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

[fishermann]

Boy thats an ass kickin powder blue!!!! I have a little 2 1/2" one and a 2 1/2" powder brown along with some black clowns in my 250 now and all are doing very well. Haven't received the list yet??? Things look to be coming along very well there. John

 

[Jobiwan]

Things are good and getting better.....

The Amazing Randy completed the installation of the Harp Levitator on my system this week, it is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. I can raise over 320 pounds of hood and lifting arms three feet above my tank with literally (no BS, really, honestly, I wouldn't say it if I was lying...) 1 finger, and it operates smooth as silk, no worries about banging $100.00 MH bulbs around. Randy trimmed out the interior with some beautiful black ABS of some sort, and he finished off and weatherproofed a large access door on the exterior of the house, not to mention a few extra goodies in the basement. I'll throw a few photos at ya, then I'll do my next post on the latest fish and aquascaping I've done now that I can climb into my tank for a swim...

Here's two photos of the hood in place, as you can see the lifting arms blend in perfectly, Randy used stainless for all visible components of the Levitator to blend in with my hood and stand. Following are three views of the tank in the raised position, you can see the black plastic trim in back and the black corrugated tubes we used to cover the electrical umbilicals.
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Here are some photos of the shed Randy built to enclose the counterweight. Since I have been greatly concerned that some Reef Frontiers lowlife would come up and steal my 400 pound bucket of chains, Randy was kind enough to put a lock on the door, now I will be able to sleep at night.....
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Here's a photo of the exterior access door, we'll paint the new siding it if it ever stops raining.....
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Here is a pic of the six light switches recently installed next to the tank. Each switch directly controls one of the six dedicated 20 Amp circuits set up for the tank, allowing me to cut off the pumps etc from above if desired. Each of the dedicated circuits has a GFI, the red light on each switch indicates that the remoted GFI is not tripped, the GFI's are located down in the pump area.
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Lastly, here is a pic of my calcium reactor which Eric Dustin got on line for me last Sunday. Those of you who have been following my thread are well aware of the microscopic sump I have below the tank, Eric came up with the great idea of remoting the reactor down in the pump area, way cool...
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[Scooterman]

Like how you label the switches & all

 

[Jobiwan]

I did get as far as buying a P-Touch labeler, some day I'll get up the ambition to take it out of the packaging....

 

[Scooterman]

That did come out very sweet for sure, now that your finished sell the house with the new tank & let's start a new thread:lol::badgrin::lol::badgrin::lol::lol:

 

[Jobiwan]

On the fish front, I've just added a few courtesy of Fishermann, thanks for the gorgeous Powder Blue, Kole and Copperband John, they are doing and looking great, pics to follow. My total number of fish is 50, I'm gonna try to not add any more, but I am considering adding 4 more Flame Angels, a Majestic Foxface and an Achilles Tang. I got three beautiful frags gifted from Colleen and Nathan when they visited from Richland two weeks ago which I've managed not to kill yet, thanks guys, that was very considerate. Now that I've got such great access to my tank I've piddled around moving corals and tweaking the aquascaping, it's getting close to what I think I want, time will tell as things grow out, I've seen a lot of new growth on my SPS up to now, with my reactor going since last Sunday I'm hoping for some rapid growth now. Here's a list of my total fish population now, and a few fish and coral photos....

1 Azfur Angel
1 Coral Beauty Angel
1 Golden Angel
2 Flame Angels
2 Lemonpeel Angels
2 Potters Angels
1 Lawn Mower Blenny
1 Longnose Butterfly
1 Copperband Butterfly
2 Maroon Clownfish
1 Ocellaris Clownfish
2 Yellowtail Damsels
1 Kupang Damsel
1 Black Spot Foxface
1 Yellow Clown Goby
2 Pink/Blue Spot Watchman Gobys
3 Firefish Gobies
4 Geometric Pygmy Hawkfish
1 Naso Tang
1 Vlamingi Tang
1 Purple Tang
2 Yellow Tangs
3 Hepatus Tangs
1 Powder Blue Tang
1 Kole Tang
5 Blue Flasher Wrasses
1 Exquisite Fairy Wrasse
1 Whipfin Fairy Wrasse
1 African Cleaner Wrasse
2 Sixline Wrasses
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[edwing206]

The tank is looking awesome! Love the different mix of fish.

 

[brady816]

wow the tank is looking very very good. Thanks for taking the pictures!!!!!!!!

 

[Jobiwan]

Thanks guys, it's a pleasure to share my slow but steady progress. As far as the mix of fish if I had it to do over I wouldn't have added the flasher & fairy wrasses and the firefish, I thought it would be neat to have a couple of small schools hanging out midwater, but I really don't care for the look, makes the tank a little too busy, but I'm getting used to it, so I'm not ready to throw a lionfish in there yet... Anyone else out there that has an assortment of pygmy angels cohabitating? My first time, an experiment in diffused aggression, it's working out even better than I had anticipated. When the only two were the coral beauty and the golden the Coral Beauty hammered at the golden at every opportunity, now there is virtually none of that, just the occasional mild shoving match. No problems so far regarding coral nipping, knock on wood, but I did have to get my clams out of there....

 

[edwing206]

I actually really like the look of a tank with a lot of fish swimming around. Like David Saxby's tank, he has a ton of fish.

 

[Jobiwan]

There's definitely worse things Luis, I'm obsessing about tweaking it to perfection, an impossible goal of course, so I will always be whining about something. The copperband that John gave me loves the occasional clam, I saw no way to provide him with that with the mob of fish I have trying to out compete him. I came up with the idea of suspending multiple clams, I rubber banded 4 to my plexi nori feeder, it works great, the CB got all the clam he needed, as did all the rest of the critters, large and small. Here's a few crappy pics....
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[Damsel13]

That is a really great looking clam feeder! It reminds me of a bird feeder with many beautiful birds flitting around and feeding. Very cool.

 

[NC2WA]

Wow, talk about a buffet of clams. Neat invention.

 

[veralteaquatics]

Hay that looks like one of those custom Veralte Aquatics algae/clam feeders for sure!!?? Hows the magic frags doing????/

 

[Jobiwan]

It's totally Veralte Aquatics, nice there are a few folks out there that are in the business that actually know what they are doing. The magic frag is hanging in there but looking stressed, to early to tell if I'm gonna keep it alive or not....

 

[salmonslayer]

Great job Jobiwan. Thanks for sharing your fish look nice and healthy.

 

[Jobiwan]

Thanks Tracy, I hope I'm not pampering the fish at the expense of the corals, I feed way too much, time will tell....

 

[salmonslayer]

Your welcome. No prob if you over feed and over skim. Thats my motto. I think thats how you spell it LOL.

 

[veralteaquatics]

For now try less flow and less light. Maybe somewhere in the middle of the tank. Those 4 hondo's are a lot to get use to...Talk at ya soon

Eric

 

[Krish]

Nice shots Joe!! Isn't it just the coolest to see your fish eat!!