saltwater newbie attempting a 55 gallon reef

kjfan1

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Dec 31, 2009
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www.djiowa.com
I love salt water tanks, too bad i moved on to freshwater because of time devoted. Good luck with your SW tanks you seem to be moving along swimmingly!
 

Tropicalfishking

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Jan 24, 2009
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Seattle WA
any updates?? I'm guessing that things have grown a lot since the last time you posted...
 

BTB0923

Candiru
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May 2, 2008
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Morrisville, North Carolina
yep, things have definitely grown since I've posted here. I've also added some new corals and fish/invertebrates. I'd be glad to take some pics and post some updates in the next few days.

I'm wondering though, why aren't any of the pics that I attached to the posts in this thread showing up anymore? Its kinda dissapointing to come back here and find that the whole thread is missing all the images that were contributed.
 

Heathd

Fire Eel
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Mar 9, 2010
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BTB0923;4120895; said:
yep, things have definitely grown since I've posted here. I've also added some new corals and fish/invertebrates. I'd be glad to take some pics and post some updates in the next few days.

I'm wondering though, why aren't any of the pics that I attached to the posts in this thread showing up anymore? Its kinda dissapointing to come back here and find that the whole thread is missing all the images that were contributed.
The server crashed a little bit ago and all the attached images are M.I.A
 

Tropicalfishking

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Jan 24, 2009
1,312
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Seattle WA
The server is fixed! Can we see pics of this tank? It's been about 4 months I think...
 

BTB0923

Candiru
MFK Member
May 2, 2008
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Morrisville, North Carolina
Haven't been here in a while so I'll give some updates.

I added a cleaner shrimp a few months back. By far my favorite inhabitant of the tank yet. So tame you could put your fingers in the water and he would swim all the way across the tank to come climb on your hand, very cool. My photography hasn't gotten any better, sorry...






He shed his skin a few times. At one point my trumpet coral got ahold of the molted skin and ate most of it. You can see it in coral's mouth in the bottom pic here...



(please pay no mind to the cyano. I had a pretty bad breakout by not changing my RO system filters soon enough, but I've since been able to rid the tank of it.)

Unfortunately, and to my dismay, he died after only a couple months. I still don't know why. He grew a TON while I had him, probably doubled in size. Seemed super healthy. I just woke up one day and found this...



However, something positive did come out of it. If you look back at the pic above you might notice a brown looking thing attached to the body. When I found him dead there was a fairly decent sized bristle worm munching away at the body. A big enough bristle worm that I was happy to be able to easily remove it from the tank...



 

beex215

Candiru
MFK Member
Mar 31, 2006
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usa
poor shrimp, i hate those sudden unknown deaths. well i cant wait to start my own salt water tank. very soon
 

BTB0923

Candiru
MFK Member
May 2, 2008
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Morrisville, North Carolina
I've also added a few more corals to the tank. I got some red Chinese zoanthids, a green and purple coral of which the name escapes me (kinda looks like an acan), a couple mushrooms, and some green montipora...











This is the one I can't remember the name of, can anyone ID please?...
 

BTB0923

Candiru
MFK Member
May 2, 2008
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Morrisville, North Carolina
I decided to modify my skimmer slightly to reduce noise and splashing. My tank is in my living room, and the skimmer in the sump could be pretty loud at times. My skimmer is the kind that comes with the return tube that sticks straight up out of the water so the water falls down back into the 'fuge. It has some foam type rings that are supposed to slow the water and stop splashing and noise, but they would always slowly fall down and stop working. Anyways, I decided to extend the return pipe and direct the water flow back into the 'fuge directly. It works great...

Before...




Modded...



 
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