Moes 150 build In the Works (with Pics)

[FishManMoe]

Hey everyone, So I have been lurking for years from site to site from reefsactuary, reef2reef, reefcentral, reefbuilders, 3reef, and thereeftank and I have finally decided to share some tank shots and experiences for all its worth. But first a little bit about myself: my name is Moe and I have been a freshwater keeper for about 7 years prior to taking the dive to saltwater. My first purchase to startup salt was a 150 tank used (tank was made in 2008). I made this purchase about a year and a half ago and kept it running at the bare minimum as it originally came with a fx5 canister filter irked:bleh) and seaclone skimmer irked:double bleh). I instantly made a makeshift DIY 20 gallon sump and ran it that way with the 2 fish that came with the tank in it. These 2 fish are still alive and are in my tank till this day, they are a Convict Tang name Mike which I love and a Domino Damsel name Martin. Name after my friends who helped me move the established tank. I kept wondering when will I upgrade and about a year later I did. and here is a list from what I had, to what it became:

Metal rusted stand-AGA wooden cabinet.

FX5-20 gallon sump- Trigger systems RUBY39S (custom sump about 45 gallons).

No return-mag3-mag5-mag12.

2 hamilton T8 Fixtures-72" Nova extreme Pro ATI and KZ bulbs

Seaclone-unknown brand with mag5 fractioning pump which pulls about 1 liter of dark thick skimmate every week (still need to upgrade to a custom EV240 to fit my stand with mag18).

Random powerheads- 2 koralia 4's- 2 Vortech MP40WES.

Old sand bed which i kept for a year (big mistake ill probably tell you all about it later in this thread,boy it was a hassle breakdown and 2 months of waiting)-280 lbs of clean pink samoa sand which is establishing itself from the live rock.

So far I've only spent 1700 dollars on my saltwater hobby and as you can see these upgrade were significant. After all of this I recently felt about a month ago that everything is stable enough to add fish/corals. So recently I made some additions but first a pic of Mike the survivor

<a href="http://s1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa375/FishManMoe/?action=view&current=Queens-20110626-00015.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa375/FishManMoe/Queens-20110626-00015.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

All pics do not do my fish justice as they are taken with a blackberry phone and my photography skills are mediocre at best:wink1:. This guy was living in 300 trates:help: when i first got him from his tank wipe out from the previous owner. sadly I have yet to get a picture of Martin but hes an ordinary healthy Domino Damsel use your imagination. The Paracanthurus tang named Dory (sorry couldn't resist, its behavior was too quirky not to name it that) was received about 2 months ago from a tank breakdown from my job. Oh did I forget to mention I maintain tanks as a job. So my first recent pickup from my supplier was a beautiful Sailfin Tang and heres his pic:

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I guess its time for some tank shots and please let me know what you think of the rockwork as I have limited Live rock:banghead:

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That was a Phone pic now here is a camera pic. please excuse the flash.

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With the Sailfin added I decided to try my hand at Zoos as the starter coral and from my wholesale supplier I got an unidentified colony fresh from Austrailia, so if anyone has an ID please let me know. Once again sorry for bad pics.

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And the zoa island Rockwork as a whole with a frag of Magicians at the top

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I guess I can share sump Pics later and elaborate on what I did for that minimal year and a half. Let me know what you guys think and please be nice as this is my first write up of anything. And feel free to shoot me a PM or ask me any questions...Peace.:thrash:

 

[pauliwalnuts]

Welcome aboard the tank threads !
From the pics shown, the Convict Tang looks a bit on the skinny side ?

 

[FishManMoe]

Welcome aboard the tank threads !
From the pics shown, the Convict Tang looks a bit on the skinny side ?

lol he is a bit skinny but i feed red and green algae sheets about a half a sheet a day, and a cube and a half of mysis shrimp daily. Yeah i know i overfeed but that's what the fuge and skimmer is for right:lol_large? He eats nearly the entire sheet himself so I always found it odd that hes a bit skinny. I initially thought maybe it was internal parasites being an Acanthurus tang they are susceptible to that, but the other symptoms are not present and I've had him well over a year and a half already and he seems healthy and active to me. A mystery it is, isn't it?

 

[KathyC]

Welcome to MR

You could probably use some more rock in there to aid in more natural filtration provided by the rock itself.

What other symptoms do you expect to see from internal parasites in the Convict Tang? As you have had him for quite some time, he should have plumped up by now due to the amount you feed. You might want to investigate further about him

ID'ing the zoas would be difficult at best due to the pic, we'd only be guessing. You might cruise through zoaid.com to see if you can find them yourself as you can actually see the color on them. Do remember that all zoas don't necessarily have 'names'.

What corals & other fish do you plan to add to the tank in the future?

 

[NL146]

Welcome to MR Moe!! I bet you've heard all types of three stooges jokes lol. You should still be concerned about overfeeding, especially if you're still using the seaclone skimmer.

 

[FishManMoe]

Boo seaclone

Welcome to MR Moe!! I bet you've heard all types of three stooges jokes lol. You should still be concerned about overfeeding, especially if you're still using the seaclone skimmer.

Seaclone Skimmer... F*** NO! lol, I only used it because i had nothing better and i modded the thing completely in to a better skimmer which skimmed about a cup of dark thick nasty stuff every 2 days (gotta love wooden air stones and air pumps). Anyway the skimmer I use now is sorta getting the job done the only drawback was it splashed a ton but i recently fixed that with a good ol mag 18 sponge.

 

[FishManMoe]

Welcome to MR

You could probably use some more rock in there to aid in more natural filtration provided by the rock itself.

What other symptoms do you expect to see from internal parasites in the Convict Tang? As you have had him for quite some time, he should have plumped up by now due to the amount you feed. You might want to investigate further about him

ID'ing the zoas would be difficult at best due to the pic, we'd only be guessing. You might cruise through zoaid.com to see if you can find them yourself as you can actually see the color on them. Do remember that all zoas don't necessarily have 'names'.

What corals & other fish do you plan to add to the tank in the future?

The other symptoms would be irregular excrement or shimmying or erratic swimming patterns. he swims fine, eats fine, and poops fine, he is just a tad skinny. Perhaps its a fast metabolism as he is extremely active, all that working out and pumping rocks lol. and that pic is about 2 month old so here are pics of him eating breakfast today.

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P.S. Agreed about rocks, need to build my left island up but i like my right island. Also search through every zoa in coralpedia and couldn't find a match so I hope the trusty community can help me there (if it doesn't exist how about this name "Golden Chocolates".
Stayed tuned as I have more Pics of my setup to come.

 

[FishManMoe]

Anyway I think its time to show the filtration under the tank so here it is:
Please keep in mind that I had just cleaned my skimmer the previous day and as I was fiddling to try to get it to stop splashing from the output of the skimmer, I accidentally blocked the output so it overflowed and flowed into the cup and external collection container, diluting and dirt that was there after the 24 hour period of skimming

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This is my custom sump built by trigger systems. Its based on the Ruby36S but its 39 inches long hence Ruby39S. In it contains 2 filter socks, the skimmer, GFO reactor run by a modded maxijet 1200 (compliments of seaclone lol), 8 bags of chemi pure elite, a fuge with somr rock and chato and martin my domino damsel, and a backup 25 watt uv sterilizer that's plumbed from and to return but is not on, and a mag12 return.

Heres Martin the domino also one of the survivors of the previous tank

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He is right now in my refugium for reasons of being an aggressor to my hippo tang (its a long story as to why he is actually there with a bunch of switch ups which I might get into later in this thread).



Ok on another note here is a coral list Im trying to compile:
Hammer coral
Torch coral
Rose bubble tip anemone
Icefire Echinata
Montipora Capricornus
Montipora Digitata
leather mushroom
discosoma mushroom
a clam probably a crocea or maybe a deresa(not a coral obviously)

I'm still trying to compile this list and I am open to any fish and coral suggestions.

 

[pauliwalnuts]

lA mystery it is, isn't it?

Yeah...
The SailFin looks really nice btw.:fish: