Blog Comments

I've really not been motivated to post much since I'm waiting for my 400g still. Once it arrives, that will change dramatically - it's part of who I am and what I want to talk about.

The person that bought the backwards 400g from me is setting it on a similarly welded steel stand and will probably begin setting that tank up in August.

I would love to see more people post about their tanks in the meantime, but for some reason it's gotten very quiet over the past few months. Our Twitter feed stays pretty active with pictures, so be sure to check www.twitter.com/reefaddicts when you need a fix.

Welcome back... things are slower on several forums... and it seems we are gaining more hobbyist... Maybe the season, and everyone is just so busy... It is a mystery that I would love to figure out.

Welcome back! I am unfortunately not the right person to ask about a barter section as I was never familiar with that aspect. I am not sure where everyone has been but I assume that life has gotten in the way a lot as it has for what sounds like the both of us. Once again welcome back and hopefully we will all see some new posts and updates from the other members real soon

Agreed, good to know.

Thanks for the heads up

ya i hear ya about all the what ifs... i was really entertaining the multiple tank idea because of the awkward size restraints which kinda preclude me from taking a normal size 6' tank and make a sump. I am trying to get everything inside my stand with inside dimensions of about 66"Lx30"Wx29"T. I could get a 4' tank under there but a 90 is kinda tall for that space and i dont know that a 75 would really let me maximise the set up.... I was thinking about grabbing a couple 40 Breeders at the Petco $1/G sale and linking them together or talking to my local plastics place about making me a sump thats like 60x28x16.

I had considered doing something similar for a sump of my own at one point but all the what-ifs and potential grief caused me just to go with a more custom sump rather than risking all the potential problems of that setup and the potential headaches of figuring it all out.

If you decide multiple tanks is the way you are going to go though then a few things.......the water level will all ultimately level out but you have to really plan out the flow and what you want to do (a typical refugium for instance has low flow for pod growth) so in a daisy chain of 3 tanks for example a refugium would have to be the last tank draining into the middle tank at a reduced flow than the rest of the sump so a standard setup in order from first tank to last would be cleaning tank(skimmer, reactor) return tank (probes, auto top off, can also do calcium reactor through here but if you do auto top off you typically don't want a lot of splashing) refugium.

I personally would consider a custom sump still, I am not sure of the price on one/size you need/design but you don't really want to "cheap out" in this part of a build find what will work best for you and go for it. if you have to save and wait a couple more months for it I know waiting sucks but the wait will be well worth it.

If you will be happy with a chain of tanks and it will work great for your application then by all means do it! I am sure there are others on here that can give you some better help than me and I also know that Marc builds sumps so hopefully he can chime in here...

Perhaps adding all the clowns at once will avoid territorial issues, but I had 4 anemones (two different kinds of BTAs) in the tank and the female was vicious to the other pair, and her mate joined her aggressively. Once I pulled her from the tank, the aggression stopped.

I've seen one tank with a huge anemone and 8 or more Skunk Clowns living in harmony in those tentacles. That was awesome to observe.

Marc I like all these fish. (plus about a million more lol) I would like to get as many of them as I can obviously the tangs are just some of the ones that I really like I understand even in a 350G I won't get more then a few. I appreciate the heads up on the Regal as that is probably one of my more favorite ones. Any insight into why you couldnt keep two pairs of clowns in the tank? My buddy keeps 6 in his 210 and im wondering if its because he has a couple of large sebaes and a large long tentacle anemone in the tank. Maybe more homes less stress/fighting? Your tank only had the RBTA's that were in fairly close proximity right? I dont think I am going to try to keep 3 pairs anymore either I am thinking maybe two pairs a pair of ORA naked clowns and a pair of ORA black percs which are really a. ocellaris.... dont really get that they should be false percs then right??? I dont think the flame angel will make it into the tank and maybe not even the lamarck. I am debating even cutting out most of the cardinals in favor of a larger group of bangai/ kauderns... my wife really likes those ones and she never has anything nice to say about fish...

I'd rather get this one out of the fishroom that is making it so hard to get into the fishroom. I know I'd get a good deal on it, but it's a beast of a tank.

Hey Melev have you considered keeping the 250 up and making it just an anemone angel tank and moving just about everything else back to the 400g....heck or you could move the anemone back to the 400g as well and keep it a fowler with angels, triggers, eels, puffers, and other fish you have been unable to keep with corals wouldn't cost near as much to maintain as the 400g reef tank since you wouldn't need great lighting or a lot of flow like you do for corals, heck you could probably even do a mantis shrimp in there with bigger fish you might could get away with it. i dunno just a thought didn't know if you had ever been interested in that sort of thing?

Is this the list of all the kinds of fish you'd like to have, and want help choosing the best from each category, or did you plan to get pretty much everything on the list unless otherwise indicated?

The blue tang (Hippo/Regal) as well as the Yellow Belly Tang can be aggressive toward some corals, such as zoanthids. My Yellow Bellies also liked to destroy MH bulbs with their splashing and racing around the tank.

Good luck with that many clowns. I hoped to have two different pairs in my 400g, and in the end I had to keep it to two with the others banished to the refugium and the frag tank. I really figured some would be on one side, others on the opposite, but they traveled just to be a pain. I was annoyed, since I wanted both pairs to view from either end of the tank.

You may get lucky with a decent Flame Angel. Mine's been tough on the corals, but the corals that survived seem to be fine with his presence. That being said, I'm thinking all my angels will go in a separate tank when the 400g is set up again.

kaudern's and bangai are the same fish just different nicknames. If the clowns are paired when purchased they will most likely remain that way but if you were to buy 6 juvenile clowns the chances are good they pair up with different morphs (i would actually like to have them paired up like that personally.) If you are wanting to do anemones I would wait on the clowns and any coral until after you have the anemone settled happy and healthy otherwise your clowns might do what mine did (and still do) make love to something other than an anemone (in my case Xenia and zoanthids.) if you do add the clowns in at the same time though seeing as how they have no claimed territory they shouldn't have any territory issues. most people will recommend that you only add anemone to a well established tank which would mean in a perfect scenario you add anemones after about 8 months of having live fish in the tank successfully then after a couple months if the anemones are doing well and are big enough to host clowns you add the clowns and once the anemones have stopped relocating for a few weeks straight you can add coral. not saying that it as to happen that way but livestock is expensive and make sure you run quarantine tanks for all livestock!

on another note the chromis, cardinals, and any other very docile fish that claim no territory would be the first ones I would add to the tank, I added my chromis last in my tank and though they don't seem to actually get hurt lets just say that the chromis don't have time to create a pecking order among-st themselves as the clowns keep them busy.

Hmm good call on the chromis maybe I will just do one big school of blue/green. As far as sps go I'm thinking maybe some so the flame is in question I'm not dead set on it but i think they bring alot of color. The Lamarck is supposed to ignore sps from what I have read about it. The tangs will be added last all at once to try to minimize aggression/ territorial disputes. I hope to buy the clowns as pairs say from ORA is it your experience that bought pairs may disassociate in the presence of other pairs? I plan on using the space in the tank to establish an anemone for each pair hopefully on opposite ends to keep the pairs as separated as possible again to keep territorial disputes down. I'm thinking trying to keep their favorite anemone for each pair although they do share some overlap in choosing hosts. Mandarins will definitely be added once the tank has matured some. The current plan is to buy pods online to jump start the system and let them become established before adding mandarins. I am also contemplating building a feeding station like the one Paul has pics and videos of for his mandarin I like the idea of having a place that I can know if i look there I will stand a good changeover actually seeing them instead of scouring a big tank for a glimpse. I had a question about the kauderns are they the same as banggai cardinals basically? I wrote those down but if they are different fish I will be happy with whichever is easier. The wife hates pajamas they are symmetrical with and obvious color scheme I have to fight to get mandarins cuz she doesnt like all the different colors.

that is a lot of fish! then again it is 350 gallons just be sure not to add them all at once. If you are planning on growing any sps I would recommend skipping the angels all together. Look into your chromis selection as for the most part besides the blue/green the rest of them change to a duller color as they get older. pajama cardinal are pretty good schooling fish. as for the Tangs I would suggest looking at the max sizes of them and known temperament/health reputation. I would recommend if you are going to do all the clowns for sure to add them all at the same time and make sure they are all about the same size....there is a chance that they won't pair with the "like" clown so keep that in mind. If your not able to get a mandarin that has been trained on prepared foods already then I would wait until you get a good pod population to sustain one and until u can get it to eat something prepared I would stick with just the one. Don't be surprised or get disappointed if you get 3 kaudern's cardinal and only 1 survives they are known to have a pretty high mortality rate lately.

I've been watching Tanked too much. When I saw your pool table, I started wondering how you can make the table into an aquarium. LOL

The raised floor idea is a good one, if you can somehow get the idea across to everyone that enters that they will have to step up. That was a problem with my last tank, as you had to step down into the fishroom. I constantly had people drop 5" in surprise, so with the new room I made it a point to pour more concrete so the floor was level.

Big I.T. rooms use a false floor that's about 6" above the structural floor. It's got removable tiles to access wiring below. I was thinking something like that. It would cover the entire room, except under the tank itself. Kind of like a suspended ceiling in reverse.

Phil

Phil that is definitely a solution I'm considering. What do you think about how to get power/plumbing to the raised section just build a chase from the utility closet to the raised platform? My only concern with that is a trip hazard. I guess I could run it along the wall then 90 it straight to the tank to minimize the impact. Also Ive thought about building like a window seat type thing along one of the walls for viewing so maybe I could hide it under that. Something to think about for sure.

How about a raised floor around the tank to run power and plumbing under? That's what they do in large IT rooms.

Phil

As far as lighting goes I want to go Leds. I am debating the canopy because the current canopy is only 8" tall. I have an internal center overflow that has a dry box next to it so i can rum the power cords down through the tank to the stand underneath. Also it is drilled with three holes for a closed loop on the bottom of the tank and i was thinking about plugging them and using power heads but I don't really want anything showing on the tank. So my current train of thought is to make tall stand pipes that stick out of the water like a dry box for extra electrical supply and possibly make a large enough dry box to mount vortechs on the inside of the pipes... the pipes would then be covered in rocks/agrocrete to look like pillars.... not quite sure yet. I've never run a closed loop and power heads just seem to use so much less power. I dunno.