BReefed's 90 gallon set up

[BReefed]

Sold my 72 gallon fresh water tank today and my 6 T-5 TEK light. Tomorrow I pick up my new 90 gallon saltwater aquarium and plop it down right where the old 72 gallon bowfront was.

Whoo! Been waiting for this for a while.

I'm strongly hoping that this big established tank will be kind to a new reef-keeper like me. I figure if nothing else things should be more stable than my 14 G nano.

Will post pictures after the move.

The tank's former owner had a number of fish that will be traveling with me also including: 1 lawnmower blenny, 1 blue tang, 1 yellow tang, 1 bangai cardinal, 1 cleaner wrasse, 1 engineer goby, a few nems, and a white furred marshall islands hitchiker crab (which I figured would have to go, yet seems to have a very good reputation across the internet).

I'm a bit concerned about keeping a blue tang in a 4' tank, even if it is tall. He's only about 5 inches long right now, but I know he'll get bigger. Especially when I'm not planning on upgrading tank size again over the next two years.

Here's to a new adventure and good luck with moving everything safely and carefully tomorrow!

 

[BReefed]

Moved in... mostly.

Have to work at 7:00 am tomorrow, and the water is still not clear enough that I feel comfortable moving the fish out of the trash can they are in right now.

One rock in there was an obsene 40 or so pounds. I would normally have used it as a base but it has a beautiful rose bubble anemone on it. Put it in second to last, but when I went to get it out of the big trashcan that all the corals and fish are in I caused another 20 pound piece of rock to collapse in the vacinity of the blue and yellow tang. I was sure I'd killed them both, but the yellow tang surfaced after a moment. His coloration was so off due to being upset that it looked like I had score a massive gash in his side. I was relieved when it went from dark brown to white and yellow. However, the blue tang was missing.

I panicked, how does the biggest fish of the lot go missing? Especially in a bucket with only one tiny rock left. I figured he'd rode out in the big rock, yet somehow he'd wedged himself under a rock so small I didn't think it could hide his whole body.

Bad news, the lawnmower blenny is still missing.

Can't see very much in there yet, not quite sure if it is safe to add fish yet.

 

[mcdonaldjosh7]

Hope you find the Blenny!

Either way, this is starting to look like a tank man. You got all your rock and sand covered?

I would personally wait a bit on the fish...till it clears up...shouldn't take more then a few hours.

 

[BReefed]

Fortunately the blenny made an appearance a day or so after. That means everyone survived the move including the marshall islands hitchhiker crab, very large hermit hanging out in a turbo shell, and fire shrimp.

This is a terrible and quick picture but this is about what it looks like now:

The cleaner wrasse in particular is awesome. It eats EVERYTHING. Mysis, purple seaweed, any dead skin on my hands, it even tried to eat bloodworms which were too large for it. Nice to not have it be finicky post tank change.

Only points of concern yet are the rose bubbles continued wanderings and slime trail, the untrustworthy fuzzy crab chasing the wrasse out of his hole, and an animal that is either the ugliest tan polyp I have ever seen, or an aiptasia.

 

[BReefed]

Busy, busy, busy on this guy. Think I've been averaging a couple hours of maintenence per night on this guy so far. What I was concerned were aiptasia were definitely aiptasia. So much for the rock being aiptasia free! Fried a half-dozen of the little buggers so far, hopefully they won't make a come back.

Lost most of the tunnels in my initial rock work to a collapse, fortunately things seem to have settled and there were no major injuries. Oddly enough, the collapse did expose about 20 large, not particularly attractive palys which I didn't know where there. All but one have since recovered.

I did acquire a couple of frags from some breaking down sales. Perhaps my favorite of which being an ORA Green Cat's Paw who's original owner never could get it to grow. The color on it is just beautiful under 20k's and it is already quite bushy despite having to be moved after the rose bubble tried to trample it.

Speaking of the nems, fortunately both of them have decided to chill out and stop pacing. I still haven't been able to identify the second anemone who's original owner refered to it as a short-tentacled anemone. I think it may be a rock flower anemone and it doesn't seem to care for a whole lot of light. Would love anyone's help IDing it, it is the one on the bottom of the attached picture.

Finally, I added Herefishyfishy's bangai cardinal a while earlier, and it seems to have paired off swimmingly with mine. The two are practically inseperable.

The only tragic bit of news is that I did lose my first saltwater fish. The ocelarris I inherited with the tank jumped in the middle of the night. She'd been going to sleep in a ritteri for a couple of years now, so perhaps with the stress of the move and the loss of her former home something startled her and she fled right out of the aquarium. I went out and bought a screen kit, so I'll get started on working to build a guard against future fish suicide. Hopefully the metal on the window screen won't rust too badly from the salty evaporation.

Not quite getting the hang of getting good pictures under those 20k lights yet. Everything is looking very washed out except yellows, reds, and oranges.

 

[BReefed]

Things have started to recover nicely from when my hose came loose from my chiller and dumped 40 gallons of water on the floor. Sadly, water receded to all the way below that bridge in the last picture and caused me to lose my first corals. My green montipora shelf was all the way out of the water when I came home, and bleached out over the next couple days. Little was left of my yumas that were on the bridge other than little brown bubbles.


Amazingly, somehow the mushrooms which were growing in the area that the clownfish was in front of in my last tank picture retreated into the rock and survived. They emerged a day later.


I only started with one mushroom that came from the tanks original owner:

Now the colony has grown to this:

To celebrate things turning the corner and starting to look healthy again, I decided to go visit Rob over at Red C, he helped me find a couple of really nice frags.


I also ended up picking up a couple of Koi Reef Hornet's which are quite beautiful:

My favorites are still my LPS however, which is most of the focus of the tank:

Sadly however, it looks like the thing I am trying hardest to display is fan worms!

Here's an updated full shot of the system:

 

[Peppie]

Very nice. You have been working hard at it. I would not use metal screen for the top. I am sure you can find a 1/4'' mesh in a plastic of some kind.
You are right about the size of the P Tang. IMO he will need a larger home in the future. He needs more room to stretch his fins. IMO

 

[BReefed]

Yeah, I went against that screen and ended up installing one made out of a rubbery material instead. The company I work at had bought it to line fishing boat cabinets and cupboards and it was put together in a nice tight grid. It might not stop a determined firefish, but just about anything else would get bounced back into the tank, hopefully avoiding the overflow. Plus the other benefit is that it allowed me to tied a few blue leds into the screen which makes for a great night viewing experience. I love the colors that come out of things at night.

If the blue gets any bigger then he's going to have to go. The yellow has lived in here for a long time I hear, and is probably done growing. Originally I was planning on getting a kole eye tang only until I decided to buy someone else's set up. I've read that one is pretty similar in size and behavior to the yellow, so I'm happy with the yellow tang taking his place.

 

[BReefed]

My completely non reef safe crab came out for a visit the other day.

Still haven't caught it misbehaving yet, but it's probably a bit of a time bomb. I've read about a few other reefers that have hung on to these. Worst reports I hear about them is that they tend to have a taste for escargot.

Since my clean up crew consists of a couple score of home grown stomatellas it is difficult to verify whether or not this has happened yet in my tank. But so far I haven't found a bunch of little half-shelled stomatella remenants. Still, I'm sure he'd be happier in a species tank if anyone is majorly curious about him.

Best part that I've yet to mention: He has bright red eyes. They only look pinkish in this picture because it was taken with flash.

 

[Chichas01]

Haaaarrrrr!!!!! Off to the briney deep of the sump with ya matey!

 

[Red C Aquarium]

That is one hairy crab!!

 

[BReefed]

Yeah, he's bigger than my lobos and brains too. Actually come to think of it, he's bigger than all of my fish except my tangs.

You sure Red C doesn't need a new mascot Rob? He'd look great in one of those little corner tanks ;p.

 

[MGDMIRAGE]

Wait what? how big is that crab? He actually looks pretty awesome, should hookup a little 10 gallon next to the 90 and plumb it into the sump and display that guy hehe. Your tank looks great btw.

 

[BReefed]

He's uhh... about as big as my fist. Maybe 5" across?

Unfortunately, he's gotten sick of me shining a flashlight on him and has retreated to a new home deeper in the tank. That means he's probably punched his ticket to the sump next time I see him since I can't watch him there. He used to live right up front so I always kept an eye on him.

Oh, and Rob if you are still reading this, this is the picture I was talking about:

 

[Peppie]

That is one cool looking crab. I too would give him a home of his own. Maybe a small 15gal or so plumbed right into the sump.

 

[TJL]

Wow that crab is so cool, and you haven't had any issues with him yet makes it even better. What do you notice him eating, leftover foods or algaes?

Todd

 

[MGDMIRAGE]

That is one cool looking crab. I too would give him a home of his own. Maybe a small 15gal or so plumbed right into the sump.

Heck ya! one of the coolest nuisance crabs I've ever saw! Wish i were on Westside of state i would come take him and put him in his own tank, he is really cool looking.

 

[BReefed]

To be perfectly honest, I haven't noticed him eating anything. Like I said the worst report I've heard on them is that they have a taste for escargot. If it ate fan worms or snails in my tank it would take me a long time to notice unless I caught him in the act. All of my snails are stomatella aside from a few collonistas, both of which reproduce in my tank. They also both have tiny shells that it would be easy for me to miss. I've tried hand feeding him before and he will grab things with his legs, but always ends up dropping them leaving me to clean up the food.

I've only seen it behave aggressively once. It got a bit irritated when my cleaner wrasse came into its hole in the rock and tried to clean it. The crab chased him out after getting pecked a couple of times. No more violent than my lawnmower when irritated.

Wow that crab is so cool, and you haven't had any issues with him yet makes it even better. What do you notice him eating, leftover foods or algaes?

Todd

 

[BReefed]

Heck ya! one of the coolest nuisance crabs I've ever saw! Wish i were on Westside of state i would come take him and put him in his own tank, he is really cool looking.

Yeah, I know. I actually really like having him in there, but I'd be very upset to wake up and see him carving into my brain coral or my lobo. He's probably better off in a species tank or a FOWLR without triggers or small, slow fish.

 

[BReefed]

You know, I haven't updated this forever and I've been crazy busy. I finally got a chance to sort through my pictures a bit so I thought I'd post an update here.

Full tank:

My Mandarin cruising the mushrooms looking for pods:

My Paired Bangaii:

This is actually from my nano, but I figured I'd toss it in here:

The attached picture is of my harlequin tusk. It has to be the tiniest harlequin I've ever seen. It has a voracious appetite however, and is already building up bulk.