My 65 Gallon Mixed Reef

[cpllongjk]

Very beautiful. I am very sorry for your losses. I hate when accidents wipe out tanks, especially tanks as beautiful as this.

 

[Bello]

Since my reefing adventure at the moment sees me going up sh*t creek with no paddles, I decided to sabotage biggles . For the voodoo bit, it woulda been easy, find biggleslike looking doll and voila!....Only thing is, I have no clue what biggles looks like :lol:, let alone find a biggles doll. Fortunately, Koala toys are sold all over the damn world, and since they're dim witted, ergo ....Beware of the "Kevin", biggles

How's things coming along today, biggles? It always happens like this, over the last year, I've removed my entire aquascape 3 times to catch a bloody fish....reefing roller coaster style :lol:

I find it strange that you went to the LFS to return the clowns, and returned home empty-handed.... something's not right :smokin:. You're not being sneaky are you?

Any improvements on the nutrient levels? I'm having an irritating time there, as well.

BTW, Sahin, my "FTS less" tank buddy, isn't it about time now?

 

[biggles]

Oh man...you are definitely having a crazy time with your tank!

It does tend to prove my point about acros being a lot tougher than many realise though lol.........the acros and i are sharing an adventure ride lately.

My vote is on Bello.

Marty

It's always Bello's fault Marty, he just accepts it now and takes the hit lol.

Nice tank like you're sps how they growing!!

Thanks very much mate.

Hi Biggles :bdaysmile:

Just to say hello and to give you a few encouraging words.
Not so good period for your tank and I'm sending you some good karma

We've learnt so much from your thread and wish your tank a fast recovery.

We want to learn even more, so keep on with your incredible work

Greetings from Croatia from me & my reefers :wave:

Hi Sonny, thanks so much for the kind words mate Things are settling down and looking better slowly so i'm just leaving the tank alone and letting everything adjust.
I had a Croation reefer friend years ago who used to shake his fist at his powder blue tang that was bullying other fish and swear at it in Croatian - you can tell when someone is swearing at a fish no matter what the language lol. Hi to you and all your reef buddies in Croatia, does everyone in Croatia swear at their fish btw.......

I think its Kevin the Koala taking revenge on Biggles's tank because of the flying lessons Biggles made him take.

However, I also send you lots of good Karma to counter the Kevins voodoo magic antics.

Has stuff cleared up now? Are the SPS looking ok?

Most stuff is looking slightly better but a few acros continue to suddenly STN on a few tips out of the blue and then stop. A few days later another tip suddenly peels off........ the fluoro aculeus pieces are doing it which is really annoying me. The blue stag has made no attempt to encrust over the dead areas and is still shut down and showing filament bundles in corallites so i ignore that one now lol, when he starts behaving i might give a toss.
The SSC that always had a cream and pink coloration is now as green and pink as the other one i have - no idea if the water change did it or the salinity change.

Very beautiful. I am very sorry for your losses. I hate when accidents wipe out tanks, especially tanks as beautiful as this.

Thanks mate, it's not a disaster just a glitch along the road

Since my reefing adventure at the moment sees me going up sh*t creek with no paddles, I decided to sabotage biggles. For the voodoo bit, it woulda been easy, find biggleslike looking doll and voila!....Only thing is, I have no clue what biggles looks like, let alone find a biggles doll. Fortunately, Koala toys are sold all over the damn world, and since they're dim witted, ergo....Beware of the "Kevin", biggles

How's things coming along today, biggles? It always happens like this, over the last year, I've removed my entire aquascape 3 times to catch a bloody fish....reefing roller coaster style :lol:

I find it strange that you went to the LFS to return the clowns, and returned home empty-handed.... something's not right :smokin:. You're not being sneaky are you?

Any improvements on the nutrient levels? I'm having an irritating time there, as well.

BTW, Sahin, my "FTS less" tank buddy, isn't it about time now?

You and i are the only ones to qualify for roller coaster membership at this stage Bello, it's a rather elite club tbh......:facepalm:
The LFS is close but has no SPS so it's basically good for water and food and nothing much else. My two SPS stores are hours away which is why i haven't been acro shopping in months.
They had an anthia which was white with yellow spots and looked amazing except it had bad ich, tattered fins and was breathing hard - $250- ! When i see things like that i feel a bit guilty about the hobby - to see a little fish that beautiful days away from death sucks.
The LFS guy and i had a brief conversation about the fish and the fact that it was being neglected and in with other fish all for sale instead of a treatment tank which ended in me questioning his status on the evolutionary tree...... in the end he decided it would be best if i no longer frequented the store and i agreed.

The water is almost cleaned up now so things should settle soon mate, cleaning out the neglected sump dump helped a lot i think as it was something of a detritus soup settling pond lol.

Whilst on the subject of being banned from stores i shall have a small ramble.....

That was the second LFS banning in Melbourne, years ago i was banned from another big sick fish selling store but i still giggle to myself in an evil way when i think about it - i have no morals so yes i did do something bad in case you're wondering.
I told a newbie when the salesman went to get a bag that the 'pair bonding' displays by the fish was actually ich irritating the dust covered 2" blue tangs. He told the salesman off when he came back and then the salesman called me a smart arse and told me to keep my 'opinions' to myself or stay out of the shop. My wife squeezed my hand hard so i shutup and said 'fair enough' - biggles was seething with reefer rage inside !
On Mondays this store has a skeleton staff of young guys who do all the tank cleaning and maintenance but they know nothing about the large marine section. biggles starts visiting only on Mondays to avoid the inevitable clash that will happen when the wife isn't present. ( evil biggles talks in the third person btw )
About 6 weeks after biggles was upset he walks in and comes across a display tank holding three 3" electric blue maxima clams under 2 x 2ft actinic T8 tubes. biggles was murmuring quietly and drooling a bit however he knew they were $145- last time he saw them there so he could only afford one. The only thing written on the tank were the words ' ALL FAVIA'S $45- '

At this point evil biggles took full control of the situation and i was just an observer really. He called the young goofy looking store guy over and asked ' how much are these ' - being careful not to use the word clam. The guy puts his finger on the words and says ' they're $45- each ' stop reading now if you want avoid reading what a terrible thing biggles did many years ago.
biggles works hard to prevent the guilty smile forming on his lips and tells the kid he'll take all three. The kid walks 10 yds to the bag drawer and just when biggles thinks it's all going well the assistant manager who does know his stuff walks up to him and asks what he's bagging. He looks at me and says ' three favias for that guy '. The guy knows my face and waves to me before saying to the kid so i could hear.............. KNOCK FIVE BUCKS OF EACH ONE SINCE HE'S BUYING THREE and waves at me again as he walks off to the other end of the store.

I told my wife what evil biggles did as soon as she came home from work and she was as disgusted in what evil biggles had done as i was. Evil biggles was pointed out and asked to discuss the matter in a private room with two staff next visit which he declined, he instead suggested they stick their clams somewhere clams aren't meant to go and was promptly banned from the store.

I know it was dishonest and all that but you play with biggles fire - you get burned. ( and banned ) Don't ever do anything like i did, i mean evil biggles did.........

 

[Bello]

You and i are the only ones to qualify for roller coaster membership at this stage Bello, it's a rather elite club tbh.....
The LFS is close but has no SPS so it's basically good for water and food and nothing much else. My two SPS stores are hours away which is why i haven't been acro shopping in months.
They had an anthia which was white with yellow spots and looked amazing except it had bad ich, tattered fins and was breathing hard - $250- ! When i see things like that i feel a bit guilty about the hobby - to see a little fish that beautiful days away from death sucks.

The water is almost cleaned up now so things should settle soon mate, cleaning out the neglected sump dump helped a lot i think as it was something of a detritus soup settling pond lol.

About the anthias, was it a borbonius/blotchy anthias? Those are awesome!! But $250 for one in poor shape...nevermind . I've been looking at a few aussie reef docu's, and there are some amazing small sized chromis/wrasse type fish. I'm jealous :furious:. Will I ever see native aussie fish in your tank? :lol:

I hope the aculeus recovers :thumbsup:. In the flash pics you posted a few pages back, the corals look awesome. But to me, the stand out coral in that pic, is the aculeus...... and you know I'm a sucker for green acros . I tried looking at my tank after lights off, nothing even close to that fluoro pop on the aculeus.

:lol:, you got banned? I'm sure you were most polite and patient in explaining reefkeeping intricacies to the LFS employee :lol:. Haven't been banned around here, yet...but I rarely speak up to the muppets around. Simply because I know that if I p$%$ anyone off, I'll have hardly any suppliers. Small community....of erm, arses.

Nice evil biggles story :lol:. BTW, Sahin was right, I've been sneaky . But can only work on it after the dipping process is completed, so need about a month to update. Can't help the roller coaster style, I guess when we get our heads in our tanks, we see too many things, that could use a.....erm..........."Touch up" :facepalm:

 

[DiscusHeckel]

I like evil biggles :smurf:

 

[lluv24]

Keep on reefing;-)

So many ups and downs in this hobby, but I still love it!!!!!!!

 

[SonnyArba]

Hi Sonny, thanks so much for the kind words mate Things are settling down and looking better slowly so i'm just leaving the tank alone and letting everything adjust.
I had a Croation reefer friend years ago who used to shake his fist at his powder blue tang that was bullying other fish and swear at it in Croatian - you can tell when someone is swearing at a fish no matter what the language lol. Hi to you and all your reef buddies in Croatia, does everyone in Croatia swear at their fish btw.......

Nice to hear those good news from you mate. Just let the system recover :bum:

Can you still remember this guy's name?
I must know him, at least he could teach me some advanced swearing techniques and how to use them to fight with all those nasty and irritating stuff that happen in a reef aquarium. :lolspin:

Maybe if I knew that earlier, I'd still have my previous tank alive :thumbsup:

Now I'm cycling my new 100G baby (still too lazy to start a thread), and your tank has been my biggest motivation so far. So thank you for spreading a good vibe! :beer:

 

[sahin]

Evil Biggles sounds interesting. :lol2: Seriously mate, this is probably the most entertaining tank journal I've ever had the pleasure of following.

Some days its: :lmao:

Other days its:

Then other days its: :sad1:

Then it can be: :wildone:

Can also be: :reading:

Lots of time its: :lol:

Honestly matey, sometime I have to try so hard not to laugh when I am reading your journal...else my wife will think I am going crazy laughing over a fish tank website...She already thinks I am Coral Crazy...(...which...I am... :lol: )

Hope she never reads this, but sometimes I go out shopping and sneak off to the LFS... :lol: I just tell her there were queues etc and it was busy

New corals are sneaked home and get hidden in the sump...until all is quiet and I can dip etc before coral going in the display.

New corals in the Display: its been there for months! Or got it for free...or got it for like £5 (when it was more like £35!)

Anyway, hope your corals pull through eventually.

You're not the only one to have glitches...I've had another alk dip...luckily only slightly browning/loss of colour. I fixed it right away like you mentioned a while back...corals look fine this morning.

 

[martinphillip03]

What happenned to the clams?

Marty

 

[biggles]

About the anthias, was it a borbonius/blotchy anthias? Those are awesome!! But $250 for one in poor shape...nevermind . I've been looking at a few aussie reef docu's, and there are some amazing small sized chromis/wrasse type fish.

Yep that was the anthias mate - i'd love one of those as a show fish instead of an angel............ i might ask my LFS guys if they are as rare as the other guy said or if i can order one, would it be ok with those anthias i have already Bello.
I'm going to look for another fluoro aculeus piece, they pop up every now and then so i'll find another simply for the crazy glow in the dark explosions of color they give a display. It's a shame i can't show the real 'glowiness' of the stuff in a pic. It's been one of the touchier acros which is always the bloody way lol.
Technically i wasn't actually banned, he told me to get out and not show my foofin face in there again. If i wear a ski mask and go back i should be ok....... probably not.....
You and your secret squirrel reefing......... you just can't help yourself can you mate lol - you get the inaugural RC David Copperfield reefer award for 2014 Bello - acbracadabra, Bello has 5 new acros.........

I like evil biggles :smurf:

We can only hope he doesn't ever get loose in a LFS again mate.........

Keep on reefing;-)

So many ups and downs in this hobby, but I still love it!!!!!!!

Thanks mate, ups and downs are part of reefing, accepting that and a good attitude when dealing with them goes a long way to making the hobby much more enjoyable

Nice to hear those good news from you mate. Just let the system recover :bum:..........

Now I'm cycling my new 100G baby (still too lazy to start a thread), and your tank has been my biggest motivation so far. So thank you for spreading a good vibe!

Hey Sonny, thanks mate. Both the tank and i are chilling atm while we both get over the recent dramas lol. I have always found that SPS become acclimated to being sworn at quite quickly and before long the polyps stop retracting when you cut loose at the display during moments of stress.

You have to at least give us the display dimensions and what lighting you're going to be using mate, we need a 'taste' of what's coming at least lol.

Evil Biggles sounds interesting. :lol2: Seriously mate, this is probably the most entertaining tank journal I've ever had the pleasure of following.

Honestly matey, sometime I have to try so hard not to laugh when I am reading your journal...else my wife will think I am going crazy laughing over a fish tank website...She already thinks I am Coral Crazy...(...which...I am... :lol: )

Hope she never reads this, but sometimes I go out shopping and sneak off to the LFS... I just tell her there were queues etc and it was busy

New corals are sneaked home and get hidden in the sump...until all is quiet and I can dip etc before coral going in the display.

New corals in the Display: its been there for months! Or got it for free...or got it for like £5 (when it was more like £35!)

Anyway, hope your corals pull through eventually.

You're not the only one to have glitches...I've had another alk dip...luckily only slightly browning/loss of colour. I fixed it right away like you mentioned a while back...corals look fine this morning.

Thanks mate lol. Evil biggles used to lie his head off to my wife about the cost of acros and reef equipment purchases. If you're married you really should be up front from the start and firmly state ' honey i'm getting a reef tank and i will not answer any cost related questions truthfully now or in the future.'
I quoted you to make sure that if your wife ever reads this she won't miss what you said......... that's how i roll buddy.....
I'm glad you fixed that fast drop quickly mate, happens slow then correct it slow - happens fast then fix it fast in most cases The acros should bounce back quickly mate.

What happenned to the clams?

Marty

Well they sure didn't go where i told the LFS guys to stick theirs Marty.........

They all died along with a 3.5 year old 4x2x2 version of this display when the power to the system tripped while i was away for 3 days. That's a big part of why it took me so long to return to the hobby, it can be pretty shattering when you lose all those years of growth and i don't know about others but i also become 'attached' to many of my favorite pieces, you spend years caring for and watching these animals grow and interact with each other and there's a real sense of loss and guilt when such beautiful creatures are destroyed in a wipe out. Despite moaning about fish i actually become attached to them too so knowing they must have died slowly as the water became more toxic was awful to think about.
That was sensitive biggles - he doesn't get out as much as evil biggles does........

I decided that the Xmas tree had to go back on the bottom standing upright to keep the speriment true to the original idea of watching which ones do what to each other so just before lights out tonight i glued 3 discs under the base in a triangle to make it heavier and impossible to blow over in the current. It looked weird sticking out from the side of the glass and annoyed me. I'll take a pic of it tomorrow.

 

[SonnyArba]

You have to at least give us the display dimensions and what lighting you're going to be using mate, we need a 'taste' of what's coming at least lol.

Allright mate, I'm gonna give you a short preview here, but don't want to spam your thread too much. :thumbsup:

I will start a journal here as soon as my lighting arrives (in few days I suppose).
Here's short video from the rockwork, under Mazzaras which I've already sold.
From the moment this video was taken, I just put the sand in and still waiting.
First I waited for more than a month to see the nutrients up and down, and now I'm waiting for the lighting to be delivered from Germany. :artist:
The tank would be SPS dominated if I have luck :strange:
Tank dimensions are 120 x 60 x 55 cm - 400L with sump
Lighting Giesemann Infiniti 2x150MH + 4x54T5
Skimmer Reef Octopus Diablo 150INT
Fuge with chaeto and LR, reactors for AC and GFO if needed

Hope you like it:lol2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8cfzl3NY4k

 

[Bello]

Yep that was the anthias mate - i'd love one of those as a show fish instead of an angel............ i might ask my LFS guys if they are as rare as the other guy said or if i can order one, would it be ok with those anthias i have already Bello.
I'm going to look for another fluoro aculeus piece, they pop up every now and then so i'll find another simply for the crazy glow in the dark explosions of color they give a display. It's a shame i can't show the real 'glowiness' of the stuff in a pic. It's been one of the touchier acros which is always the bloody way lol.
Technically i wasn't actually banned, he told me to get out and not show my foofin face in there again. If i wear a ski mask and go back i should be ok....... probably not.....
You and your secret squirrel reefing......... you just can't help yourself can you mate lol - you get the inaugural RC David Copperfield reefer award for 2014 Bello - acbracadabra, Bello has 5 new acros.........

Ah, the borbonius...or Borb :lol:. That's again one of those really awesome fish that I'll never see . Dunno much about them, but having seen on RC for a while, most guys seem to have them for years together once settled in. Often single specimens only.

Definitely a show type specimen, IMO. If you do ever manage to snag one, I'd return the other anthias , why risk it? Hmm, it would look nice in a big cube aquarium

I've seen enough of the glowiness of the aculeus to want one :lol:. Thanks for the award biggles, but you're right, I do have 5 new acros.... that look like they grew out of a public loo :lol:.... But, with all the dipping I'm learning more about the intensities of my lighting, so that's a plus :thumbsup:. I suspect my brown poo ones will improve once they get a bit light-blasted, after the dips. As you can surmise, I'm itching to get busy!!!

 

[biggles]

Allright mate, I'm gonna give you a short preview here, but don't want to spam your thread too much.

I will start a journal here as soon as my lighting arrives (in few days I suppose).
Here's short video from the rockwork, under Mazzaras which I've already sold.
From the moment this video was taken, I just put the sand in and still waiting.
First I waited for more than a month to see the nutrients up and down, and now I'm waiting for the lighting to be delivered from Germany.
The tank would be SPS dominated if I have luck
Tank dimensions are 120 x 60 x 55 cm - 400L with sump
Lighting Giesemann Infiniti 2x150MH + 4x54T5
Skimmer Reef Octopus Diablo 150INT
Fuge with chaeto and LR, reactors for AC and GFO if needed

Hope you like it:lol2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8cfzl3NY4k

Damn Sonny, that's a great rock scape you've built :thumbsup: Setup sounds great to me, what bulbs are you going to start off with mate. I'm looking forward to your journal :beer:

Ah, the borbonius...or Borb. That's again one of those really awesome fish that I'll never see . Dunno much about them, but having seen on RC for a while, most guys seem to have them for years together once settled in. Often single specimens only.

Definitely a show type specimen, IMO. If you do ever manage to snag one, I'd return the other anthias, why risk it? Hmm, it would look nice in a big cube aquarium

I've seen enough of the glowiness of the aculeus to want one. Thanks for the award biggles, but you're right, I do have 5 new acros.... that look like they grew out of a public loo.... But, with all the dipping I'm learning more about the intensities of my lighting, so that's a plus. I suspect my brown poo ones will improve once they get a bit light-blasted, after the dips. As you can surmise, I'm itching to get busy!!!

I have to agree that one of those blotchy anthias would be very cool in a big shallow cube Bello.........

Two of the anthias are about 1.5" long and suddenly hate each other to the point of jaw locking today :headwally: The larger one is about 2" and ignores the whole thing going on between the other two. All three have clear femal markings. Someone please explain to me what the hell is happening because for about a week i actually thought i might be able to keep anthias...............
I turned the lights off early when it was clear they weren't going to stop.

Here is one of them hanging out under some acros - they have amazing blue ringed eyes and pink bodies.

 

[Bello]

Stunning pic, biggles!

I think the make out session between the anthias, to establish hierarchy. The big ones probably gonna be male, while these are fighting for wife/mistress status, lol. My 2 cents

 

[biggles]

Right, so basically you just guessed didn't you Bello............. :facepalm:
It's ok when i make stuff up because everyone expects me to make lots of unsubstantiated claims............ we all expect better from you mate.

 

[sahin]

Hello mate. Those Anthis look very cool. A school of them in a large cube looks awesome! My buddy has a 93G cube with these anthias and when they swim around, ah man it looks so NICE!

A Borb is another nice fish too.

I did a major stupid mistake with my tank yesterday...I scraped the glass and proceeded to siphon out detritus by siphoning into a 100micron filter sock (placed in sump) as I usually do...however, I forgot to turn the damn skimmer off...

About 5 minutes later I noticed there was a strange smell in the room...hmm...kind of smells like the stuff in the skimmer cup...Sx!t...HH*(*&(HK(...yes...two weeks worth of the nastiest skimmate overflowed into the tank. :facepalm:

Luckily I had around 50% water already made up 5 days ago, so I carried out a 50% water change. Corals look fine today and acting like nothing happened.

PS I am writing about my own tank here to let you know that I am worse than you when it comes to making mistakes...but more importantly...I am avoiding bumping my own thread as the FTS and video are still in production...:uhoh3:

 

[sahin]

Biggles, I wanted to ask you, how do you keep your tank water from becoming yellow? Over many months I notice when looking through the side that the water has a yellow tint to it.

I dont want to run Ozone and I dont run GAC as I had nothing but trouble with GAC before.

 

[biggles]

Biggles, I wanted to ask you, how do you keep your tank water from becoming yellow? Over many months I notice when looking through the side that the water has a yellow tint to it.

I dont want to run Ozone and I dont run GAC as I had nothing but trouble with GAC before.

I bet you mumbled a few choice words under your breath when you realised you'd caused the skimmer to dump back into the system lol. :deadhorse1:
I've never seen any problems arise from similar goofs with my skimmers tbh, i do empty the cup at least once every 4-5 days in case an over run happens out of nowhere. I'm glad everything is fine mate

I run half a cup of rowa carbon in a bag in the baffles where it gets good flow for 2-3 days once every blue moon - 4-6 weeks. If you're going to run carbon to remove stains from the water don't use a lot and be aware that you can shock some corals with the extra light suddenly punching through the water that has no 'tint'. The dirtier the stain in the water the slower you should remove it basically if you only run carbon infrequently like i do.

Remember that acro you and i were talking about Sahin - what do you think mate, pink corallites with white polyps out 30 mins after taking it out of the bag today. It's a small branch about 3" across with 1/4" thick branches - very pretty, the pic is close to life sized

 

[sahin]

I bet you mumbled a few choice words under your breath when you realised you'd caused the skimmer to dump back into the system lol. :deadhorse1:
I've never seen any problems arise from similar goofs with my skimmers tbh, i do empty the cup at least once every 4-5 days in case an over run happens out of nowhere. I'm glad everything is fine mate

I run half a cup of rowa carbon in a bag in the baffles where it gets good flow for 2-3 days once every blue moon - 4-6 weeks. If you're going to run carbon to remove stains from the water don't use a lot and be aware that you can shock some corals with the extra light suddenly punching through the water that has no 'tint'. The dirtier the stain in the water the slower you should remove it basically if you only run carbon infrequently like i do.

Remember that acro you and i were talking about Sahin - what do you think mate, pink corallites with white polyps out 30 mins after taking it out of the bag today. It's a small branch about 3" across with 1/4" thick branches - very pretty, the pic is close to life sized

Yeah I was swearing lots...telling myself off for not shutting off the skimmer first! Doh! :headwally: Tank is really heading in the right direction and I really dont need silly little mistakes now.

Nice purchase! Looks like Acropora spathulata (there is debate as to whether this is a different acro to millelpora). All that aside, LOOKS SUPERB! :thumbsup:

In the UK these corals are RARE RARE RARE and fetch a premium price! Well, look after my coral. :lol:

Be nice to see what this piece looks in a few weeks.

 

[Bello]

Right, so basically you just guessed didn't you Bello............. :facepalm:
It's ok when i make stuff up because everyone expects me to make lots of unsubstantiated claims............ we all expect better from you mate.

Wrong!! Nobody expects better from me ...:bounce2:

Lol, how about some pics of the anthias? That half headed teaser pic is getting me quite curious!