Sapphire's Tank (RSM130)

[Sapphire]

Well I finally decided it was about time to start my own thread about my tank.

Background: The tank has been set up since about 1 October 2007. I am running stock lighting except for the moonlights where we have added a strip of LEDs and all lighting is controlled by a digital timer. In April of this year I replaced the stock skimmer with a Deltec MC500 and added a Tunze 6025 nanostream. We don't run the filter materials except for the white filter which I will add for a few hours at a time if necessary. I don't run the ceramic media or live rock in the back chambers. There is just some Seachem Seagel and carbon. The pumps have been replaced with Eheim compact 600s.

I change 20 litres of water weekly and am using Red Sea Coral Pro Salt. I have juts started using Reef Solution also.

Part of my motivation for starting the thread is to document my new foray into some SPS corals.... I have recently got a few frags from fellow reefers and am interested to see how they go!

Here are a few current photos of the tank and it's inhabitants (I'll take some of the frags and post those later - they won’t be very interesting - I really just want them there as a baseline). I aslo have just noticed I need to upload somemore genreal pics to photobucket - I hardly have any!:



And some random shots:

[Reefmack]

Very nice tank, corals and fish Sapphire! Great to see you start a tank thread! I have a banded serpent star that looks exactly like yours. I've had mine 2 years - a great member of my CUC.

[Sapphire]

Thanks Reefmack.,

Yes the star is great- he's also been in the tank since pretty early on, and has grown heaps. It is funny to see various arms sticking out of different gaps in the rock work!

[nanoreefing4fun]

+1 Sapphire! Great to see you start a tank thread!

Will be fun to follow & watch & compare back! Beautiful tank & fish & critters !!! Very nice pics too ! Good work & thanks for sharing

[Sapphire]

Thanks Glen!

Here are some more random bits:

Bubble coral:


Flouro green candy cane frags:


Coral banded shrimp:


Fiji yellow sun coral:


Frogspawn:


Candy cane I got yesterday:


Brain (one of my first and still one of my favourite corals):

[nanoreefing4fun]

Nice... that Fiji yellow sun coral is really pretty... and I bet your candy cane really colors up more in the next few days too... mine did

[Reefmack]

Great pics - some really nice colors in there!

[Sapphire]

Baseline pictures of SPS frags (19 July 09)! I hope to look back in a couple of months and see some progress.......!!!

So here are my wee frags:

Bali green slimer - 4 weeks in tank and has started to encrust over the inital mounting material


Blue tip stag - 4 weeks in tank and is regrowing tip where it broke in transit. Also tips coloured up (although you can't really see in the pic - it's quite an electric blue)
[IMG]http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj3/Sapphirenz/Bluetipsta
g19July09.jpg[/IMG]

Hydnophora - again in 4 weeks, I think it's grown a bit and coluored up maybe slightly - it's quite a pretty green but again I can't get it in a pic sorry


Pink pocillopora - been in just over a week?? I think this has coloured up a little - it was brown.


Tiny pocillopora - part of the above one that broke off


Green acro (not sure what) - put in yesterday


And a group shot for size reference:

[Dweezil]

Stunning! With tanks this pretty I don't know how you ever leave your homes! haha

[Reefmack]

You've been holding back on us Sapphire! Thanks for the pics!

Dweezil - who said we're able to leave our homes? Reef tanks take 24/7 care & attention! We only have to work to support our reef addiction - otherwise we'd never be able to leave LOL!

[Sapphire]

Originally Posted by Reefmack

You've been holding back on us Sapphire! Thanks for the pics!

Dweezil - who said we're able to leave our homes? Reef tanks take 24/7 care & attention! We only have to work to support our reef addiction - otherwise we'd never be able to leave LOL!

so true!!!

Dweezil: thanks very much!


I'm not overly happy with the tank at the moment - the things that sufferred really badly when I was on one circ pump like the sun corals (becuase I couldn't feed as much as they needed) are recovering; however I think because I'm starting a new direction with the SPS I have a weird combinaton of some bigger things like the LPS and the tiny SPS frags and it looks a bit odd. As long as they grow it'll sort itself out though!

Please excuse the yucky white epoxy look - I have to really secure my frags or they get knocked over by the blundering big astreas!

I should also post a photo of the world's smallest ricordea that I have recently acquired.....it was so small when I got it that I actually needed to use a magnifying glass to see it!! (I'm not joking).

Oh I nearly had a heart attack two nights ago - I was just finishing target feeding the sun corals etc with a syringe and I was pulling my had out of the water. I have a clown fish that attacks my hand and tries to get the food out of the syringe. As I removed my hand I heard a splash and then a 'plop' sound - the clown had taken a lunge upward at my hand and leapt out of the tank! He landed about 1.5 metres away on the carpet - took me a few seconds to locate him and scoop him back into the tank.... no harm down (except to my nerves!).

[alphasierra]

Great tank Sapphire!! You certainly have been holding back on us

Nice to see your thread

Originally Posted by Sapphire

Oh I nearly had a heart attack two nights ago - I was just finishing target feeding the sun corals etc with a syringe and I was pulling my had out of the water. I have a clown fish that attacks my hand and tries to get the food out of the syringe. As I removed my hand I heard a splash and then a 'plop' sound - the clown had taken a lunge upward at my hand and leapt out of the tank! He landed about 1.5 metres away on the carpet - took me a few seconds to locate him and scoop him back into the tank.... no harm down (except to my nerves!).

Amazing!! My clowns also chase the syringe when I spot feed the sun corals but not to the extent of yours... lol! After feeding, my cleaner shrimp jumps on the corals and takes what he can.

[Sapphire]

Thank you, alphasierra! Still very much a work in progress...

my coral banded shrimp does that too. So does the mandarin - but I don't mind that because I'm just thankful to have one that eats frozen and he doesn't rip the shrimp out of the sun corals' mouths, like the others - he just takes the excess.

[zy112]

Great looking tank! I really like that brain and those SPS's will be nice when they grow out

[redsea reefer]

very nice tank and your new additions are awesome sapphire.