Joeee,
Thanks for your compliments.
To answer your questions, Tank is indeed less than 2 months old but remember that it was a transition from a 10 years old 80 G, most of the corals except for the ones I recently bought and which I will post pics of soon have been in my tank for more than 2-3 years with some of them like my old RBTA has been in the tank since 2000. so I guess most of the tank is established.
One thing that I don't really like is the difference in the tint between the old and new rocks and also with some of the old rocks that are now positioned exposing areas of them that were in the dark and therefore are more white than other areas in the tank, but this will change in few months from now and hopefully I will have some nice coralline build up now. I do have some higher extending corals like the gorgonians and the leathers on the right side of the tank but its not like having a rising slope from front to back if you get what I mean. I tried a lot however with the size of my rocks and maybe because of the tank being only 22 inches deep it was difficult to achieve. Yet I believe I like this setup. My burning arm will not tolerate more time under the haildes too.
The RBTA you mention on the left is a new aquisition that was at the LFS for months and I always wanted. They only sold it because they were braking up the tank for relocation. it did cost a bit but it was well worth it I guess. My carpet has benn in the 8- for around 5 years and I only lost 5-6 fish over that period. Mind you I had 3 other larger carpets in the tank and I saw each one of them spitting only 1-2 fish maybe. Never new ifit was the clowns bringing the dead fish tot he anemone or if it was actually the anemones catching the fish. But I guess with only one carpet in a much larger tank its now safer for the fish.
I have the following fish in the tank right now:
1 maroon clown
1 hyppo tang
1 kole tang
1 coral beauty (model citizen till now hope I get so lucky with a flame)
1 copperband butterfly
4 cardinal new aquisition but htey were in the LFS for more than a month.
for future fish plans:
Yellow tang is high on the list
Achilles Tang if I ever see one.
Powder blue
sixline wrass
yellow cories wrass to help deal with pests.
a flame angel
Lyretails
As for the Pumps partition I guess it's working as intended. I actually have 1 950 GPH OR pump, 1 New visijet 800 GPH feeding the closed loop, I will be adding one 300 GPH powerhead feeding an upward spraybar behind the rocks and maybe an additional one with direct output for horizontal flow behind rocks. I will also be adding a 300 gph powerhead feeding a 5-6 1/4 inch output tube that I can more directly orient for specific flow needs. In case I need more flow after all that I might add another 800 GPH visijet pump connected to another CL in the tank. but I guess with my current load what I have is necessary.
I did decide to keep the Seios in as they were providing a great surface agitation and a nice circular water movement from LT up hitting the right upper side and coming back from RT low towards the left, which is providinga very nice smooth flow for the corals on the lower fornt side of the tank which are mainly softies and require exactly this type and amount fo flow. I did try a ltoto hide the pumps better than this but its not working as they are too high in the tank. Might take them out and glue some flat rock pieces on them or just wait till they get cvered with alga to disappear. People looking a the tank never notice them but I can't see but them when I look at the tank.
Will post better pictures of my water circulation system once I finish it and will try to post a video of hte flow I'm getting so that others can tell me if I need more flow or not.
CL outlets are not visible at all when looking at the tank but when you look from down you'll see them. I will work on making them a bit shorter once I finsih more important stuff on the tank.
