My 65G Shallow Reef Tank

[DiscusHeckel]

Great photo's. How are your Genicanthus angels getting along together in the tank?

They are all getting along really well. My first Genicanthus angel was a female G. melanospilos. I restrained from getting another Genicanthus sp. after my lfs advised me not to due to possible aggression issues. I went against his advice because I could not resist the urge. However, to minimise possible aggression, I bought a really small female G. bellus. This strategy worked. There was some chasing for a few hours and then it stopped. I tested this strategy yet again and bought another small one, this time a female G. lamarck, and then finally a female G. watanabei. The G. watanabei female was relatively large compared to the alpha female G. melanospilos, but surprisingly she was not interested in her. Instead, G. bellus chased her instead for a few hours and then stopped after getting bored of chasing. I always wondered if dynamics would be different if I had put a male Genicanthus into the mix. I may find this out soon if my lfs can get me a male G. watanabei, which will have to be much smaller than the female. Having said that I have never seen a small male Genicanthus sp, except small female G. lamarcks turning male. I may have to wait for a long time to get the right specimen.

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If the P+ turns out not to be suitable, try a KZ Fiji Purple. I've always though of it as a
civilized version of a P+.
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I like the expression "civilised version" Actually, I used to use a KZ fiji purple tube and I really liked it. Sadly, I could not find a German retailer who stocks both KZ and ATI tubes. I can get these tubes separately from different retailers, but do not fancy the idea of ordering a single KZ tube due to cost of shipment.

What I found out is that purple+ can be tamed (or can be made civilised) if it is placed next to certain tubes. When sandwiched between blue+ and aqua blue special, it produces a good illumination. An alternative, which I am going to try soon, is to place it between actinic and aquablue special.

The first idea came from Scotty's tank thread as I use his exact tube combination. The second idea came from this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OSS_PoUX6o&feature=youtu.be&spfreload=10

 

[rburns24]

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Thanks for the tip on the P+. I'll try to keep this in mind as KZ tubes become scarcer and scarcer :sad1:.
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[DiscusHeckel]

I have just caught this big boy doing its acrobatic moves. It has a leg span of 12". I am glad that it is not as good a climber as an octopus.

Thes guys are very efficient scavengers even eating fish poo.

 

[M007]

Serpent Star?

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Serpent Star?

Yup. Ophiolepis superba.

 

[M007]

Cool, I have an orange one but very elusive. I think I've seen it twice in a year. Freaks me out every time because of its Octopus like movement.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Cool, I have an orange one but very elusive. I think I've seen it twice in a year. Freaks me out every time because of its Octopus like movement.

Your serpent star is Ophioderma squomasissimus from Florida. I have never seen one in UK retailers I have been to. I would love to have one.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Anyone interested in a small Acropora copiosa frag? (lol)

I decided to heavily fragment my Acropora copiosa colony earlier tonight as it started to overshadow two of my small colonies beneath it. There is also a very tiny Acropora selago frag (about 3 mm high and 15 mm across), which requires some more light to take off. Sadly, I could not do it as there was a high risk of damaging the whole colony. In the end I had to take it out of the tank to do the chopping. This gave me the opportunity for the first time to measure its dimensions (12" X 10 " X 9"). One of the frags measures 6" high. I am not sure if I should advertise it as a frag or a colony.:hmm2:

I also cut tiny frags from my Acropora digitifera colony. When I photographed them under the actinic tube. I was pleasantly surprised with what I saw. The colony normally looks quite different.

 

[reefmutt]

Wow.. What a dense beast. They always seem even larger once out of the tank, I find..

 

[pstank1]

Nice colony. That copiosa goes for good money where I live. I've never put a large serpent star in any of my tanks, but I do have more of the 1 inch species than you can shake a stick at (both the 3 legged and 6 legged varieties). I love watching the tiny arms popping out of all the nooks and crannies of my rocks when I feed the tank.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Nice colony. That copiosa goes for good money where I live. I've never put a large serpent star in any of my tanks, but I do have more of the 1 inch species than you can shake a stick at (both the 3 legged and 6 legged varieties). I love watching the tiny arms popping out of all the nooks and crannies of my rocks when I feed the tank.

Thanks.

Copiosa does not seem to attract much attention among local reefers around here. However, my local shops take them and do not seem to have any difficulty in selling them. Having said that I have just sold the largest frag/colony (the six inch one) to a local reefer who bought another large copiosa frag in the past. He has a big tank and only wants big frags.

I have five large serpent stars in my tank. I find them very efficient in what they do. The small ones seem to fall prey to my file fish quite easily. Nevertheless there are still plenty around.

 

[pstank1]

I've got a coral banded shrimp that likes to make a lunch of them. He'll be taking up residence in my sump once I start moving livestock over to my new tank. It's constantly trying to catch the clowns and pajama cardinal that it's sharing a tank with.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

I've got a coral banded shrimp that likes to make a lunch of them. He'll be taking up residence in my sump once I start moving livestock over to my new tank. It's constantly trying to catch the clowns and pajama cardinal that it's sharing a tank with.

I did not know what coral banded shrimp was until I looked at google. Then I realise that it is sold as boxer shrimp in the UK (doh). I never like the look of this particular shrimp. It feels as if it is going to grab your fingers and snap them off.

On a separate note, I eventually got my acts together this evening and constructed a container for my Siporax media (15mm). The container is raised an inch from the sump floor and sits on top of a plastic stand to prevent detritus accumulating on the media at the bottom layer. It took me ages to stack the 15-mm rings, but secretly I enjoyed the challenge. Sadly, 3 litre-media was not enough to fill the container. So, based on my calculations I will need another 4.5 litres. I will put the rest in two weeks time. 7.5litres of siporax, together with a few kilos of fist-size live rock, in a 250-litre net volume of tank water sounds awful lot of filtration capacity to me. However, having thought about it, once bacteria colonise the media and if they work efficiently, then I can perhaps get even more resplendent anthias (yay).

 

[M007]

You are a better man than I, no way I had the time and patience to stack my cylinders the way you did, BRAVO!

 

[joshky]

Looks really good, hoping to replace my marinepure block with siporax soon.

 

[pstank1]

You have far more patience than I do. I would have given up after the first row. With 7.5 liters of siporax, you should be able to support a pretty heavy bio lode. I can't wait to see some more resplendents in there.

 

[reefmutt]

Very nice and neat, Bulent.
That's a good and simple container as well..
I may steal the idea.. I have my matrix in breeder nets in the sump with a pump blowing on them but when I get my siporax, I will construct a box like yours.. It will allow very good flow throughout the media..

 

[DiscusHeckel]

You are a better man than I, no way I had the time and patience to stack my cylinders the way you did, BRAVO!

:beer: I scratched my right arm while I was trying to reach the bottom of the container, which is 9"-deep. When I cut a big sheet of egg crate to size, I could not remove some of the sharp edges.

Looks really good, hoping to replace my marinepure block with siporax soon.

Thanks. If you have enough space in your sump, then I would carry out the replacement process gradually. For example, you can cut a section from your maripure block if it is feasible to do so, and repeat the process over several weeks or months until siporax becomes fully mature. Otherwise, you may run into filtration problems or even cyano outbreak.

You have far more patience than I do. I would have given up after the first row. With 7.5 liters of siporax, you should be able to support a pretty heavy bio lode. I can't wait to see some more resplendents in there.

Thanks. When it comes to reef matters I am usually patient, but for anything else I am the opposite. I am going to take it easy before putting any more fish. I want to make sure that the media works (see my reply to Matt below).

Very nice and neat, Bulent.
That's a good and simple container as well..
I may steal the idea.. I have my matrix in breeder nets in the sump with a pump blowing on them but when I get my siporax, I will construct a box like yours.. It will allow very good flow throughout the media..

Thanks Matt.

I have a concern about the flow in the section of the sump in which the siporax box situated. I originally designed this section to accommodate deep sand bed between two baffles, each of which is 9" high (see photo). The design means that flow is strong at the top level because water enters this section from the top level and leaves the other end from the top level too. However, I am not sure how much flow there is in the middle or at the bottom. I could test the flow if I had a flake food. In this context, I do not know if I should add a small pump to create some turbulence. What do you think? I will raise this issue in the siporax/seachem matrix thread to get more opinions.

 

[sahin]

Wow, Bulent, I think you will make Andrew proud with that stacking.

 

[pstank1]

If i remember correctly, right around 100 gph of flow through the media is the sweet spot. Maybe pointing a small powerhead to bounce off the bottom of the tank underneath your box would help.

One thing to keep in mind. I'm not sure what the suggested ammount of media per gallon is for siporax, but for matrix they suggest 1 liter per 100 gallons. My guess is siporax is pretty close to that as well. You have over 10X the suggested amount of media for your tank. So even if it's not working at an optimal level, you should be able to culture enough bacteria to handle whatever you tank puts out.