One year anniversary -- lots of pics
- Thread starter searcher
- Start date
cliffrouse11bas
Active Member
Looks great, but I would add some more live rock and it would be perfect. I like the looks alot. Nice xenia growth and nice coraline growth also...
searcher
Member
Thank you Cliff. I've gone back and forth on whether I should add more rock or not. I finally decided not to for a few reasons.
First, having less rock gives my fish more room to swim around. In a similar vein less rock provides more water volume. This gives me a little bigger margin of error as far as water quality goes. My 29 gallon tank probably has more water in it than some 35 - 55 gallon tanks.
Also, having less rock means less corals to put on it, which saves me money. I'm not even tempted to buy more corals any more, because I don' t have any room. In fact I've already given some away.
Lastly, now that the coralline has taken off it looks more natural than before. So I'm pretty happy with the looks. I hope that eventually the whole back glass will be covered with coralline algae. Which I hope will give kind of the effect of being filled with rocks.
First, having less rock gives my fish more room to swim around. In a similar vein less rock provides more water volume. This gives me a little bigger margin of error as far as water quality goes. My 29 gallon tank probably has more water in it than some 35 - 55 gallon tanks.
Also, having less rock means less corals to put on it, which saves me money. I'm not even tempted to buy more corals any more, because I don' t have any room. In fact I've already given some away.
Lastly, now that the coralline has taken off it looks more natural than before. So I'm pretty happy with the looks. I hope that eventually the whole back glass will be covered with coralline algae. Which I hope will give kind of the effect of being filled with rocks.
searcher
Member
Thanks Mike, doing the timeline was interesting for me too. I didn't realize how much things had changed until I looked at the old photos.
2jz, sorry I don't know where the tank is from. My brother had it in his basement. He was going to throw it out.
JotaDe, the only filtration I use is the live rock and live sand. There's a built in sump in the back with a pump that circulates the water. There's a picture of it below. The chamber on the left with the thermometer is where a protein skimmer belongs. I never got around to adding one, but the tank does fine with out it. I do put in a bag of carbon (Chemipure) in the next chamber once a week for 10-12 hours.
2jz, sorry I don't know where the tank is from. My brother had it in his basement. He was going to throw it out.
JotaDe, the only filtration I use is the live rock and live sand. There's a built in sump in the back with a pump that circulates the water. There's a picture of it below. The chamber on the left with the thermometer is where a protein skimmer belongs. I never got around to adding one, but the tank does fine with out it. I do put in a bag of carbon (Chemipure) in the next chamber once a week for 10-12 hours.
overanalyzer
Active Member
sweet and looking good!
searcher
Member
Thanks cadbury. The sun coral isn't photosynthetic, so it needs to be fed. I noticed mine would suffer if I didn't feed it a least 3 times a week. I don't have a protein skimmer so that much food in the tank isn't really practical. Also, I'm away from home a lot so I couldn't always feed it anyway. I put it my sump where it can get food the fish and shrimp don't eat and possibly some pods. Obviously, you don't buy a colorful coral like that to put in your sump. But I wanted to keep it alive and it seems to be doing pretty good in there.
JoTaDe, yes the hood came with the tank. I do have heat issues. Luckily, this was a mild summer and I was able to keep the tank cool by cranking up the a/c. I also drilled holes in the top of the hood.
Whenever I buy a new tank I'll get acrylic again. But I won't get an acrylic hood or stand. The black acrylic marks up really easy. I can't feed my fish without leaving fingerprints on the hood. Also I'll get a seperate sump with a seperate air cooled pump. The pump in the built in sump adds a lot of heat to the tank.
JoTaDe, yes the hood came with the tank. I do have heat issues. Luckily, this was a mild summer and I was able to keep the tank cool by cranking up the a/c. I also drilled holes in the top of the hood.
Whenever I buy a new tank I'll get acrylic again. But I won't get an acrylic hood or stand. The black acrylic marks up really easy. I can't feed my fish without leaving fingerprints on the hood. Also I'll get a seperate sump with a seperate air cooled pump. The pump in the built in sump adds a lot of heat to the tank.
cliffrouse11bas
Active Member
Looks great I love before and after photos...
