Dendrobate's 4 footer Marine Treescape from Down Under

[dendrobate]

Hi everyone,

First a little background info about myself. I was formerly from Singapore, migrated to Australia 6 years ago. Been in the aquarium (and related) hobby for over 25 years, pretty much did everything related to the hobby, from goldfish and guppies, to marines and corals, shrimps and other inverts, as well as frogs and snakes. I've not had a marine tank for over 10 years, the last time I had one, it was a 3 footer with T5s and internal overflow and no chiller. Needless to say, it was sort of struggling along most of the time, mainly because it didn't have enough lighting and constantly struggling with heat related issues. I kept the tank for close to 3 years before shutting it down due to various reasons. So for the next couple of years, I've gone back to freshwater, mainly planted tanks and vivariums, but I'm always monitoring the marine scene.

Since migrating to Australia, I've been spending a lot of time on work, but since changing job last year, I got a little bit more time to spare, and with the availability and affordability of various technologies such as chiller and LEDs, I've decided to take up reef keeping again. I'm currently a member of a club call AandT Society, a local fish keeping club in Brisbane that has been around since 1927, but in the last decade or so, has focus mostly on marine fish. A unique feature of the club is that most of the members collect their own fish and corals, which is really great because live stocks here are really expensive.

Alright, enough babbling, here's some pics of my current tank, an old 2nd hand 4 x 1.5 x 2 , with a 4 x 1.5 x 1.5 sump, that's been setup for close to 4 months now. All the live stocks are collected from the wild myself or by fellow club members. We go out collecting a couple of weekends each month depending on the tides and weather.

FTS - 05 August 2012

FTS - 23 July 2012

FTS - 03 July 2012

FTS - 22 Jun 2012

FTS - 10 June 2012

FTS - 02 June 2012

FTS - 30 May 2012

Thanks for reading, comments, thoughts and suggestions please.

[peacemaker]

Welcome to SRC!

Is that rock a single piece or did you secure them together? Looks great for scaping.

[Admiraltian]

Another great scape.

[Gouldian]

Awesome... thanks for sharing.

[james72]

Nice tree scape. It should look better with collections of smaller size corals or frags on the branches.

[tropic]

Wow. The rock scape looks like some starship trooper megaship

[dendrobate]

Welcome to SRC!

Is that rock a single piece or did you secure them together? Looks great for scaping.

The skeletal structure is made of PVC pipes that also serve as a secondary return from the sump, I then attach pieces of dead corals that I've prepared earlier to the pipes. The larger base pieces that's crucial for supporting the entire structure and keeping it balanced, were drilled and have the PVC pipe go through it. As for the "branches", they're be light porous pieces zip-tied and siliconed to the pipes. Here's a couple of pics of how I did it.

[dendrobate]

Nice tree scape. It should look better with collections of smaller size corals or frags on the branches.

Yes, I agree, as I collect all the corals and fishes myself, I'm only limited to what I can find. I've been slowly replacing the larger pieces of coral frags with smaller ones as I go along. Also, I've been fragging some of the larger ones and giving them to other members in my club.

[dendrobate]

Wow. The rock scape looks like some starship trooper megaship

Lol, I get that quite a bit from some of my more geeky mates (no offense to you).

[peacemaker]

Very nice DIY structure! I wished I had more patience to build something like this.

[dendrobate]

Very nice DIY structure! I wished I had more patience to build something like this.

Thanks, yes, I usually rush into setting up tanks as well, fortunately, this time I wanted to make my own stand and because I was lacking a couple of tools and a mate from the club offered to lend them to me as well as help make the tank, I had a couple of weeks to play with the intended setup. Here's a couple of pics on the tank construction, enjoy.

The design of the stand was discussed and a detailed blueprint was produced for reference throughout the building process.

Some of the materials used.

The ultimate workshop with State of the art power tools

My mate Ignobolis hard at work...

under the ever watchful eyes of the tough supervisor.

After a gruelling 3 hours of hard yakka plus a couple of bourbon, the results are great...

After a good night's sleep, a hearty breakfast and more bourbon, here's the final product.

The stand measures 5ft long x 2ft wide by 3.5ft high, so how to transport this back, with ultimate care and safety procedures of course.

[Eniram]

Forgive me but isn't it illegal to pick corals from the ocean down in australia?

[dendrobate]

Forgive me but isn't it illegal to pick corals from the ocean down in australia?

Yes and no, there are different rules and regulations in different states of Australia regarding the collecting of fish and invertebrates, most states will have regulations regarding collecting inside or outside "Green Zones", that are protected areas. There are limits to how many things we can collect, what can or cannot be collected, as well as the permitted methods of collection. We are also not allowed to sell any of the stuff we collected. Our club organises collecting trips only to areas where collecting is permitted, however, we also go on diving trips to Green Zones just to appreciate the wildlife there.

The club has strict rules about the conduct of the members on these trips, and often, we're approached by researchers, authors, museums, etc. to help locate rare species of marine life either to take DNA samples or photos of them in the wild, etc. What we want to do is collect a little something for our hobby, but at the same time be responsible in what we do so that others may be able to enjoy it in the wild.

Here's a couple of pics of the stuff I've collected:

[dendrobate]

[digibee]

G'day mate!

Nice collection you have there!

Must be very exciting collecting the live stocks yourself!!

Hope to join you someday!

Cheers!

[Admiraltian]

Nice fishes u have collected.

[kaykay]

Lovely!

To marry diving, fish- & coral- keeping, and DIYing hobbies all in one project, with a central marine conservationalist theme, you must be having a whale of a time!

*2 THUMBS UP.

[dendrobate]

G'day mate!

Nice collection you have there!

Must be very exciting collecting the live stocks yourself!!

Hope to join you someday!

Cheers!

Thanks, Yes, it's actually very rewarding to be able to say that everything in the tank is collected or caught by myself. Of course, it didn't quite started out with this intention, being a Singaporean, everything here is just so expensive by comparison, and I was just going to try to save some $$$ by catching my own fishes, but once I started collecting, it just got more and more fun, and really get a sense of accomplishment when I catch something that's really hard to catch.

[dendrobate]

Nice fishes u have collected.

Thanks, you should see some of the catches by the other guys in the club, mine are just the more easy and common stuff, the more experienced guys in the club get some really awesome stuff each time, makes me drool everytime.

[dendrobate]

Lovely!

To marry diving, fish- & coral- keeping, and DIYing hobbies all in one project, with a central marine conservationalist theme, you must be having a whale of a time!

*2 THUMBS UP.

Indeed I am, as with most guys in the club, we steer away from the expensive/complex/high-tech stuff that's readiliy available from the LFS, and instead, try to achieve good results with good understanding of the requirements of the inhabitants in our tanks and good husbandry. For example, I, like most the club members, do not use Protein Skimmers, calcium reactors, etc. Through the advise and guidance of fellow club members, I've design the sump such that most of the filtration is handled naturally, through the use of DSB, macro algae and good pre-filtration of the water draining into the sump. The only piece of equipment that I might consider buying is a chiller, but that's only because I want to keep some of the more exotic corals and tubeworms (temperate zones) I see when diving, if however I decide to stick with what I currently have, I wouldn't need a chiller even though the water would go as high as 35° in summer, as all of the corals I collected were exposed/trapped in tidepools at lowtide with temperature reaching as high as 39°.

[tropic]

I'm sure having a tank proudly saying all mostly caught by you is priceless. Do they adapt well in the tank and how U maintain the temp ?

[dendrobate]

I'm sure having a tank proudly saying all mostly caught by you is priceless. Do they adapt well in the tank and how U maintain the temp ?

So far the corals are doing really well since it's winter here in Australia, but like I said before, I wouldn't worry too much about heat issues in summer as these were collected from places where the conditions are really harsh, with temperatures going as high as 39° in midday, and as low as 18° at night. I'm only having relative success with the fishes though, in the begining, I pretty much try to catch everything that I see (a little kiasu), the result is uncompatible fishes or fishes that're too big/old to adapt to captivity. These days, I try to get smaller and younger fishes, as their more adpatable to changes and their diet are more varied, making it easier to get them to feed on frozen or self prepared food. I also try to do a little research before each trip to decide what to catch, even if it means going home empty handed. When I do get fishes, I put them in quarantine, that has a few permanent residents so that the new fish will learn from them how to feed on frozen food. If I'm not able to get them to feed with 10 days, I'll bring them down to one of the senior member's place who seems to be able to get almost any fish to eat.

[dendrobate]

Some pics of the tank's inhabitants.

[dendrobate]

[Admiraltian]

Nice ls u have, envy u.