theJenchild

What happened to just riding the horse? Wow. I guess this falls under the "because I could..." argument.

Isn't that the truth? And thank you. This tank is a product of blindly following the direction of people who know a lot more than I do, and reading everything that I can get my hands on. Of course, being mostly broke didn't hurt either. See....you can't add stuff too fast when you don't have any money to buy anything except RO water and a refractometer. hehe That being said, I'm so happy that I bought that refractometer. I had a minor tank problem last night that could have been bad without it. The float on my ATO got stuck on the clamp that's on my return pump and allowed 2 gallons of fresh water to flood my sump, dropping the salinity to about 1.022 for about 30 minutes. I fixed the snag, bailed about 1.5 gallons out of the sump and added some salt, checked the salinity once every 10 minutes and managed to get it back to 1.025 in a very short amount of time. Every thing looks fine now, but that could have been really bad without that invaluable tool to save my toosh. Thanks for talking me into it Jason!

alive. That's what I care most about right now!

I'm trying to slow down on how many corals I buy! My logic is that everything is going to grow in and fill all the empty space. I'm trying to place stuff in the tank with that in mind. I wish I could get a good shot of my neon orange yuma. In the picture of the dottyback you can kinda see it on the left. That little bugger has shot off 3 new babies in the past couple of weeks. I'm waiting for them to grow a little before I decide if I'm sending them to new homes.

Here's another couple photos. I tried to alter how blue they were, but it just didn't work! Alas, I just need a new camera! The last photo is the tank when I first set it up. Obviously things have evolved since then!

Hey guys, So I started up this tank in June of last year, and have been taking it really slowly. The tank now belongs to my room mate, but its still kinda my project. Hard to give it up really. So any ways, here's what I have: -16g pacific coast cube. I pulled the AIO part out of the back of it and trashed that, then I removed the lid that housed pc bulbs and replaced it with a 150w sunpod with a 20k bulb. -7 gallon sump with LRR and a gravity fed ATO -soap dish fuge with chaeto -about 2 inches of sand in the display and about 15 lbs LR -2 koralia nanos coral: -various zoas -superman mushrooms -blue shrooms -green tonga shrooms -unknown sps frag -striped palys -ricordea floridas -ricordea yuma (neon orange and splitting like crazy!) fish: -orchid dottyback -brown blenny Everything seems happy and healthy. I'm not sure where I'm heading with this tank, although I am quickly running out of real estate. I would like to add a plate coral and several other zoas. Sorry these photos suck, just a point and shoot camera.

I second that. I have no idea how to frag stuff, but when you're ready let me know. I'd love to contribute to your restart....

Hey guys, I'm planning to head down to Eugene to pick up some of dstone's frags on Monday, and then will be heading up to Salem on Tuesday. If you're comfortable with them spending the night in my tank (extremely healthy, no pests) then I'd be happy to bring some frags along. I can meet you at Coral Reef Pet Center around 6pm on Tuesday. PM me if you're interested. Or, I live in Corvallis. If you'd like to pick them up there I can help with that too.

That makes two of us. He has spent more time over the past couple of days looking at that tank than over the last couple of months. He helped me decide where to put stuff, helped me pull out my soap dish refugium and add it into the sump instead of the main display, and he wants to come up to Jason's shop to check things out. I'm pretty stoked!! I have photos, but they suck. I'll post them in another thread soon.

Hey everyone, Thanks for all of the input!! I really appreciate it. The fish that i saw was this one http://liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+34+200&pcatid=200. And I'm not really considering it for the tank that I currently share with my room mate, but more for when I set something bigger up. I was just interested in it because it was so personable and had a very different body shape. I really liked that pygmy hawk though and it may be a candidate for later addition to the current tank. As it is, I have added a lot of livestock in a relatively short time (the tank is mature however) and feel that I may be starting to push the margin of safety as far as bioload goes. Thanks again guys!

That would be amazing!! Please oh please oh please! (flower) I am prepared to beg.

Garrett, I'm so glad that you sent me with that little piece of SPS. I did exactly as you said and broke it off at the couple of little die off spots, and then super glued them into different spots in the tank. Funny thing is that all 3 pieces are looking awesome. Great polyp extension and all! I'm really excited about that. Thanks for having faith in me. Everything else looks great too. I'll take photos as soon as I can. You're awesome!

Hey guys, I was at the LFS today and noticed a really neat little red hawk fish (about 2"). I was curious what people had to say about them. Would this be a suitable fish for a 16g softie tank? Google is my friend, but I'm looking for some personal experiences if you have them. Thanks guys!

No idea what they are, but where did you get the red ones in pic #2? I love them!

I wanted to second that Garrett is awesome. I went over there this evening and he gave me awesome deals. I left extremely happy, and thinking that I may need to head back over. My lights were out when I put everything in the tank, but I'm excited to see it once the lights come back on. Thanks Garrett, you really made my night!

It was always a real possibility, which I knew. If someone with experience bought it I'd have had to part it out. My logic was that someone new to the hobby wouldn't know enough to have real preferences and would probably like to have a tank that was already set up to run well. This is the best of both worlds though. I still get to play with the tank since its in my house, but its her project now. She even still wants help picking out corals and such. Yay!

Tank set up has been sold. Thanks to everyone who was interested! I got lucky. Turns out my room mate wanted to be more involved in the tank, and didn't know I was selling it. So she bought it and now we're going to take care of it together. I guess what they say is true, the answer is generally right under your nose....

Thanks for the input CA2OR. I'm not in a huge hurry to sell this, and I'm mostly looking to sell it as a complete unit so that I don't have extra pieces sitting around forever. I've contacted the people who have expressed interest in individual parts of the set up, and explained my preference and time frame for parting it out. Although I have only been a member on this board for a short time, I have lurked here for significantly longer and spent quite a bit of time in the classified section on this forum as well as several others. It takes more time to sell a complete unit, but for the right person this could be an ideal set up. I'd like to give that person adequate time to find this listing if they even exist. Again, thanks for your experience and views on this. To anyone who has an interest in an individual aspect of this tank, please feel free to contact me. Obviously I can't sell equipment before the livestock has a home (including the rocks and sand as there are plenty of critters in there). But I would be happy to discuss with you the possibility of parting it out after I have had it for sale as a complete unit for a period of time. It is listed for sale in a couple of other locations, so I'm hoping to garner some interest there as well. Thank you to all who have taken the time to read this listing and I'm looking forward to hearing from you if there is anything about this tank that has sparked your interest.

Due to recent financial constraints I must sell my saltwater tank. I spent quite a lot of time developing this tank to run extremely well with minimal maintenance. It is ideal for a first venture into saltwater, particularly if space is a concern. The tank will come with: -16 gallon glass nano cube (made by pacific coast) -150w sunpod HO unit with a 2000k bulb (almost new, put in on 11/1/08) -acrylic overflow box with aqua lifter -7 gallon acrylic sump -Rio pump -2 koralia nano powerheads -soap dish refugium -gravity fed auto top off -about 15 lbs live rock -about 6 lbs live sand -various soft corals including 3 types of zoanthids, purple mushrooms, neon orange ricordea yuma, pink/purple ricordea florida, 2 neon green ricordea florida, and yellow colony polyps (all corals are photosynthetic but I occasionally feed cyclopees which I will include. Enough to last this tank for the next 10 years). -2 astrea snails -2 hermits (1 blue leg 1 tri reef) -2 nassarius snails -millions of stomatellas -3 blue water containers, perfect for transporting water from the LFS if you don't have a RO system in your home. asking $400 obo. I'm not willing to part out this tank quite yet, but may be interested if it doesn't sell in a reasonable time. This is really a great tank and I love it a lot, but I have to prioritize my life. Thanks guys!

I don't know you personally Joel, but I've heard many nice things about you. I'm sorry for your loss. My thoughts are with you and your family.

Fantastic! The tank is doing great, and I'm actually hoping to make it up to the shop on Tuesday. I think I'm finally ready for fish! Woot!! How's things on your end?

there's another really cheap tank....looks like a bit of a project though..... http://salem.craigslist.org/pet/856484504.html

Hey guys, Well, my tank is really getting off the ground. Its looking good, everything is healthy and I'm starting to turn my eye towards getting a fish. This is where I'm running into some issues, there are too many options!! My tank is a 15 gallon open top nano cube with a 7 gallon sump and a soap dish fuge (coming on Tuesday, a big one). I would like to have something colorful, but peaceful. Ideally, I'd like to have a couple of small fish. If possible, I'd like to have a green mandarin dragonet (I'm fine supplementing copopods), or a shrimp/goby combo. It would also be nice to have a single or a couple of free swimming fish for some movement. Any ideas? I'm open to any suggestions. I am only looking for fish that will be permanent residents in this tank. I don't have a larger place for them, so it'll need to be happy in a small tank on a long term basis. Also, I do have plans for SPS, so no clown gobies. Thanks for any advice and ideas!

I don't have any fish yet, but I really like the mandarin dragonettes. Wish I had the pod population to support one.....

Well I haven't updated this in a while, so here's the scoop. I recently did an overhaul on this tank. Lol. So much for the all in one! I took the plastic compartments out of the back of the tank, and rigged it up to a 7 gallon sump that's packed with live rock, and added an auto-top off. I've decided that I want to keep SPS in this tank, so I definitely needed more stable water conditions than would be possible without the auto top off and sump. I am about to head to Cali on vacation, but when I return I will be really starting to add more corals! Currently I have yellow colony polyps, green ricordea florida, a pink ricordea florida, an orange ricordea yuma, and a purple mushroom. Everything seems really healthy, and the mushroom/colony polyps are starting to split! Woohoo! When I return I plan to get a few different types of zoas, xenia, and a green/blue striped mushroom. Any other suggestions?