent Zoanthids
-1 Neon Fungia
-1 Blue maxima clam
-Several sps, tort,montis, etc.
-Some awesome Macro algae (see new one in pics below)

Upkeep:
-Once a month I do a full range of tests with all Salifert kits including: (some I do just for grins lol like copper and ammonia)
Ammonia
Nitrate
Nitrite
Phosphate
Copper
Silicates
Magnesium
Iodine
Strontium
Oxygen
and Salinity
(I think thats all of them)

I use Oceanic salt that spremixed from a LFS (yep im lazy)
and keep my SG. at 1.023, and only do a water change when testing shows it needs it. Sometimes this is 3 months between changes, but I wont go any longer due to the trace elements being used up. I also dose with Seachem Strontium Seachem Magnesium, and Lugols Iodine. I also just got some Coral Accel that I am going to try soon.

Well I think that covers it but here are some pics, and again THANKS!
I found the first week tank pics so I have to show those first!
THEN:

And NOW:


And some other pics: Enjoy.

[Helfrich’s Chic]

And more:

[Helfrich’s Chic]

And more yet:

LOVE this new macro!

[Helfrich’s Chic]

And thats it for now! Let me know if you want to see something close up and I will snap a few more pics!

[Slakker]

I love your tank...it's gorgeous! Your clowns are absolutely stunning, not to mention the top notch aquascaping.

Brilliant...well done!

[Eklikewhoa]

Beautiful!

[Eel-byte]

Nice setup!

[aznlmpulse]

That's a great looking tank! It's always amazing to see beautiful tanks with minimal filtration. There are so many nano's out there that go overboard with skimmers, filters and sumps and never look this good.

Awesome!

[nbaker]

Wow thats one stunning setup, well done

[danfrith]

Beautiful tank. Can we get a few more close up's of the SPS. Also, I would watch that macro that you like, If thats what I think it is (Dictoyota, Spelling) then it will spread like crazy and be hard to get rid of. Awesome corals and good luck in the future.

[ezcompany]

congratulations

[GrandeGixxer]

Where is the best place in the US to get these ADA tanks? They are really nice! Yours is awesome also.

[Cyclone123]

Very Nice!

Awesome photos too.

[chkit]

geez, i'm on a mission to make mine look as good.

[melev]

Love the colors, love the rics, love the zoas.... Sweet setup!

[reefman13]

How do you like the Picasso's? I was thinking about getting a pair for my tank.

[Pyrrhus]

Kudos and huzzah!

[GreyhoundTrish]

Awesome. Your tank rocks!!!

[mike1962]

Wow! Simply amazing! I hope that my tank will some day have some of the incredible beauty that yours offers to us all.

May I ask what camera and lens you took these shots with?

[Helfrich’s Chic]

WOW thank you all. I LOVE my picassos.
Reefman. Unfortunatly I lost my male Picasso Phoenix about a week ago, but these clowns are AWESOME. Every night I put a glass rim on my tank to prevent jump outs, or crawling snails and unfortunatly I left a small slit open and sure enough he managed to get through it. I feel horrible, he was such a cool fish. Still in shock. Not that I can replace his personality but I do have ORA sending me another. RIP Phoenix, so bummed. I get really attached to my fish, heck I had someone offer me $1000.00 for my pair and I said nope, they are my babies.

GrandGixxer: you can get ADA tanks through some LFS now. Just ask your LFS. ADA was not originally US based, but now I think they have an ADA based out of TX. I love ADA! So nice to not see a big goop of silicone, and I mean really; isnt rimless just sexy!?! They arent cheap thou. I want to say mine was about $120. Worth every penny imo.

Danfrith: I do have some red Dictoyota macro. Here is a pic:


Its VERY slow growing thou. The purple is something diffrent... at least im pretty sure. Maybe someone can ID it for me, i even have a signed macro poster by Borneman and its not on there
I did manage to find this place: http://www.pacificcoralfarm.com/prod...d=purplealgae1
but they just call it macro grrrr. It however grows VERY fast and I am sure I will be giving bits of it away once it starts growing out of control. Honestly its one of my favorite things in my tank LOL!

Well again thank you all for our comments and voting for my ntotm!!

[Helfrich’s Chic]

Oh and some of the REALLY close ups were with my sisters cannon eos 20 I think its called but most were with my little cannon sd600 elph.

[jhebi]

where did you get those clowns? I want to buy, they are very pretty....

[mwoneal]

great zoa's! Nice job on the layout too.

[chkit]

helfrich’s Chic doesn't have a helfrich in the tank?

[Helfrich’s Chic]

LOL I totally would but open top + $200 fish that love to jump = me not happy.

Umm It looks like the July TOTM got shut down. I am sorry guys, I wasnt prepared to run it this month and in the process of trying to make everyone happy looks like it had too mny rule changes. Sorry!