Latest FTS

Well the tank is about 2.5 years old and this is what I've got to show for it. Of course I've only been hardcore into SPS for about 1 year but some of the other corals like that RBTA go back to the first few months of my setup. The clams as well are nearly as old as the tank and were TINY when they were first purchased years ago. My very first coral in the tank was a piece of red monti cap that you see in the upper left. I've fragged it sooo many times as it grows so fast and its still going strong. It used to be 10x that size but I like to keep my colonies looking balanced so I fragged it into tiny lil bits.

Anyways, I'm looking at this and starting to think it looks a lil disorganized and cluttered. Hopefully once the colonies start to fill out, it will look less disjointed and once the tapestry is filled it'll look harmonious and not chaotic. Time will tell :).

Some info about my setup.

I realize I never did a build thread and I kind of regret not documenting all the things that went into putting this tank together. So I'll go ahead and list the equipment I'm using and so forth.

• Lighting - T5 flourescent. 6 total bulbs, 4 are overdriven on an Icecap 660 the remaining 2 are on an advance ballast.
• Bulbs - 2 ATI blue plus, 2 ATI blue plus special, 1 ATI pro color, 1 ATI actinic
• Skimmer - as pictured above, Reef Octopus Extreme 160. Absolutely awesome skimmer and comes with a meshmod or needlewheel.
• Flow - 2 Vortech MP-40w. One on each end on surge mode such that I get a nice lil wave action going on.

The tank itself is acrylic and is 60 x 17.5 x 17.5. I think that equates to around 80+ gallons or so. The overflow is external as I attached an acrylc box to the outside and simply drilled some slits into the back of the acrylic wall with a dremel.

The sump and refugium are both just 4 dollar containers from the container store's bargain section. I have a 150 watt halide on the refugium as well as 2 54 watt T5 lamps. I grow mangroves, cheato , and calurpa. There is a small section of the refugium that is also a "frag tank" of sorts for the time being. I'm going to be adding a new frag tank shortly that will be plumbed into my main system.

Middle of the tank pic.

I try to make each section of the tank a lil different. The mid is my SPS haven as you can see. I can't put a lot of SPS on the sides as the flow from the vortechs strips the flesh down and in the mid left there is a huge RBTA that kills SPS. As such, most of my larger SPS pieces are found in this pic although a few of my alltime favorites are found elsewhere.

The tough aspect of growing a coral garden is that some grow quicker than others and it does look unabalanced when some corals are much smaller than others. As such, trimming and fragging simply for aesthetics is something I do pretty often. My goal for this tank is to maybe one day be featured in RC... wishful thinking I know... Maybe one day it'll be up to par :).

New Coral

This is a Crayola plana from Atlantis. Its absolutely one of my new fav corals. The color you can get from this beast is amazing and my pic is just crappy in comparison to seeing it in person.