EvilTwin's 75g tank
 

I'm new here, so I just wanted to post up some pics of my 75g tank that I am now just starting to add corals to. Enjoy the pics. My camera has never been so busy since I started this hobby.

The tank:


My single hitchiker button polyp:


My latest, a Blushing Finger Leather (I think):

More stuff
 

My BTA:


Other critters:

More of the tank
 

Right Side:


Left Side:

It looks like you are off to a great start. Nice tank. I like your stand. Is the finish rosewood or cherry?
Great pic of the tang. I wish mine would stay still long enough to get a pic like that!:D
Are your clowns hosting in your BTA?
You are correct on the blushing leather. The species name is Cladiella. Is it getting a good amount of flow?

Nice tank. Keep us updated on the progress!

The color of the Sedona stand from perfecto is called Red Oak. It is a very nice color and accents the tank very well. I let the wife pick the furniture, mostly as a way to deflect the fact we were spending more money and to get her involved.

I got lucky with the shot of the tang, and I wasn't using the macro lens. My camera is a Canon Powershot G5. Fully automatic, yet will do everything manually as well. A friend of mine is a photographer by trade and he has been educating me, so my pics have been getting better.

My clowns are not hosting in the bta yet. I'm a little discouraged by this as I am sure it would provide for LOTS of photo ops. I suspect they may in time, so I am waiting them out. So far they have shown no interest whatsoever in the BTA. My BTA has been doing surprisingly well, from what I can tell, though the last time I fed him he spit most of the squid chunk back out. I'm holding off on feeding for a few more days.

The leather is getting good flow from one of my powerheads. I plan on upgrading them shortly, possibly adding a third.

That's great that your wife is getting involved...Now if you could only convince her to do the water changes then you would be set. :D :p

Don't be discouraged by the clowns. Tank raised clowns usually take some time to start hosting in an anemone. I would hold off on adding any corals with long flowing polyps as clowns are notorious for hosting in various corals instead of the anemones provided for them. If you anemone is not actively feeding then I would wait at least a week before trying to feed again.

Keep good flow on the leather and it should bounce back soon. You may try dosing some iodide as well.

Welcome to the web and also welcome to saltwater :D

You have a nice starting point on your tank a few questions though..
What are you water parm?
How much LR do you have?
What type of setup (equipment do you have)


Again welcome.

Nice backdrop is it paper or textured, the Tang is HUGE!!! just kidding LOL

Well, I have about 50 lbs of LR. Everything in this tank was migrated over from a 60g hex tank that I started back in September. It was too deep and not long enough for the tang. I was literally down to my armpits to reach the bottom. Might be good with a REALLY deep sand bed setup, but I'm planning on selling it. A guy at the LFS wants to do a discus tank and offered to buy mine.

Water params are in a thread in the newb section.

Right now I have a skimmer and 260w of PC lighting. I was running a canister on the old tank but stopped with the new. No sump or refugium at this time. Not sure what I want to do there. I could have bought an overflow tank, and maybe I should have but it would have run another $100 and I would have needed to do the sump then. I needed to move tanks quickly because I was worried about my tang being so stressed, so I didn't want to make things too complex this time around.

The background is a huge wall of rock that I built behind my tank to get that effect. I really didn't like seeing a wall or painting the tank so I thought this was nice...

JUST KIDDING! I bought one of those plastic backgrounds from Foster&Smith. It has a very realistic 3D effect when you look at it, tho.

I think you made a good choice upgrading to the 75 gallon. You will find that it offers much more flexibility than the tall 60 hex. Plus it will be much better for the tang. What else do you plan on adding to the tank as far as fish and corals are concerned?

One of the most frustrating things about the 60g hex tank was that the tank hood was so narrow that I could not even find a decent lighting fixture to give me decent lighting. The 20" aqualight was ok for a bit but that only gave me 96 watts, not even 1.5 wpg. I had considered getting a MH setup, but would likely have had to actually construct something as my wife would not allow a pendant. Given all the factors, including an increasingly stressed fish, we opted for a new tank.

I am not sure what else I want to add to the tank at this point. While it is very tempting to buy new fish and start to load up the tank, I have been reluctant to do so. There are two LFS near me, in addition to That Fish Place which is an hour away. Both have comparable SW selections but one has a much nicer setup, beautiful display tanks and a better all around selection. My damsel, bicolor and one clown came from there. The take good care of their livestock and the people there know their stuff. I've had good luck with mail order from Liveaquaria.com. The tang came from there. But in general, I don't see truely great specimens when I go looking to the stores, so I shy away. TFP has a lot of stuff but I am usually turned off by the occasional dead fish I see floating in their tanks. They had a xenia frag in their coral table that was half dead, otherwise I might have bought it. One of the two attached frags was grey and withered. Like I said, I'm really being more picky now. I hate watching things die and even more I'd having to take them back.

So what else do I want? I would like to get a xenia. Those pulsing tips look really cool and I think they would add some nice motion to my tank. I like things that move. It makes the tank seem so much more alive. Corals can be very pretty, but they don't DO much except sit there and look pretty. Right now, I need more LR, so once I have that cured and aquascaped in, I'll have more places for things to go and I can start getting more things. It gives me time. My problem is I get impulsive, so who knows what I might see in the LFS next week.

Since this is a photo thread, here's more pics of my leather that came out earlier:

It looks like your blushing leather is beginning to come around.
Xenia, as well as most other soft corals, should do well in your tank. Just remember to take it slow and not add too much at one time. Just beware with xenia as it has the potential to take over your tank under the right conditions.

Yes the leather appears to be doing nicely, but then again, what do I know. This is all new to me.:o

When I looked at it this morning, the polyps were all out and it appears that the branches are now much more spread out. If you look at the first picture of it above and the latest, there is a noticable difference in spreading of the branches. When I bought it, it was very compact. Heeding your advice that it should have a good amount of water flow, I swapped out one of my two powerheads. I had a Penguin 1140 which I was using to mix my saltwater with. It has a 300gph rating so I put that in place of the other Penguin 550 that was there. I had feared too much flow in the hex tank thinking that with the shape it would have turned it into a big swirling underwater tornado. Once I changed the powerhead, I started to see an immediate difference in the coral and my BTA appears to be much happier as well.

I'm curious, does my Blushing Leather count as something orange for the next contest?

Also, I was considering adding a serpent star to my tank. I see they are reef safe but I think I need to get the additional rock first, since I will need some more spaces for it to hide in. I also wanted to get a cleaner shrimp, but I already have a peppermint. Will they get along?

Great. Glad to hear that adding more flow seems to have helped. You could probably drop in another powerhead or two with no problems. The blushing leather branches should continue to spread out.

I'd say that it is more pink than orange, maybe you could get a shot of your clowns. But enter whatever photo you want. :)

I think a serpent star would be a great scavenger for your tank. You currently have plenty of rock for a serpent star. Once they get settled in they usually won't move around too much, especially if you always feed it in the same spot. Peppermint shrimp are usually kept in small groups. You shouldn't have any problems adding a cleaner shrimp to your tank. From what I understand, shrimp are usually only cannibalistic when larger groups are place in an area too small. But in a 75 gallon you have plenty of space for a few shrimp.

Definately yes to the serpant star. As Frag said it's a great scavenger.

;) How good are you with photoshop? :p I'd change the color to a dashing neon orange. LOL

Hehe! :D :D :p

Would I be better off with something like a Linkia Blue Star or serpent? From what I was reading most serpents are carnivores. I don't like the idea of using my livestock as food. I saw different species of serpents being labled as one thing, but the species says they are something else? What species of star is a good, reef safe detrivore and where should I look to get them?

From what I understand blue linkia stars can be difficult to acclimate. I would stick to the serpent star for now as they are very hardy. I would say that serpent stars are more of a opportunistic scavenger than a carnivore. Yes they will eat meaty foods but it is unlikely that it will hunt down and prey on healthy tank mates. I just recently acquired a serpent star from FloridaPets. I posted a thread about it last week with a photo of the star. This is also usually a common item at local stores. Usually they will hide underneath a rock with only an arm or two sticking out and can be difficult to notice if you are not looking for them.

A newer pic of my blushing finger leather. Looks like it filled out a little in the last two weeks. I also suspect it is starting to align itself to a more vertical position for lighting since my placement kinda had it on it's side.

It appears to be doing much better, although the polyps do not yet look fully extended. Blast it with flow and try dosing some iodide and it should grow very quick. :)

Button eating a worm
 

I did my usual feeding this morning and gave the fish a typical treat of bloodworms. Since I was feeding with a turkey baster I decided to feed one to my single button polyp. I got the idea after seeing photos of a sun coral eating mysis shrimp. Up until this point I had tried spraying it with the other chopped foods like clam but it never would seem to eat. It appeared to REALLY love the bloodworm. Sucked it down like a spaghetti noodle. Maybe this will help speed up the reproduction so I can get some more. My poor button needs friends...er clones.:rolleyes:

Wow. That is a very inpressive photo. How long have you been feeding bloodworms to your fish? I used to feed frozen bloodworms to my cichlids but never thought about feeding it to some polyps before. Very nice! :)

This is the only time I have tried it. I guess I know what to feed my polyp now. They do, after all, like meaty foods.

Now if only it were ORANGE!!!

More pics

Sorry, I misread your post. I have been feeding bloodworms once a week or so since I set up the tank. The clowns like it the most.

OK, something strange here. I guess everything is strange the first time, right? Right now, as I type this, my green polyp has opened it's mouth and it is gaping wide. Nothing seems to be coming out and I can't tell what it is doing. I have set up the camera to take 1 minute interval pictures for the next hour and a half. Anyone got any clues?

pooping?

Well, I thought about that, especially after it gulped down that big ass bloodworm. But nothing came up, so I wasn't sure. Was cool to see it all stretched open like that. Maybe it was sleepy and just needed to yawn a bit.:sleepy4:

Something I did notice is that on one side it has a small bulge that appears to be getting a bit bigger. You think that's from the worm or might it be budding off?

Inverts like polyps and anemones have a two way digestive system, meaning that food enters and exits via the same orfice. My guess is that you will eventually see the digested food exit the mouth. As for the bulge on the side...I don't know. Got a pic? When you say it is getting bigger do you mean by the hour? or more like slightly bigger every day/week? If you mean day/week then it is probably forming a new polyp. If by the hour then...????

It seems ike it's just been getting bigger over the last few days. That would be so cool if it was going to bud off another polyp. I'd really like to see these start to multiply. How often do polyps like this tend to reproduce?

When starting with just one polyp it will grow slowly. Polyps as with most corals will grow exponentially, meaning one polyp has the potential to become two, two become four, four become 8, and so on. Also certain species grow faster than others and growth is also dependent upon water parameters, so it is difficult to say how fast the polyps will reproduce. Does the foot of the polyp seem to be getting bigger or spreading out?

The only time it looks like it's spreading out is when it squats down a bit. I think the bulge was just a lump in it's throat from the big ass worm

Just took some more photos today as I was cleaning up the tank. I put my remaining yellow polyps on a new piece of rubble rock and set it on the bottom in an area with good flow. I also moved the new sps frag down to the bottom since placing it up higher on any of the rocks allowed the snails to move it and knock it over. I moved the gorgonian higher and into a strong flow. It has opened up nicely. The xenia has a bunch of new polyps forming at the base of the stalks. The finger leather seems to be growing nicely. Enjoy.

Looks like your corals are doing really well! The SPS frag will probably do better with as much light and flow as possible. You might want to consider using some epoxy or superglue to attach to the top of the rockwork. Glad to see that you were able to salvage some of the yellow polyps after the snail intrusion. The leather is looking better ever time I see it! :)

Well, once it's grown out a bit more (the leather) perhaps I can start fragging it and send you one on those nice frag plugs you are sending me.:D

I know this is a photo thread, but it seemed the best place to just provide updates on my tank. I made some changes today after getting back from a week away in Boulder.

The first thing I had noticed was my gorg was not looking well. The polyps are now much browner in color, as opposed to the nice white that they were. I did a 20% water change so we'll see if that helps at all. After doing the change my xenia turned quite grey and shriveled for a while and my leather retracted. I suspect the temp as the water was a little cold.

I took a trip to That Fish Place since I needed salt and I picked up some other stuff while there. I got a pair of PowerSwwp 228 powerheads. These are the ones with a built in sweeping output. They are only rated at 270gph and I have them in each corner of the tank. I also have an additional 400 gph ph in the back center of the tank pointing forward. So I now have plenty of water movement but not so powerful it blows everything over. My old powerheads kept coming loose from the walls and blowing substrate everywhere so these were needed.

I figure the sweeping powerheads will be a bit of an experiment. I have not seen any reviews so I guess I will have to review them. It looks like they sweep in a 90 degree arc, and sweep faster one way than the other. One good thing is they come with a very solid mount with 4 suction cups. It stays very secure in my tank and runs quietly.

That is weird about the gorgonian polyps turning brown. I'm not sure what causes that to happen. I had bought a couple of zoomed powersweeps when I first set up my tank a while back and they worked great for a while but after about 6 months the sweeping motion would start to lock up and they soon became either locked in a fixed position or the nozzle that sweeps would quit sweeping and you would have to aim in a certain direction. A few months later I just tossed them. It is a nice concept but I think it has too many moving parts which means too many things that could break. I hope that they have improved the durability of these powerheads and I hope you have better luck with them than I did.

Well, I ran tests today after my water change. PH dropped to 8.0, which is huge after only a 20% water change. Nitrates are now undetectable. I also tested for iodine which cam up at .02, this is low. Phosphates were zero but silicates were really high. I suspect this is the reason for my diatom problem I have been fighting. My fish don't seem to be stressing, but the gorg isn't looking any better. My finger leather has been a bit retracted since yesterday as well. I suspect if I let things settle out I'll see some improvement. The xenia is still quite retracted. I will get some iodine to dose in the next day or so.

Once your PH rises to 8.2 your xenia should bounce back like nothing happened. Quick changes in PH are very stressful to reef invertebrates. The general rule of thumb is that PH should not fluctuate more than 0.2 +/- within any 24 hour period. Silicates would explain the diatoms issues although Calfo also says that excessive iodine may contribute to diatom outbreaks. Are you using RO/DI water? I think kent makes a silica busting DI cartridge. Could your silicates be coming from somewhere else?

Took some pics today. The gorg is doing badly but the Digi seems quite happy (I swear I see new growth :rolleyes:) and my yellow polyps are really coming around