My 38 gallon (few pics)

[vessxpress1]

This is my first try using photobucket so bare with me if it doesn't work. Hopefully it will.
This my 38 gal. I moved it here to my kitchen from my former apt. March of 05. Long story short, it was a FOWLR when I moved, some LR died and didn't know, I added a couple more fish, huge ammonia spike, wiped out everything. As it sat in darkness for 3 months, even the bristle worms perished. April through June of 05, this tank was devoid of life, without light and half the liverock because I was too depressed to start over. In July, the reef bug bit me and I decided 'Let there be light!' A damsel here, a clownfish there. The BTA .....and soon it's back to life. I took these pics today. I just put the new Current sunpaq 96w bulbs in last night. One is half 10,000k half 6700k, the other is half 10,000k half 460 nm actinic.
The BTA was about 5" when I got him in August. I measured it today and it's 9" across now. He's stayed put, but I fear the day he goes for a stroll. The wall hammer I just got a couple weeks ago.

 

[mg426]

Wow looks mighty nice. doing anything special to keep all of those softies happy???

 

[vessxpress1]

By the way, a lot of people wonder about this....In early November (05), there wasn't a single dot of coraline algae on the glass. 3.5 months later, I've got some work to do.

 

[mg426]

mind letting us in on just what you are doing????

 

[vessxpress1]

Not really, just supplement a little Iodide and Iodine now and then and test for them with the salifert kit once in a while. I just switched to Reef Crystals salt and those levels are perfect, so I don't have to add too much between water changes.

 

[vessxpress1]

Well, at first, I used purple up every day. Until I discovered calcium blocks and then I'd just throw one in to regulate the calcium. Then the load started getting a little heavier so now I use the two part B-ionic daily. 10 ppm of each (1. alk and 2. calcium buffer) and it seems to maintain the levels pretty decent. Still sometimes throw in a calcium block but a water change with reef crystals will boost it up. Also test for and dose reef advantage magnesium and strontium, Reef Iodide, Iodine. Coral Accel, Reef Plus, Reef vital DNA occasionally. I'm going to start target feeding Zooplex, chromaplex, microvert, DT, phytoplan and zoplan. Before I just kind of dumped it in. I'm not claiming any of this stuff to be magic, I just dose it. I could probably cut half of it but I feel better 'doing something' I guess.
BTA gets fed whole freeze dried shrimp, or a silverside, once or twice a week. The hammer coral will take large chunks of meat too. Cleaner crew consists of about 50 hermits, 10 margarita snails, 5 turbos, 3 harlequin serpent stars (that you can feed too) and a camel shrimp.

 

[smokinprice]

nice work vessxpress1...awesome tank!

 

[SWonly]

Wow I really like the tank.

 

[msuzuki126]

nice tank.. i have a 37, what protein skimmer do you use?

 

[rlschne]

very nice

 

[SHowald72]

It looks good Scott. I am glad to see the corals I sold you are doing so good. Keep up the good work and let me know if you need anything.

 

[Brandino007]

I have been useing calcium blocks for 3 weeks and I now have lots of coraline growing.

 

[ACBlinky]

Oh wow, what a pretty tank! Nicely done, glad you stayed in the hobby and didn't give up

 

[Anemonebuff]

Good work. Very nice tank.

 

[143gadgets]

Nice growth

 

[vessxpress1]

Thanks guys. It could look a little better imo if I got the coraline cleaned up at the bottom and the corners. I've got a scraper coming (was expecting it today) to take care of it. The pumps are Seio 620s. The one on the left I shut off because it was too much flow. It needs a wavemaker.
msuzuki: It's just a regular old SeaClone 100, straight out of the box running 24/7. If I had a sump, I'd have a better one by now. It seems to do ok, but I know a better one would do a lot more. I feed the fish and sometimes the whole tank once a day pretty heavily so I probably should get a new skimmer.

 

[aural]

looks great to me... i really like the toadstool in the front. have always wanted one of those

 

[vessxpress1]

aural: Yeah, I went down to the LFS about a month ago hoping they'd have a nice one and they had like 10 of those that size, all aqua-cultured (bought from somebody else). 40 bucks a piece. I just saw a guy on ebay that's gonna pay 85 dollars with shipping for a small one exactly like it.