Rishu's Really Ridiculous Reef: a 96x20x20 penny tank build

[Sharkbait-huhaha]

Wow. That anemone is gorgeous!

[Piscez]

fantastic corals!!! Count me in for Hammer frags!

[rishu_pepper]

Sounds like there are some initial interested parties on the mutant hammer. Once I get fragging I will post an ad on the buy/sell section.

I'm a sucker for LPS, especially of the euphyllia variety. Coral-wise I think this is the direction we'll go, heavy on LPS and maybe with a smidgen of SPS once things get more settled in.

Thank you Andrew and Peter for the compliments. The RBTA was a real smashing deal, $70 including the RBTA (about 8"-10" across fully expanded), a very nice looking piece of LR that it was attached to, and a maroon clown the owner insisted on selling. We want to go to a different direction with the clowns in this one eventually (maybe orange skunks, black dominos, or black ocellaris) so the maroon is in the holding tank atm, with no interested party it will likely go back to JL for store credit soon.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Haven't looked in on this thread in a while. The new tank looks awesome. Very beautiful & healthy. Great job you two.

Anthony

[rishu_pepper]

Originally Posted by SeaHorse_Fanatic

Haven't looked in on this thread in a while. The new tank looks awesome. Very beautiful & healthy. Great job you two.

Anthony

Thanks for the kind words, Anthony. Haven't seen you in a while! If you are in the area, gimme a shout if you wanna drop by and see the tank.

I completely forgot about updating the thread. It's been up and down these past few months. I battled a bad breakout of cyano for a couple months, but now it's getting under control with the combination of A-Balance and CyanoClean ($$$ combo, but can't argue with results). Unfortunately, a combination of things (July heat wave, unexplained alk drop, cyano, X-files stuff, etc.) had taken quite a few of my prized corals. The last couple months I've probably lost a couple hundred dollar worth of corals, while some others continue to thrive and grow, so who knows what's going on.

For the longest time I hadn't added fish until the last two weeks, where 3 PJ cardinals (easiest fish to accommodate, they just stick to their little area in the back), a male squareback anthias (amazing colours on this guy, I'd like to eventually add a couple more females for it, currently eating well), and a copperband butterfly (a big guy 4"-5" straight from the importer, eating frozen blood worm and frozen mussel, after a week of cave seclusion it is now happily exploring and hunting out all the time, though the smaller yellow tang sometimes chases it around for no reason other than being a jerk). Pictures to follow.

Plans for new fish are inbound. A Marine betta, yellowhead jawfish, and bluethroat trigger(s) are on the wish list at the moment.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

How are those dendro heads doing that you picked up from me at the frag swap? Hope they're doing well for you. I love dendros but nobody local seems to have any available, so may be ordering in some. Need some for my main tank now.

Anthony

[rishu_pepper]

Originally Posted by SeaHorse_Fanatic

How are those dendro heads doing that you picked up from me at the frag swap? Hope they're doing well for you. I love dendros but nobody local seems to have any available, so may be ordering in some. Need some for my main tank now.

Anthony

Since we've been trying to battle cyano, we fed pretty sparingly, especially for corals, so they haven't seen much growth, but hopefully with this cyano problem now all but gone, we'll be able to feed a bit more often.

Dendros are lovely corals, super easy and striking appearance. Always in high demand, as they should be.

[rishu_pepper]

Sadly, the squareback has passed a couple weeks ago. It stopped eating and just withered away. Devastating, because it was such a beautiful fish. Not sure if we want to try one again but not in the next couple months anyway.

We did add a couple of bluethroat triggers about 10 days ago. Initially the pair (male and female, about 3", female slightly bigger) would always be in their hidey holes at the overflow end of the tank. Lately they've been venturing out but as soon as they see human on the side of the tank they dart back to the rocks lol, so we have to feed pellets on the other end, let them float to their end and they will eat happily. Such funny looking fish, hoping they will come out more as they get comfortable. First day in the yellow tang bullied the male a bit and hurt his fins but now they just mind their own business.

[WarDog]

I need to come by and check it out, maybe pick up some hammer frags while I'm there.

P.S. Happy Birthday!