Tank Journal Archive

[Nephrurus]

Introduction:

Reefing Since: This year, Aug 2011

System Objectives: To have an interesting and engaging tank that, although not necessarily beautiful, enabled us to observe the occupants behaviour and to watch the tank mature and grow. Also to be done relatively cheaply. It's very easy for this sort of hobby to get completely out of hand.

Type of reef: Mainly LPS and corallimorphs

Display System:

Initial Fill Date: Early August 11.

Display Tank Dimensions: 3x2x2

Display Lighting: 1x 150w Aqua one Halide.

Stand: Appears to be 24mm steel tubing, welded together. All very strong.

Hood or Rimless: No hood, but we have lids.

Sump Design: Sump is about 50cm by 30cm, no compartments. Mob of live rock and filter wool around down pipe.

Filtration: Live rock and sand bed.

Support systems:

NSW or ASW: NSW, we live by the beach in WA so just collect it from there when we need to do a water change.

Display Water circulation: One Tunze 6045

Return Pump: Not sure, but it's very quiet and does the job.

Skimmer: An old weipro with a delivery pump.

Evaporation Top Up: Manual, when necessary.

Chemical additions:

Calcium Addition:

Alkilinity Addition: I use RO water mixed with CaOH as top up water, whenever needed.

Magnesium Addition:

Prodibiotics Addition:

Coral Food Addition: coral that eats is fed manually.

 

[marineclass]

What type of livestock have you currently got in there - and what are your near futures plans?
Lets see some pics :) :) :)

 

[Nephrurus]

Ok, thats the initial bit done.

The story of this tank is probably long and interesting, but I only really know the last 3 months of it. We purchased this tank, complete and running from a chap on Gumtree that already had another tank and wanted to simplify his life a bit. When I say "we" I mean my flat mate and I. We've independently both had fish and both wanted a marine tank as it seemed to be the pinnacle of aquarium keeping. No other environment was so jam-packed with organisms. We both liked the idea of watching things slowly get colonised by other organisms and seeing the slow motion battles of corals that grew too near each other.

With that in mind we decided to get a second hand tank, not wanting to sink too much money into what might be a failed venture (we were both fairly new to it). We ending up with a 3x2x2 centre braced tank with two down pipes (one plumbed as a return) on either rear corner. We also got the sump, a small skimmer that worked, the return pump, a small powerhead and about 40-50kgs of mature live rock and the fine dusty substrate (it's annoying, we should have changed it out when we moved the tank). This tank appeared to have been running for some time. Every piece of rock was encrusted with purple and pink coralline alga. We also got a heap of corallimorphs on the rock in several different colours (nice big blue-purple, red, green, fluffy brown and fluffy green and brown) and some brown zooanthids. There was an odd coral that i don't know the name of (we've been calling it "vagina coral") and also the current fish inhabitants.

We ended up with:
2x Black and White Occellaris
1x Amphiprion something, the tomato clown with no "bridle"
2x Blue Damsels

Yes, I know, not the most harmonius mix of fish but they all seem to get on well. No fighting it seems.

So, picked up the whole tank one lazy tuesday afternoon and completely filled my little Subaru Forester with a tank, boxes of live rock, lights, fish. The stand and the rest of the live rock went on the cage on the roof racks.
We then set it up in our rental house. Moving the tank was an ordeal, but not too bad. I reckon a half day is all you need. I probably wouldn't want to do it to a bigger tank though. By the way, landlords see fishtanks, no matter how complex, as they would a tv or a fridge. A cat on the other hand.... :p

So, here are a few pics. You might have seen these in my picture thread, but i thought i'd put them on here as well for completeness.
Blue Morph. It's massive, spreads about 6inch across. There are whole lot of little ones as well.

Brown Fluffy Morph, also big, about 5inches across. We have 4 of these.

Brown fluffy and red battle for supremacy

Brown Zooathids

"Vagina coral"

Another morph, it's a greeny one with orange spots.

Blue Damsel

B&W Occs

The other Anemone Fish

More updates to come...

 

[Nephrurus]

The first bit of gear upgrade was the power head that we'd been given with the tank. Whatever make it was had been obscured by years of coralline algae growth, and was hanging by the cord over the edge of the tank. The sheathing of the wires had been pulled back over time and you could see the two coloured wires. Well, it still worked so we put it in there. It was fine for the first month or so until i pulled it from the tank to rearrange some rocks. After that point, it never worked again, instead flicking off the safety switch in the fuse box.

With a bit of research (while a large back-up noisy powerhead was filling in) eventually I decided to get a nice tunze 6045. It's a small tank and provides plenty of flow. Most importantly it's fairly quiet. Thankyou OceanReefs Aquarium on Ocean Reef Road for having one in stock.

Stock-wise I'd also picked up a few few bits and pieces.

At oceanreef they have the bargain bin, five bits of coral for about $25. I bought a few bits and pieces to see how they go and whether or not they'd survive in the tank.

So... We have a frag of Duncanthopsamia, 5 polyps that survived quite nicely. The aquakneadit is getting covered with coralline algae (very satisfying) and there appears to be 4 new polyps grow from the side of the existing ones (also very satisfying).

2 Euphyllia Elegance corals, One green tipped one thats been happy since day one and a white tipped one that have never looked 100%. Both were very small frags that I mounted on some old bits of live rock.

1x random encrusting coral piece that had two corals warring for supremacy on it. A large warty purple crab quickly grazed off one of the corals so there has been a clear victor there.

A Para-ancora hammer coral, with green tips. Three heads of polyps. It hasn't been there long enough to grow really. They look like they take a while.

A piece of rock with two Pulsing Xenia on it. They're quite fun although they don't pulse very much (too much water movement and probably incorrect water parameters).

One bubble tip anemone (it hides most of the time).

2x Peppermint Shrimp. They are just starting to come out when the lights are on to snatch food.

and the best addition to date:
A Bicolour Blenny! He's great.

And here's a shot of a red morph I took a while ago.

 

[MTG]

looking great mate. your pictures are phenomenal!
what camera/settings do you use?

 

[Nephrurus]

Ah, the pictures? they're ok :)

I was using my macro set-up for the photos. That is: Nikon D300 with external wireless speedlights Nikon SB600 and SB900. The "commander mode" allows me to fire the external flashes without the main flash: no reflection from the glass.
I was either using a Tamron 90mm F2.8 or my new Nikon 35mm F1.8. Both work very well. The closer you can get to the tank glass the better. Be careful using filters as the metal rims can scratch the tank.
Settings are depending on the image: If I've used flash, probably around about F16, 1/250 at ISO 160-400
If I haven't, like the image of the duncan polyp, it's F22, 1/15sec ISO640 and held the camera very still, probably against the glass. Also turn off the powerheads ;)

Most images are then fiddled with a bit using Adobe Lightroom 3. It allows one to clone out or heal spots of dust on the sensor, or in this case, specks of gunk floating through the water, selectively sharpen certain parts of the image (you're shooting through glass, it'll never be pin-sharp) and to adjust the white balance to get a relatively lifelike representation. I can add a vignette to make it more dramatic (it is a coral polyp after all, it needs all the help it can get) or adjust brightness and contrast to make it appear a "richer" image. I also shoot in RAW so I can make some of these changes more easily.

If you have any queries about what I've done, just ask. I'll dig up the settings for you (it's pretty easy using photobucket).

Cheers!

Henry

 

[MTG]

you should definitely make a post in the photography section with some personal recommendations of shooting marine life would help us all!

 

[Nephrurus]

Ok, will do.

 

[Nephrurus]

An update and a full frontal shot.

Not much has been done with the tank over the last while. I think it's been about a month since the last water change and nothing seems to be suffering.
I went back to OceanReefs and picked up a few bargain-bin coral pieces to add to the tank. I have some orange centred Zoanthids, a tiny frag of pink frog spawn thats looking quite happy now and three "lobophyllum" sort of corals. One has red and green stripes, the other is red and one is blue-grey-green. The sit in the bottom of the tank and open up at night. I'll teach them to open during the day when i feed. They've started to poke their tentacles out a bit already.
this is them:

I was thinking about replacing the skimmer a week or so ago as it wasn't really doing much but after a bit of fiddling it's starting doing it's job again and pulling off a bit of skimmate. It's not the really nasty black stuff, I guess it's a bit diluted. I see everyone is going toe bubble magus 180... I was probably going to go for one of them as well!

Otherwise the tank is ticking along nicely. I've been considering a set of LED illumagic lights for the tank but I can't really bring myself to spend $1600 on lights (i'd get a 3ft set of crees, you can always turn the brightness down).

Also considering another fish species. I was definitely after a pair of something as the interactions between the two make the tank so much more interesting. Preferably stuff that would use the bottom 3rd of the tank. Theres not too much movement going on down there. Scooter dragonets have been suggested as have 6-lined wrasse. I like the idea of banana wrasse as well.

 

[firebird]

More pics please-need updates;)

 

[Baldy]

Love the Morph's
Tank looking brilliant

 

[Nick]

Lol @ Vagina coral
Perhaps instead of the LED you could add in a T5HO with some actinic?