Asylumdown's 275 Tank build

[gregzz4]

That's kool
Wish my captive-bred clown would play in my bubble tip, without being eaten mind you

The whole lighting thing .... best of luck with your decision

[kien]

That's a good idea playing with placement. I've been doing the same thing. I have a red planet in 3 different places and all three look different! One is more red one is more pink and one is more green. I also have a bonsai in two different places and one is more blue in its tips while one is more purple. It's kinda cool to observe the differences.

Personally I think your pale/pastel colours are due to your ULNS environment. You don't have a lot of fish in there at all. It depends on your perspective whether or not this is a good or bad thing tho. Many people strive for that pastelly zeoVit look. I think this is why zeoVit has all those other bottles to play with. You strip your tank clean with the zeoLites and pale your corals out, but then bring back some colour (possibly selectively) by dosing the various additives (Coral Vitalizer, pohls xtra, amino acids, etc..). Then there are people like me who would see this as an excuse to add more fish.

[lastlight]

are you gluing your stuff directly to the rock? I also had a few corals in multiple spots but would have done much more of this had I drilled my rock to peg the corals in place.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by lastlight

are you gluing your stuff directly to the rock? I also had a few corals in multiple spots but would have done much more of this had I drilled my rock to peg the corals in place.

At first I was breaking them off their base rocks, then super gluing them to new pieces of marco rock rubble, and then epoxying those rocks in to place, but that was before I was sure if I was going to keep my rockscape. Recently I've just been epoxying things directly to the rock and letting them grow over it, as you can see the epoxy for less time. I am however currently regretting that decision, as my new anemone went walkabout this morning and I've had to break 4, soon to be 5 colonies off the rocks to get them out of it's way. I'm pretty sure it's climbing to the highest point on the current rock, so I'm going to re-work things a bit to make sure that rock is an island, as I'll need to move half the corals in my tank (many of which are fully encrusted on the LR) if it makes it off it's current perch.

[asylumdown]

And speaking of the anemone - I caught the moment that the female figured it out it was home on camera:

Taking a look - when she came over for the first time, the male swam out to give her a little nuzzle. Then she inched in and pushed her forehead against the white bulb at the end of one of the tentacles.


And she's in!


It was a total fluke that my roommate and I happened to be standing right in front of the tank talking about how cute the male was when she came down from her usual corner above the powerhead to take a look. Now they're both in there like pigs in... well, you know.

[lastlight]

great shot the orange and purples look great contrasting. i guess this means they're going to start getting nasty at you when you go near their new home lol.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by kien

Personally I think your pale/pastel colours are due to your ULNS environment. You don't have a lot of fish in there at all. It depends on your perspective whether or not this is a good or bad thing tho. Many people strive for that pastelly zeoVit look. I think this is why zeoVit has all those other bottles to play with. You strip your tank clean with the zeoLites and pale your corals out, but then bring back some colour (possibly selectively) by dosing the various additives (Coral Vitalizer, pohls xtra, amino acids, etc..). Then there are people like me who would see this as an excuse to add more fish.

Yah I've been meaning to get more fish, but I'm pretty sold on the tank transfer method as a QT procedure and man is it ever labour intensive. Also, it turns out there's not many 12 day stretches where I'm in the city continuously, and I already ask too much of my roommates in regards to my tank to be ok with asking them to do a transfer for me or stay on top of ammonia testing. I have been dosing Pohl's Xtra with my doser, and for a while I was dosing B-balance, but I didn't see any difference in coral colours and within a week of dosing B-balance I got my first flush of dinos. I can't say for sure they're connected, but since I stopped dosing B-balance, the dino issue has subsided dramatically. I'm nervous to dose things when I don't really know what they are, and if it can't be automated I'm also too lazy to keep up with it lol.

[kien]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

I'm nervous to dose things when I don't really know what they are, and if it can't be automated I'm also too lazy to keep up with it lol.

You and me both. Lazy reefing FTW! LOL

[asylumdown]

For such a minor change in my aquascape, that was a tremendous amount of work.

I 'cleaved' the rock work on the north side so that the anemone is more on an island now


Kind of hard to tell in that last pic, but the island the nem is on is only touching the rest of the rock work in one place, under and overhang that anemones don't seem to like to climb under. I left everything above the nem free of corals in case it decides to climb while I'm gone. If it does make it to the other bommie of rock, my roommate has promised to move corals out of its way.

I kind of like it, it created this little canyon that I think I'll fill up with zoas or LPS once the nem gets settled.

I'm not placing anything that I pulled off the rocks in the front until I know where things are going to live for good



and yes, yes I know BTA and magnifica anemone in the same tank. The BTA was an impulse purchase and I just haven't had the time to sell it yet. I'm sure it's going to walk all over the place stinging the hell out of stuff while I'm gone next week.

[asylumdown]

and remember kids, don't text and rockscape at the same time:


I got distracted an forgot that I had put these guys up on the lip of the tank. Found them an hour later quite dead. Oops. thankfully not my favourite pieces.