Ludnix's tropical 120!

[ludnix]

And finally we added a Canary Blenny to the team. To my surprise he is tank raised which is always a plus.

To my disappointment though, it turns out he's an idiot. After all the fish looked at him like was dinner he decided it would be a good idea to hide inside the tangs food. He's lucky none of the tangs were hungry at that moment or he might lost his tail.

 

[ludnix]

Well I don't have any pictures, but I'm pretty sure my canary blenny got eaten by my anemone.

 

[HomeSlizzice]

Nice tank, I've been thinking about setting up a 120 gallon tank.

 

[Bax]

Tank looks god Eric!

The blenny probably thought he was going to hide in the nem. If he's that timid, he may just be hiding too.

 

[ludnix]

Well still no sign of the blenny, I wouldn't be shocked if he showed up again, but I'm pretty sure he was anemone food.

 

[ludnix]

New pics!

New pics!

The other day we changed out the MH bulbs since they have been running about 9 months now. We switched from XM 15,000k to 14,000 Hamiltons. These hamiltons are definately a lot more blue as expected. We noticed the blues and purples in corals are a little more subdued, but the greens and reds really pop out a lot more. We also noticed our actinics are doing literally nothing for the tank visually. You can notice the glowing fluorescence when the metal halides are off, but otherwise they provide little to nothing when on. We're considering swapping them out for another set of day lights, maybe we'll get some increased growth with the increased light intensity.

Click any picture to make it big!







Here you can see the montipora and acropora are going to war. It looks like the acro is winning though. I'd normally clip the montipora back to keep this from happening but I can't access that location without damaging the acropora. As long as the acropora does fine than I have no problem with it. The montipora will be fine no matter what.



Zoanthids and Palythoas


Zoanthids


Zoanthids and Pipe Organ


Zoanthids and Candy Cane

 

[Anemonebuff]

Hve you checked your overflow for the blenny. My 6line was in the overflow within an hour of getting him.

I hope it wasn't the anemone, that's why I got rid of mine.

Beautiful setup.

 

[ludnix]

Pipe Organ


Goby hiding in the rock. He's got about 3 holes he likes to pop out of, all connected in that same rock.


Grape Montipora


The montipora plates are rolling over the rock on both sides here. I imagine they will meet within the next month or so.


The bali aquacultured coral has been getting some nice growth on his branches. His base has also encrusted a lot more.


And here's our latest addition. A pearl bubble coral. We had tried a bubble coral before that didn't do so well, but now that all the parameters are ideal I think this one should do great. It started inflating and looking just minutes after being introduced to the tank.

 

[ludnix]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14774703#post14774703 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Anemonebuff
Hve you checked your overflow for the blenny. My 6line was in the overflow within an hour of getting him.

I hope it wasn't the anemone, that's why I got rid of mine.

Beautiful setup.

When we were on vacation in december the mandarin goby ended up in there. From what I can tell there's no canary blenny in it though.

 

[Anemonebuff]

I love that grape monti. That's next on my list.

 

[DouglasTiede]

Love the success you are having!! Wish you and the reef the best!

 

[ludnix]

I picked up a voodoo stag frag from my LFS today and thought I'd share how I go about adding corals like that.

I start by floating the bag the coral was in for a while. I use a turkey baster to add water to the bag from the tank.

I have a few hooks on the inside of my canopy for hanging these bags for when acclimating corals.

Once it's done floating I throw out the water in the bag and take the coral out.

The tank isn't setup for frag plugs so I have to remove the frag from the ORA plug it's on an give it something more natural.

Using a razor blade I cut around the perimeter of the growth on the plug, I then popped it out of the plastic.

Using Krazy super glue I glue the frag down to a small chunk of rubble.

Using Aquascape coralline colored epoxy I can attach the peice of rubble onto my rocks. I really like this method becuase the frag can be popped off later if I need to move it, but I have never had one accidently come off.

Here's a full tank shot just for fun.

 

[Zack33]

wow nice tank

I like the way you add the corals too
I've been looking into how people acclimate sps, how often do you add some water from the tank into the bag?
Do you add as much as the turkey baster will hold each time?

 

[ludnix]

I probably floated it for 20 minutes and squired a turkey baster full of water into it 3 times. I don't always acclimate very long because my LFS' water is usually identical to mine, but lately their frag tank has been looking a little funny so I've been taking extra time to acclimate.

I usually just hook it and do something else while it acclimates like clean the skimmer or refill the topoff.

 

[Anemonebuff]

I also throw mine in some water with Lugol's and blast it with a turkey baster to blow off any critters. That last time I added corals I was in a hurry and added them right to the tank and found red flatworms crawling on the gonipora. After being in almost 24 hours I saw them, removed the goni and Lugol'ed the coral. I blasted of the red flatworms and returned it to the tank. I have not seen one since(knock on wood). Let's hope none of them left the goni in those 24 hours.

 

[Zack33]

okay thanks guys now to go finish acclimating my new sps

 

[Pigmonster]

Awesome tank! you make me want to re do the plumbing and refugium on my 120...are you running a chiller? if so what kind?

 

[Paco]

Beautiful tank. You're motivating me to work harder on mine :lol:

 

[ludnix]

Thanks for compliments everyone.

I am not running a chiller, just the 2x 250w stealth heaters. The high for today in my area is 52F, and in the summer the high might be 70F if we have some nice weather, so you can imagine why I don't need to run a chiller.

 

[ludnix]

I realized I hit the 1 year mark sometime this month! I'm going to be taking lots of pictures tomorrow as I have some big updates to share.