Pete's 92 Corner Mixed Reef Chronicle

P.Kelly

New member
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August 05, 2007

All good stories have a beginning, middle and end. I'm starting this chronicle in the middle, but hopefully still very close to the beginning and long from the end.

This tank, in its current incarnation is 41 days old. The live rock and most of the coral was previously kept by another hobbyist for about 6 years in Vallejo before making its way into my tank.

My setup currently consists of the following (as of today):
- 92 gallon AGA reef ready
- Oceanic Tech Stand
- DIY hood with 2x175watt MH (14,000K) and 4x65watt PC (2 Actinic, 2 10,000K)
- (2) Seio 620 powerheads
- Mag 5 return pump
- Coralife Turbotwist UV sterilizer
- Eheim Jaeger 250w heater
- Euroreef CS6-1 skimmer
- Amiracle Acryclic Sump
- American Marine PH monitor
- Current Prime 1/10 HP chiller on a Mag 3

I currently have the following fish and invertebrates:
- 2.5" Blue Tang
- (2) .75" Occelaris
- Cleaner shrimp
- Peppermint shrimp
- Coral Banded shrimp
- Many assorted snails, crabs, worms and pods
- anemone
- blue crocea clam
- pencil urchin (for sale - $10)
- black spiney urchin (for sale - $10)
- tuxedo urchin (for sale - $10)

I have a mixed reef, including the following coral:
- 2 types of green star polyps
- pink pulsing Xenia
- Many assorted zoas and palys
- Assorted ricordia
- copper colored Montipora digita (thanks Minh)
- green and orange Montipora Capricornis
- many purple and blue mushrooms
- brown cactus pavona
- Red colt
- assorted hairy mushrooms
- frog spawn
- branching hammer coral
- light blue/green candy cane
- assorted pink and yellow toadstool leathers
- finger leather
- assorted duncans
- blue tubs
- green clove polyps
- and quite a few other things that I still don't have a positive ID on yet
 
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I am in the process of relocating some remaining rock and coral from my 55 gallon over the next week or two and then I will introduce the fish from that tank.

The mandarin goby, yellow watchman goby and pistol shrimp, purple tang, two cleaner shrimp and fire shrimp will all find a new home in the corner reef.

At this time the Clarkiis are up for sale and the fate of the coral beauty is undecided.

The lone chromi will be taken to a local fish store for trade.
 
The orange/pink Yuma gets about 6-7" in diameter mid-day when fully opened. It looks like I have a baby or two a few weeks old too. It is surrounded by 6-7 other ricordia of varied colors (light blue, green, brown, orange, and mixed colors). This was the center piece of the previous owner's tank. I am quite partial to them as well.
 
I like the corner unit. It fits my house well. I'm not sure I would have chosen it had I not had some space limitations on where I wanted my display tank. It has allowed me to setup some very unique rock work that you wouldn't see in tanks under 200 gallons otherwise.

Building the hood was a pain, and we had to buy another tank to get the older style Oceanic Tech stand. I subsequently sold the second tank.

I guess only time will tell how I like it. The only real negative that comes to mind is that fact that you can loose stuff in this tank forever if it ends up under the rocks.

Speaking of which, I was able to catch the pencil urchin tonight on a flashlight prowl. It's in a plastic container in the tank and will be heading to the LFS for trade in, unless someone wants it?

Oh well, off to bed, finally.
 
I really like the look of the corners. I think they give a great amount of space for aquascaping, and the ability to view from any angle is not to be underestimated.

Great work so far!
 
The pencil urchin made his way to Exotic aquarium today in partial trade for a Copperband Butterfly just in from the Indian Ocean today. I mentally debated for the 2 hours I acclimated him if I would put him in quarantine or into the display directly.

My concern over eating won out and into the display he went, where he promptly started picking at the rock and roaming the tank. The Occelaris wonder what this new fish is and my scaredy cat blue tang still continues to run from his own shadow.

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I also got a closer picture of the biggest Ricordia rock.

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Nice fish.. Good choice on putting it in the display right away. I feel thats your best shot at keeping it alive and thriving.
 
The CBB is still alive this morning and picking at the rocks. It seems to be a bit more brave and is checking out the whole tank now.

Here is a (bad) picture of the pencil urchin that I took out yesterday. It hadn't caused any problems yet, but I didn't want to take any chances on toppling rocks.

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Also, since I'm starting this thread in the middle, here is a picture of the tank while I was setting it up.

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Thank you. I'm moving the last bits and pieces over in the coming week or two. And the then it will be DONE!

Yeah right, who am I kidding.
 
Well, done is always subjective. My wife was helping to rearrange some stuff and the left side of the rock work more or less collapsed on her about a week ago. We've stabilized the rocks, but have not yet "fixed" the layout. Perhaps this weekend I'll get up the nerve to dismantle half the tank again.

This last weekend I added my Purple Tang, Mandarin, 2 cleaner shrimp and fire shrimp from my 50 gallon.

Water quality continues to be spot on with the exception of my alkalinity:

Amm - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0
pH - 8.3
Alk - 6 to 8
Calcium - 400
Phosphate - 0.1
Temp 78.6 - 80.2
 
Well. as heck of a lot has happened since my last post. I'm finally urchin free. The last one went to Aaron (airinhere) as a down payment of a future coral frag.

I also picked up some cheryy bomb zoas, a few heads of duncans and some more hairy mushrooms from him that weren't in the last pictures.

I got up the nerve finally this last weekend to rearrange the tank. The jury is still out on how it turned out. I like some aspects better and others not so much. I'm sure I'll be back at it in another few weeks.

Here is me and Matt (bayareaaquarist) hard at work this last weekend. We were delirious by 1am on Saturday night when we finished.

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Can't see it, but we had just finished hooking up the big boy to the tank. The 1/5th HP chiller. I sold the 1/15 HP chiller earlier in the day.

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I thinking I'm getting the bird here. I broke down my 50 gallon earlier in the day and here it is being used as a holding tank for live rock and coral during the remodel.

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Just getting started.

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I added more live sand from the 50 gallon, hence the sand storm, which didn't seem to bother the cleaner shrimp.

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Or the two occs.

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Me placing a frag on the sand. I'll never buy a tank taller than 24" . It is just the right height.

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More hands in the tanks

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In progress, you can see how much we took out before beginning to put it all back together.
 
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A little further along. The white PVC is a test fit for the intake on my new closed loop (coming soon to a thread near you). It will get painted black before being finalized. I just had to make sure I could get it down behind the monster rock.

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Some rock waiting to find a new home back in the tank.

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One of these days I'll get the heater out of the display and into my sump. Burt first I have to clean up under the tank. It is a rats nest and a fire hazard I'm sure.

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Getting a little bit further.

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Coral making it back into the tank slowly.

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More.

This concluded the late night. Matt and I decided to call it quits before someone or something got hurt.
 
The next day...

The next day...

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Aside from a little glare on the glass, things look much better on Sunday.

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Another full tank shot

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A few green rics

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Some mid tank shots.

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The nice hairy mushrooms I got from Aaron
 
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