AdInfinitum's 180G learning curve

AdInfinitum

Super Active Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2012
Location
Thorndale, Ontario
I thought it was about time that I did a couple of "my tank" threads since I enjoy reading everyone else's.

I'll start with my 180 since it is mostly complete and a fairly "standard"assembly.  My 200 acrylic is a "work in progress" refurb which I will start a thread on soon, and the 7.5 foot acrylic "monster in the garage" will be a full rebuild, redesign,which won't be happening anytime soon....damn budgets.

The tank is a non-standard 180ish that a friend had custom built a couple of years before he had to move and I got it.  70"x24"x25"tall, dual corner overflows bottom drilled for 1.5" drains (durso's) and 1" returns.  Black silicone, standard trim, center brace.  Not ideal for a room divider compared to a bull-nose but it was available to me and the room divider idea is what allowed it in the house  :).  90% of the time it is viewed from one side only so the overflows and slightly hazy glass (from coralline growth when it was against the wall) are seldom noticeable.  The hazing isn't that bad to the eye, so I haven't rushed to try to buff it out, but it kills photo attempts.

There is a 75 gallon sump under the stand that my friend beautifully overbuilt (it could hold an 1800 gal). The sump is divided into the usual three sections plus I have put a tall plastic tub (approx 5 gal) in the center section with a few holes drilled front and back to create a low-flow area filled with 7" fine sand and 1" of coarse broken coral.

The tall stand gave me just barely enough height to house a Vertex IN250 (my new toy...deserves a gate valve) and the 6" deep acrylic frag/growth tank that is under construction.  Rock and chaeto (thanks Spyd) round out the bio-filtering and an older canister houses chemical media.  A mag-18 keeps everything moving through and mechanical ATO parts are there but I am still undecided on how I want to do that.

The display has the wrong amount of substrate by any current standard (too shallow to be a DSB, too deep to be a SSB) and too much rock...oh well. It is all lit by an HQI and PC fixture that came with the tank along with a few year's supply of bulbs.  When the bulb supply has been exhausted it will probably be LED time.

Finally a tour of some of the current inhabitants, a few older items but mostly newer frags.  Actually this will be a great way to keep track of growth, deaths etc. which may not be a good thing...like a bingo player actually tracking their costs V winnings on a spreadsheet.  I have had marine tanks for about 25 years, all types of fish, anemones, sea horses etc. etc. but the knowledge and technology to keep stony corals just wasn't there in the past so I am a bit of a newb to these things.


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Orange and light blue Rhodactis spreading onto substrate.

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Red Dragon tongue algae (halymenia floresii) and the copperband.

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My "Blorange" Bubbletips.

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Hollywood Stunner frag.

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Alien eye chalice (bad pic)

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Suncoral rock  Two different types regular orange and large yellows.  BTW the yellows are out 80%of the time day or night the oranges only when there is food...add that to the Sun V Dendro debate, also the yellows are taking over the rock.

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Aussi deep ridge maze frag growing quickly.

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Got this Favia?? as a throw-in a few weeks ago it was pure white, now dark brown and yellow, supposed to be purple and yellow..I hope that color comes back but OK as it is.

Enough for tonight....
 

AdInfinitum

Super Active Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2012
Location
Thorndale, Ontario
Full tank shots as requested.  Stand not included...it was clad in tongue and groove pine wainscoting, which didn't fit in to the room, so I will be re-fitting it with a surface made of some cappuccino solid bamboo flooring.  (single length planks the perfect height, pre-finished, easy)  Actually, if it were my choice, I'd leave it open since I love watching the sump and skimmer working...

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Front view  I have had the curtains open for the nice sunny days and now have cyano on the end glass and the overflow surface that the sun shines on... :mad:

also if you can see in the top left the sun coral rock the yellows on top of the rock are extended as usual but the oranges are in.

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Rear view  I really need to blackout the overflows.

The white spots on the glass front and back are baby Stomatella snails.  Their population exploded when I had a major cyano outbreak a while back (halides were overdue for a change)

A few other things...

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Dark mummy's eye (Rick)

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Original mummy's eye (Rick) It was originally all green with small orange eyes now is all orange with a green rim? Possibly too high light?

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Green Palys

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Teal polyp Birdsnest  Much nicer under the atinics.

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Bright orange Discosoma
 

AdInfinitum

Super Active Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2012
Location
Thorndale, Ontario
Had a day off to go to a school function with the kids and since I saw the posting about the coral sale at Big Al's..had to take a look...and couldn't resist a 6.5" across Australomussa going for the price of a couple of frags...

It didn't look like much under the store lights but they seem to be like chalices that need just the right lighting to really show off....We'll see....

Just moved to display, halides..atinics

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A week later in partial shade the browns are turning purple and the side not shown has even better coloration.
Once I remove the nice zoa hitchhikers on the back, its going into full shade...

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AdInfinitum

Super Active Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2012
Location
Thorndale, Ontario
I saw the posts about the clams at Sealife Central so I had to check them out...

Couldn't resist this sweet little Crocea with the gold eye pattern at a great price. If it is successful then it would be easier to gamble on one of the pricier Maximas and it has already become the family favorite in the tank. 

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AdInfinitum

Super Active Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2012
Location
Thorndale, Ontario
Now that the tank is settling down (see the carbon dosing thread) I picked up a few new things and decided, based on another posting don't remember who's?? to try some pics with the Vid-Cam since results were so hit or miss with the point and shoot and a DSLRw/macro lens isn't in the budget....

These were done quickly before the lights went out, pumps on, glass dirty, freehand (no tripod).

Auto white balance was amazingly good other than washing out the greens in the Blasto's and making the favia I got from Crazybrizzle look much more bleached than it actually is although it is getting its color back more slowly than the others (see the acan pic) His SPS friendly changes didn't please some of his LPS...but acros looked fantastic...

Anyway...

Blasto wellsi

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Pale Favia (centers are turning deep red and has pale blues, purples and greens) who knows how it will turn out?

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I was in Markham a few weeks ago and wrapped up business just in time to pop in to S.U.M.  Filled with the confidence that having a tank with sub-40ppm Nitrates for the first time in 20ish years brings  ;D I boldly gambled ten dollars of my hard-earned cash on this colony that had browned out when it arrived at their store...  Instead of turning from brown to white, this SPS (thus far...touching wood...praying to the great god of tiny polyps...) first turned pink then purple and now the coralites are rimmed with bright blue, new growth tips are also bright blue and the polyps are gold/yellow. So far so good... 

BTW, Stony corals were not part of my Taxonomy curriculum so long ago in university (lots of worms and crustaceans...) so any help with an ID (millepora??) would be appreciated.

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Finally the Red Acan from CB acclimating nicely...

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Vid-Cam definitely has potential...
 

AdInfinitum

Super Active Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2012
Location
Thorndale, Ontario
Carbon dosing experiment has concluded and tank has settled back down.  Nitrates are at astronomical levels by everyone else's standards, but low enough to live with and still gradually creeping down. 

I have never had measurable phosphates using PhosGuard periodically but I picked up a couple of reactors and some RowaPhos a few weeks ago and the effect combined with the better overall water quality has been remarkable with growth from everything.

Finally got some good shots of my alien eye chalice which has never seemed to mind all of my experimentation and carrying on.

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...and under atinics

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And now that everything is going really well...the basement sump project can screw it all up again.  :?
 

AdInfinitum

Super Active Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2012
Location
Thorndale, Ontario
It's been a while since I posted any pics so an update is due.

80-90 pounds of rock removed to improve flow and light...basement sump still pending...

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Green 'shroom rock

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A few zoas

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Orange Crush Acans

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My Green Monti with really large polyps and some of my beloved pet flatworms... :mad:
 

AdInfinitum

Super Active Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2012
Location
Thorndale, Ontario
Thanks Yvet, Most of my creatures seem pretty happy right now, although the tank as a whole is very much a work in progress and hopefully always will be... ;)

I just love watching new and strange things grow...

Some pics of the amazing Aussie Rotundaflora that I just got from Darryl.  8)

Eyes open and feeders peeking out.  Hopefully a good sign!

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AdInfinitum

Super Active Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2012
Location
Thorndale, Ontario
It has been a while...the rotundaflora above has not been a success story but hoping it may come back... :'(

A few new additions though...

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Green and bright blue Acro from DT 1501

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Wellso Brain from Bill's big Boxing Day Sale

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Cool orange branching Lobo frag

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One of my little Fromia stars

Finally, when I was doing the heavy carbon dosing my colony of flame BTA's all looked great until suddenly within a couple of days they all puked out their zoo-x bleached and crawled under rocks where they wasted away into little white slugs and disappeared... :(

Today the last remaining one reappeared crawling up into the light with some small tentacles regrown and just a hint of color around his base so maybe it has a chance of coming back....

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spyd

Super Active Member
Joined
Jan 31, 2011
Location
Kitchener, Ontario
Nice pics! The Roundafloras are very hard to keep. They need to be fed a ton!! Your new additions look great. I am very curious to see if that anemone turns back around for you.
 

AdInfinitum

Super Active Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2012
Location
Thorndale, Ontario
spyd link said:
Nice pics! The Roundafloras are very hard to keep. They need to be fed a ton!! Your new additions look great. I am very curious to see if that anemone turns back around for you.

Thanks Derek, the Rotunda wasn't happy in Darryl's super clean system so I thought that it might turn around in my dirty one.  ;)

I got this unhappy chalice from him at the same time and it is coming back beautifully. Nice growing edges, but I haven't found the sweet spot light-wise for it to fully colour up, but it is showing lots of potential.

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Also...the Orange Crush Acans I got from Crazy Briz a while ago are finally really showing off now.

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AdInfinitum

Super Active Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2012
Location
Thorndale, Ontario
A couple of cool Paly pics...

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MRT (Darryl) Pinball Paly's

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IA (Bill) Nameless Palys as far as I know but awesome IMO and huge.

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Other than the crop, untouched, WB 9900K JPEG's...they really look that good!
 
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