Lagoon-Backreef Setup

[flricordia]

Looking good. Try and get some pics of the mandarins doing their dance. Clean starts are always exhilerating. Beautiful clams BTW. A blue or black background would really brighten up the tank.

[Dentoid]

Hey Dan, it took me some time to catch up on your reef chronicle. A fresh start is always a good thing. I'll be following your progress for sure!

[forestal]

thanks all, i do have pics of the dance, will post later (at work now )
and gonna try to get some good closeups too

[forestal]

put a link to the video of the mating dance on my reefspace page

[Anselth]

Welcome back! Looking forward to seeing how things progress!

[Melanie]

What a great chronicle! I'm glad it came to my attention today.

[forestal]

a few more pics...lost half of one of my acro's but now die off stable (mostly from scraping algae off)
I added 2 phosban reactors today, 1 for carbon, the other for phosban,
still no hair algae to speak of
WOO HOO!!

a few pics, more to come

[forestal]

I have an extra 40 gallon corner tank i was thinking of putting next to this one, but it is not drilled. I thought using it as a sump, deep sand bed with critters and deeper water corals/azooxanthellate might work well , so no extra electricity for lighting.
Any thoughts on how to do this... I have a cpr overflow box, but i never liked the whole overflow idea as they have a tendency to break the siphon and then big leak, even using the little air pump that comes with it.
might be nice to have sand bed and gorgonians growing out with only a little light.

using 2 pumps, one to the main reef as an over flow could be used very small flow and another in the sump to this tank, even if only slower flow, the water would be interchanging...

or i could get it drilled (probably the easiest )

i'm thinking , but any ideas would be welcome....

I am also considering a bigger tank, but i could save a lot of money just by tying in several tanks.

[forestal]

well after much thought and debate...rather than trying to get a bigger tank or tie in more tanks, I am going to upgrade the lighting to T5's and cut my electric bill in half, which is currently quite big here in CT...

I pulled out my sand and am thinking that a mistake, so when the light come in, i will spend some time without rescaping, just taking out the corals on the bottom and puttiing in a good 4-5" of sand and seeding with several sources as i have done before...

I am still having issues with my euroreef skimmer, the sump water height is too high, so less reaction chamber space...only 1 cup over 2 weeks...i know it should be pulling out more, but only an inch more to raise and looking for something to prop up with...
this and lack of sand bed and pseudo-new tank syndrome have led to cyano outbreak in dead spaces-soon to be fixed with more water flow through hydors, but the nutrients are the main issue
since skimming not working, this is another reason to re-add the sand bed to help (no debates i know the issues and have done a nice deep sand bed for 5years, i just got lazy over last year and didnt keep it revitalized )

My calcium levels are now in 320 range with adding weekly calcium chloride and maintaining steady pH and alk, so once i get it where i want will restart the kalk drip i started earlier as an experiment (see my reefspace forthe readings/blog if interested)

[forestal]

ok, here's some pics...any yuck on the back glass is disappearing on its own to be replaced by coralline
I lost 2 of the acro's in teh growth threads from the changes as well as my green plating monti...o well... My stylophora is mostly dead due to proximity of the gorgonian which i spotted too late, but i am hoping some will survive

tank:


Green Caulastra:


Pavona encircling the rock and 2 small growing colonies of Pocillopora:


My purple tang with no more side lesions all healed, just head ones to go


IMAC plate frag with full mouth (tough to get a shot as is a bit far away:


Surviving acro:


Large Turbinaria from frag now 3 years old:

[KimPossible]

Hey Dan, Hope all is well, All your tanks look great. I spent some time on your reef space and frag exchange....great pics good deal that your battle with hair algae is over, was it just on the back wall of your tank or did it take hold on the rock?
How did the addition of sand go?
Take care, I'm sure we'll see you again soon ~