Lagoon-Backreef Setup

[forestal]

got a 36 gallon bowfront and using a cpr overflow and a 5 gallon bucket as a sump to drive a manifold for closed loop flow, moved extra live rock and my BTA's in to here for a species tank for anemonae, as i felt guilty they shouldnt be in with corals as per sir Calfo ...already love the look of it..
bit of an aiptasia issue, but figure its an anemonae tank..got some peppermints in there
Day2:

This guy was equally attached to two rocks, so tore it in half by accident when removing the rock...doing ok so far

[KimPossible]

Nice Dan!
Are you planning on putting any Clowns in there?

[forestal]

Thanks Kim... considering, although want to keep the bio load low...fiddling on using 2 5 gallon buckets connected by bulhead, one for the fuge/other for sump with return pump ...cant' fit much under the stand....

got it all hooked up and the bulkhead tightened , now too tight to remove all in place and the damb thing leakss....arrgh...don't fiddle late at night ya know, can;t unconnect as have no large wrench to tighten or loosen them...so just put a generous heaping of silicone around bulkhead that must be a smidge too loose, just a slow drip, but still, annoying...now the kitchen stinks like vinegar...thank god the wife is asleep...she'd kill me

[forestal]

36 bowfront is doing well... all the bta's are fully expanded, the little mouthless frag is now whole, grew quick
clowns are happy as well...
have a skimmer on this tank and only feed 3x week the clowns to get a low bioload tank...upper left bta is the fragged one




New stuff is I am fragging some of my sps to try to ID by micro with Eric Borneman (see threads on marine depot or my coral ID website:
http://www.forestalsfish.com/Corals/Coralid.html
note my corals are #7 , #8 and the monti's

120 reef:
Removed some rock to leave more room for coral grow out and for better flow/less dead spots.
Removed a bunch of corals, mostly softies, and the remaining zo's will be leaving to friends, to allow less competition and more room bewtween corals.

Also i am a bonehead, have been running my new ro/di for 4 months with no ro cartridge in place (thought it was already in) and didnt bother checking tds, has been 25-50....man i am stupid...now it is 0 with ro....but that brings me to another problem with the tank...there is a cyano outbreak on my zo's and some rocks even in strong flow... even with weekly 20 gallon water changes, so change 30gallons again, and now that i have ro/di water for real, plan another large water change tomorrow...any thoughts on the outbreak are appreciated.

pH=8.2, specific gravity=1.025, temp 74-78 (has been for a year), Nitrite= <0.1 mg/L, Nitrate = <5 mg/L, Ammonia = 0.0, Alk 90-100 mg/L, Calcium 420-440 mg /L, PO4 = 0
I am running carbon (didnt rinse the last time-this outbreak recent) and phosban, change weekly.
I do add Seachem reefplus, 1/4 recommended dose tho...keeps calcium up so far

latest pics:

saved frag from flooded frag tank - was just 2 polyps now 10 in4 months:

Green plating monti(working with Eric borneman for ID with microscope ona frag) with maxima clam:

Green stylophora growing nicely in new locale, also note vermetid snail with web on clam shell:

Group of frags growing - i love the blue polyped acro in foreground:

orange plating monti (not capricornis, but have 9 species it could be)

[Rougiem]

Looks great Dan! Thanks for sharing your experiences...oh and the pics too!

Cheers!

[forestal]

Thanks
did a 40g water change with real RO sw, hopefully the hair/cyano will back off


tried my hand at a top down shot, took 100, here's the best , lol, using a glass deep plate and my camera, hehe, i dont have a lot of room to get my arms under the hood

[Woodstock]

Cool top-down pic forestal. Everything looks great!

[forestal]

just some more pics...
Blasto from 2 heads to more than 9 in 3 months:

Copper:

one of my anthias:

Gonipora - happy being fed oyster eggs i think (i hope)

Finally halfway decent shot of my mandarins:

[Gina]

Everything seems to be very happy!
Thanks for sharing your pics and I love the CBB and Mandarins!

[cheeks69]

Very nice...love the Zoo's and the Blasto !

[forestal]

thanks

[jhnrb]

Enjoyed the thread. great pics. thanks. congrats.

[forestal]

See gonipora longevity thread for pics, but i fragged into 3 pieces my gonipora, all pieces look great, still spot feeding oyster eggs/dt's

2 new additions...better pics to come, but wanted to share, 2 new crocea clams from Clams Direct...these guys have great clams..

since i didnt have time after putting them in tonite before going to a meeting...these pics are after in the tank for 5 minutes...

[jhnrb]

Very Very nice color on clam. enjoyed other pic's also.

[forestal]

Hi all...its been a while...some health issues and working a lot, so havent had much online time

thought i would update....
I ended up taking down the anemone tank...they were doing well,but space/electric costs won out...i found good homes for all of them

recently i have been having a hair algae issue with mass proportions, pulling out pounds per month...

I have been neglectful in doing my regular water changes and i just discovered that my snail population was decimated over time by several hermits, now relegated to the sump...

so with my new enthusiasm, i spent 7 hours taking down the tank cleaning the rock and tank, setting up the fuge and sump a little better and here we are with the newly setup.... corals seen in earlier parts of the thread have all grown considerably...the green and orange plating monti has been fragged numerous times and both are still larger than softballs with multiple tiers (you can see them up top - post placement breaking)

both clams are doing well, all the fish are well and getting bigger....my mandarins do a mating dance every now and then, never see any eggs, but they are tiny and i dont shut off the pumps to look...i dont have the time and effort to put into raising babes but that would be cool.
My Photo Gallery - 120 Reef post re-setup - Powered by PhotoPost

will be getting some closeups soon