jrlafrance's reef tank

[jrlafrance]

OK, long overdue, but I think we've got our tank under control now, and it's starting to look pretty good! After looking at so many of your tanks, and seeing where we were lacking, we realized that we had to take this to heart, and do it right.

In the beginning there was nothing (except a book case against the wall). Then on April 30, we bought our vessel. A 60 gallon monster someone couldn't handle. It came with the following items:

Octopus NW 110 skimmer
Acrylic sump with bio-balls and Rio2100 return pump
2x Rio1700 powerheads
Overflow basket
stock flourescent lighting
about 2" sand across the bottom
stained Pine stand

We thought we were in Heaven, getting all this gear for $200!! Boy were we in for a shock. We knew nothing about aquariums, much less saltwater tanks or even reef tanks!

We took the sand out, and cleaned it, by means of rinsing it in a big bin. Then we put it back in, filled it with salt water. Then we bought some LR at a LFS, rockscaped it, and.....wha-la!
http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/9219/p5010001fs1.jpg
We had a reef tank! Ha ha ha...

After talking to Chris (daChrisdude) at my LFS some, and finding out about this forum, I quickly registered, and started asking questions regarding this and that. Simple questions in my mind, but childish, uneducated questions for most of you. After getting my a** handed to me on a plate, I laid low, read, and read some more. Then when I was done, I read some more did more research. We started getting some better equipment (current equipement in signature). Both of the Rio PH's went out. We replaced those with MJ900's. We replaced the bio-balls with LR. We did this, and changed that, modified that toilet thingy, and now, 2 months later we have this:



Left Side:


Right Side:




We are still a little light on the LR (about 70lbs), so that will be a work in progress. We have also added 15lbs of sand to raise the SB up some. After a failed experiment with a Diamond Goby, I installed a PVC "foundation" into the sand, that the rocks sit on. After the Diamond Goby commited suicide we got a pair of Gold headed Sleeper Gobies, and have had no problems with the rocks collapsing!

Livestock:

True Percula "Mrs. Nemo" (I have a 5 year old!)
Black Percula (LFS guy told us it was a true perc) "Mr. Nemo"
Purple pseudochromis "Purple"
5x Green Chromis (used to be 6, but found 1 in my overflow this morning)
2x Gobies
Coral Beauty "Beauty"
Coral Banded Shrimp "Coral"
Blood Red Fire Shrimp "Red"
Skunk cleaner shrimp "Jacque" (character in Nemo)
Peppermint shrimp "Mint"
Sebae anemone "Mrs.A"
Frogspawn "Mr. Frog" or "Froggie"
Green Bubble tip anemone "Bubbles"
Many zoas
Hammer coral "Hammer"
Pulsing Xenia
Candy cane Polyp
Sun coral "Sun"
Green flourescent mushrooms
Feather Duster
Superman Duane (compliments of Harold)
Pink birdsnest
Hard coral I got from SDGuy (can't think of the name right now)

Misc pictures:
Mr.A (about 1.5 months old):



Mr. Bubbles (purchased from demetre...doing great!):


Froggie:


Xenia:

[jrlafrance]

Feather Duster:


Hammer:


Birdsnest:


Green Mushroom:


Zoas:

[jrlafrance]

Superman (sorry, I can't get very close):


Goby pretending not to be shy:


Blury shot of the True perc and Coral beuaty:


Before shot the first day we had Mr. A:

[Redeye]

lovely tank

[SDguy]

Sweet tank! That anemone is beautiful!

[Big Brother]

wow thats some amazing progress on that H. Crispa.

nice work

[TripleP]

Your looking good there

[swissfish]

ai like

[iwantone]

I wouldn't add any more live rock. I like the way it is. If you want more height use pvc tripods, that way you'll get good flow and not have to have any rock on the back wall. I think a lot of wall aquariums fail because detiritus builds up behind the rocks leaning on the wall. Just a thought....

[DaChrisDude]

Very nice James!! Certainly a lot more filled in than the first time I came by and checked it out!

Tank is looking very good, glad to see things are doing so well. Keep it up!

[rollinghead]

Great tank and outstanding conduct and loyality to the hobby! Brotherman if U would like to come see my 240 gal. I would love to meet U and give U a free frag to make it worth your while! U can PM me at any time with any ?'s (about this hobby ) and I will answer it if I can no problem! Hope to see U soon!

[jrlafrance]

Wow, thanks for the kind words everyone. I realize that we have a very new tank, but its very cool to see it in the state it currently is in. I would like to add a couple of things also.

Rockscape/flow: The lowest tier of rocks is about 1-2" from the back glass, and the tiers above slowly stack to the back glass. We have two power heads, one on each side. The one on the left is up high, and directing the flow to the middle of the front glass. The one on the right is low, and directing the flow behind the rocks. Basically what I'm creating is a circular flow. It's not that basic though. I've got both powerheads connected to a JBJ Ocean Pulse - DUO Wavemaker on timers set at 30 seconds each. Even though the flow is going in one direction, when each pump is turned on, the water that is drawn into the pump creates a flow going in the opposite direction for a couple of seconds. You can see this in the way the Xenia, and the anemones sway in the water. Also, with the powerhead aimed behind the rocks, it eliminates stagnation back there.

Husbandry: During out last re-aquascape, we took the rocks out, toothbrushed them off, did a 50% water change, and siphoned out as much debris as we could from the sand surface. That was one week ago, and the tank was crystal clear after that. Henceforth, when we do WC's we'll blow off the rocks, and siphon out as much debris as possible. In addition to this, we added another layer of filtering. The original overflow had a circular filter surrounding the down pipe. Once I modified it to eliminate the gurgling sounds, that filter was gone. I cut a square piece to fit over that new pipe, with a hole in the top for the air tube to come out of (filter #1). When the water flows to the sump, there is a filter there, but pretty pourous (filter #2). When the water gets through there, we put some egg crate on top of our rocks in the sump, and on top of the egg crate put a finer filter there (filter #3). It has captured tons of fine debris which I was complaining about in a different thread "clicky".

I will add a couple of pics of our sun coral (which my wife reminded me I hadn't included before), tonight.

I would like to throw a couple of special shout-outs to daChrisdude and victortrav for all their support, and sharing of their knowledge in the hobby. I'm gonna miss picking at your brain Chris, hope you decide to stay down here!

[victortrav]

behold what we have here from that first day of posting A+++ james im going to have to take a trip up to see all the fruits of your labor. I am very impressed with what you have going on there keep it up.

[barometer]

Wow James,

You've always said how much of a noob you are (we're at about the same level ) and from these pics I don't see it. You sure do have a great start here. Much further along than I am. This is truly an inspiration to me, AWESOME JOB! Can't wait to watch it mature

[demetre]

Nice! Looks like "Mr. Bubbles" is doing great in there! Looks like it found a spot it likes too, great looking tank!