Felicia's Lionfish Mixed Reef 40B

[vokrey09]

Yeah, its a plastic hose clamp that I had laying around in my aquarium plumbing supplies. I believe I originally bought some from Bulk Reef Supply, but some of the other aquarium retail websites probably also sell them. Also, I've seen them at some local fish stores that sell a good selection of plumbing parts. Looks like Amazon has some too:
http://www.amazon.com/Two-Little-Fishies-ATL5420W-6-Piece/dp/B0002Z7TWU

Thanks, I was able to stop by the hardware store and picked up everything I need other than those clamps. Appreciate the info.

Your tank is awesome btw, I really like lip fish and would love to add one to my tank. I have a 40 breeder also, with LPS/softy corals, a six line wrasse, blue green chromis, and cinnamon clown.

If you had to choose just one dwarf lionfish, which would you recommend?

Also, I have been wanting a snowflake eel badly but didn't think it would be possible in a 40b. Are you worried about it getting too large for the tank/eating any of your fish?

 

[flsvedlund]

Thanks, I was able to stop by the hardware store and picked up everything I need other than those clamps. Appreciate the info.

Your tank is awesome btw, I really like lip fish and would love to add one to my tank. I have a 40 breeder also, with LPS/softy corals, a six line wrasse, blue green chromis, and cinnamon clown.

If you had to choose just one dwarf lionfish, which would you recommend?

Also, I have been wanting a snowflake eel badly but didn't think it would be possible in a 40b. Are you worried about it getting too large for the tank/eating any of your fish?

Glad you were able to get most of what you need. Those plastic hose clamps seem to be kind of a specialty item for aquariums, so you'll probably have to order them or find them at an aquarium store.

Thank you! The lions would be totally fine with all the corals (they're completely reef safe in that sense), but depending on the size of your fish, they might be at risk. I was worried about my clowns, but my lions are really small and the clowns are protected by the big group of BTAs they live in. I'd be a bit concerned about the chromis and the wrasse getting eaten.

Out of my three, the dwarf zebra is probably the least colorful, but he's the most active and outgoing. He's always out and about and is always interactive whenever I'm by the tank. He's definitely my favorite. The other two are awesome in their own ways though, just a bit more shy.

Snowflakes are pebble toothed eels, so in the wild they really only eat crustaceans and not fish, so I'm not too worried about him going after fish. Also, my lionfish are protected by their spines and the clowns don't really stray from their BTA's. I do worry that he may eventually get too big, but I got him pretty small and it should take quite a long time for him to outgrow the tank.

 

[flsvedlund]

Here are a few fun lionfish shots from last night. The lions seem to really love perching on the green nepthea.

 

[flsvedlund]

I placed an order with KPA because I wanted to get a bunch of nice gorgonians to intersperse throughout my scape to give the tank that lush, gorgonian forest feel. I thought the lions would look really cool swimming in between and perching on the gorgs.

I got 6 of the medium sized gorgs from KPA (purple angular sea whip, knobby sea rod, purple plume, purple sea rod, purple sea feather, yellow sea feather) and some blue leg hermits to augment my clean up crew. KPA delivered as usual! They sent some really lovely, big gorgonians!

Let's start with lions perched on my favorite of the new gorgonians.

Knobby sea rod and a glimpse of the antennata

The antennata really loves perching on these new gorgs.

Yellow sea feather

Little bit more of the lions! Mushu with a Draco photo bomb (fin in the upper left).

Draco being a ham. Ignore the stuff floating on the surface of the water. I had just fed and its bits of food that got skimmed up as soon as the return pump kicked back on.

 

[flsvedlund]

I also took a few shots of some of my other tank inhabitants.

One of my two huge red mithrax crabs that do a great job eating algae. I call this one Godzilla :lol:

Haven't photographed my two starfish before. One is a nano serpent star from KPA that I got a while back. The other is a huge monster of a harlequin serpent starfish that I got a few months ago. I needed some critters that would help pick up any food bits off the sand bed since I can't have any shrimp in with the lionfish. When the lions eat, they suck in the food so fast it sort of blows up and little bits go everywhere. The hermits and starfish do a great job getting those bits off the sand bed.

Wish I could get a full shot of this guy but he's shy and usually only comes out all the way after the lights shut off.

One of my two trusty fighting conchs. The two of them are like Roombas for my sand bed. Awesome critters and very hardy since I've had both of mine for quite some time now!

And finally, Falkor the eel and Mushu in the background.

 

[flsvedlund]

Alright, its photo time! I've got lots of photos for you guys!

Let's start with the basic FTS from today 7/16/15.


And a few fun angled shots.




Decided to try out my fish eye iPhone lens


And a few more fun shots of the whole tank

 

[flsvedlund]

Left side




Center


Right side

 

[flsvedlund]

 

[flsvedlund]

I also decided to play around with the cheap macro lens for my iPhone.

 

[hotelbravo]

jeeze these are some beautiful shots of your tank. you make me want to turn my tank into a predator tank.. i already have the snowflake eel. just got to get rid of the tangs, angels, and mandarin.

 

[flsvedlund]

jeeze these are some beautiful shots of your tank. you make me want to turn my tank into a predator tank.. i already have the snowflake eel. just got to get rid of the tangs, angels, and mandarin.

Thank you so much! If by predators, you mean lionfish, they would do fine with tangs and angels. Lionfish aren't aggressive, they'll just eat anything that fits in their mouth (tangs and angels are generally too big). Otherwise they're very peaceful and don't bother their tank mates. It would be more a question of whether the tangs and angels would harass the lionfish. The mandarin is probably too small though and could potentially get eaten.

 

[Devaji108]

Still love it sir!
cant wait to get my gorg. tank up and running. but I must say I have never been in to lions until seeing your tank...just beautiful!

 

[hotelbravo]

Still love it sir!ma'am
cant wait to get my gorg. tank up and running. but I must say I have never been in to lions until seeing your tank...just beautiful!

 

[flsvedlund]

Still love it sir!
cant wait to get my gorg. tank up and running. but I must say I have never been in to lions until seeing your tank...just beautiful!

Thank you! Gorgonian tanks are some of my favorites. Can't wait to see yours! I always thought they were cool fish, but didn't really appreciate them until I got them for my tank. They have so much personality and I have so much fun feeding them!

 

[flsvedlund]

Thanks for the correction Its not obvious from my screen name though, so its totally ok!

 

[Aframomum]

Your tank has really exploded, seriously well done ma'am! And your focus on detailed pictures both of the build and of the animals is much appreciated.

Since many of us are in the beginning stages of our own 40's, I am interested in how often you have to refill your ATO reservoir? Any changes if you could do it all again?

Really love the lionfish perched on the clam picture - how long did it take before the clam finally relaxed and didnt try to 'chomp' him? lol

Mark

 

[flsvedlund]

Your tank has really exploded, seriously well done ma'am! And your focus on detailed pictures both of the build and of the animals is much appreciated.

Since many of us are in the beginning stages of our own 40's, I am interested in how often you have to refill your ATO reservoir? Any changes if you could do it all again?

Really love the lionfish perched on the clam picture - how long did it take before the clam finally relaxed and didnt try to 'chomp' him? lol

Mark

Thank you! Adding the gorgonians definitely made the tank look a lot more filled in! I love taking photos of the tank, so I usually have a lot of them to track my builds and tank progress.

I have noticed there seems to be a ton of new 40's in the works! Yay! My ATO reservoir holds just under 4 gallons and I have to refill it every 5 days or so. Depends on the temperature. I live somewhere that doesn't have air conditioning, so my inside temperature isn't regulated and therefore evaporation can vary quite a bit. This is with an open mesh lid and the open sump.

So far, I haven't really thought of any major changes I would have made on this build. I'm really very happy with how well it runs and the ease of maintenance. Maybe the one thing I would have done differently would be instead of one 1.5" drain, I would have done 2 1" drains. My big 1.5" drain is a bit noisy since its sometimes sounds like a waterfall. Also, I don't have any redundancy in my drains as a safety check.

The lions love to perch on the clams! The clams actually didn't take any time at all to tolerate the lions because they were already used to being sat on by various other fish over the time that I've had them. They seem to be a favorite spot for perching fish.

 

[scubasteve3]

Awesome tank! What maintenance do you have to do and how much & often do you feed?

 

[flsvedlund]

Awesome tank! What maintenance do you have to do and how much & often do you feed?

Thank you!

In terms of maintenance, I was originally doing weekly 10 gallon water changes because I was having issues with nitrates from feeding the predators. However, once I switched to using biopellets in my reactor, I'm now down to doing water changes every 2-3 weeks with no issues. In between water changes I replace the filter sock and clean the skimmer cup as needed. I also scrape the algae off the glass every few days. I dose alk, Ca, and Mg but that's all automated, so I just have to refill the dosing containers once a month or so.

I feed a bit of PE mysis most days for the clowns and leopard wrasse. I only feed the lionfish and eel every 2-3 days. The fu manchu lionfish and the eel get about 1 silverside each. I cut the silversides into smaller chunks, so they each get like 3-4 chunks. The antennata is eating PE mysis and she usually eats 4-5 of those. The dwarf zebra is still not onto frozen, so I feed him 1-2 live ghost shrimp that I gut load with Ocean Nutrition pellets.

 

[flsvedlund]

ITS PHOTO TIME!!!

Let's start with the newest FTS!

Left side

Center

Right side