Pisces' addiction

[pisces4u]

My girlfriend and I have been reading the forums here for 5 months as we prepared to begin out journey into reefing. Thanks to everyone for the great information, experiences, and advice.

Here is a short version of our first 4 months in reefing.

3/12/09 (my birthday!) We purchased two ap12's to be set up as "his and her's" reefs that would bookend a couch in our new home.

2 weeks in, adding more live rock and getting ready for some small coral frags.

Exactly 1 month in, one of the ap12's cracked in the middle of the night. I woke up to 6 gallons of SW on the floor, all power out and both tanks at 69 degrees, and all my livestock cowering in what's left of the water. That same day I decided to upgrade and set up a 50g breeder to house the livestock.

This is the new 50g about 1 month in.

All progressed well and i started to itch for more tanks. I decided to start a small 10g frag tank for growing out some of my zoa frags.

This is the new frag tank, week 1.

Collecting more corals for the 50g along the way.

We finally finished making the basement a furnished living room and get ready to move the 50g into a custom room divider we were building.

50g before move

During

After

 

[GMaquarium]

nice setup, keep up the good work

 

[pisces4u]

Continuing improvements on the frag tank.

Frag tank 2 months in.

The 50g is now in place as a penninsula build room divider.

Front side

Side side :rollface:

Back side

New in-line sump installed on my frag tank to give me more space and filtration. Frag tank FTS two days ago.

50g two days ago, 3 months old.
Front side

Back side

 

[pisces4u]

And some random shots of critters and corals.

"Cricket"

Flame mushroom

Scarlet reef hermit

"Scootscoot Munchmunch"

Zoa's - my favorite coral atm.

Crazy mushroom

SPS ridge

Current projects are mostly frag related. I have 120 frags in my 10g and I can fit more! Looking forward to the frag swap this weekend and seeing ARC for the first time.

Comments and feedbacl welcome and appreciated!

 

[Capt_Cully]

Well Done!!! great photos as well!!!

 

[oceanparadise1]

I seen this set up last night, pictures don't do ANY justice at all! This tank is mint!

 

[pisces4u]

Thanks everyone

 

[block head]

really nice ,esp for 5 months. the 50 seems bigger than it is. great pics

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

nice pix of nice stuff. What's an AP12? Is it a brand of acrylic nano?

 

[pisces4u]

Aquapod, a Current line of nano tanks. I got lured in by the "ease and affordability" of an all-in-one nano. Hah.

Nano's are like a gateway drug in this hobby I think.

 

[filly469075]

really nice tanks.
you have some pretty zoas, ever want to trade let me know, I only live in Webster.
-mike

 

[Ellery]

Awesome progress... This hobby just keeps sucking people in!

 

[oceanparadise1]

This hobby is way worse then ANY drug!

 

[pisces4u]

Post-fragswap-update:

So I left the frag swap with 36 new pieces, a hole in my wallet the size of my 50g tank, and proceeded to spend 3 hours acclimating, dipping, and placing each piece. Henry is my hero for mounting his frags on nice heavy rubble and not plugs.

Here are some sneak peeks of the new pieces. Others will come as I re-mount them from discs and wait for the zoanthids to grow out in the frag tank.

Front side 07/27/09

Back side

Red Planet

Blue tort

Efflo

Pearlberry

Sunset

Hairy

Purple polyped birdsnest

Not even 1/4 of what picked up stay tuned...

 

[diverdick]

Grea

 

[diverdick]

OOOPS, Great pieces and even beter photo's!

 

[diverdick]

Fat fingers tonight....thats better! Great shots!

 

[pisces4u]

Thanks!

I also have to thank RandyO and the team at ARC. They have a truly amazing shop and it was a pleasure to spend the day with them.

 

[pisces4u]

So with all the new SPS frags I picked up at the swap, I didn't have enough space to place them in a fashion that pleased me.

As a solution, I re-stacked the shelves to be level instead of angled. Now, all the acros fit but the giant emerald crab is playing donkey kong with the rubble and discs. I finally gave in and epoxied all of the sps into place.

Here are shots of the new scape with secured acros across the top.

Front side

Side

Back side

Acro garden

Also picked up 6 powerbrite LED strips at the swap that I ghetto-rigged into the canopy that we just finished. They really do flouresce the colors in the corals in such a rediculous way that I really may have to look into a LED fixture in the long term.

 

[Johnny C]

The new aquascape looks great, and now like a lot of us URS Members... you'll never go w/o the Powerbrites again!