The Great (or not so great) Hillbilly Reef Experiment

[tylersarah]

Looks good to me, I mean us.

 

[Hawg Pharm]

Same rock that had the cyano on it with a little late night LED light bleeding off the main tank. Those pods sure know how to go through algae and cyano. And yes, I definitely need a better camera.

<a href="http://s115.photobucket.com/user/kncald/media/photobucket-18085-1374704333942_zps702020b0.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n307/kncald/photobucket-18085-1374704333942_zps702020b0.jpg" border="0" alt="2013-07-23_21-09-12_517 photo photobucket-18085-1374704333942_zps702020b0.jpg"/></a>

 

[Neogenocide]

Awesome build and glad to see the wife coming on board. I took it very slow when I built mine, and while frustrating to her, now that it's a mature tank full of coral she absolutely loves it!! Which is almost a bad thing at times now because I caught hell when I sold off my colony of seriatopora, which netted me $150 in credit at the lfs. She was ok with it once she heard what I got for it, but man was I in the dog house for a bit.

Keep up the great work, I like what you've done so far!!

 

[Newbie Aquarist]

Nice job on cyano. Other than the pods, what inverts did you use also?

 

[Hawg Pharm]

Nice job on cyano. Other than the pods, what inverts did you use also?

I ended up getting a variety of snails and blue legged crabs. I think the snail package was supposed to be a variety of 50 snails but there were a lot more than that. There are astrea, nassarius, turbos and ceriths. The order also came with 100 small blue legged crabs. I'd swear there were at least 50% more than that. Between all of them, they have stripped my live rock clean of gha, brown algae and cyano. I'm seeing colors on the live rock I didn't know existed. I'm doing my best to try and keep them all fed. I use a full light cycle to help with algae growth and feed every day, but the rocks are still more or less clean. So far they all seem happy.

 

[Hawg Pharm]

I wish I had taken a "before" photo of the rocks. They once were covered and now they're not. I have the back panel off of the tank for maintenance so unfortunately you see into the fish room.

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[Hawg Pharm]

So, it's been over a month since the tank got wet. In honor of the event I added a few corals. I tried taking these late tonight so I'm getting a lot of blue on the pitiful phone camera. It once again reminds me how bad I need a real camera.

My photos can not do the hammer justice, as I'm sure those of you with them can attest. It simply glows under the actinics. I also added a candy cane, a duncan, torch, pink bird's nest and green montipora. Maybe I can get some decent shots later. One of my old college room mates is coming this weekend. He's an amateur photographer with all the cool toys. I'm hoping to find out what kind of camera I'll want during the visit.

The first quarantined fish are now in the tank. They include 4 pajama cardinals, a false percula clown, a firefish, and a yellow watchman goby. They spend the majority of their time hiding in the caves or in the back. Now I know why people have dither fish. They're all eating well. Perhaps they'll become more personable as time goes on.

The yellow tang is still in QT. Good thing because the poor rascal was eat up with ich. So was the fairy basslet. He didn't make it despite the move to hyposalinity. The tang is doing well now and I'm pretty sure will make a full recovery.

At night it looks like I have thousands of amphipods and tens of thousands of copepods. Something good must be going on for that to happen (after adding a few bags of critters a few weeks ago).

<a href="http://s115.photobucket.com/user/kncald/media/hammer_zpscea79abc.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n307/kncald/hammer_zpscea79abc.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo hammer_zpscea79abc.jpg"/></a>

 

[iced98lx]

Wooohoo! Congrats sir!!

 

[Hawg Pharm]

There are now a few inhabitants that have made it past quarantine. My college room mate, and still one of my best friends, brought his cameras over for me to evaluate. He also took a few photos while he was here.

<a href="http://s115.photobucket.com/user/kncald/media/521970_548743975173460_936287523_n_zps2f4a42de.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n307/kncald/521970_548743975173460_936287523_n_zps2f4a42de.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 521970_548743975173460_936287523_n_zps2f4a42de.jpg"/></a>

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[Hawg Pharm]

So apparently I tried to overfeed the Duncan. Last night it puked up a rather large ball of brine shrimp. That was interesting....and just perhaps a little bit gross.

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[Hawg Pharm]

The bird's nest always looks fuzzy. And if I didn't know better, I'd say it has grown just ever so slightly.

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[theReefKing]

Full plan worked out on the stock list yet?

 

[Hawg Pharm]

I thought that maybe the worm had bit the dust, but instead it was making a new home deeper in the sand. It discarded the exposed tube and is how happily extended just above the sand bed.

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[Hawg Pharm]

Full plan worked out on the stock list yet?

Not yet. Everything is still in the early stages. The overall plan was to have multiple, small peaceful fish. It very well might turn into a goby fest, among other things. Right now the dt only has four pajama cardinals, a clown fish, a firefish, a yellow watchman goby and a pistol shrimp. They tend to hide most of the time which is frustrating to my wife, but I'm hoping that the more we add, the more they will show up front and center. But, so far, that's a pretty small list for a 187g dt. I'm still nursing a yellow tang in the qt, and he's doing well with the hypo salinity but I'm weeks from adding him. I ended up using the second qt as my top off tank so I need to pick up another qt otherwise I'll be a long time between fish acquisitions.

One good thing is that I've got copepods and amphipods everywhere. At night, when I use the red light, they're all over the place. They cover the glass, move in and out of the rocks. Watching them at night has become one of my favorite past times. I'm pretty sure they're the reason why the green algae on the sides of the tank has disappeared. I know you're supposed to wait quite a long time to add a mandarin but I don't know how my pod population can get any bigger. It probably helps that I have an additional 150 lbs of live rock in my sump and a 45 g fuge that is only used for pod production and is gravity fed into the dt. Nothing pleases me more than to see a large amphipod suddenly appear in the water column. Eventually, there will be anthias that really like that.

 

[Hawg Pharm]

So this guy vanished for about a week and even now is a little camera shy. He (or she) and the pistol shrimp are the best of buds.

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[Hawg Pharm]

These little blue legged rascals have provided endless entertainment.

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[Hawg Pharm]

The metallic green torch with various worms living on and in it.

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[owenspackman]

Any updates for us? It's been a while!