April nTOTM - Myzislow's 29g mixed reef

myzislow

Active member
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First I must say thanks to everyone who voted for my tank as the April nTOTM!

Background:

I have been keeping and maintaining saltwater tanks for roughly seven years now. My initial fascination with marine animals came about while I was working for a LFS in high school back in 2002. I started with FOWLR tanks and slowly graduated to simple mushroom and zoanthid dominated reefs with PC lighting. When i stopped working for the LFS I took a break from the hobby for a little bit, but I always knew I would own another tank at some point. In 2004 the opportunity came about for me to acquire a freshly setup 29 gallon FOWLR from a friend who had to go away for school. I jumped on it and 5 years later the tank has matured into what you see today.

back in 2004:
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Methodology:

I subscribe to the KISS (keep it simple stupid) method and it seems to be working well for me. at this point my tank is on cruise control as it is pretty much completely automated for the most part. For dosing
I use B-ionic 2 part with drews Peristaltic dosing pumps controlled by digital intermatic CP924 timers. These timers are very nice because they have an internal battery that stores the settings when the power goes out. For top off I have an tunze osmolator which keeps my specific gravity rock solid. I do weekly ~5 gallon water changes with tropic marin pro salt. I feel that with a heavily stocked nano tank frequent water changes are a must. I also lightly vacuum the sand every other week to help remove trapped detritus that has accumulated in the sand bed. I do weekly water testing to make sure everything is in spec and stable. I run ESV granulated carbon in a small media bag in the return chamber of my cpr bak pak skimmer. the media bag is held in place by a magnet to ensure the bag cannot float up and clog the return, creating a disaster( don't ask me how i know lol). I change the carbon every 2 weeks. I wipe down the algae with a mag float maybe once a week, or as needed.

Filtration:

~40 lbs. fiji live rock
CPR bak pak 2r HOB skimmer W/modded maxi jet 600
ESV GAC changed biweekly
lots of flow:
(1) tunze nano stream 6025
(1) hydor koralia #2
(1) hydor koralia #1
(4) hydor koralia nanos- 2 of which are positioned in each back corner for detritus suspension

Lighting:

150w sun pod with a 20k radium bulb
Retrofitted 24w T5 strip light -giesemann pure actinic

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Misc. equipment:

Tunze osmolator
2 drews dosing pumps
Azoo dual cooling fan-on timer when MH is on
150w stealth heater hidden behind rock work.
125w ebo-jager heater in return chamber of CPR bak pak
pinpoint wireless thermometer

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Livestock:

rosy scale wrasse
ornate/Christmas wrasse
African flame back pygmy angel
lawnmower blenny
ORA blue neon goby

snails:
3 mexican turbo
4 tiger trochus
4 astrea

To many corals to list

If you have any questions on anything don't hesitate to ask.
Thanks again everyone!
 
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Congratulations!! I like how you showed the progression of your tank and i'm loving the coral and fish collection you got! I like the KISS method myself as well! Beautiful tank!! :)
 
I must say, your growth is amazing! Especially on that Sunset Monti! Very cool pics!!! Great job! :thumbsup:
 
Great tank. Those blue zoos are crazy. Where did you get them, what are they called?
 
excellent looking tank! I don't usually ask the 'what coral is this' question, but what's the green coral above the blue zoanthids?

Thanks!!
 
Congrats, that is an awesome tank. How did you do the mod to the sunpod? I have 20" and would love to steal your idea.
 
Congrats Myzislow! You have an awesome tank. From the pictures, it looks like you had two croceas and one squamosa (or maxima can't tell) in your tank at different times. Do you still have them in your tank?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14748278#post14748278 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ReeferChick85
Congratulations!! I like how you showed the progression of your tank and i'm loving the coral and fish collection you got! I like the KISS method myself as well! Beautiful tank!! :)
Thanks a lot! The KISS method has yet to fail me :D

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14748417#post14748417 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Jadams
I must say, your growth is amazing! Especially on that Sunset Monti! Very cool pics!!! Great job! :thumbsup:

Thank you. My sunset is growing so fast it's becoming a nuisance. Nothing will stop it and it's beginning to take out surrounding corals. Some more fragging is definitely overdue.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14748448#post14748448 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Ryan
Great tank. Those blue zoos are crazy. Where did you get them, what are they called?

Thanks! Those are my tub blues. I got them from a guy in Florida and I started with 8-10 polyps or so. They seem to grow pretty fast.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14750797#post14750797 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by E.intheC
excellent looking tank! I don't usually ask the 'what coral is this' question, but what's the green coral above the blue zoanthids?

Thanks!!

Thank you! I'm not quite sure which one you/re talking about. The yellowish green one is what I believe to be a montipora palawensis. The bright green acropora next it is called the "green monster", and is an acropora humulis.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14750913#post14750913 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by finksmart
Great color on the SPS. If you don't mind me asking what 's your regular dosing regime?

Thanks. Right now I have my timers to my dosing pumps set to split the dosing up 12 hours part, twice a day. I could split it up even more but for now it seems to be working well and things stay really stable. The tank gets a total of ~24mL of Alk and ~22mL of Ca per day. dKh stays steady @ 8.5-9 and Ca ~450.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14752380#post14752380 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by welsher7
Congrats, that is an awesome tank. How did you do the mod to the sunpod? I have 20" and would love to steal your idea.

Thank you. Here is a breakdown of how I did the sun pod mod.

It really wasn't hard at all and took less then an hour to do. This had been something I've wanted to do as long as I've owned the sun pod as I've missed actinic lighting a TON. Being that my tank is 30" long current doesn't make a fixture that has t5 or pc supplements in this size so this was my only option besides getting a whole new lighting system.

We started by getting some thin, but supportive, galvanized metal to make the brackets out of. We then shaped them to the contour of the sun pod. My plan was to initially do this mod to the rear of the sun pod but I ended up not having enough room, so in the front it had to go. On top of the sun pod are openings where you can attach there hanging mounting kit. I used these provided holes to attach the brackets using automotive body panel threaded clips that slid right into place. I secured the brackets using some bolts I had around the house.

example of the type of clip I used:
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Now that the brackets had a solid mounting point to the fixture, our focus became figuring out how to mount the strip light to the brackets.

The strip light has mounting slots at each end of the fixture. I had some some bolts and finishing nuts lying around the house that ended up working perfectly. The head of the bolt slides into the mounting slots for a snug, but perfect fit. I then drilled a hole in the bracket, tightened down the finishing nuts on each side, and that's it. After that I was ready to mount everything in place.

side pic showing the bolt in the mounting slot:
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Hope that helps!
 
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