Bright Lights, Sleepless Nights

[mushman]

Tore down my old tank, after picking up a free tank from Bro Jeff. Thanks a Million! After settling the piping and all, proceeded to fill my tank up with 10kg of grade0 coral sand and packs and packs of NSW from Iwarna. (Although they provided transportation, I still went there with my bro to pick up. Part of the fun I thought, but lugging back about 15 packs with a recently dislocated right shoulder is no fun.)

Bro Jeff kindly left some coralline algae on the tank glass for me as per my request, but as I dislocated my shoulder soon after collecting the tank, I could not proceed with my setup, hence had to clear the algae. So sorry bro.

And thanks to bro comycus for advice given in my first thread, have taken his valuable input into consideration before i setup.

Tank Specs

Display is 27x18x16 inches

Clear silicon, 10mm glass

Brown Stand (Courtesy of Bro Jeff)

Black Oyama paper at the back

Euro bracing on top

Overflow box on the right side.

The Sump

2x1.5x1.5ft sump with 3 compartment

1st compartment

30 sticks of Bacteria house

2kg of biohome

Filter wool

2nd compartment

Hang-on PL-light

Chaeto (thanks Bro nuj244)

Red Bamboo

Some bleached mushies

3rd compartment

Skimmer (Changed from an existing air-driven to a weipro 2014 found in my storeroom, until a bm110 came up, will be changing it in tmr)

Aquazonic Return Pump

Activated Carbon

Equipment

No chiller, Chilled by my room Air-con. Temp is constant at around 23-25'c

For lightings, 6x16w t5 lights. 4x sunglo 2x actinic blue

A denitrator is the next item on my list

Livestock

Livestock wise, i wanted a mixture of lps and softies, with an option of sps in the future. As seen in the pict, tank is mostly softies and zoas now, with 2 mini colonies of sps(taking care for my bro after mini crash due to failed cooling). The birdnest is in really bad condition, with most of the bones exposed. both seems to be slightly more stable now.

Fish wise, I have a soft spot for wrasses. Currently, i have 6 budgeted wrasses inside, most expensive being my filament flasher. But they are always hiding, until bits of my come about. 1x mimic tang, 1x maroon clown, and my best friend the algae blenny. With 9 fishes inside, my tank still looks empty... Should i add more fishes? if so, what do you recommend?

Managed to clear my batfish before they went out of hand.

Still in the process of stocking up. Can only do so on weekends as I've just enlisted into the army. Need some advice on what other corals i can add in to break the monotony of the shapes on the right, and what to put on the left, ran out of ideas:(

Attached is my fts and the only wrasse i managed to catch decently.

Comments and critiques are welcomed!

Thanks!

mushman---->I mush find time to reef man!

[AloysiusMun]

In the first picture you used a fisheye lense to distort the front yes?

From the looks of that 'pile' in front I think currently your tank has very high PO4 both organic and inorganic. Don't think its good for your BN.

IMHO 9 fishes in your tank is a bit too much I feel, the bioload may be too high for your export mechanism. Unless you have a very efficient export system in place it could be a bit tough to keep up with the needs of SPSes due to your bio-load. Even in my tank I am feeling it right now. Gotta get my SPSes back to its prime.

Just my 2 cents!

[JizzHut]

wow.. i like the way your LR are very nice. =)

btw all grade 0 sand? wont it be blown off after you turn on your wavemaker?

[DUCADOS]

Ya lo. Your sand all grade 0!!! Fine n nice to c but no problem when on wavemaker or if your return pump is strong???

Anyway nice reef u have...

Air con for both LS n human use... 1 stone kill 2 birds

[Copperband]

Is your air-con gonna be on 24/7?... if not may i suggest getting a simple chiller dedicated to the tank....temp is more stable that way.....

PS: I did what you did the last time however i offed the air conditioner at night... Long story short... corals didnt tur out great....

[mushman]

thanks for the comments guys!

to aloysiousmun

Firstly, i did not use fisheye lens to distort the front. It was just the way i scaped it to make it look longer and deeper, and at the same time more unique than usual sandbeds:D hope u liked it...

With regards to the PO4, i'm currently running some seachem phosguard to try to keep things down. Just went in earlier today... Will check up on it again after some time.

My intention was to keep this tank running on lps and softies first... Until i gain more knowledge on my tank, I will not be adding SPS, except for just the 2 i have for safekeeping.

Will definitely keep your comments in mind:D

Bro Jizzhut and ducados

Glad you guys liked my scape.

In the photo, my wavemaker is actually already on, together with my return. Just that i did some digital rendering and ommitted the equipments.

So far, havent had any problems with sand storms, maybe its due to the way i scaped to allow smooth waterflow, or my flow isnt good enuff :X

Bro copperband

My temperature fluctuations are quite low, so i dun really have the intention to get a chiller till i go for sps. As soon as i do, will definitely seek 1 for use:D

Thanks for the comments and keep em coming!

[MarcoVan]

Anyway your lights is insufficient to keep sps lest safekeep. Please kindly upgrade or pass to other bros who can keep for you

[braincoral]

From the pic attached

that show the sps

Its not a easy sps to keep

Need Strong Flow and Intense Light

[mushman]

hi bro marcovan, i'm running 96w of t5. Is that still too low? The pict was only with 1 light on to catch the mood...

[MarcoVan]

hi bro marcovan, i'm running 96w of t5. Is that still too low? The pict was only with 1 light on to catch the mood...

hi bro mushman,

it's not about the total wattage. In the game of T5s, you got to look at wattage of individual bulb. It's wiser to go for 24w bulb. The intensity is higher and allows you to keep the sps.

[mushman]

I see... after looking at bro lcf425's tank today, i've decided to go sps-less... haha... Really impressed with his elegance... Will go towards that direction:D

Thanks for the heads up!

Am actually toying with the idea of doing a slight rescape, think my rocks too little, no space for more interesting stuffs... maybe will add a wall on the left behind the cliff... Will see how:D

[JizzHut]

nice already dont need to rescape!

[mushman]

lol... add scape i shud say... let me photo shop some stuff in

[hmkui]

nice scape .. and sorry to hear abt yr hand... do take care bro..

[mushman]

thanks bro.. was thinking of making my tank something like the my attached pict. any comments?

My shoulder should be healing up fine... if not, its gonna be a real hassle.

Attached is the picture of my proposed tank additions... any comments?

[JizzHut]

i prefer the current.. anyway check out this webby, its for freshwater but maybe can apply in marine too.

http://www.aquatic-eden.com/2006/11/golden-rule-of-aquascaping.html

[mushman]

thanks bro jizzhut for the link, if u noticed, my current scape is using the same principal, just that the rocks on the left are positioned more forward, resulting in the 1:1.6 ratio not looking so obvious , I did this so that when corals are placed behind it, there is an added sense of depth. to me, scaping in tank sizes like mine is all about creating optical illusions and convincing my brain that my tank is actually larger than it is.

[DUCADOS]

thanks bro jizzhut for the link, if u noticed, my current scape is using the same principal, just that the rocks on the left are positioned more forward, resulting in the 1:1.6 ratio not looking so obvious , I did this so that when corals are placed behind it, there is an added sense of depth. to me, scaping in tank sizes like mine is all about creating optical illusions and convincing my brain that my tank is actually larger than it is.

Power! Didn't know scaping can be done in this way???

[straydum]

wow! please do post more pictures of the elegance up there

[mushman]

lol... would love too, but its not mine... i just did some photoshop on the original photo i took for easy visualization. Haha... my tank is still more or less the same as the 1st picture

[straydum]

ah on second look i get what you mean

back on the topic of the elegance (if it really was yours) is that they're best placed on the sandbed, if not somewhere open. when i had one i gave it alot of space to make sure that when it expands to its biggest, it wasn't touching the rock scape. imo if their flesh is constantly grazing the rocks or other corals, they success rate of keeping them for long drops a great deal.

just my $0.02

[vt_snowman87]

the current scaping is nicer imo.. its actually very tranquil, much like the iwagumi freshwater planted style..

btw when it comes to t5, bro MarcoVan is right, not about total wattage.. actually more like, the number of tubes.. strength in numbers.. and of course, brand, age, and distance from water also matters.. all the best!

[pravin_9124]

nice tankkk