Barney And Lyn's 5Ft Reef Tank (150G(Uk) System)

[ben1987]

that looks like it will eb a stunner of a fish B!

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Couple of ways you can do it. One way is to just put it right next to the wall you want it to grow on with the flow going towards that wall and it will grow onto it. The other is just to frag a bit and superglue it to the glass.

Good old superglue! Cheers!

(Not that I have any corals yet, but good to know just in case!)

Personally I would try the "let it grow on" method first (probably wont take long, just remember that they grow in the direction of the current flow). That way if you change your mind you dont have superglue all over your glass. (though xenia is still a pita to remove).

 

[kj23502]

Nice fishy; fantastic pictures!!

boonies just mean out in the middle of no where...

 

[seffieuk]

Hows it going Barney?

Seffie x

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Good and bad.

About a week ago we got a blue coral goby, a yellow tang and some corals. One of corals though I thought was I kind of colt coral based on the stock list of the shop, turn out it isnt and its a non-photosynthetic one that needs feeding with phyto.

The second downer was that this weekend we came down to find the yellow tang dead Checked water parameters and other then phosphate still being close to 0.02 everything else was ok. He had started off looking ok for the first day but by the second he seemed to have lost half his weight and by the end of the week he wasnt even eating. Not sure what happened, rest of the fish are ok.

The coral goby vanished completely for about 2 days. We where starting to worry that we had lost him but then when I went into the sump I found him swimming around in there. I have the weir covered with egg crate but think he got through a tiny space between the front and side weir comb. He seems no worse for it though and seems happy enough. He does tend to perch up on the back of one of the power heads (all that rock and he picks a powerhead).

Rest of the fish and corals are doing ok. The anthias is looking really cool with a half purple body (going through a punk phase). The fish do seem to be growing really quickly too (not so much in length but all are looking a lot fatter). The spotted mandy is also doing well (so far) after keeping the scooter blenny before I was worried about this one (especially as he very rarely gets to any of the food we put in) but he is looking fatter then when we got him.

I did (for the first time since setting the tank up) get the torch out after lights out to take a look. It is literally crawling with life, I saw all kinds of worms (tons of pods too) and loads and loads of little snails. I have not seen any of these snails in the months we have had the running during the day. Will have to take another look and see if I can ID them (assuming they are safe enough as they have been in there months and no damage has been done). Im moving all my hermits to the sump to clean up in there as well for awhile.

Thats about it, things are just ticking over, corals and fish are growing other then the tang thankfully nothing else has gone wrong (fingers crossed).

 

[seffieuk]

errmm haven't you forgotten something, an update photo maybe, cough

Seffie x

 

[Luketendo]

errmm haven't you forgotten something, an update photo maybe, cough

Seffie x

PICS SEFFIE PICS

 

[ben1987]

errmm haven't you forgotten something, an update photo maybe, cough

Seffie x

beat me to it!

 

[xxBarneyxx]

I really need to update this journal. Basically everything is going well, xenia has kind of overtaken half the tank (the other half has been overtaken by green mushrooms) but it looks good. Still never got around to re-scaping (dont think I ever will now as its all pretty well settled in and I dont want to disturb it).

Fish are all doing fine, still havent managed to catch the coral goby to move to the nano. Mandarin is doing great, anthias is still a he/she and the algae blenny is the fattest fish I have ever seen.

Cyano problems are well over now I got the phosphates sorted. Haven't had any money to spare on the tank for ages so no new additions

 

[ben1987]

It hasnt happened il we see proof

Good to see you lurking aswel B

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Yeah haven't been very active but I'm still here. Normally have the forums open in the background at work to give me something to read when I'm on a boring phone call but I don't really get a lot of chance to post anything.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

I know I haven't updated for awhile. Mainly because there hasn't been much to update.

We have had some issues recently which kind of made me reconsider if I wanted to keep the marine tanks going. Basically all but two of our chromis are gone. We noticed there where two missing about a month ago, they where there one day, no marks, feeding well then the next day just gone. Done water tests and everything was showing up as fine (higher nitrates then I would like but wouldn't be a problem for the fish). Over the next month the same happened with the rest.

I'm suspecting now that it may be because we have reduced the feeding in the tank to help keep the phosphates/nitrates down. Having read up a lot about them I have read in more than one place that if they are not getting enough food they will start to pick each other off, starting with the smallest (which is what happened).

We also lost both our skunk and fire shrimp not sure what happened to them and when combined with the above I was wondering if something had got into the tank (though all the corals and other fish are looking fine, my bubble coral has never looked as good as it does not). Still trying to figure out why, I have been trying to fidn out what the lifespan is on both of these. The fireshrimp I got when I first got into marine which was over 2 years ago (closer to 3) and it was fully grown when I got it. The Skunk I got about 2 years ago and again it was fully grown.

So basically it was all a bit crap, made worse by the fact that there was no obvious problem and that I have wanted to strip down the tank and redo it properly since it was setup. I did consider just selling up and forgetting it but managed to move past it and now I have found some spare cash I can move forward with doing this tank the way I originally intended (it was a rush job before as we where moving house at the time too and it had to be done quick).

Anyway I have now sourced a 50g bowfront tank which I should be picking up within the next week. This will be the temporary home for everything in the 100g while I strip it down, redo the sump plumbing and rescape the rockwork. The 50g will eventually be setup as a hi-tech planted tank as I kind of miss my old one.

I need to get some good bits of plating LR from somewhere (god knows where, nobody seems to have had any for months!)

I'm considering change the lights from T5 to MH or LED's but not made my mind up yet. Might stick to the T5 as they work for what I have and though the tubes cost a load of money in the short term it will give me more money for other equipment and stocking.

I'm also going to get hold of the biggest skimmer I can afford as I feel this is one of the main reasons for our continual phosphate issues.

Anyway that's the plan. All being well we will see a completely remodeled tank within the next two months.

I have no idea what the hell we are going to do when it comes to restocking. We now only have 1 lfs that has marines within a 80 mile radius so might have to wait till spring and get it all online.

 

[seffieuk]

Oh Barney, sounds like you have been having a rotton time - very glad you are going to stick with it though and can't wait to see the photos of the strip-down

Seffie x

 

[ben1987]

Sounds like a plan to me make love tank projects nearly as much as the looking at the tank bit.

id save up for a deltec skimmer if i were you, some right 2nd hand bargains!

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Yeah I was thinking of an MCE 500 or 600 as then I can put my phosphate remover in there as well and get rid of the internal filter I have running for chemical filtration at the moment. I have seen a lot off good reviews on them as well. Was looking at the V2skim 1000 as well but would prefer the deltec if I can get hold of one for the right price.