Superstretch18
New member
I keep forgetting about this thread...
About a month ago, I moved to a new apartment and decided that I might as well upgrade my 29 gallon to something with more potential. Got a RR 54 corner used from someone local, with a second stand to use as a canopy. That's also when I joined RC...
Here's a pic before anything was installed:
You can see the backbone of my filtration behind the tank; my Marine Technical Concepts skimmer. It's a 4 foot air-driven unit that I'm not even sure if they make anymore. I've had that skimmer for close to 8 years and it has never failed me. It's the one piece of equipment that will follow me until it physically breaks. *knock on wood*
Obviously space in the stand for a sump is an issue, so the biggest sump that I could muster was a 16 gallon tank. I didn't want to mess with installing baffles, so I just put a 2 1/2 gallon tank inside the 16 to give any microbubbles a chance to rise before the return. Both the skimmer and the drain from the tank empty into the 2 1/2 gallon and I have to say, it's doing a pretty good job of eliminating bubbles in the display (so long as the return pump is more than an inch or so from the little tank. Here's a down and dirty shot from when it was getting set-up:
Lighting consists of 65 watts of power compacts that I transferred over from my old 29 gallon, as well as a 400 watt metal halide that I purchased with the new tank. Because it's such a drastic increase in intensity, I'm still gradually increasing the hours that the halide is running, so that all of the inhabitants can properly adjust. I'm up to about three hours now, with about seven hours of PC. The goal is about 6 hours of MH with an hour sunrise running only the PC's and an hour sunset.
I have to say, this is the first corner tank that I've ever owned and it is one of the most enjoyable that I've ever aquascaped. It's a nice change from the previous 29 gallon or the 55 gallon before that, which I always thought was way too narrow. Everything said and done, here's the first full tank shot that I took of the tank after aquascaping and adding all of the livestock from the original tank. I'm being ambitious and left a lot of height to allow for SPS growth.
You may notice the huge aiptasia immediately below the clown's tail, that's since been taken care of by my peppermint shrimp. You'll also notice a bit of cyano on the left side of the tank. That's also been taken care of; it pretty much withered away after pumping up the skimmer and adding a koralia 3 for additional flow. The last thing that you probably notice is the yellow plastic tunicates. That was an addition that my ex insisted on when we first set-up the 29 gallon. Unfortunately, it's since become part of the live rock, when a ruffly coraline algae grew over the base and an old monti capricornis grew on top of it. The only way to get it off now would be to literally crack open the rock, which I'm unwilling to do. I'll probably attach a millipora frag to it and see if I can completely overgrow it.
It looks so sparse now, but I've been slowly adding more specimens to help fill in:
Frogspawn
Rainbow Acan and xenia peeking from behind the rock
New cap trio (orange, tyree purple rim and idaho grape)
I'm amazed at how fast those caps are growing. Two weeks and you can already see where they are starting to spread (this photo was taken immediately after they were added to the tank, to chronicle their growth). Also note the green polyps in the left of that last shot. In my 29, those were brown and there was zero space between polyps. Since putting under the halide, the tentacles have shrunk down to about a quarter of their original size and they are now teal with a green mouth and speckling. Awesome! They are busily working to fill in the empty space...
Next comes some more montis and acros, a clam and whatever else catches my eye...
Anyway, it's a work in progress right now, but I just thought I'd share...
About a month ago, I moved to a new apartment and decided that I might as well upgrade my 29 gallon to something with more potential. Got a RR 54 corner used from someone local, with a second stand to use as a canopy. That's also when I joined RC...
Here's a pic before anything was installed:
You can see the backbone of my filtration behind the tank; my Marine Technical Concepts skimmer. It's a 4 foot air-driven unit that I'm not even sure if they make anymore. I've had that skimmer for close to 8 years and it has never failed me. It's the one piece of equipment that will follow me until it physically breaks. *knock on wood*
Obviously space in the stand for a sump is an issue, so the biggest sump that I could muster was a 16 gallon tank. I didn't want to mess with installing baffles, so I just put a 2 1/2 gallon tank inside the 16 to give any microbubbles a chance to rise before the return. Both the skimmer and the drain from the tank empty into the 2 1/2 gallon and I have to say, it's doing a pretty good job of eliminating bubbles in the display (so long as the return pump is more than an inch or so from the little tank. Here's a down and dirty shot from when it was getting set-up:
Lighting consists of 65 watts of power compacts that I transferred over from my old 29 gallon, as well as a 400 watt metal halide that I purchased with the new tank. Because it's such a drastic increase in intensity, I'm still gradually increasing the hours that the halide is running, so that all of the inhabitants can properly adjust. I'm up to about three hours now, with about seven hours of PC. The goal is about 6 hours of MH with an hour sunrise running only the PC's and an hour sunset.
I have to say, this is the first corner tank that I've ever owned and it is one of the most enjoyable that I've ever aquascaped. It's a nice change from the previous 29 gallon or the 55 gallon before that, which I always thought was way too narrow. Everything said and done, here's the first full tank shot that I took of the tank after aquascaping and adding all of the livestock from the original tank. I'm being ambitious and left a lot of height to allow for SPS growth.
You may notice the huge aiptasia immediately below the clown's tail, that's since been taken care of by my peppermint shrimp. You'll also notice a bit of cyano on the left side of the tank. That's also been taken care of; it pretty much withered away after pumping up the skimmer and adding a koralia 3 for additional flow. The last thing that you probably notice is the yellow plastic tunicates. That was an addition that my ex insisted on when we first set-up the 29 gallon. Unfortunately, it's since become part of the live rock, when a ruffly coraline algae grew over the base and an old monti capricornis grew on top of it. The only way to get it off now would be to literally crack open the rock, which I'm unwilling to do. I'll probably attach a millipora frag to it and see if I can completely overgrow it.
It looks so sparse now, but I've been slowly adding more specimens to help fill in:
Frogspawn
Rainbow Acan and xenia peeking from behind the rock
New cap trio (orange, tyree purple rim and idaho grape)
I'm amazed at how fast those caps are growing. Two weeks and you can already see where they are starting to spread (this photo was taken immediately after they were added to the tank, to chronicle their growth). Also note the green polyps in the left of that last shot. In my 29, those were brown and there was zero space between polyps. Since putting under the halide, the tentacles have shrunk down to about a quarter of their original size and they are now teal with a green mouth and speckling. Awesome! They are busily working to fill in the empty space...
Next comes some more montis and acros, a clam and whatever else catches my eye...
Anyway, it's a work in progress right now, but I just thought I'd share...
