My 180g Build Thread - Finally!

[jamesw]

Hi Charles,

Yep, those were the days. FWIW, Dave (Bob's original Solomons supplier) is still in business and has a bunch of thriving businesses. In fact he was back in the Solomons last month and sent me an email that he saw a bunch of A. leucokranos there

Cheers
James

 

[Maximus1]

Calcium Reactor: Original old-school K2R w/ CO2 Solenoid control and pH controller

Jeebus, a Bob Mankin K2R? That really is old school. Those went into production, what? Twelve years ago now?

Man, I miss his solomons stuff.

I remember visiting Bob's place and seeing all the solomon disks in his living room. He also made the reactors in his garage! Nice to see you again, James!

 

[jamesw]

You too!

Yep, I remember Bob's first reactor that was made out of PVC parts, including a TOILET BASE lol! But hey, it worked...

I wonder what he's up to these days. He sure had a nice looking website ;-)

Cheers
James

 

[Anonymous]

I wonder what he's up to these days. He sure had a nice looking website ;-)

... don't rub it in, it was one of my first Besides, the damn thing is still there.

Yeah, I wonder what he's up to myself. One of a number of the old timers I have no idea what happened to.... him, Keith Redfield, Steve Wolfe, John Rice, Joe Kelly. Come to think of it, been a long time since I heard anything from Mike Kirda too...

 

[Minh Nguyen]

James,
Great tank. I wish I was able to see it in person last weekend.

 

[jamesw]

Charles,

I think it's an awesome website - I wasn't teasing you. I guess Bob must have paid for 10 years hosting/domain up front????? Good question what happened to all those folks - my guess is "life" happened. Work and family seem to (and should) always take precedance over this hobby.

Minh: thanks! I wish you could have come by as well. The 3 CB Percs are doing really well and are now the favorite inhabitants among my wife, son, and friends I'll try to get some pix soon of the clowns + ritteri.

Cheers
James

 

[jamesw]

Well it's been a while, so here is an update:

My tank was on the MARSH "tank tour" recently which was a lot of fun.

I did a 100g water change on the tank before the tour which had the fantastic effect of causing all of the caulerpa in the tank to die off.

This unfortunately led to an explosion of Cyano in the tank :-( (You can't get something for nothing) which I controlled by sucking it out w a 50g water change once a week for 2 or 3 weeks. It's gone now thank goodness.

I also had an semi-outbreak of Bryopsis in the tank which was annoying as it started to grow into a few of the corals. I controlled that by getting 5 lettuce slugs (E. cryspata) which mowed it all down in just a few weeks. They are very cool and I hope they will continue as misc grazers and algae eaters and spawn - but we'll see.

Coral growth has been good on some frags and poor on others. I have no idea why but it seems logical. I also lowered the pH in my CaCO3 reactor down to 6.4 to try and get better effluent concentration. Seems to be working well.

Additions include a yellow and black foxface (which didn't eat the caulerpa), a TR P. friedmani, and 4 more clams from Clamsdirect to replace a few DOA's I had. I got 3 crocea and 1 derasa. I also finally picked up the orange tiger-striped derasa I've been looking for for about 4 months at the LFS. Yes, I have a lot of clams, but I also have a lot of space for them

Ritteri is doing fine and the 3 TR percs I got from Minh are growing well and looking good.

Pix coming soon.

Cheers
James

 

[jamesw]

Well, it's time for some updated pix. My tank has now been running since Oct 1 2009 to May 2010 - 7 months. I got through my various algaes and things seem to be doing very well now. I lowered my reactor pH from 6.8 to 6.4 and it looks like it's finally keeping up w/ demand.

We had the MARSH spring frag swap last Sunday and I was able to pick up a few interesting species. I'll post some pix when I get my DSLR in play. In the meantime, here are some photos taken w/ my point and shoot camera. Not the best pix so please be kind

Right side

Left side

Some frag growth pix:

This one shows where the Hawkins Echinata is growing up into the stream from the Eductor and getting its tissue blown off. You can also see the major growth on the "purple grimace" montipora and also the bottlebrush acro.

The "superman" monti has also grown a lot.

Orange montipora cap. growth

Red Planet is finally starting to take off now that I've cranked up my Ca reactor. I think it will form a nice table.

Blurry mandarin shot. He is still fat and happy. I'm considering getting him a mate.

Ritteri doing well and Onyx Percs are growing like weeds. They are captive raised from Minh Nguyen

Crappy pic of my H. hippopus - I have all of the species (6) of giant clams growing in my aquarium now. The tiger derasa has put on a HUGE amount of shell in the last 2 months...

Gigas has also put on quite a bit of shell.

Watermelon chalice is looking good but hasn't grown much.

Anyhow - let me know what you think.

Cheers
James

 

[Ben1]

Looking good James. That hollywood stunner chalice you got grows like a weed and has some wicked sweepers at night, watch what you place around it. Looks like you've had good growth, and were able to get the gigas back to the middle. If you want to get a mate for that mandarin I am pretty sure ORA is releasing captive raised ones soon. I like how mixed your tank is, it's got a bit of everything.

 

[jamesw]

Thanks Ben.

What is a Hollywood stunner chalice? Which coral in the pix are you referring to?

I agree about the mandarins. I had heard that they are buying the fry from that one reefer who wrote the article about raising them. Since ORA has a good source of free plankton that seems like a great idea. That is so cool.

My tank is a mix since I have high and low flow zones and high and low light zones. It's all in the design I guess. I also don't have any non indo-pacific stuff in my system so it's sorta a "true" reef. That and all of my corals are from fragments - nothing direct from the wild except some of the fish and Ritteri.

Cheers
James

 

[Ben1]

The stunner is the one right under when you wrote "some frag growth pix" check it at night with a flash light mine grows pretty fast and puts out real nastly long sweepers. Ive seen mine reaching 5" or so away from the coral at night to sting stuff back.

 

[Anonymous]

I love your tank James - particularly for the mix you've achieved of LPS, SPS, softies etc. Plus the big focal points of the Gigas and the Ritteri. 8)

 

[Anonymous]

Nice

Later this year can I come raid your tank?

I love the frags and the growth.

 

[jamesw]

Sure.

Cheers
James

 

[sometingfishy]

beautiful looking setup, great work

 

[Anonymous]

Update time!

 

[jamesw]

All right, time for an update. Sorry it's been so long - the tank has been in the gutter but things are turned around finally (thanks winter).

I had a terrible summer - which started w/ a dino bloom that killed my ritteri anemone and most of my snails, and caused a lot of bleaching (but not death).

Things just started to improve recently and I have good calcification again. It basically STOPPED for the summer - which I'm now attributing to the AC running all the time in the fish room. I think I must have "bad air" in there aka low O2 and low pH.

Here are recent pix, shot today:

Left Side:

Middle:

Right Side:

Selective Eye Candy:

Last but not least, big daddy gigas:

I still have some work ahead of me. The lettuce slugs have been mowing down the bryopsis I got from a frag, and the new snails I got to repopulate, are just starting to get the job done. But we're back in business!

And yes, that is a Red Planet that is approaching table-top status.

Cheers and merry Christmas everyone.

James

 

[jamesw]

Holy cow! I just noticed this:

Red planet from May:

And from today (December):

Cheers
James

 

[dogsrule19341]

That so beats my 180 gallon tank!
Great Job!