120 gallon journal - picture Feb 27

[kwirky]

so i fragged some of the branches off the leather coral. 10 in total. I'll see how they do in the next week.

Also got some chaeto for the fuge. We'll see how that does. It's in the slow moving area of the fuge.

And I bought some kent turbo calcium to fix my calcium/alkalinity imbalance. littlesilvermax has some calcium chloride on the way, so thankfully it won't be expensive to maintain. I'm in the process of baking baking soda ATM.

Oh, and I got an urchin, and I wish I got more, it's so damned cool

[kwirky]

my calcium is under control now. been dosing to part mix every evening. 30ml each night. my coraline is coming back, and my frogspawn has shown to benefit from it.

I added two sixline wrasses today. very small. quite cute, really, and I think their roudy nature will be ok with the cinamon clowns and the royal gramma already in there (which are at least twice their size, and will be much larger when all are fully grown).

now to solve my coral coloration issues.

[kwirky]

I was tired of not having places to put coral, and being a student, I don't have the $$ to just go out and buy another 80 lbs of liverock. So I built a PVC/eggcrate support. Did it all with stuff I had lieing around. I used every single zap strap in the house. Not a single one left

Surefire way to make 90 lbs of liverock look like 140+
Just need a little more rock to fill out the right side and a bit on the top. that'll be when the semester's over. The great thing is I KNOW there aren't any dead spots piled under all the rock, cuz it's just a big open space

I've got a powerhead pointed at the back (as you can see) to make sure nothing collects behind the rockwork. The overall water flow's better too, this way. Just flows right over all the rocks.

I was even thinking of leaving the little bit of PVC/egg crate open on the right, as it was an extremely convenient place to place all my frags. I don't know of too many people who have their frag rack integrated into their rockwork

BEFORE:


AND AFTER:

[Joe Reefer]

I hate to say it but I like before better than after.

[kwirky]

Originally Posted by Joe Reefer

I hate to say it but I like before better than after.

Yeah the previous one was definately aesthetic, but it JUST didn't quite win it in my own heart...

The previous structure, if you were to compare it to historical landscaping, was like Wrest Park Gardens (england). It was aesthetic, but didn't quite strike my fancy after living with it in the house for a while.

Also, when I first started the tank, I had the idea of going for the "natural" look. Limited species of coral grown in groups. Avoid the "fruitstand" look with 30 different types of corals all scattered about fighting each other for visual space, as well as chemical space . I'm hoping to get more of a NY central park look. It's like the word 'wild' vs. the word 'nature'. I want a wild look.

I looked at it when I was done, and I liked the pile look, but I know it's going to look like a fruit stand if I keep it this way. The idea behind the rack was to allow for tunnels without wasting precious rock as structure. I'm a student, and can't afford to buy loads of liverock just to stack it in the back and never see it again.

Yeah, the previous arrangement looked nice, but I'm shooting for something a little different, and this one's still not quite how i want it.

I want to see like 5 different types of coral, at the most, grown so that they're grouped together, completely filling the rockwork. It's SO hard to do that, I find, too; to not buy another frag just because it would be neat

I'm keeping some of the coral I fragged up, and I'm going to group some of it together. And I'm doing a slight rearrangement this afternoon, while trying not to disturb the coral I moved around already last night.