abcha0s' 300G Ultimate Reef

[MustangMX]

Hey your tank looks amazing, hows everything going in it now?

[abcha0s]

Hi Mustang / All

The tank has been ticking along. To that end, I am very grateful for all of the work I put into automation. Maintenance consists of little more than cleaning the skimmers (5 minutes/Week) and occasionally cleaning the glass (5 minutes).

I have to say that after several years of constant building, tweaking, upgrading, adding, fixing, tinkering and generally obsessing over the tank, it's very nice to just sit back and just look at it - without feeling compelled to change something because it isn't absolutely perfect.

I suffered a complete loss of all my corals which really left me discouraged. I can't explain what happened. My best guess is leaching from my 200G saltwater storage resevior. I plan to get rid of this in favor of a smaller resevoir, and hope that the problem goes away. I will eventually figure out what went wrong and start over, but rather than going crazy over it, I am taking my time. I finally learned how to have patience.

The good news is that my fish look spectacular. I have a great collection of fish and they are all thriving in the tank (go figure). I lost one goby and a shrimp, but other than that all of the fish are doing great.

At the end of the day, I still love my tank and I still love this hobby.

[lastlight]

Glad to hear you're still in it Brad. I knew of your issues but once again I'm sorry ya had them. I think posting some fish pics (and then all of us telling you how rad they are) is in order...

[kien]

happy to see you're still with us Brad. I would settle for some fish pics.

[Chin_Lee]

I love the look of your tank. Its interesting you had a complete loss of your corals. I experienced the same thing when I upgraded my 165 to 300g back in 2007. It took months of constant deteoration before they all kicked the bucket. I don't know what it is but many people (after I experienced mine) also went through the same thing when they upgrade. I thought the big change and addition of new saltwater would have been like a refreshing water change but several months into it, everything just started to die. Never really figured out why.

I saw the pics of the anthias and with my observations of my own anthias, I've come to the belief that these fishes school only for self-preservation...... hoping predators will eat "somebody else closer to me but not me". Hence the schoolings as nightime or lower lights approach. But in the daytime, its open feeding and a free for all buffet.

[molotov]

Hey Brad,

Just wondering if you can give us an update on this? I noticed all your pictures are gone?

[abcha0s]

Originally Posted by molotov

Hey Brad,

Just wondering if you can give us an update on this? I noticed all your pictures are gone?

I am currently in the process of trying to get my tank back on track after a year of neglect. I lost all of the coral mid 2011. Most of the fish have survived. Things are looking up, but I have a little ways to go. Most importantly, I am having fun with it again.

The pictures all seemed to have disappeared from my server? I'm searching through the backups now, but I'd say there is only a limited likelyhood of success. I will stay optimistic.

- Brad

[molotov]

You host your own pictures? Are you running a Windows box with IIS? or Linux with Apache?