Tbelt's 180 gallon build

The new orange hammer is starting to open up and look good.


Also found a missing coral. it fell behind the rocks and was face down. Cleaned it up and glued to a rock. it looks like 2 eyes are coming back. How lucky is that???? it is the green dot betwenn the 2 healthy corals.



and finall a pic of my mystery wrasse. At first thought it was a Lubocks but now not sure

 

Just read the whole thread! Awesome tank.

 

Thank you

 

I have a new problem with my tank. Really good things are happening sort of. My wife has logged on to 3 reef and read threads about fragging. So far so good right???? She went to the local fish store and asked how they fragged corals. They showed her. still so far so good. Now she is not only fragging corals i would not do they are doing well and she is selling them to 5 LFS. She made $180 this week alone. I think the money should go back into the tank she feels a 50-50 split is in order. Tank gets 50% and she keeps the rest to buy what she wants. I'm OK with the split but damn she is better at fragging then I am. She was able to split corals I would not have dreamed of splitting. Glad she is into the Hobby but with all the time I spend traveling with my job.........she will take over the tank. She even bought a frag kit from one store. Special tools the whole friggin $80 kit. I think I should be happy but somehow I don't. Anybody else run into this? She is even looking at FISH she wants to buy.....after all she made the money. Again no problem she wants the same fish I do. I am feeling left out. When Ientioned her own tank she said this tank was just fine. Now what????

 

I am having trouble seeing the real problem. Just remind her that you set up a tank for the family's enjoyment, but that you did so to have creative direction over it i.e. what goes in and where. Encourage her love of the hobby, let her take the 50% of her profits, and propose a frag tank that you all can share. That way her frags are out of your display, she is a happy little fragger, you get to frag there too, and you still make 50% of her earnings. haha. Done and Done. Except it is never that easy... haha.

 

Been a while since my last post. Been very busy at work. For the most part tank has been on maintain. Everyone doing fine and it looks like the road time will be going down. So with that in mind bought a new fish. A powder Blue Tang. A very difficult fish to keep I know but tank paramiters are good and I figured I would go for it. The new guy is not eating how I would like but is eating. Been in the tank 3 days and so far so good.

Here is a pic.



The wife had done well with fragging. We did some rearranging in the tank and made some bigger caves as the fish have grown. also added to the clean up crew. 20 more blue legs and 10 more red legs along with a skunk cleaner and 3 pepermint shrimp. also added 20 snails.

Nitrates are rising on me again. right at 20ppm so am preparing to do 3 27 gallon water changes over the next 10 days, Sump was in bad shape when I got in from a 3 month stint in south america. Got it all cleaned out and am sure it was not helping with nitrates. All kinda of crap in there. Time will tell. All other parimtires are perfect. Salt 1.025. 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and ph at 8.2. Calcium at 450 and no phosphates.

FTS



Thanks for looking

 

Hello 3 reefers. It has been a while since my last post. A long while. My tank has been on maintain with little else. All of a sudden I noticed my stonies/hard corals were not looking good. Phosphorus was my problem. I could not figure out where it was coming from. No changes in food, and I checked my water as it came from the RODI and nothing. Hell I checked the tap water no phosphorus!!! where did it come from?? Turns out that the food safe containers I use were the problem. Over 10 right out of my top off water storage tank. I was poisening my tank. The problem was I did not figure it out for a few months.

Upon knowing of the problem I went out and got 2 160 gallon buckets of salt. Did massive water changes of 60 gallons at a time. Water would get better then I would dump bad top off water in. Lost some great colonies. 200 head alien eye was my favorite (got it as 5 head colony). But I figured out what it was and am moving forward. So far I have done 5 60 gallon water changes over the past 2 weeks. all my softies and fish are doing well. My wife has been a great help mixing water while I am at work phosphorus down to 4.0. Still a long way to go but we are getting there.

I figured as long as I was "tearing up" the tank maybe it would be a good time to sell it. tried and tried and tried. Had a few people who tried to steal it but no real offers so I kept it and decided to go full bore. This weekend I used a whole bucket of salt in water changes, All 160 gallons worth. 80 gallons at a time. Now we are at 2.0. This weekend I will do another 2 80 gallon water changes and have my phos reactor running right now.

I sort of forgot how much fun the tank can be. I know this sounds wierd but I really enjoyed working on the tank with my wife. We had a great time. We totaly redid the rock work. Created new caves and hiding places now that the fish are bigger. Even caught the phsuedo Chromis who has been giving new fish a hard time. She has been charged and found guilty for first degree murder for 4 fish. She is now in jail and awaits a new home. she is living in a 34 gallon. I proposed the death penalty but my youngest said no.

I took the time to clean out the pulsating exenias from the tank. What a weed!!!!! But they are gone and now I am rebuilding my corals. I gave some of my fish away to fellow reefers and they bare doing well. I have not got the heart to ask for them back. After all I gave them away because I was selling. Pics will be in the next post.

I feel like I have been reborn into the hobby and am looking forward to rebuilding. Pics coming soon as I know the law........If there are no pics it did not happen!!

Tony

 

Well good for you. I think for those who have had tanks for many years we all kind of go through those ups and downs.

 

Thanks Chris. Cannot believe my tank is coming up on 4 years old. Times flies

 

Some pics of the "New Tank" I lost most of the purple coraline but I will get it back.



Here it is all tore up.



Starting to come together



As you can see many frags have come together with the redo