100gal CUBE in the making....

Still a bit early to put my stock list in stone... but a panther grouper is a must... i had one for 3 years before i had to move outta the country.. love that fish.. i had mine jumping 3-4 inches out of the water to grab food out of my hand...and i used to love to watch it hunt... i used to be able to buy live white bait, and watching the panther hunt was awesome..it would split the school of white bait in half, then half again, until it would corner one... and then wham...

Other things on my mind would be.
Snowflake moray(or Ribbon Eel ive seen lots of mature blue ones here in captivity)
Niger Trigger
3-5 small schooling fish.
maybe a couple of clowns(pecular or occelaris)
a Tang (i want an achilles)

thats probably it for now... any other good suggestions..?? as u can see its a semi-aggresive tank...but i also wanna keep a few inverts later on(abalone,Urchins and a clam)... so..the other triggers(i also had a Huma Trigger before)are kinda outta the question...

 

I have both the snowflake and ribon(black) both have their perks, the ribbon is my pride and joy, and is mesmerising to watch when it swims, delicate and graceful also very gentle.
the snowflake is a brat, very agressive movement very fast, though most of the time it sits inside arock not moving much till a meal passes by. once he gets a taste for carnivour food, he will steal your other fishes meals, he will fight hermits for that peice of shrimp you thought he didn't have his eye on.

your small schooling fish must be bigger than your eels, in particular the snowflake, the ribbon eel is a little more dopey with its hunting skills, but from my experience are good with bright colored fish (eating them that is)

The rbbon eel can get attacked by other fish, my angle pecked away at the yellow fin, 3 months it is still growing back. if this happens then give it a secure home your trigger can't get to.

The ribbon eel isn't likely to climb out of the tank(uncovered), though my snowflake isn't called hudini for nothing. there is a little cavity where the power cord goes into the power head. that was his first dissapearing act.

If you are having any troubles feeding either of these eels let me know, There are no tricks, just patience. both eels can live for weeks without food.
The ribbon is more difficult to feed but not impossible.

Wish you all the best.

 

yeah ive lost a snowflake eel before... he swam up the water fall of the Aquaclear i had on my old tank... i would prefer the blue ribbon eel over the snowflake...because it is more gentle and docile and would love to have one poking its head out of my rocks..... i plan on adding the trigger last and also i plan to pick quite a small specimen...

thanks for the offer of assistance be sure to hear from me if i do get that ribbon eel the ones ive seen here are electric blue just stunning i tell ya...

 

Last night i had a dream my eel turned blue, he had eaten a big fish but was being harrased by some kind of rooster/chicken kinda looking fish, i didn't see who won the cock fight. fortunately i dream in full color, it was spectacular.

i can't wait for it to grow some balls and turn blue.

 

Thin layer of scum and such is collecting on the surface... i knew i shoulda gotten that Aquaclear/Fluval surface skimmer thingo on the weekend when i was in HK, now this week is Grand prix week in Macau and im staying here for the Grand prix... have to wait 2 weeks before i can get this scum outta my tank... hopefully the LFS in Mac will have something similiar but i doubt it..

So after work i haed to the LFS. I put my order in for a box of premium live rock about 40lbs worth...or what they say is premium and untouched for 600 patacas...ill take fotoes of the rock when i get it... and maybe then you guys can tell me how premium it is.

anyway as the guy was calling in the order..i noticed an old battered faded eheim box under a bunch of other crap..and loe and behold it was the Eheim type Surface skimmer attachment but man..was it old... probably been there for a good 5 -6 years...price... 150patacas... so i picked it up.. at this point the owner dude calls to me..so i put it down... and sort out my deposit and reciept for the rock... luckily i put it down..because.. when i walked back to the exact same spot to pick it up again... at my eye level was a stack of ATMAN Surface Suction Extraction boxes. What are these Extraction suction thingos... well its pretty much a MADE IN CHINA Copy of what the EHEIM IS... float valve and all... everything is the same as the eheim... and the price... 30patacas... no competition there..i picked it up...

got home opened it... and put it together in about 5 minutes... once again my tank having the brace on it... made it hard to fit but another 5 minutes of fiddling around...and wham... works like a charm... i guess the build quality isnt as good as the eheim... but hey..it works... ill post pics of it later... now if it was only a See thru Grey colour instead of that ugly ugly GREEN....

but anyhow...10 minutes later..no more surface skum.... wikid ;D

 

Day 8...First sign of Pods...

so a little over a week has past... my new rock hasnt arrived yet.. or maybe it has and they havent called me...cos they cant call me...cos i checked the receipt this morning...and the store owner...tore off the last two digits of my phone number with the stub...so i better run down to the store and check if my rock hasnt arrived and sitting out of water for a day already ...

tested my water a couple of times... and there was a slight rise in ammonia ... but quickly went away... same with nitrite... but i dun think there is a big enough load in the tank to fully cycle the tank yet...ill wait for the rest of the live rock...

good news is... there are pods crawling all over my glass already... so im not really sure if 8 days is a normal time for pods to develop... or is it quick... anybody know?

I have spotted a couple of hitchhikers on my rock... tiny crabs mainly... will see how things go with them...

 

Rocks are a big dissapointment...

Well...the box of rock i ordered arrived today...and when i opened the box... i felt a little jilted... well ripped off... the rock i was paying a little bit less for...had much better growth and colour than these things... these looked more like dead rock that been soaked for a while... oh well... at least i got about 40 lbs of good live rock from before... and the shapes of the rock.. are all kinda the same..they all look like the same type of dead coral skeleton...so its pretty hard to get them stacked and looking good..but im fairly happy with the results i have now... so all in all i have about 95lbs of LR in the tank now and its been cycling a little under 2 weeks.. levels of various things have risen a little and dropped.. probably another week or 2 and ill get something to put in there

 

Any updated pics and where did you get the rock from?

 

Updated Pics....

Here are some updated pics of the tank, and also a picture of the EHEIM suruface skimmer rip off made by ATMAN a chinese company that cost me 38 Patacas...thats about 5 bucks USD...lol

The rock i ordered from a LFS(one of only 3 in the country that deal in marine goods in the country) was supposedly from the ocean from a place called Hainan Island...what they dub Chinese Hawaii...it was recently hit by a couple of big Typhoons(hurricanes but spinning the other way i think) the rock is fairly bleached.. but at least its clean... but man was it hard to stack...

The idea at the begining was for a lagoon type strucutre along the back and the sides...with a small outcrop/butress in the middle of it all... so that way all three viewing angles will have a different perspective...but still get a very nice picture...

please feel free to critisise the photoes are badly lit... no lights on the tank yet... couple of them are taken with flash and a couple without

 

couple more

the pictures of the eheim rip off thing