Asylumdown's 275 Tank build

[asylumdown]

Thanks everyone! I realize it's been too long since I updated this thread. Grad school is kicking my butt.

First off, the anemone didn't work out. I sold it, and the clown fish, to someone who was going to do a species only tank. It just moved too often. After the last pics I posted it wandered around to the front of my tank and tried to kill corals worth 4 times what it cost. things are only just now starting to recover.

second, my house is going up for sale this summer, so the future of this tank is very much hanging in the balance. Best case scenario, tank gets sold as with the house as is and it continues it's illustrious life with a new owner. Or, more likely, I'll end up having to sell it's contents and it will become a closet or built in book shelf.

in any case, here's some updated pics. I've been trying to play with different camera apps to get the white balance correct so I'll post some comparisons.

Also, I added a coral beauty angelfish and 9 anthias. The coral beauty was a mistake as some of my favourite corals no longer have any day time polyp extension because it nips at EVERYTHING! Not enough to cause damage, but enough to prevent the polyps from extending ever. I bought 6 disbar anthias which are mostly working out swimmingly (one hasn't eaten in over a month and does nothing but hide, I'm basically just waiting for it to die), but the 3 purple queen anthias that I bought on pure impulse without doing any research were a clear error. I had no idea how fickle they were to get to eat, or how much food they would need until it was too late. They wouldn't eat anything larger than a cyclopeeze for the first few weeks and withered away to practically skeletal. After QT, I started dumping tremendous amounts of food in to the tank to see if anything would work, and FINALLY they're eating entire pieces of Hikari mysis (not PE mysis though, those pieces are too big). We'll see if they make it, they're not putting on weight, but they're not losing any more either. The massive dump of nutrients lead to an explosion of dinos which I had kept at bay via an ULNS. I'm slowly mopping that up with regularly changed high capacity GFO, lots of water changes, and more strategic feedings. I'm noticing an interesting phenomenon of the dino beds (confirmed via microscope) slowly being overtaken by mats of cyano as the dinos die back. I think the dinos trapped enough detritus in/under them for cyano to locally thrive as the dinos die.

Anyway, enough talk, more pics.

Poorly colour corrected FTS from the dining room


Moderately corrected image from the office

(keep in mind the cabinets are white in real life, so gauge how accurate that pic is for yourself)

An awesome pic of Tron, my doliatus rabbit. He's not that vibrant in real life, but those setting made him look like I was on acid










mah frags


Ferdinand!


Lazarus! He's loving the extra food...

[asylumdown]

South side


North side


Close up south


My new anthias


PhotoBomb!


What a difference lighting makes...

[asylumdown]

it took nearly a year, but this walt smith coral has finally started growing (the pink one)


I just picked up this cabbage coral.


Picked up this guy from a tank shut down (the purple table acro), seems to be acclimating nicely

[Delphinus]

"Tron", lol that's awesome. I love doliatus rabbits. There was a time it was near impossible to land this fish in Calgary. Lately I see them more from time to time. "When I was young I had to wait years for a doliatus. And it was uphill both ways. etc. etc. etc."

Things look great overall, very nice!

PS. It's actually "dispar". I've been calling them "disbars" for the longest time and just realized a month ago that it's a p not a b. Ooops.

[lastlight]

things are really taking off. that means you can't shut this thing down ok?

[mseepman]

Tank is looking awesome. That Rabbit the bomb!! Love how your corals have really started to show their growth. Your tank reminds me each day that patience pays off so I dread when you decide to take it down. Hopefully any new owner realizes what they are getting.

[Skimmerking]

looking really good mango. love the SPS in there. the rocks are so clean what the heck no red turf bubble or hair how are you doing this.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by mseepman

Tank is looking awesome. That Rabbit the bomb!! Love how your corals have really started to show their growth. Your tank reminds me each day that patience pays off so I dread when you decide to take it down. Hopefully any new owner realizes what they are getting.

Hopefully they don't have to and I get to keep most of it! It will all come down to timing and logistics. I'm excited about the idea of setting up a new system (can anyone say Mitras?), but I don't want to start from scratch in terms of coral growth. A bunch of those mini-colonies were frags when I got them, and it's taken some of them 8 months to a year to get to where they are now. The one thing you can't buy is time.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by lastlight

things are really taking off. that means you can't shut this thing down ok?

I'm working on it man. The very best case scenario is that the new owners don't want it, and we get to set a possession date that gives us enough time to buy a place where I can set up a new system and transfer stuff over. I probably won't be able to have a system this large in the new place, but at least That would let me save most of the corals.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

"Tron", lol that's awesome. I love doliatus rabbits. There was a time it was near impossible to land this fish in Calgary. Lately I see them more from time to time. "When I was young I had to wait years for a doliatus. And it was uphill both ways. etc. etc. etc."

Things look great overall, very nice!

PS. It's actually "dispar". I've been calling them "disbars" for the longest time and just realized a month ago that it's a p not a b. Ooops.

Yah I love the rabbit. I rarely see him picking at the rocks, but I think he's a big reason why I've never had a recurrence of ANY algae in the display. I still get some hair algae in my overflows that I sometimes have to pull out, but nothing grows where you can see it. They're far more general in the algae they eat than tangs, as in they'll eat any kind of algae (including valonia), where tangs usually prefer one or two kinds. This guy even eats the dinos that grow in my tank. They're way less ich, aggression and problem prone than tangs so I'm happy for him to fill that role.

And Dispar hey... you know that makes perfect sense. I couldn't figure out why they would be called disbar as that would imply something diagnostic in their stripes, and they don't really have any as far as I can tell!