I've Been Thinking!(NEVER A GOOD THING)

[wsantia1]

Go Scott. You are doing a great job. Nice Xenia video and Nemo and Marlin look great.

[PaulineMi]

Impressive Scott. You are a conscientious beginner that's for sure.  Its evident in the way you are approaching the building of this tank and caring for its inhabitants. Great thread you have going here. 

[b125killer]

Thanks everyone, I know I'm a beginner but I had a lot of help along the way. There's still so much to be done with the tank. I still need a better protine skimmer.  And I think i might be getting a par meter.  With the led lights being adjustable it's all guess work on if the lighting is right. I'm kind of letting the corals tell me. That can be expensive if you lose a few.
So far i haven't seen any growth on the corals. I also know that it's a slow process.  But the rock is starting to turn a few shades of purple. It should take upto a year for it to be fully cured. I have also seen copepods on the glass. That's another good sign that things are going in the right way.

[b125killer]

I do have some new pics of the saltwater tank, with some new corals. I do have to say that taking care of discus is a lot more work then the saltwater. I don't do water changes on the saltwater tank as much. but I do keep a closer eye on the water parameters of the saltwater. Things like calcium, alkalinity, salinity, magnesium,and phosphates, are a few things I check for. I think I'm getting this saltwater stuff down.

One of my Christmas presents, it's a Elegance Coral. they can be hard to care for depending on where they were collected. the Indo- Pacific Elegance are all bad. they have been over collected. and divers have to go to deeper depths to get them. the specimens they collect don't last long in captivity. Australian Elegance are much better. there cleaner and live longer. My problem is I don't know what this one is. I guess time will tell.   


Purple bubble anemone. I almost lost this one. I wasn't sure where to put him. He has a foot and can move to different spots if he's not happy. He wasn't attaching to anything and floating around the tank, that's bad on many levels. he has a powerful sting and can kill other corals, or get sucked into the overflows. I found a nice little cave in the rock and pushed him in it. then offered a few pieces of shrimp to let him know this was a good spot to find food. so far he hasn't moved from that spot.     

This is the hole tank. I need to move a few things around. the bubble is to close to The Montipora. he could sting him if he wanted. But I glued the monti to the rock. he's not going to like being ripped off it. but it's better then getting killed.   


There's a few other new things in there but they hide and don't like to come out. There's a skunk shrimp and a coral beauty angelfish.
This is a bad pic of the coral beauty. but he doesn't come out of the rock long enough to get a good pic.

and a bad pic of the skunk shrimp.

[Mugwump]

..very nice set up....great pics.. ...nice job.....

..are you a vodka doser yet?...

[b125killer]

I don't want to does with it because I have a pile of poo for a protein skimmer. my nitrate level isn't detectable and phosphate is low. so I haven't been to worried about it.

[wsantia1]

Looks great Scott. Thanks for keeping us up to date. Those pictures are awesome.

[BillT]

Nice pics Scott.
The reward of a lot of work.

[b125killer]

Thanks guy's, things are comeing along nicely. I'm starting to see more coralline algae on the rocks and everything else. I'm going to slow down on stocking it. There's a few corals in there now that will outgrow this tank. If I don't have the 180 read I'll have to frag them. I'm excited to get the big tank going but the cost of it is holding me back a bit. I need to get so much stuff and nothing is cheap. I'm going to run 2 55g tanks for the sump. That's The plan for now anyways. I also have to get the skimmer that can handle 300g. I found out the hard way that you get what you pay for in skimmers. I got a cheap skimmer on the 40 and I hate it so much. I can hear the skimmer upstairs, and it doesn't work that great. I have to constantly adjust it.