My Reef Aquarium

[snow]

i.m just drooling over you,re marine setup.
i have freshwater tanks, but you,re setup sure beats mine. congratulations

[Amanda L]

Really beautiful! I love aquariums, but not the work that goes into maintaining them!

[IdahoOrchid]

OK, here is the maintenance question answered since that was the last thing I read about and is still in my head!

Daily maintenance: Add water to my auto top off bucket. There is a pump in there that automatically adds fresh water to the system when it gets below a certain level. Time involved: less than 5 minutes since we keep a supply of RO Water for drinking all over the house.

Weekly maintenance: Clean and scrape the glass to keep algae off of it. Hard to see through green algae. I sometimes do this twice a week. Time involved: 10 - 15 minutes a whack.

Bi-weekly maintenance: Do a 3-4 gallon water change. Time involved: Takes 10 minutes or so to pour the water, mix in the salt and start the circulation pump to mix it. The next day it takes 20-30 minutes to siphon the water out and siphon new water in. This includes disposing the old water, rinsing the equipment and putting everything away.

Periodic maintenance (the FUN and $$ part): Adding new corals and critters. Sometimes they come mounted and sometimes not. Takes a bit of time figuring out EXACTLY where you want that critter to live. Also since these guys grow and multiply I sometimes have to divide them to sell or trade for other corals and critters. Sound familiar?

Oh, I forgot one daily "maintenance" activity: Watching all the neat critters do their thing. This takes anywhere from a few minutes to MANY minutes!

So, not too bad at all. I guess that is the minimum required. Some people manage dosing chems and other things but that is mainly the big systems and a lot of that can be automated too.

[IdahoOrchid]

Originally Posted by isurus79

How big is your sump and are you using a refugium?

I am using a 20 standard divided into 3 sections: Drain/Skimmer section, refuge and return. The first two sections are separated by a bubble trap. I have a 2" sand bed in the fuge along with some rock and macro algae. This is were the two little shrimp like critters (and many others) hang out.

Originally Posted by isurus79

I also love that first Zoa you posted, its colors are amazing!

That one does not have a name that I am aware of. I have lots of other reds and oranges that I do not have pictures of yet. Looking to get some BLUES in the next few weeks.

Originally Posted by isurus79

Im also curious about that clownfish. Is that an occelaris with an all orange color morph?

Yes, it is a color morph of the normal "nemo" clown fish. It is called a Naked Clown.

Originally Posted by isurus79

Also, Im curious about the object (live rock with anemones?) in the middle/top part of the tank that is seen in the pic of the whole tank. What is that?

That is my return overflow. I am glad it looks like live rock. I'll post a link to my build thread so you can see why it does. What looks like an anemone is actually a Zoa called Armor of God. You should see it under just my actinic lights!!!!

Originally Posted by isurus79

Overall, Im really impressed with that setup! Congrats!

I just set up a 55 gallon at the beginning of December and set up a 12 gallon nano yesterday! Any tips on the nano care? I know the smaller the tank, the tougher it is to care for.

Thanks to you and everyone else that has been wowed by my endeavor. It has been a great deal of fun and I still have many things I want and need to accomplish to give it more polish.

Nanos are not that much different. You just need to be more regular with water changes and watch your temps. If you a/c your house it should be OK, otherwise lots of fans will help with evaporation for cooling. ATO becomes VERY critical for teh smaller tanks too.

Being in HI you should have access to LOTS of cool fish and corals for pretty cheap!!!!

[isurus79]

Originally Posted by IdahoOrchid

Being in HI you should have access to LOTS of cool fish and corals for pretty cheap!!!!

Yes and no. The fish here are really cheap (especially since I can catch my own and I work for Hawaii's largest wholesaler!!) but unfortunately the corals are illegal. It is illegal to harvest your own coral and it is illegal to import ALL invertebrates!!!!!!! Very frustrating. So we are limited to collecting blue octocoral (0.25" tall) and Zoas for the aquarium with no hard corals what-so-ever. On a lighter note, I was able to collect some really cool Zoas yesterday! One type is a large burgundy red Zoa and the other is a small (Palythoa maybe?) guy with a glowing green center. Very cool! If you get a chance, do post more pics! They look great!

[quiltergal]

Very nice job Steven! There are days that I miss mine.... I had mostly fish with a few invertabrates in a 55 gallon set up. Had it for probably 7 years. I just got burned out on the weekly scrub downs (way more than 20 minutes) and water changes. The other issue I ran into was not being able to introduce new fish to an established community. Towards the end I was maintaining a 55 gallon aquarium for 1 very aggressive angel, 1 Tomato Clown and a hermit crab. The angel would eat anything new that went in the tank. So I sold the fish back to the fish store and the set up got sold in a yard sale.

To satisfy the urge to see marine critters I learned to snorkel. Now we make an annual trek somewhere tropical to play with the fish.

[Junebug]

Originally Posted by IdahoOrchid

This is a picture of my 29 gallon (nano) reef aquarium that I started last Summer. It has been really fun to watch the active and interesting life forms that now call my office their home. I'll attach a few pictures for you to enjoy. Hope you like them as much as I enjoy photographing them.

You've done a great job and your tank is beautiful. Marine aquariums require some extra knowledge and work, but they are an amazing form of relaxing, fascinating entertainment.

My ex and I had one years ago but a hurricane related power outage pretty much destroyed it. One time we accidentally introduced a pistol shrimp and another time a stone crab. The stone crab was a big no no so my ex cleverly designed a minature version wire cage trap and baited it with a little dead shrimp. The small trap was very effective and the crab was released into the ocean soon after he was captured.

The pistol shrimp was a humorous discovery. We'd be watching TV and all of a sudden we'd hear this enormously large "bang" sound coming from the tank. We had recently put what we thought was a juvenile 2" lobster in the tank. Turns out it was a Pistol Shrimp. These shrimp have a large primary claw that the creature rapidly closes. When they do, it produces a large bang similar to that of a pistol being fired. This sound temporarily stuns small fish which then become easy prey for the shrimp. Oh, the wonders of nature.

[Roly0217]

That's a beautiful set up !!!! I had a mini reef 20 gallon tank and loved it. But the orchids won the battle. What type of lightning are you using?? compact fluoerescents or metal halide ??? I might set up a seahorse tank later on or go back to a reef. I must say that the green star polyps are one of my favorites. Have you seen harlequin shrimps??? Stay away from them if you like starfish. That's their diet but I loved mine. Have you looked at the Ricordia florida. They come in 2 colors that I know of green and orange and they are very eye catching. I didn't see any hard corals in the set up. Mainly zooanthids and mushroom corals. Have you tried the leather corals?? Taodstool, fingers, carnation tree??? Ohh boy do I ask many questions...LOL

[IdahoOrchid]

Yes, I have lots of zoas and they are quickly becoming my favorites. I do have ricordia. It is on the very right hand side of the tank. Right below that is a finger leather. I also have a kenya tree but it is not one I will be keeping. I am going to be getting a yellow toadstool from my son as well as a frog spawn.

I also have several SPS (hard) corals. They are not doing so well. I too had a pistol shrimp and he LOVED to keep the sand bed stirred up. I guess my sand was too fine for him to find a permanent home. Soon after removing him my SPS started failing. I have a few that are hanging on though.

[Roly0217]

SPS like really high light such as the one provided by metal halides. Which type of lightning do you have ??? I had LPS such as Candy canes, Pinapple brain and Bubble and they seemed to do much better under Compact fluorescents than the SPS ever did.