Well I am way more of a fish guy and a small coral tank will easily keep me happy. Puffers in the big tank will also keep me very happy.

A much lower electric bill will keep my fiancee happy. Not to mention the savings in salt, additives and ZEO. To be honest though, using cost as an excuse isn't really fair. It's not like I can't afford the tank.
Plus she has never actually complained about the cost...hahahaha.

Its all around just better for us. Not to mention its looking like I will be moving to California next year in summer (fiance and I both have job offers down there....hers is to work on a very high budget film and we can't turn it down) and I don't want a huge reef to take dismantle.

Really in the end though, I think having my friend say he wants me take the Golden Puffer is what did it. I really want him!!!

Might have been a false alarm. :redface:

My fiance came home today and was like 'What??? I thought we had decided the big tank WAS STAYING as the reef!'

Im not sure where we got mixed up but she is pretty much against it being an 'ugly FOWLR' (her words). Apparently she thought we were putting the Golden Puffer in the reef...riiiiiiight.

Anyways, she says absolutely no to a second tank until we buy a house one day.

Oh well...looks like those of you who were kind of disappointed will be relieved :)

I will have to take some new pictures soon of the new aqua/coralscape since the last rock slide. Especially since apparently the tank is staying as is.

Why am I slightly disappointed???? :neutral:

2 words. no pipefish.

LOL...yeah that must be it...

i have a feeling its more like three though:

NO GOLDEN PUFFER


:sad:

I'm still working on it though.

what the reef happened to all that talk about a mantis dude? That was you wasn't it?

Golden puffer?? *Drool* I have got to get my own place!!

Yeah well that tank is her project and she is going ahead with it still and thats why I can't have yet another tank. 3 tanks in our place would be WAY too much.

It was me but i was only asking for her. She is now looking for the tank she wants to use. That tank is going in her closet though.

I know of one that needs a good home ;)

He is in a 120 now and needs way more room. He must be about 8x4" now and growing fast. Not someone from the board here but a very good friend of my brothers.

LOL, glad to see you're keeping the tank. It would be a shame to have to take it down after all the work you've put into it. Even though you seemed pretty excited about that puffer :wink:

Oh I woke up so disappointed this morning.

Maybe not disappointed because I do like how the tank is going (other than more cyano) but you know...I got excited at the chance to get the Golden. He is sooooooooo beautiful.

Win!

YAY! The reef stays! :lol:

Nah, I like to see you aren't tearing it down, but it is your tank and how YOU feel about is what matters, my opinion on the subject is moot! haha.

Are you using Coral Snow? I'd be surprised you have cyano if your using it.. It helped eliminate mine within days of starting it

One day, I will be able to adopt all these puffers!

Still no updated pictures of the aquascape. Not quite done one side of the tank as I have been kind of lazy lately but I have finally gotten around to drilling rocks and making pillars with acrylic rods this time, so no more rock slides I hope!

I have added some corals and removed some. Lots of sps were given away to a friend and I have added lots of new softies and a few LPS. Finally starting to look like a mixed reef.

I also picked up a sweet carpet anemone. Its a bright green Stichodactyla Gigantea. I acclimated it yesterday evening and it it looks OK today. Not great but ok. We'll see how it does. They seem very hit or miss.

Here are the pictures. Its about half the size it was in J&L, so obviously still getting use to the new tank.

This is mostly what happens when I try to take pics of the tank :lol: But this picture actually gives you more of an idea of the nems true color. The next picture is a little dark. I can't figure out my camera!

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...h/IMG_6331.jpg

And one where the fish were finally out of the way. It should be about 6-8" I think. It must have been at least 6" in the shop. Probably only about 4" in these pictures and you can see how closed up it is.

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...h/IMG_6360.jpg

I have the same problem with my tank. Camera comes out, .. sailfin tang is all HELLO!!!

Carpet looks sweet. Good luck!

He LOVES the camera. My fish are all friendly but between him, the Yellow tang and rabbitfish, its hard to take pics of anything in the tank. They see the camera and go nuts.

Yeah its looking ok so far. I like your idea Tony of looking to hit milestones...a day, a week, a month, year. Seems from what I have been reading that if you get to three months, your probably going to be ok. If you get to a year, then they are pretty bulletproof. I am happy that its looking ok after a day now. Hopefully it will expand like it was in the store soon.

The sailfin looks so healthy. I sure wish my fish were more camera friendly, they all seem to hide with the black box of death comes out.

The colour on that carpet anemone looks really good, is it a species that clowns host in? Red/orange clowns would look spectacular in that green anemone.

Can't wait to see the new scape.

Yes clowns will host in it. I believe Maroon clowns are the most natural for the Gigantea anemone but I don't know for sure.

These anemones get very large and its not uncommon for many pairs of clowns to host in the same anemone. I haven't seen my clowns go near it but they rarely leave their bubbletip anemone and this new on is on the other side of the tank. I doubt they will ever find it.

I was tempted to move the bubbletip from them to see if they would go find the carpet but feel thats kind of mean. I am also tempted to try another pair of clowns (black) in the tank but that could go terribly wrong if my current clowns do see the new ones and get territorial. I may try a black pair eventually for the carpet if I have the guts to try it but for now I am going to just focus on keeping the nem happy.

Oh and yeah you get an idea there of how thick that Sailfin is!

I feed 4 of those 4"x8" sheets of nori a day plus a fresh seafood mix, so they all eat a lot. I will try to get a good picture of my rabbitfish...he is THICK.

4 sheets a day? :eek: Wow, he must be pretty happy!! :lol:

Interestingly, S. gigantea is one of two species that naturally hosts both percula and ocellaris clowns. The other is H. magnifica. The other species that host those clowns are a case of "only one or the other." The natural symbionts apparently are A. akindynos, A. bicinctus, A. clarkii, A. ocellaris, A. percula, A. perideraion, A. rubrocinctus.

Well 4 sheets a day for all the fish to share ;) But he must eat a good two of them to himself I would guess. Actually my feeding is like this--if I see an empty nori clip, it is refilled. They always have food at all times when I am home (and I work from home). Most of the time that works out to 4 sheets a day of the 4"x8" stuff or about 6-7 of the smaller Two Little Fishies stuff. Then they all get a blended mix of fresh seafoods each day. My tusk has been eating about a whole Tiger prawn to himself each day as well.

A lot of food goes into my tank!

Thanks for clearing up the hosting question. I wonder if my clowns will end up finding the Gigantea and choose it over the Bubbletip? I have a feeling they are attached to their bubbletip though.

Day 2 and the anemone looks much happier today.

Somehow in the middle of the night or this morning I guess my clowns found it too! I got home last night around 2:30am and they were in their bubbletip and when I woke up this morning at 8am, they were in the carpet :razz:

I don't blame them! I would choose the carpet over the Bubbletip too!

Moving!
 

Well found out I am moving at the end of the year or early next year. Not a huge surprise but still kind of unexpected to find out today (it's Monday morning already where the job is).

Very much mixed emotions about this! I am thrilled to have gotten the job I really wanted but its a long way from home and I will have to give up the tank :(

Not sure what to do at this point. I could be moving anytime between September and January. More likely later than sooner but it really all depends on work permits and whatnot.

Oh the job is in Singapore. So I will be joining my father on that side of the world. I guess our planned Bali trip now becomes more of a permanent vacation :D The faincee is THRILLED. I am still not so sure how I feel about it though!

Anyways, have to get the tank sorted out eventually. I have some time but I think the sooner it finds a new home the better. I don't want to be dealing with this last minute.

The plan is to find someone with experience that wants to upgrade and take some of the fish along with the tank. Hopefully someone will take the tangs with the tank! I have all summer to figure it out but if anyone is intersted, feel free to PM me to talk about it.

If the tank does go sooner than later, I will set up a smaller tank to have around until I go. I can't possibly go tankless!:neutral:

Had three PM's asking about what the job is, so figure I will post here. Its a visual development job for the new George Lucas studio in Singapore. So basically I will be drawing a heck of a lot! The only other visual development I have done was for a film called 'Ice Age 2', so this is pretty new to me. I usually animate on these projects, so this time I will be designing what the animators animate. Well actually I should be doing more environments than character design. Not 100% sure yet. They just called me tonight (their Monday morning) to confirm.

We have been going back and forth for about 4 months now though, so this is not sudden. Just unexpected. They really need some 'westerners' over there for the project though. It's a one year thing but they expect lots of work for many years to come, so it may end up being more permanent.

Should be great to set up a tank there I guess. I have seen the shops and they are crazy nice for corals. I guess the advantage is that nothing is really shipped more than a few hours. In fact the reefs around Singapore are decent, especially for stuff like Gigantea Carpet anemones like the one I just bought :lol:. They are all over the coastal shallow waters.

Congrats on the new job , hope all works out well for you.

Sounds like a great opportunity Justin! Too bad about the tank though, since you just spent so much effort setting it up. But think of what you can do in Singapore. Maybe you can even go and catch your own livestock!

Congrats on the new job , hope all works out well for you.

We will miss you and your ongoing participation on Canreef.

Tom R

Wow! Congrats on the job, it sounds fantastic!! :biggrin:

Thanks everyone!

I will still be around Canreef for sure. I am addicted to this place :D

If anyone is interested here is an article about the studio from 2004 when they announced it was being developed. I don't know how long the studio has been going now but it was just opened up last year some time:

http://www.dexigner.com/digital/news-g2318.html

I LOVED Ice Age 2!!

Congrats on the job, cruddy deal with the tank though. But like it's already been said, singapore will be RAD to setup a tank in. When I visited there there were fish I had only dreamed of for sale...

Wow... That job sounds amazing Justin! Congrats on it, definitely going to be one hell of a life experience. :mrgreen:

Congrats Justin on the new job. Sounds like a pretty cool experience. Keep in touch eh?

sounds like you got a really cool job mang!

Yeah it should be...it's a big change! Year round heat. I think the 'coolest' my dad says its been in the past year was around 21 and it was one of the coldest days on record! I believe the coldest day ever recorded there was 20.6

Of course. I am still here until end of the year and then I will be setting up a new tank there and will start a build thread again.

Yeah I am pretty happy with it. Not sure what to expect really. I am just stoked to get to live over there for a bit.

I am still in Canada for about 5 months it looks like and I want to try to negotiate staying here until the New Year if possible. Sounds like it will be too! So I have set up my 34G Solana all in one cube.

Most everything I was not keeping went this weekend and the tank will be gone next Saturday. The sale went very quick and easy. Not even a single person tried to get a lower price than what I had posted, so I was very happy!

When I move, my younger brother will be renting or staying here. He will take care of the tank for me.

Basically I built the stand and set up the Solana in one day. Moved the livestock over the next and I am happy to say that many of the SPS that were not looking so great anymore in the 200 now look much better again. Others actually browned a little after the move but Im sure will be fine in a few weeks.

It's a 34G tank that came with a skimmer but I chose not to use it. For lighting I went with a Lumenmax 3 pendant, Galaxy 250 watt HQI ballast and Phoenix 14K bulb. Using my JBJ ATO and Aquacontroller from the 200. Pacific Coast 1/13 chiller. For now a modded K3 for flow but that will be switched for a Vortech MP10 soon as I can get my hands on one. For fish it's just my two clowns and a Fang Blenny. No more will go in there. Of course the Carpet anemone too. It's doing very well after the move.

Heres the tank/stand:

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...h/IMG_6487.jpg

In relation to the 200:

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...h/IMG_6489.jpg

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...h/IMG_6502.jpg

Looks awesome dude! Clowns look very happy.. :mrgreen:

Looks great Justin.
Everything made it home OK the zoes are about half open and the cap has a few dead spots but the polyps are all out so it should recover nicely.
I had to do a water change just to acclimatise that beast.
thanks again for the great deals. I will try to post some pictures later.

Good to hear Rob. I am glad it made it home ok! It barely even fit in that bucket.

everything is looking good, how is that anemone doing and the corals from my tank, I think i saw one gorgonian ;).
Thanks, Super7