Tarasco's Tank

[Tarasco]

All right, many of you have seen these pics before, but I thought that I'd throw some background into this.

It all started when I began dating my current fiance. She had one of those betta bowls with the glass seperating them, so there could be three in the same little 2 gallon tank, and they would flare up when they saw each other. I loved this. So for my birthday, she bought be one of these tanks that could hold 6 of them.

This did well for about a year, until I did something wrong, and all but 1 died. The sudden deaths made me wonder what happened, so I did a little research. Found out about filtration, and all that other good stuff. So I took out the dividers so that the one betta left (a pearl betta named "Zero") could have more room, and bought a couple tetras. This did great until Zero jumped.

Around this time, we were hanging out at a mexican food joint when we took a look at their saltwater tank. Had an anenome, clownfish, some softies, shrimp, and the one fish that she loved, a flame hawk. We actually would go to this place and eat just so she could see her "swim and sit" fish. This started the "I want one of those fish" and my beginning to research.

Well, my original little tank became her office tank (she still has the tetras), and I did research. Originally I was planning on a 55, but when we were at the LFS, she pointed to the 90 and said "I like the bigger one." Don't we all

So that was in August of 2002. I knew that because of my lighting I wasn't going to get any SPS (didn't want to pay for halides) so I decided on a softy/LPS tank. Things were going great till last August my heater malfunctioned, and cooked my tank. However, it's come back in full force after some contributions from a local reefer and taking it slow.

Equipment:

90 gallon drilled center overflow tank
30 gallon sump, using a 200 micron filter sock
4 x 96 watt PC lighting (2 Actinic, 2 10k)
Mag 9 return pump
2 maxi jet 900's and 2 maxijet 1200's connected to a red sea wavemaster pro wavemaker
A skimmer made by an LFS (I need to replace this)
Titanium heater

That's about it. About 90 lbs. of live rock, 100 lbs. of sand. Pretty low tech. I've been meaning to add a refugium, hopefully sometime soon. Here's a recent pic, there have been a few changes since this one:

[Craig Manoukian]

Fabulous T!

[Tarasco]

Fishes:

Mated pair of tank raised clowns (very first fish purchased, these guys kick butt!)
Flame Hawk
Hippo Tang (a survivor of the cooking of '03)
Green Chromis
Six-line wrasse
Pajama Cardinal
Long nosed butterfly
Multibar Angel

Corals:

2 Toadstool leathers
2 Lobophytum
Green Star Polyps
Long stemmed xenia
Daisy ployps
Purple shrooms
Green hairy shrooms
an Orange ricordia
some green zoo's
Branching Hammer
Branching Frogspawn
Fox Coral

other inverts:

Turbo and astrea snails
blue legged hermits
holloween crab (another survivor, got him on halloween '02)
left handed crabs

There's also some sort of black sponge/algae growing in the back, looks cool.

Unfortunately, my skills with a camera blow, but here are some decent pics:






Thanks for looking!

[semigodd154]

very nice setup everyone looks happy and healthy

[Hooked]

Nice looking tank--love those percs. Interesting trip; it's always nice to have the support of your significant other in this hobby. Lucky you

[wooddood]

the tank looks great congrats on a job well done.

[cheeks69]

The tank looks great T. !!! Is the Flame hawk in the tank pic ?

Besides the skimmer and filter sock what else do you have in your sump ?

[johnlewis]

That's a very interesting story and a great tank.

[Tarasco]

The flame hawk is hiding somewhere in the rockwork in the tank pic. He's kind of a wuss, actually, getting bullied by the female clownfish a lot.

The sump has the heater, filter sock, skimmer, and a bag of carbon that I keep in there 24/7. Include the return pump, and that's about it! Part of the reason why the refugium sounds like a good idea.

Thanks for the comments everyone!

[Gina]

Nice looking set up! How does your toadstool feel about the clowns hosting in it? Mine have started to host in my toadstool and he closes up!

[Tarasco]

The toadstool is OK with it. Unfortunately there's a spot right in the center where there is no more polyp extension, but the rest of the polyps extend like normal. It pretty much looks like it does in the full tank pic. They actually used to host in an open brain, but I had to put a stop to that before they killed it.

[Playa]

Mike I love that pair of clowns. I cant find myself a mated pair anywhere. Been looking for months.

Great looking colony of blues also:-)

Luis

[Curtswearing]

Sweet tank!!!

That Sarcophyton is a monster. Great job!!!