Joe's Wet Dream, A 550 Gallon Work In Progress

[Scooterman]

And the title goes on, Joe's Wet Dream!

That is nice fishes you go there Joe, may you grow them big & strong

 

[brady816]

very nice pictures for sure!!!!!! When will you start moving some of the more hardy corals over????

 

[Jobiwan]

Thanks Guys, but so much for my determination to go slow, who was I kidding anyways??? I decided it would minimize agression to put them in all at once, they had been spread out in 3 different frag tanks, it seems to have worked, 48 hours later and things are pretty harmonious, other than a bit of posturing by the Purple Tang now and then (Gee, who woulda thunk that could happen?) I'm planning on buying a few fish after the Thanksgiving holiday, the frag tanks I freed up will now be quarantine tanks, after a month of quarantine I'll be adding a few more, my plan is to do the all at once thing again after the lights are out, that has worked for me in the past, any suggestions would be appreciated, the monster tank thing is new to me and I'm doing things differently than I ever have before with the 180 gallons and below sized tanks, it's fun being able to get away with things you couldn't even consider in a smaller system. I threw a Ricordea florida polyp in there a day or two before the fish, it is doing fine so far, and I have been adding more snails as I find them in my frag tanks, no obvious mortality there, but I probably wouldn't know if there had been, I can only go by their activity and the numbers I see at any given time.

 

[Jobiwan]

As far as moving corals, gotta get my real lights in place first, Jason and I will meet with the stainless contractor next week, hopefully that will come together in the not too distant future.

 

[brady816]

sounds cool thanks for the updates..

 

[NC2WA]

Joe,

Jealous !!!

I am still holding out for a pair of Golden Butterflies and a Majestic angelfish. Seems like these fish are hard to come by right now. Hopefully after Thanksgiving, things will improve.

Kirk

 

[JPG@CFI]

Joe,

I love the grin on your Naso. I bet he is doing backflips since he was released back to the wild! Keep the pic's coming!

Jason
@ "Pimp My Tank"

 

[Jobiwan]

Feeding them is a real trip, with all the current everything stays suspended until it is consumed, I'm putting a lot less food in the system than I was in the smaller systems, but the fish are eating more, and they are getting a hell of a lot more exercise, the Vlamingi is really pigging out, I'll need a bigger tank in a couple of years, hopefully Adam and Jeff have a few big brothers Jason. I figure this one will make a great fuge, who needs to be married anyways.......

 

[brady816]

who needs to be married anyways.......


:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[NC2WA]

Famous last words...

 

[mmkeeper]

Did you give up on your project? Haven't seen anything new in awhile.

 

[vwmoneypit]

I Think We Are All Addicted To The Forum

 

[mmkeeper]

And the hobby!!!!

 

[NC2WA]

Amen to both comments.

 

[Jobiwan]

Time Keeps Dragging On.....

Haven't quite given up yet, just wanted to keep my mouth shut a few days to see if I totally screwed up by rushing the livestock stocking, looks like I may have avoided crashing my system so far. 4 days after I introduced the first 7 fish I added three more, a pair of GSM Clowns and a Lawnmower Blenny, that was on the 18th, one week later and everything looks good, optimal water parameters etc. The Ricordea polyp I put in place on the 13th looked better than the ones in my frag tanks by the 18th, so I transferred another 13 polyps into the display, one week later all polyps are looking good and have expanded, a little early to claim they are growing, but that is my impression, I've photographed them for comparison purposes, in a few weeks we'll have a better idea. 2 small Xenia polyps hitchhiked in on the rubble I added on the 14th, they appear to be thriving 10 days later. On the 20th I set up one of my Eheim automated feeders, it is set to dispense a very small amount of 1 mm Spectrum pellets at 10 am, 1 pm, 4 pm & 7 pm. I am feeding other varied things (flakes, chopped seafood, frozen krill/plankton/mysis, chaeto from fuge, etc) whenever I think about it, the tank is getting fed 8 to ten times a day, this may sound like a formula for disaster, but the total quantity of food is much less than I was feeding the critters in the holding tanks, virtually all food is consumed within a minute or two, as previously mentioned the flow keeps everything in suspension until it is eaten, I love the small frequent feeding concept, I hope I can continue this while keeping my NO3- & PO4- zeroed out, but we shall see in a few months... Reconfigured the temporary lighting, by hanging the 6' hood a foot off the end of the tank I now have 2 250 HQI's centered over the 2 portholes, rather than at either end, getting a little better central lighting for the live rock. I've set up a timer, lights are going for 16 hours/day at this point, I'll leave it at that until I get the real lights in place. The fuge is on the same cycle as the tank, we'll do reverse daylight once the main lighting is in place. The Chaeto is growing like mad, I just sold 2 quantities on eBay, 1/2 gallon(packed) each, I think I will be able to export 1 of these units per week, I'll know better soon. Pods are reproducing like crazy, bristle worms and mini stars galore. Last weekend I added an additional 150 pounds or so of LR to create an elevated level in the back, it took me a total of 8 hours over three days repeatedly moving 6 or 8 rocks to get it where I wanted it without detracting from the intial layout Eric designed, only another reef keeper can understand that kind of insanity... I'm getting another bloom of algae showing up on the added LR identical to the first round, also getting a bit of other types of algae showing up, I'm planning on adding a few more snails this week. It may be my imagination, but I think some of the coralline is starting to color up, seems early for that though. I spotted the first life coming out on the LR last night, there are about 6 small pink feather dusters that showed up on one of the Kailini rocks. I tried to take photos, I'll go see how they came out now. I've got about 75 photos to go through in hopes of getting a few good ones, I will post those in a couple of hours or so.

 

[Jobiwan]

WARNING: Pictures of Rocks Coming Up!!!

With my sincere apologies to those of sensible mind, the individuals that do not enjoy looking at pictures of rocks, you may want to skip this posting, I have divided these 30ish photos into three rough postings, the first will focus mainly on the fish, the second on the overall rockwork, and the third on my initial Ricordea placement, as they say in Bolivia, "Bon Apetit"
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Here are 6 views of most of the fish in the tank, photos taken this morning. The Lawnmower Blenny disappears pretty much at will, didn't get him in.
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[Jobiwan]

Rockwork (This sounds much more manly than "aquascaping")

Here we have more rock pictures, as you will recall Eric of Varalte Aquatics did my initial rockscaping (see comment in title), here is a schematic I posted several months ago indicating the basic form I wanted, it pretty much came out exactly as I wanted:
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Jason originally suggested the basic double peak with a valley between concept, Eric brought it to life. I wanted to put my own bit into it, so a developed a higher plateau on the back left, so for now I can refer to this as "Eric and my Rockwork", then after a while I will drop the "Eric" and take all the credit for it MWAH HA HA HA:evil:
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In this view from the front the perception is that you are looking at a single mass that extends continuosly from front to back in an upward slope.
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Night View:
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Check out the width of the Naso Tang with his back to you, he's ready to filet.
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This is a quartering view from the left front:
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Now I've got a few photos of the canyon, Eric directed this in the direction of my couch and recliner (where I do some of my most important work) as I consider it prime viewing, check out the small archway at the bottom right just right of the foxface at ground level, that is where the clowns have taken up residence, hope they stay there in plain sight...:
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Here they are in their new home:
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"Night View"
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This is a view of the canyon from the opposite (Left) side, this side will get the least amount of viewing and hence the most neglect...
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This is one of my favorite shots, the Ricordea is in sharp relief in the foreground, perched atop a cliff above a shear drop as you look across the vast expanse of canyon to the softly focused cliff walls on the opposite side, oh baby oh baby...
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I saved the very best for last: This is the very back upper left of the rockwork, henceforth to be known as "Joe's Seamount":
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[Jobiwan]

Ricordea Placement....

Here are a few photos of the ricordea I have placed so far, all are on the front face of the front ridge, there is only one green ricordea located in the center at the top of the ridge, it makes a good point of reference if you are into that sort of anal behavior.. I am into ricordea in a big way, this is actually going to be a Ricordea Tank which happens to have a little SPS in it. In a few years I hope to have a layer of Ric's that will suffocate the live rock, I'm planning on around a dozen SPS spead around and allowed to grow without pruning (I'm lazy, I hate pruning) as much as possible to a somewhat more natural size, that's my goal and my plan at this time anyway, we shall see, my (future) Azfur Angel will probably develop an appetite for Ric's, that would be my luck. Ricordea seem pretty tough in my experience, so I'm hoping that placing them this soon will not turn out to be a mistake. One thing I've got going is the fact that I inadvertently cured my LR for over 4 months, due to my extended timeline, I originally intended to cure it for only a month. My Euro reef skimmer produced right up to the last, but at the end I tested for nitrates just for the heck of it, the water tested 0 ppm. I'm no expert but it seems that my LR may have gotten into denitrifying in a big way, anectdotal though it is I am thinking extended curing time may be a good thing...
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And now, without further ado, more pictures of rocks with little colored thingies on them...
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Midway between the green and the center blue polyp, in that little dark crease there is an orange with blue trim polyp, very unusual I think, but hard to photograph against the LR.. The next photo gives a better view, sorry about the photo quality, hard to find good photographers in this remote area...
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A few random pics...
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.The next two photos are a split view of the front...
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Far right side:
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This is a pic of the Xenia hitch hiker I mentioned, note the horizontal position due to the current, I've always heard Xenia prefers low to mod flow, we shall see, I have a feeling it will detach and move around...
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All for now, your friend and mine, Joe

 

[NC2WA]

Joe,

Looks good.

Are these fish that you had in another tank or did you QT these fish somewhere before you added them to your tank? I plan on getting a red sea blonde naso tang, but will be one of the last fish I add due to tangs being territorial. I guess I am going really really slow; maybe too slow. It appears getting Red Sea fish right now is very hard. Seems like one order every 2-3 months. So I wait (some more) for Golden Butterfly and my Majestic angel.

 

[JPG@CFI]

Joe,

Lets see a pic of that skimmer!!!!!!

Jason