May's nTOTM Thread- sjfishguy's SPS dominated 30 cube

Truly stunning!!! And that is one fat wrasse! I think it's time to frag that bird's nest, I'll pm you my address.
 
I am not sure what you are asking? Most of the zoos in my tank are filling in the gaps between SPS colonies, you can see some in the pics, but many you can't see. Does that answer your question?
 
How hot was your tank getting before the chiller? What is the rooms ambient temp. I'm asking becaues I am setting up a 40 gallon 24+20+20 and purchased a 250 geismann.
 
I love this tank. It's incredible looking! Your corals are fantastic. I am going to be buying the 30 gallon Oceanic cube with that same light. Is that the 20inch Sunpod? It looks like it may be the 24?
 
Mike: I had the chiller ready to go before it ever got real hot, but I know that it was 86 at one point and the room was like 75. With the chiller it never went over 80.

E: Although I have had good results, I think if I had to do it over again I would go with T5s. I would not recommend (knowing what I know now) putting a single MH bulb over an SPS tank. It creates too many shadows; parts of some corals die as other corals or their own branches shade them. This also detracts from the total coloration of the corals. When I first set it up, I thought there is no way a floro bulb could touch MHs, but I have seen so many great results from t5s recently and read several technical articles, I would probably go with a 24'' fixture on my setup. I am actually considering switching the Sunpod out. But, yes, it is the 24'' Sunpod with a 14k Phoenix. For small single halide setup, its awesome.
 
sjfishguy.. thank you. that's an excellent answer. I've also heard excellent things about the T-5's w/ individual reflectors. I am leaning toward the MH fixture, but haven't yet made my decision. It's interesting to know the corals were shading each other out so much. I'm really going to get a 20 inch fixture, so that really limits my options. Did you find that you had a lot of excess heat issues with the MH light?
 
30cubemay2009.jpg


This pic was taken a few weeks ago. The tank is finally going better since I had some trouble in January as a couple small problems compounded on one another and started a cascade that lead to nitrates in the 20ppm range and some phosphate. This slowed the growth of the corals to almost zero and some bleached out and are just started to come back. I lost a couple digis (oddly enough that was all I lost, acros were not really affected).

I have been battling some hair algae in corner below the MJ due to lack of flow coupled with the nutrient problem described above. Its a long story how that got to be that way. I had to break down the birdsnest as it was blocking a lot of flow to the rest of the tank in addition to starting to die from the inside out due to low flow in the core of the coral. It will grow back quickly I am sure.

I have pulled out a couple more small frags that were getting shaded and overtaken by some of the larger corals. I have not really added anything with the exception of a new blue maxima in December. I am concentrating on letting my existing colonies fill into each other rather than adding more corals at this point.

Hopefully soon I will be able to upgrade to an Oceanic 58. I will keep pretty much everthing the same, but the tank is 10'' longer so I will have more room on either side of the rock work for the corals (esp the milli on the left) to grow out without being restricted by the glass. I like very the open tank look a lot.
 
Your tank is awesome & inspiring. Shows how much you really can do with limited space.

Could you please post a pic of how you have your skimmer supported so that it does not crack the 110 aquaclear? Also, what do you have in the aquacleaer, thought I saw live rock, but am not sure I'm seeing things.

Thanks
Jackie
 
Nice tank. I have Oceanic 33 cube. I see you only use Aquaclear and Sureflow for the flow. I use 1 Koralia-2, 3 Koralia-1 and Koralia nano for my 33 gallon. Does Sureflow provide enough flow?
 
Unfortunately I sold the setup a month or so ago, so I can't take a picture of the brace. But basically I had a 2X4 screwed into the stand vertically so the skimmer's base would sit on it.

The Sure Flo in the corner provided enough flow up until the end. When the birdsnest started to get really big, I had to break it up because there wasnt enough flow getting to the interior of it and it started to die from the inside out. Looks great again in my new 58.

So yeah, I sold this setup and upgraded to a 58 with a sump, T5s, Vortec; nothing fancy but some nice high end equipment. Probably won't go back to the nano world, but let me tell you, if you can keep SPS in a nano, its a joke in a bigger tank. The stability is so much better with the larger volume. So when all the big boys with their 300g tanks with all the goodies on kinda chuckle about your 14g, they have no idea how easy they have it! Haha.
 
I will post some pics when I get a chance. The coral and rockwork is pretty much my 30 stretched out a little. I just wanted a bigger tank to let the corals on the sides have more room to grow, not really to get more stuff. There are only a couple new additions. I will post some pics when I get things more organized in there. Got frags and mini colonies laying all over right now from the switch :)
 
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