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.

3 of my favorite fish.

The lineatus wrasse, the purple firefish, and the radiant wrasse are three of my favorite fish in the tank. They each add a lot of color and splash. I especially like the firefish and the radiant as they are always out in the open swimming around. The lineatus being a deep water fish is a lil more reclusive when the midday lights are beating down!

Free frag!

This is a frag I got from the February frag meeting. It was labeled as a pokerstar monti but it turned out to be a superman. No worries here as I actually really like the coloration in this particular specimen.

The coral in the background is another wild superman monti that has too many polyps close together for my taste.

Clear Full Tank Shot

Alex finally came over and took some shots of the tank. It turned out much nicer than it would have on my crappy point and shoot. Unfortunately, something was wrong with my tank when these pics were taken. I'm not sure what it is but my Fiji leather was sullen all day and my clams were closed up. Some of my acros wouldn't extend their polyps either... Clearly something was wrong and you can see it in the pics.

I decided to do a water change and hope for the best. As of tonight the clams have opened again and the Fiji has filled up. I'm not sure what was wrong. The only thing I did was dose some phyto in the morning. Perhaps the phyto was bad? I dunno... just to be safe I'm throwing it out.

Hopefully, I can get Alex to take some more pics when the corals and clams don't look like they're dying!