Upgrade To The 55

[ox5477]

Ok, well here we go with the 55G. This has arisen because of my recent freshwater upgrade of the 55 to a 125. The fish are doing great in there and I figured, its a shame to have this beautiful 55G sitting around empty. So... of course I can always upgrade my 30G fowlr to the 55.

As it currently stands... the 30G is far overgrown with coraline due to my laziness but I atleast keep the front glass clear so I can see in the tank... I will try getting a current pic over the weekend here.

I lost the flame right after the last few posts for this thread and that really bummed me. I had no problems with tank stats and he was eating for the first few day, but I think he just stopped eating. and finnaly, one morning I woke up and he was stuck to the powerhead intake as stiff as a board... but everybody else in the tank is still thriving so things are good

For the new tank... basic no label 55G with metal stand.

Contents/equipment

• ~45lb of fiji lr (three hich-hikers so far: 2 feather dusters and 1 bristleworm)
• 1 maxi1200
• 1 koralia 3
• 300W heater
• 260W PC coralife light with2 actinic and 2 10K + moonlights

with the 15lb in the 30, the 60lb of lr should be perfect to set up my litle reef. The yellow wrasses and TR ocellaris will be adjoined in the future by:

• 6 line wrasse
• engineer goby
• possibly another dwarf angel
• and maybe another goby or two

and for coral, I wish to just go with some photosynthetic corals starting off with a few colonies of zooanthids to go along with the pretty sizable mushroom colony I have already in the 30G

but for now, thats it... updates to come with new hith-hikers found and especially when the move over day approaches

 

[ox5477]

ok.. things moving along now...

First, full tank shot, with and without the lights on:

Then some picks of the mushrooms:

and then the current stocking (minus the cleaner shrimp, can be seen in tnk pic with flash):

also, anybody have any idea what this could be (center of picture, in the shadowed overhang of the rockwork)? It's kind of hard to see from the crappy camera resolution but it looks like a bunch of pink orbs bound together. Possibly eggs? Only from my wrasses if yes.. but I found them when I took my rock stack apart in the 30G and they kind of in the open now. I would assume that if they were eggs, they would of been eaten by now

and for the next couple weeks, already have a christmas and a six line wrasse piked out and possibly get an engineer goby and clown goby. also have a few zoo frags in mind from the local salty shop. pics to come when I finally make the purchase

 

[ox5477]

Added two engineer gobies and a Kenya Tree:

 

[ox5477]

The Kenya... fully extended after less than 24 hours

Might move it as the koralia is blowing it over pretty good but I like the position for the way it looks and it's proximity to the lights.

started a three day buffer for my calcium too... seems its quite low right now. need to get a Mg test and buffer kit for this too. Never checked it so need to get this asap

 

[ox5477]

No pictures.... but added a very small frag of pulsing xenia got for $10 and a colony of green centered zoas... both full extended/open in less than 1 hour

 

[ox5477]

Well something bad... but prob my fault so.... my dominant (dont know whether it was female or male) yellow canary wrasse decided to play superman and landed behind my home theater system. I found it yesterday afternoon when trying to tweek the sound... I had wondered where it was seeing as how it wasnt out and chasing my other wrasse around that day... must of got started when the actinics turned off the night before or maybe in the morning if it was up and out before the lights turned on....

Well that was the bad news, but good news is I was cleaning the tank a little after that and found that a frag of my kenya tree must of broken off from the main colony and started growing at the base of the rock stack in the rear. The buds were fully open and it looked to be living happily so I think I'll leave for now. Also, the single xenia frag has split on its own so I think I will split the rock the two halves are attached to and spread them out as they are growing quite rapidly being fed frozen baby brine.

I should say too... my gobies are growing very fast. Every day they are very happily out swimming at the glass waiting for their mysis shrimp and when its dropped in, they greedily gobble it up. I keep them busy by collapsing parts of their tunnel work under the rocks so they dont completely undermine the rockwork

Ox

PS. Yes... no pictures I know, but Im at work right now... so later

 

[kj23502]

Wow, I'm Liking this read!! Can't wait to see pics!!

Am sorry to hear about your yellow wrasse

 

[ox5477]

Well here some update pics:

Xenia and Kenya Tree:

Mushroom Rock:

Trying to be cute for me but my camera has let me down. One of my Engineer gobies peeking out from under a rock:

And finally a FTS:

I need to get a pic of the green centered zoas (bottom right of FTS), but when I cleaned the glass before taking the pics, they were vibrated too much and most of the polyps closed. Hopefully later before the lights go out, I will be able to get a pic.

Ox

 

[SkiFletch]

Still lookin good,

 

[kj23502]

I like it

 

[ox5477]

well I didnt get back in time for the 10K lights but I got a couple pics with the actinics on. Made the zoas phosphoresce nice:

To start, another cute pic of my goby peaking out:

And two pics of the zoas (still not completely open but shows the color):

Thanks for the comments guys

Ox

 

[ox5477]

New Coral!!

Orange-Centered Zoas:

Pastel Hammer (not quite open yet.... been in tank for only roughly 30 mins):

And yes, it has plenty of room for nighttime when it spreads its stinging tentacles. If look at my last FTS, it is sitting ontop of the bridge rock in the middle of the tank.

Ox

 

[Nalaundi]

lookin great! love the progress!

 

[kj23502]

Cool new corals!! The whole stinging tenticle thing makes me nervous Would they sting fish too? Would it kill them?

 

[ox5477]

I dont think so... though I guess it got the kid at the salty shop who was getting for me... he and another person who works there were actually talking about how he had a sting that was just starting to feel good again after a month... and then he goes and stings himself again....haha .... seemed to hurt like hell so I'm gonna be careful handling that guy.

I need to do a little more research on it to see exactly what the stings power is and how it will effect fish if they glance by it... but the closest coral I have to it is my large mushroom rock... and those grow almost like weeds so I'm not worried if a couple get stung... though I dont think even if it puts out longer tentacles... it can reach

Ox

PS... while I'm here... should mention, got new lights, a set of T5's, roughly the same power as the pc's I had, but I could already tell that the hammer appreciated the new light as it was extended slightly more than it was with the pc's