Tank of the Month - December 2007

[underWoasisjake]

wow very true a good skimmer can compensate for heavy feeding. What can i say you are doing a magnificent job no matter how much you feed and your tank proves it. Congralutions and wonderful tank!!

Also thanks for taking the time to reply back to my post along with everybody as well. You deserve tank of the month!!!

 

[polarbearsd]

Wow! Im speechless...i would love to have something half that beautiful one day.

I am a financial advisor, so i am always thinking of the costs of such a tank. What do you estimate to be your total investment into the tank and how much does it cost on monthly upkeep including lectric bills, etc?

 

[AcroSteve]

Could you expand a little on your auto feeder?

What kind is it and how do you have it setup to avoid the overflow? Any pictures?

 

[sivert55]

Great job laying out the corals according to position on the color wheel. It really paid off!!
Could you tell us how you're attaching your corals to the rocks? I see a few on pegs, but the rest have grown so well that they obscure their base.

 

[T Man]

Simply mesmerizing...........

 

[Little_Widefx]

Wow :spin3: :spin3: :spin1: :spin1: I love the beautiful colors of your corals the blue really stands out!!!!!!!:rollface:

 

[SCIFI_3D_zoo]

You said you "glued" your rocks together. What exactly are you using and is it really holding them together good? Thanks.

 

[MO Will]

Awesome tank - I love the colors!!!

How do you "vacuum" up all the detritus? Is it some type of sho-vac mod?

 

[fastfish]

mixed_reefer - Thanks a lot

underWoasisjake - Thanks again. It is my pleasure to share my tank with other hobbyist. The skimmer is doing a pretty good job for my tank.

polarbearsd - Thanks! I don't think I will be able to figure out how much I invested into the livestock. As for the equipment, the skimmer is the most expensive equipment in my system. Also, most of the equipment were transferred from my previous 90g tank. The electric bill of my house comes to approxiamately $160 a month. I guess around $70 of electricity is used to run my system.

AcroSteve - I use the Ehiem auto feeder, which is set to feed my fish 4 times a day. The auto feeder is placed next the to the right SeaSwirl. As the food drop, the sea swirl will bring part of the food down. The fish will try to grab any food floating on the water surface. And the food will float in a counter-clockwise motion. When the food move near the overflow box, the wavebox located in front of the internal overflow box will move and bring down a large portion of the leftover food. The rest of the food on the water surface will go around the overflow box and move back to the left sea swirl, and the fish will finish the leftover food.

This is a picture to show how the fish grabbed the food when the timer was on.

sivert55 - Thanks! I use a small amount of epoxy with super glue on both sides, one side attaches onto the coral, while the other side attaches to the live rock.

T Man - Thanks!

Little_Widefx - Thanks, I am glad that you liked it.

SCIFI_3D_zoo - As mentioned in the article, I glued the corals with epoxy to the live rocks. I did not glue the live rocks together. There are few large pieces of the live rocks at the bottom, and they are held firmly on the PVC docking stations to support the smaller-sized live rocks on top.

MO Will - Thanks! In order to siphon out the detritus at the front, all I do is open the top of the frame mount and use a hand operated siphon pump. The process usually takes me around 5 minutes.

 

[cedricang]

Hi Kai Leung, i am very encourage by your beautiful tank. Could you share how do you direct your flow to enable the collection of the detritus at the corner of your tank ? thanks .

 

[diesel10]

such eye popping colors! Its a wonderful tank.

Your SPS seem to grow very naturally, with branches that are not too long and "leggy". I have some acros that grow very long and do not branch out with short stubby branches like yours, which seems so nice.

Do you trim back your SPS, dont they grow out of control sometimes and you have to prune them?

Also, do you try to minimize the use of the plating capricornus corals in your tank since they grow out fast and block out the light? If not, again, are you just vigilently pruning them back?

and if you prune back, do you throw out the extras or give them away to people?

 

[mark2]

Hi everyone,
im new on this site and have been doing marine fish for a year now, but my dream tank is to do a tank like yours mr kai Leung, ive got a long long way to go.
Fantastic tank,keep looking at your pictures,beautiful!!!

Ive only got a 3ft tank that has 3XT5 tubes all marine white,ive also got an internal box filter and a external filter.I also have a venturi skimmer,can you recommend any other equipment or change of equipment i need to start me on my way to get my tank as stunning as yours?
Kind regards

 

[HaroldT]

You really have a nice looking tank. Great job!

 

[Dudester]

This is a real show stopper. Beautifully planned and executed masterpiece. Brilliant!

 

[MTB]

Simply stunning!

And Kudos to the way you have replied to everyone thus far!

 

[guill0402]

you really have one of the most beautiful tank
your sps is great and what to say about your fishes

Check your PM

 

[fastfish]

cedricang - Thanks a lot. After a few tries with locating the pumps in different parts of the tank, I was able to locate the most suitable spot for placing my water movement unit. A set of Tunze 6100 pumps, one tunze wavebox, two seaswirl and two penductors from the return outlet are utilized to create the ideal flow pattern for my system. The water movement circulates in a single direction, directing the detritus to a part of the tank (left lower corner) which received the weakest amount of flow, gradually moving all the waste to one spot. Without much disturbance of the flow, the detritus stays in that part of the tank.

diesel10 - Thank you very much. All of my SPS are placed with a decent amount of space between them, allowing them to grow out naturally in both directions (horizontally and vertically). Most of my corals can "sense" and grow around each other in advance to avoid collision. In a few cases where the corals do come in contact with each other, and a trim is necessary, I slightly trimmed off a small part of the tips or branches. Also, only 2 to 3 pieces of corals are placed on a small rock, so sometimes only slightly moving the rock can help avoid the collision. Since the plating montipora capricornus corals take up too much space and grow very quickly which may result in a restriction of the light, I tried to avoid keeping them in the display. Only a few collection plating montipora capricornus corals are placed at a lower part of the tank, near the bottom. But I do have many montiporas in my prop tank in the fish room. Here are some of pictures showing the montiporas in my collection.

mark2 - Thanks! Prior the setting up my system, an intensive research was conducted through the forum to find the appropriate equipment. I would recommend reading up the sponsor forum to find specific equipment suitable for your system. Because there are many reviews provided by the members and support by the sponsors, just in case you have any questions. That was how I found the right equipment for my setup.

HaroldT - Thank you for your support!

Dudester - Thank you so much for your kind words.

MTB - Thanks! It is a pleasure to share my experiences with our fellow members.

guill0402 - Thanks a lot!

 

[lito arangcon]

beautiful tank, any problem with "Ich" how long do you quarantine your fish?

 

[manosdr]

Beautiful tank, an amazing garden of sps...!!!
Congratulations...

 

[ckrumbhaar]

Extraordinary tank! While all the Tank of the month systems are beautiful, only a few instilled that complete sense of awe and this setup did that for me. Absolutely amazing colors. I must ask, you mentioned the camera you used as a Nikon D80. What lighting is used for your pictures? It does not look as white as I’d expect the XM 10ks?