Scopus' 65gal Reef Diary

scopus tang

scopus tang

Active Member
Originally Posted by SpiderWoman
http:///forum/post/2607962

Do you have a log house?
Sorry Spidey, somehow I missed this one.
Don't I wish ~ my house is a true DIY project, and has been from day one. Basement was a uneven gravel floor accessed through a missing window when we moved in. Been doing renovation every since ~ all construction done by your truly (with the help of my lovely wife, and once in a great while, my children). Literally tore out the entire front wall two summers ago, all new studing, insulation, windows, and door; refinished all rooms on the front side of the house, and built on the mudroom. Finished the Master bedroom/library, refinished a second bedroom (the old master bedroom), and siding the front last summer. Rock work, deck, completion of a woodshop, and a new roof are in the plans for this summer. How is your new stand/tank coming ~ haven't seen you update the thread ~ or did I just miss it?
Couple shots of the house;


And a few more of the library just for fun

 
scopus tang

scopus tang

Active Member
By the end of January, I'd added only one more coral, a red and green bullseye mushroom (no pictures, cause it didn't really look that good when I got it). I added a new fish, a diamond watchmen goby. Tank was doing good, the cerith snails where even laying eggs and I was starting to see some coralline growth showing up on the glass.
Diamond Watchman

Snail Eggs

Cerith snail laying eggs, coralline algae on the glass
 
N

nemo_66

Guest
very nice progress.
i laughed when i saw the front of your home. it looks great, but that one door in the middle opens to know where. lol. if you just open the door and walk out really fast, you fall one story down. lol
but very nice, and good progress.
 
scopus tang

scopus tang

Active Member
Originally Posted by Nemo_66
http:///forum/post/2609965
very nice progress.
i laughed when i saw the front of your home. it looks great, but that one door in the middle opens to know where. lol. if you just open the door and walk out really fast, you fall one story down. lol
but very nice, and good progress.

Thanks ~ stick around, the tank actually looks much better now, just got to catch the diary up.
Yeah we laughed too when we first saw the house. No steps, no deck. Funny part was, there were two doors in the back (one regular, one slider) and only the regular had steps to it (slider didn't) not quite as high in the air, but still
. To get into the basement, you crawled through a window (no stairway inside the house to get down, no door in the basement to get in). Basement floor was gravel, no concrete (was fun hammering in a door in pouring concrete through the windows). When we first moved in, the front door was inset about 2 feet. The kids put their tramp underneath it and jumped from the main floor of the house onto it. Tons of fun ~ I like to broke my neck.
 
scopus tang

scopus tang

Active Member
Febuary and most of March seemed to fly by with everything else that was going on. I didn't take many pictures for most of this two months. Busy trying to place corals (putty and superglue gel), changing the rock slightly (ziptied some together), adding fans to the hood, fighting with a skimmer (kept overflowing) and a sump (major evaporation issues). Changed out the two maxijet 1200s for the hydro koralias. Removed almost all the rock work once looking for a missing blue mushroom ~ found it, but it disappeared for a good a little later. I added a few organisms over this period, candy cane coral, an emerald crab ~ which I see only once in a blue moon ~ and never when I have a camera, and a halimeda plant (Feb. 13, '08). Was watching the man-made rock to see how it developed (nice coralline growth showing up) and trying to figure out a balanced salt mix (can't keep alkalinity up and calcium refuses to come below 600ppm).
Purple ribbon and zoas epoxy (check out coralline growth on rock and zip ties)

Candy Cane coral (epoxy)
 
scopus tang

scopus tang

Active Member
End of March, things began to change. Added a couple new corals and started building a DIY sump.
March 24, '08, we took our oldest boy back to college after spring break. Stopped in Billings Mont. at a couple of not so local LFS stores. Purchased a tiny ricordia, a orange "leather" coral, and a flasher wrasse.
ricordia attaching to rock rubble, along with two other loose mushrooms

Orange Carnation coral (yeah right, a leather, suuure it isn't) w/halmedia in background.

Halmedia algae w/orange cornation coral in foreground and xenia sticking in.

Unfortunately the wrasse did not survive the trip home (1st time I've ever lost a fish on this trip, and I've hauled lots of them both fresh and saltwater) very sad ~ it was a gorgeous fish!
 
scopus tang

scopus tang

Active Member
On the 5th of April, I made a few major additions to my tank; a green toadstool leather, a clove polyp, a red gonipora, a gorgeous red-green-purple open brain, and a couple unknown zoa polyps.
Here's the toadstool

I know it doesn't look green, but here's a picture taken later when it was all retracted, and you can see the green color on the surface.

Here is the Clove polyp done some work with ID, but nothing positive yet.

Here's the Red Gonipora (very nice and still doing well)

Here's the open brain
as it appeared at the LFS ~ never got a picture of it in my tank, it never opened up and "melted" in 3 days. Very sad, it was a gift for my having fixed the LFS owners log bed after he bought it.


Here a shot of the unknown Zoa

And here's a picture of another zoa frag I got from a fellow reefer during this time.
 
scopus tang

scopus tang

Active Member
Here's a picture of a trumpet coral that was also added during this time period, and a updated shot on the Electric Greens and the Armor of God. And finally, a picture of the red and green bullseyes which colored up nicely.
Trumpet coral

Electric Greens

Armor of God

Red - Green Centered Bullseyes
 
veni vidi vici

veni vidi vici

Active Member
Very very nice Scopus.....seems to me you have alot of projects going at once lol.better get that walk out deck built before someone walks out the the back door .ieee!
 
scopus tang

scopus tang

Active Member
Originally Posted by Veni Vidi Vici
http:///forum/post/2617250
Very very nice Scopus.....seems to me you have alot of projects going at once lol.better get that walk out deck built before someone walks out the the back door .ieee!
Thank you! Projects
? My life is a project LOL! Never ending ~ everytime I get one done, I find that I've created two more for myself. Oh well, all you can do is move forward one day at a time.
 
fats71

fats71

Active Member
Are you adding anything to create the coraline growth in your tank as i have it on the glass but not as mucch as you do and we started about the same time.
The wood work is awsome very nice job. The bed however looks to be in a bad spot for catching a hot amber late one Freezing night.
 
spanko

spanko

Active Member
Liking the diary, all most up to date, keep going. Looking forward to the current FTS on this thread. Boy you sure like your wood don't you?
 
scopus tang

scopus tang

Active Member
Originally Posted by Fats71
http:///forum/post/2617625
Are you adding anything to create the coraline growth in your tank as i have it on the glass but not as mucch as you do and we started about the same time.
The wood work is awsome very nice job. The bed however looks to be in a bad spot for catching a hot amber late one Freezing night.
No, I'm supplementing nothing as far as calcium ~ course its been at 600ppm since I set the tank up and I can't get it to come down. Might have something to do with it, but I don't think so. I reset my 65 gallon at school in early January, and it has way more growth than my home tank. What type of lights are you running?
Thanks. My wife and I had a big debate on the virtues of the wood burning fire place vs. gas ~ as you can tell I won, but I also get the side of the bed closest to the fireplace, just in case. Don't know why, she's the one who always has cold feet and cant get warm!
 
scopus tang

scopus tang

Active Member
Originally Posted by spanko
http:///forum/post/2617630
Liking the diary, all most up to date, keep going. Looking forward to the current FTS on this thread. Boy you sure like your wood don't you?
Thanks Henry ~ sorry its taking so long, but been a little distracted with seniors graduating early and needing final grades. Don't know why things like work have to keep interferring with the important things in life
. Hoping to get everything current and up todate by the end of next week. Yes, I do indeed love my wood ~ also not a fan of drywall or painting, so I avoid both as much as possible
.
 
kevin34

kevin34

Active Member
Originally Posted by Scopus Tang
http:///forum/post/2608005
Couple days later, we received a large shipment of zoa and mushroom frags from an online company ~ unfortunately, most of the zoas turned out to be only two different color variations (orange w/green skirts ~ dragon eye? and emerald green ~ ?). Mushrooms consisted of a nice green Yuma, a neon red, and a what I believe is some type of green hairy (but not sure). Also added an electric green zoa from the LFS.
LS w/new corals

RS w/new corals

New Mushrooms

Zoa (orange centered w/green skirt ~ Dragon eye?)

Zoa (emerald green ~ name unknown ~ anybody know?)

Zoa (Electric Green)

The zoos in the 4th pic are eagle eyes. Very nice!
 
scopus tang

scopus tang

Active Member
On the 6th of April a friend (Dennis210) and I helped another fellow reefer tear down his 120gal reef tank. The poor guy is moving down to mexico to his beach front property, were he can snorkle reefs in his spare time, so decided to part out his tank. In return for some money and helping tear it down, I ended up with the following; a mated pair of golden-coral banded shrimp (which I almost never see), a LMB, and a awesome large purple feather duster (also added some of his LS to add some biodiversity to my sandbed).
Picture of one of the coral banded shrimps (should have photographed before placing in tank)

Huh?! no pictures of the LMB ~ have to remedy that (subbed in pic. of the LMB from school).

Here's a close-up of the large purple featherduster
 
scopus tang

scopus tang

Active Member
16th of April, Dennis210 and I swapped out my sump. The Orca was exchanged for a DIY 29gal sump, that we had designed and built. Got input from wattsupdoc and a few others on the build (thanks guys). Also modified my coralife skimmer by drilling the cup, based on info from another thread here on the boards.
Here's a picture of how it did look; last chamber was constantly getting low, exposing skimmer pump to air and overflowing the skimmer cup

Picture of 29gal DIY sump from front

Here is a top view; we created a sub chamber off the overflow chamber to hold the skimmer so that microbubbles were no longer being created in the return chamber.

Here's a picture of the water "channeler" that we built for the influent

Exchange in process

And here's one with the new sump/refugium in place and working.

 
scopus tang

scopus tang

Active Member
Couple more close-up shots of each sump chamber.
1st chamber; influent over live rock chamber w/connected skimmer chamber

2nd chamber; sandbed with chaeto (two types), halimeda, and xenia

Here's one of the return chamber (yeah! no more microbubbles and no more skimmer overflow
)

Here's one of Dennis210 (just in case you've ever wondered what he really looks like) placing rock in the overflow chamber (Thanks for the help Dennis!)

And here's one of us incorperating the mod into the skimmer cap; cause as any of you know who have them, these suckers overflow all the time.
 
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