My tank at six months

[Lotus99]

Here's my tank at six months. We've been taking it really slowly with adding fish and corals. We got our first mushroom two weeks ago, and added another a few days ago. We'll be upgrading lights in a month or two, most likely to a Solaris system.

Full tank shot (sorry, forgot to clean the glass and remove the clownfish feeding clip):

A few of the inhabitants:

Striped mushroom (there are three, with another three growing):

Hairy mushroom (added three days ago, looks like it's opening nicely):

Some specs:

125g acrylic tank, with sump/refugium
150lbs live rock
Coralife Super Skimmer 220 (in sump)
4 x 54 T5 fixture

Fish/shrimp/CUC list:
5 pajama cardinals
2 banggai cardinals (hoping they'll be a pair)
2 McCosker's flasher wrasses
1 orchid (fridmandi) dottyback
1 tiger goby
1 orangespotted shrimp goby
astrea, nassarius and turbo snails
6 dwarf bluelegged hermits
2 skunk cleaner shrimp
2 peppermint shrimp

Comments and suggestions welcome

 

[internetreefer]

It is a nice tank, May need more power head if you plan to have more coral in it. I wish I have that much space for lots of coral. hehe

 

[Lotus99]

There's a Koralia 3 and a Koralia 4 in there. Oops, forgot to put that in the specs. It's hard to see the one on the right hand side of the tank in the full tank shot.

 

[seapug]

Nice looking tank and your patience is admirable, but seems like you should have a lot more coralline algae growth after 6 months. Is that new rock?

 

[seapug]

accidental double post

 

[Ritten]

Wow, that is nice, I love your aquascaping! Let the fun begin!

 

[reefnetworth]

i agree seapug! that was one of the first things i thought also.
what are your Alk, Mg, & Ca parms? Lotus99.
how often & what % of total water volume are your waterchanges?
do you add any supplements? :rollface:
JDM

 

[Lotus99]

Thanks for the comments

There is a fair amount of coraline growth, but it's not showing up well in the pictures. Also, the right side of the tank was slightly rearranged a few weeks ago, and some of the more pink parts are now on the bottom of the rocks. For example, the striped mushroom is on a frag thing on top of a rock that was turned. You can see some of the lime green coraline starting. For some reason, coraline has been growing on the powerhead for months, but only just started taking hold on the back glass (acrylic).

Oddly, the calcium was high for the first few months (Oceanic Salt). It was running around 500 for a while. We switched salt a couple of months ago, and last week it was at 420. This week, it dropped to 320. I'll check after tomorrow's water change, and add some B-Ionic if it's still low.

Edit: Alk has been within normal parameters (2.5 m/eq now, was 3.0 m/eq with the old salt). I haven't been measuring magnesium. I guess a test kit is on my next shopping list. Weekly water changes, about 15%.

 

[druce]

looks nice - water looks clear!

I like he purple fish - is that a gramma species?

Edit: doh, missed the fish list: 1 orchid (fridmandi) dottyback

 

[Lotus99]

We got some daisy polyps and a chiller last night.

 

[shouldabenacowboy]

Look'n good

SBC

 

[mg426]

Nice tank !!