I don’t think your comments are rude at all. I asked for opinions and that’s what I got. I would like to take a moment to go over a few things though. Don't fall asleep.
The flower pot coral is always extended all the way out with all the arms extended, I was trying to photograph Horse shoe crab which hides in the sand during the day and I nudged the flower pot coral with my plastic pointer by mistake. This caused several pods to zip into its body. They are 6-8" normally. That coral was one of the first and has done great for about 3 months now.
All live stock except the clown fish and Red eyed fish were caught in the local waters. The Shrimp is a brown shrimp like you would buy in the store to eat. He has molted twice now in the tank. There are ten or so blenny's in the tank. Two have nice blue colors in them but are rarely seen. The big one is what I always called a Dog fish and eats lots of live food. The Horse shoe crab has been in for about 2 months now. He swims in the open water during feeding then does a back flip and eats food off surface of tank. There are many types of crabs living amongst the rock, the blue crabs seem to grow very fast and I think I got most of them out and returned them to the wild. They came in with the oysters that are in the filter tank. Stone crabs are make up the bulk of the crabs but there are several red crabs and 2 white crabs that I got with the live rock. I feed with mixtures of canned minced clams crab meat and fish, run through the food processor. The clown fish feeds the purple tip anemone by catching food and spitting it into the anemone. The puffer fish was vacationing in the main tank for the photo shoot but normally resides in the filter tank eating little copepods and baby shrimp.
My lighting is provided by two Hamilton 10k 175 watt metal halides, 2 VHO atinics, 2 96 watt 6500k Power compacts. The filter tank/ refuge is lit by 2 6500k 48" fluorescents and 2 actinic NO fluorescents. The refuge is lit 24/7.
I feed the sea horses home cultured brine shrimp raised to about 2 weeks. I plan on growing plankton next to wean away from plankton supplements. I also add frozen store bought brine shrimp when my supplies are low. I use a slow sinking pellet in both tanks for all the bottom feeders.
The main tank has 3 1" drilled holes in bottom. One line goes to a wet dry which I left the bio balls in, One line just dumps into the sump a remnant a of dual wet dry, The third line goes over to the filter tank, A 55 gallon with a partition to allow water to go through several bio balls allowing all the sediment to fall out. It exits through an over flow into the sump. Another over flow was added from the main tank to the filter tank and the current is now very strong in it. The filter has oyster bars and about 24 clams in the mud. Conch's were removed since they were some how digging up the clams and sucking them out of their shell. Any rate there is 6" of muck in filter and many types of grasses.
The main tank sits
atop 6-8" DSB with a Plenum below, Mostly play sand up top and crushed aragonite below, 60 lbs of live sand was used to help cycle tank. The sand bed is thriving with worm’s copepods and others. I have planted manatee grass in the sand and it is doing well.Coraline algae grows all over tank walls. Ammonia is 0, Nitrite and Nitrate is also zero.
I recently began building an air lift pump and ATS it should be done next month. It is powered by a Rotron Spiral blower. This will hopefully allow critters to safely travel between tanks with out getting tore up.
I am very happy with tank. The pictures are dark Due to the photo shop contrast enhancement to clear them up. Here is a pic of the flower pot on a normal day. It is untouched to show lighting. is is a nice neon green color.
