Greetings!
I hope the meeting was great - I wanted to attend but two small humans that I hardly trust around my own setup are limiting me to impact proof environs. Instead, following the encouragement from a friendly guy named Andrew I met at C&C yesterday, I decided to draft up this intro while they zone out on Netflix. I hope the pictures work.
So, in rambling order:
This is my first saltwater tank! It's a 4'x2'x2' 120 gallon Aqueon with dual overflows that has been cycled for about 4 1/2 months now. About 100 pounds of rock, 60 pounds of fine sand and 20 pounds of coarse sand. Lighting comes from 2 Vipar LED boxes. Uhh they look a little wonky because they're getting pulled by their power cords right now. Flow currently is from 2 Hydor Koralia 1400s, thinking about adding more. Homemade stand that houses a 40B sump.
It's lightly stocked right now, with:
A mushroom leather - which has been growing nicely for me - and a plating montipora
A brand new green slimer that I got yesterday and an RBTA that finally seems to be growing now that I've upped the feeding to a small piece of silversides every other day. He originally was up were the green slimer is now but moved one night. I also just recently realized that those red things are (I think) planaria flat worms and they're really gross. I have a bottle of eXit on hand but have been holding off on using it because I'm scared of the toxins the dead worms release - plus, they seem to be decrease in number on their own right now. Hmm.....
Assorted zoas. They usually look better I swear! Part of the problem may be that I just rearranged this rock stack, and also for the first time ever tried fragging some - the new guys are glued to the whiter rock in the background. One of the rocks was overrun by xenias and just yesterday I did a H2O2 dip to try to nuke them. Results are still pending. Also I just think I saw some aiptasia. Argh. That's what I get for looking in the tank.
Here's Brad the urchin. He's annoying.
The sand cleaner in chief, diamond goby.
This bird's nest was a smooth stick with one bump on it 2 months ago.
Here's an area shot showing my new QT tank with two clowns waiting for their big day. I already have designs on the remaining flat counter area to set up a shallow frag tank, much to my wife's dismay! Also, Wyatt is far too close to the tank. Get back Wyatt! As a side note, all this is really Wyatt's fault, after he begged us last summer to babysit his kindergarten's gold fish during summer break. He didn't pay any attention at all to the fish, but yada yada yada here we are.
The sump. I had the baffles cut too long so they're in there a little diagonally. The light stays on 24 hours a day over caulerpa. Coralife 150 INT skimmer. I used to run filter socks but they just became gross after a day and didn't seem to impact the tank at all.
The next set of victims going through QT. I had a sad event near Christmas with sudden illness that took out my previous two clowns in 48 hours, followed shorty by my kole tang. Brook? I'm not sure. However, thanks to that I now have a QT tank. I don't think I'll be getting another tang though, that guy seemed to want to swim more than I had room for him.
Also not shown are the nassarius & turbo snails, 2 peppermint shrimp, emerald crab, and an assortment of hermit crabs. Oh and no picture of the fox face, the other survivor of my last plague. We had a bad experience involving his pointy fins and a fishnet when I first got him and he won't let me get close to him with the camera. Maybe in the next post.
So that's the tank. Looking forward to meeting you all and absorbing your knowledge for better reef keeping!
-Josh
