Christian's 45 gallon SPS Wonderland

newbie916

New member
This is my 3 1/2 year old son Christian's 45 gallon Oceanic Tek tank that he got for Christmas last year. It was an upgrade from his 24 gallon Aquapod that we had purchased 2 years ago. Christian's been reefing since he was 10 months old and my wife talked me into getting his 1st saltwater reef tank.

The addiction started when he would spend hours looking at his Grandpa's 50 gallon fish only saltwater tank. We dose, feed, test, frag, clean, and pick livestock together. It's been a great learning experience for him and I hope you enjoy. We realize that the tank is extremely overcrowded and are in the process of thinning out our collection to the most desirable pieces. The livestock was transferred predominately from his 24 gallon Aquapod and my 95 gallon Wave tank about 4 weeks ago, so the corals are still adjusting and coloring back up.

Let us know any feedback on improvements or thoughts about the tank.

Thanks for looking and hope you enjoy a almost 4 year olds hard work and dedication:)

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My friends make fun of me for gluing sticks on the overflow. good to know I'm not alone. HA! You've got a great selection of corals. gl with deciding which ones u're going to keep
 
The tank looks like a vertical cube. Branchy tonga rockscaping would look nice as well. There's a fellow here that goes by the name of SDGuy and he has an awesome tall tank. YOu should check his out.
 
Looks really nice. It reminds me of my old biocube before I switched to a larger tank. BTW all the sps that you decide to thin out can get sent over to me for relocation. LOL
 
Wow you guys know what you are doing! Beautiful!

Sent from Wesley's Moto Atrix 4G using Tapatalk

Thanks Wesley, Christian's a great little reefer.His Mom literally forced me to get his first tank.Now its fun and a great way to teach him chemistry, oceanography, responsibility, propagating, budgeting, and some quality time with his Dad. Christian loves the feedback from his threads.
 
My friends make fun of me for gluing sticks on the overflow. good to know I'm not alone. HA! You've got a great selection of corals. gl with deciding which ones u're going to keep

Thanks, we were running out of placing corals, so we bought some Aquamag frag plugs. They're actually magnetic, which is cool because We could move them around:) It's going to be tough figuring out the ones to keep, but Christian and I have our favorites.

I think Tonga branches would look pretty nice. Maybe I could build the back up to maximize the tank vertically. It's a tall tank, where you have to maximize the walls.
 
My friends make fun of me for gluing sticks on the overflow. good to know I'm not alone. HA! You've got a great selection of corals. gl with deciding which ones u're going to keep

I don't believe you would glue sticks to your overflow acronymous.. That is just NOT you... :dance:
 
your son ha!

Won't lie to you.. I've definitely caught the bug, but Christian is very involves:) He helps glue frag plugs, dose and feed every morning and shops around with me for additions:) It's definitely bank rolled by me:) What got me into this hobby was seeing how happy he is looking and working on the tank. He love me reading his feedback to him. I do get stuck doing a lot of water changes by myself, but he likes to count the cups of salt.
 
Thanks guys, we just can't wait to get some of them to color back up 100%. Christian loves showing guests his tank, when they come over. It's funny because the first thing he asks them is "Do you want to see my fishtank?" Most people are assuming its going to be a gold fish or beta tank. He has names for all of the fish, shrimp, crabs, and describes the difference to an extent. Mostly colors and personalities. He also shows them the refrigerator full of supplements, fragging tools, etc. and likes to show people our regiment. It's a great hobby for little ones and I'm hoping when he's older he could do it all himself and I could just watch, but more than likely it'll be a father son thing. Hopefully he'll be a reefer for life, but as long as he enjoys it it's something we could do together.

Thanks again and I'll read the posts to Christian when I get home:)
 
Awesome tank! Your son and you have done a great job! That tank reminds me of a childs personality. It's colorful, and all of the different corals have such different shapes. Good job!
 
Awesome tank! Your son and you have done a great job! That tank reminds me of a childs personality. It's colorful, and all of the different corals have such different shapes. Good job!

Yeah, the colors don't really flow because it's like he wants a chaotic look..lol He colors the same way and is very particular. Everytime I make suggestions he always wants things a particular way. Guess he takes after his mother:) His favorite color is pink and reds now. Hence all of the pink and red chalices, red hornets, and he's getting into oranges. The frag of Setosa and the colony of Forest Fire Digi, but I can't find very many more oranges when it comes to sps though. That and now there's no more room:)

Thanks again and I'll be sure to share with Christian how you look his colorful array of corals:)
 
Nice tank. What's the equipment list, dosing, feeding, livestock list?

Thanks here's a list of our equipment, dosing, and feeding schedule.

Lighting Coralife 250 watt MH with 14k Phoenix, 2x65 watt actinics, and 2x LED Moonlights.

Flow: 2xMP10ES set at 10 power on Tidal Swell and alternate to Reef Crest Mode.

Filtration:

50lbs of Pukani LR and approximately 20lbs of Fiji that the corals we transferred were attached too.

40lbs of LS

Proflex Fuge that drops into 2x100 micron filter socks, which goes through a chamber with 10lbs of rock rubble and chaeto. The lights are on alternating light schedules to the display tank to maintain ph.

JBJ ATO

Phosphate Reactor running ChemiPure Elite, which is changed out every 6 weeks.

SWC 120 cone skimmer. We love this skimmer because it's very easy to adjust.

Maintainence and feeding schedule:

We dose 2part Bi-Ionic daily, which we're still adjusting. Currently we're dosing 15ml's of Alk to 10ml's of Ca to maintain 9.0-9.5dhk and Ca at 425-450.

5ml of Kent Magnesium is dosed twice a week to try and maintain 1400-1450 levels for the chalices and to maintain Alk and Ca stablility.

Kents Iodine, Stontium, Coralvite, and Essential Elements are dosed once a week about half the recommended dosing on the bottles, since we do not test for these trace elements. However, we do notice a difference in tissue regeneration and the overall health of the corals with their ability to sustain even after some pretty serious temp and alk swings due to equipment malfunction and operator error in our old 24 gallon AP.

We feed our fish twice daily a combination of cyclopeeze and mysis in small quantities.

Corals are fed 1/2 cap of Oysterfeast and 1/2 cap of Phytofeast daily and hour after the lights go out and their feeders and polyps are out. The chalices are fed mysis twice a week, but will also eat food when the fish are fed. Unfortunately, the tank is so deep now that Christian can't feed the chalices anymore with his turkey baster. He'll have to go swimming if he tried:)

We also dose 12-15 drops of Brightwells Coral Amino's daily during feeding.

We turn off the return pump for 20-30 minutes during feeding and turn the MP10's on feed mode, so the livestock has an opportunity to eat it.

Two 5 gallon water changes are done during the week and a 8-10 gallon water change is done on the weekend. We'll probably taper back the water changes a little, but we were doing this because the corals were just moved from the other systems a little over a month ago. Prevented any spikes in ammonia, phosphates, nitrites, etc., when we moved the rocks with corals attached to them.

Livestock: Some of them I can't remember the names, but I'll give it my best shot:)

SPS:

ATL Strawberry Fields
ATL Pink Lemonade
Tyree Pink Lemonade
Setosa
ORA Oregon Tort
30k Lokani
ATL Shades of Fall
ORA Green Birdsnest
Tyree Sunset Monti
Purple Haze Monti
LA Laker Scroll coral
Jedi Mind Trick
ORA Blue Iris
Reeffarmers Ice Fire Enchinata
Forrest Fire Digi
Tyree Flower Petal Monti
YR Strawberry Shortcake
Crayola Plana
Garf Bonsai
ORA Tri Color
Karls Candlelight
ORA Miami Orchid
ORA Purple Plasma
Paletta Baby Blue Stag
ORA Red Planet
Aussie Strawberry Shortcake
Yellow Stinger deep water
Ponape Birdsnest
ORA Chips Acro
Season Greetings Monti
Tyree Tubu(?) Don't remember how to spell or pronounce it:)

There's several more lineaged pieces, but we ordered a few frag packs last year and one of them 50% of them came DOA and weren't labeled. The ones that survived are beautiful, but I still can't figure out what they're called. I'm sure I missed a few, but this is most of the list. Also, have a really nice maricultured colony that has a light green base and the deepest blue tips and yellow polyps I've seen. That's the only maricultured colony we kept. The rest were given to my cousin and Christian's Uncle:)

Chalices:

Vivid Pink Enchino
Tyree Bubblegum monster
Tyree Emerald Mummy Eye
Bazooka Joe
Tyree Robokaki
Miami Hurricane
OG Mummy Eye
Ming Mummy Eye
YR Norcal Watermelon
Tyree Red Watermelon
Tyree Pink Watermelon
Lava Flow chalice

Zoas:
Red Hornets
Vivid Sunny D's
Tubbs Blues
Strawberry Wines
Strawberry Gardens
Jokers
PPE's
Mary Janes
Purple Hornets
Spiderman
Princess Toadstools
Nightmares
Chong Bongs

There's more, but we've gradually phased out of zoas. We've noticed that keeping sps and zoas at the same time is a little difficult. We're more focused on sps and are keeping a few select zoas, but most are being held at a fellow reefers place for growout, so we could sell and trade for other sps or nice chalices.

Sorry about the long list and answers:)
 
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The pics really do the corals no justice.
This is an amazing tank even when the corals were in the 24 gallon the colors and growth are amazing.
These two guys keep on top of thier water quality and it shows.
And yes Christain is really into it.
I've had the opportunity to see it first hand.
One night I was helping Chris frag some of the corals to thin down thier collection.
When I went out to the garage I thought Christain was going to cry because I kinda walked out into the garage and didnt leave the door open for him.

He was right on top of the whole process.

Keep up the good work guys :thumbsup:
 
The pics really do the corals no justice.
This is an amazing tank even when the corals were in the 24 gallon the colors and growth are amazing.
These two guys keep on top of thier water quality and it shows.
And yes Christain is really into it.
I've had the opportunity to see it first hand.
One night I was helping Chris frag some of the corals to thin down thier collection.
When I went out to the garage I thought Christain was going to cry because I kinda walked out into the garage and didnt leave the door open for him.

He was right on top of the whole process.

Keep up the good work guys :thumbsup:

Thanks Paul,

Yeah, still using one of the original digital cameras that takes AA batteries..lol For some reason I can't get any decent pics out of that thing and all of the corals look brown:) I really need a new camera..lol

I still remember the night, when you came over and showed us how to frag the chalices with our new saw. Christian was following you around like a little shadow and wanted to be right in the middle. Remember we were afraid when we were cutting the zoas on the saw that he would get palytoxin in his eye and I kept having to tell him to stand back or put his goggles on..haha

He still asks where Uncle Paul has been and when your going to drop by to check out his new tank. Thanks again bro for all of your help over the last year. You've been awesome teaching us the ropes and getting us addicted to those chalices:)
 
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