New aquascaping - 8 week old tank.

[pstanley]

Since everybody here has helped me through the whole process from purchasing equipment to setting everything up I figured I would post some pictures of the progress of my 60 gallon reef tank. Let me know what looks good and what could be improved. I like the look of the two separate islands so I built them both towards the center of the tank with powerheads on each side. They will eventually be covered with coral. Also, the last two pictures I have circled small red sponge/coral/macro algae looking growths....any idea what they are? They are popping up all over the live rock. The tank never really went through the initial cycle due to the amount and quality of the live rock. Even with adding dead shrimp and rock die off I never showed any ammonia. I am currently showing 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and 5.0 nitrates. I recently added two chromis which are loving all the room to themselves lol. Can't really add any CUC yet since I have not had any algae growth whatsoever which kind of surprises me. Thanks for looking.

 

[deejeff442]

looks nice. in my sumps i always add a bunch of rock rubble in the return pump chamber .it breeds pods great .the parts you circled look like sponge good deal on that

 

[flower]

I like it!

 

[pstanley]

Thanks for the positive comments....regarding the rubble...I actually threw away a bucket full that was in the bottom of the shipping box when I received my live rock. I went back and forth and decided against it (maybe incorrectly). I like being able to thoroughly clean everything out and figured it would be easier without the rubble. That is good news on the sponges.....I have close to 20 of them sprouting up. They aren't growing super quick but they are definitely growing.

 

[flower]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pstanley http:///t/396800/new-aquascaping-8-week-old-tank#post_3535373
Thanks for the positive comments....regarding the rubble...I actually threw away a bucket full that was in the bottom of the shipping box when I received my live rock. I went back and forth and decided against it (maybe incorrectly). I like being able to thoroughly clean everything out and figured it would be easier without the rubble. That is good news on the sponges.....I have close to 20 of them sprouting up. They aren't growing super quick but they are definitely growing.


Hi,

I understand you didn't want to "use" the rubble...but never throw away rock...rubble is gold when somebody wants to make a foam rock background...you can always sell it.

 

[pstanley]

I actually did worse than throwing away some rubble.....I threw away about 20 lbs of live rock :-(. I only ordered 45 lbs but ended up with 90 due to a shipping error. I only used about 70.