Shrimpchips's 100g (Live!)

[lastlight]

Originally Posted by shrimpchips

Thanks Brett. I can finally continue now that you approve

You lippy sumbeatch Where's our live video feed of the water going in? I envy you guys getting new tanks wet. Mine's ancient now (I'm starting to grow coraline). Not sure what to do besides live vicariously thru you guys!

[shrimpchips]

Thanks to Brett's blessing, it's finally beginning. I filled it up, mixed up 130 gallons of salt water, and then tonight I plopped in my LR. Didn't take any pictures of the process, but I did anchor two of the rocks using a 3/4" masonry bit to drill through rock and 5/8" acrylic rod and just stacked things so I can remove them easily later if need be.

My inspiration was a reef bommie or island - the aquascape essentially looks like a big boulder where I'll try to arrange SPS and LPS colonies in an artful yet natural fashion.

I arranged all the rock (10 fairly big pieces, around 60 lbs), and added 2 bags (80lbs) of Caribsea Reef floor grade sand, which looks really nice. The bigger size will hopefully keep it down a bit better than oolithic sand.



Currently running a crap load of carbon (any residual chemicals in the water) and a phosban reactor stuffed with filter floss (for the dust). After it clears up, I'll keep the lights off for a while and run GFO to reduce and phosphates and keep the lights off. Waiting for the fog to clear....

[shrimpchips]

Front:


From the kitchen (left):


From the couch (right):

[Nebthet]

Woo Hoo!!!! Wet Water.. lol.

I really like the looks of this scape. I can't wait to see what it looks like when you trasfer your other tank over.
I see lots of room for acan and chalices, and lots of rockwork for your sps. Very nice. I am jealous.

[lorenz0]

awesome rock work. are you keeping it this way?

[shrimpchips]

Thanks Nebthet! I might keep a few things on the sand, but I've never been a fan of the cluttured sand look, so I'll keep it mostly on the rock. I've never had any acans (never really caught my eye), but I've seen some really crazy ones come into the local stores lately so I might get a colony or two for the edges of the rockwork. As for chalices? The only one I like is the watermelon chalice, so I might get a piece, but more likely than not. SPS all the way!

Yup, this is the arrangement I'll be keeping. Once I got something I liked, I just filled the sand around it.

[shrimpchips]

Aaaaaaaand what everyone's been waiting for....crappy pics!

Here's the awesome ricordea colony I picked up at BA last week - there's three distinct morphs on it:


Frags and colonies that made the transfer are looking well.
Duncan coral:


Montipora undata:


Montipora setosa:


The first pic is my ORA Red Planet frag under 2x24w T5HO:


Here's another in the tank (on the sandbed):

It's actually much more intense, but I'm having a hard time with the white balance on it.

I picked up two colonies at NAFB, this is one of them:


The other is an aqua/blue thich staghorn acro. Hopefully it grows as thick as the original branches it's growing out from.

Also, in QT right now I have three fish from Menagerie - a small sixline wrasse that I'll attempt to pair with my established sixline, a twinspot hogfish, and a beautiful purple tang.

Twinspot hogfish:




The purple tang came with some damage to a first spine, and a cause of HLLE starting up, but after a week it cleared up completely!


Sorry for the dark fish pics - I didn't change the WB.

No FTS yet - nothing's been arranged yet, so no FTS