Rogue's 76 gallon half circle...

[Rogue]

Hey guys,

I've had my tank for less than one week, so this thread is really going to be from the start. My first few posts (including some pics and a few questions) can be found here. Feel free to take a look and reply here or there as you see fit.

Long story short - so far so good. The tank is beautiful, and right now contains only live rock, of course. It's been running for 6 days and the temperature has been on the high side. It seems to have leveled off at arounf 85 degrees now, without the glass tops on. I ordered a 1/6 chiller yesterday and will be setting it up next week. Saw my first signs of algae today - and whoa - quite a bit. I think this is a good thing, but what do I know?

I'm going out of town for a week tomorrow (Bahamas bound!), but will post all my specific specs and some more pics when I get back next week.

In the mean time, take a look at the other thread for the first pics... I'm really liking the half circle thing.

[Travis]

Man, that is a sweet looking tank!



You're inspiring me here... what brand is that?

[Travis]

NM figured it out... Oceanic. Cool!

[Woodstock]

Nice piece of furniture!! This will be a fun thread to follow...

Have fun in the Bahamas!!!!!!!!!!

[mps9506]

Nice, I have the big brother to that tank setup as a display at my store, need to go take a pic of it today. Just don't stare at it to close, kinda have to look at it from across the room to keep from getting a migrane from all the distorted images

[Rogue]

It only looks distorted if you are really close - and moving... from any reasonable distance, or even very close up and looking straight on, it's fine.

Just got home from the Bahamas today, and HOLY ALGAE BLOOM, BATMAN!!! Time to get some snails.

The temp seems to have finally leveled off (with the large section of the top open) at around 83-85 degrees. In theory, I'll be getting my chiller tomorrow and should soon be good to go.

The REALLY exciting news is that there is all sorts of stuff in the tank that wasn't there when I left: Some worms, a few cool looking flower thingees (that's their technical name, I think) that retract into their tube when I shine a flashlight on and off them, some small "bugs," and best of all - RANDOM CORAL! Looks like I have a little colony of Xenia blooming! How great is that?

I'll take some more pics soon. Wait til you guys see all this algae!

[Rogue]

Ok, here is the list of my setup, as best I can remember it all:

-Oceanic 76 gallon half circle tank with cherry stand and canopy
-Coralife 36" Aqualight Advanced HQI Metal Halide Lights
-Two Coralife 1W Moon Lights
-Coralife 125 Gallon Protein Skimmer
-Sealife Systems 125 gallon Wet/Dry Filter
-Coralife Turbo-SEA 790P Pump
-400W Heater (as if I'll ever need this)
-Coralife 1/6 HP Aqua Chill Chiller (will be installed next week)

[Rogue]

I ran my first water tests today, and everything looked great. The salinity was a bit low, but I've since fixed that. Everything else was looking good, across the board, with the exception of the water temp (my chiller will be here next week). Still 85+.

Despite the high temp, I purchased 20 turbo snails today, in hopes that they could keep up with the insane amount of algae growing in my tank. The owner of the LFS told me if any die by the time he gets my chiller in, he will replace them at no cost. The chiller was supposed to be there today, but it somehow got "lost" within the store.

Anyhoo... here are some pics I took earlier today. Please note that they are ALREADY dated - that's how fast this algae is growing!

Oh, and the white "rock" (dead coral, I assume) on the right side of the tank is a piece I found in the Bahamas a few days ago. It's completely hollow on the inside and will make a nice hiding place for someone one of these days.

[Woodstock]

Looking good!! For the algae, toss in some phosphate absorbing media in your sump... rowaphos, phosban, polyfilter, etc. and keep you nitrAtes down; doing that will help starve the algae. Keep an eye on the snails when the algae dies back to make sure they don't starve. You can remove a few if needed. Turbos require a lot of algae! When you get the chiller, lower the temp slowly over a few days (not all at once).

[KimPossible]

Cool set up Rogue!
Turbo's will get that hair algae down in no time.

[Rogue]

Here are some new(er) pics.

The first is from last week, when the algae was at it's worst. Crazy, huh?

Got my chiller up and running on Thursday (it's working like a champ), and pulled out a lot of the algae by hand. Also added a phosphate absorbing filter in my sump, and a bunch more critters. I now have:
20 turbo snails
10 emerald crabs
5 "normal" Hermit crabs (red legs)
5 blue banded Hermits
3 Starfish (Sand sifters?)

All seem to be happy so far.

I also added ONE piece of coral, just to see how it would do. It's a soft coral, but I don't know the exact name of it. I've attached two pics of it (one right after I added it and another after it opened not much later), so feel free to fill me in

The final pic in this post is one of those blue banded guys... they are pretty cool.

[Woodstock]

OMG!! That is some crazy hair algae you got there!!!! You need to mow I would siphon out the sand that the hair algae is attached to and remove the rocks and scrub, scrub, scrub~ Did you add a phosphate media yet? Very pretty coral and hermit!

[Rogue]

Originally Posted by Woodstock

OMG!! That is some crazy hair algae you got there!!!! You need to mow I would siphon out the sand that the hair algae is attached to and remove the rocks and scrub, scrub, scrub~ Did you add a phosphate media yet? Very pretty coral and hermit!

Yes, I did (see above post ). 99% of that algae is gone now, but I just wanted to show you guys how bad it was at it's worst. It's under control now, or getting there anyway.

[Woodstock]

I think it's sorta pretty

[KimPossible]

WooooEeeee!!! Yeah! That is quite a bit of hair algae!
Good job getting it down!