40 gallon Ocean Image Signature Series

[Anonymous]

did you get your deltec yet? I would get one now. my buddy has one on his 36g bow. holy sheesh! this thing rocks. it makes the aquaC seem like a prism or seaclone....

your money will not be wasted.... good to see you back around too.

Good to be back. Four years without a tank was too long.

Nope, haven't gotten the deltec yet. Still meaning to at some point, but the cash I'd earmarked for it ended up going for the Vortech instead. So right now I'm thinking of the deltec as a down-the-road upgrade.

--

General update stuff....

About three weeks ago I started seeing some pretty significant amounts of hair algae sprouting on two rocks in the tank, even with no detectable phosphates in the tank. I picked up a Kent Nautilus reactor and ran it with phosban for two days right around the time I added the snails and between the media and the snails managed to eliminate it all, not a speck of it left in the tank. Getting a very light dusting of diatoms on the glass now, but no nuisance algae.

The problem I've been having with fine particulates in the water column persists. I've tried everything I can think of... canister filter with micron cartridge, quickfilter-equipped powerhead running continuously, even adding a chemical flocculent to clump the particles. None of it's helped. What I'm planning next is to let the tank run with minimal circulation for a few days to allow as much as possible of it to settle, then siphon out every last speck I can manage.

On a better news front, the marshall island rock from PA is finally starting to develop nicely. Seeing coralline start to cover it, as well as a (very few) sponges, hydroids, fanworms and forams turning up.

 

[bleedingthought]

Lets see some updated pictures, then!

 

[Anonymous]

I'll see what I can snap off this weekend. Isn't a lot to look at though - just rock and the threadfins.

 

[Anonymous]

Going to hold off on pics for a week. This weekend I decided to try the brute force approach to handling the fine particulates... I picked up the largest aquaclear power filter they make (the 110), stuffed it full to bursting with filter floss, and I'm just letting it run.

A day later it's made a significant, visible difference. I'm hopeful that within a few days I'll have this licked.

 

[phisquare]

[deleted]

 

[bleedingthought]

Agreed!

 

[Anonymous]

Heh. I'll try this weekend. It's been a busy week... lots of overtime at work, girlfriend just moved in to my place, and a few other things going as well.

A fair amount going on at the moment, tank wise, as well. I'm going to be performing a few slight re-arrangements of the rock in order to accomodate adding a spraybar to the bottom back of the tank. The rock is still shedding massive amounts, so pushing it all to the front for easy siphoning will simplify my maintenance chores a good deal. I ordered the Pentair CustomFlo kit ( http://www.pentairaquatics.com/products ... omflo.html ) for this purpose. I'll remove the U-tube acting as my return and instead plumb the maxijet in the rear sump up to a CustomFlo return going to a spraybar. The maxijet I've been using as a return pump may not be powerful enough (it will have to pump through two 90 degree elbows, down an additional 18" of pipe (for a total pumping distance of around 30") and then through a spraybar), so I've been checking out alternatives if they're needed. So far, the ViaAqua looks like the nicest choice. Small footprint, low wattage, and a couple models in the 400-600 gph range.

Coralife released an RO unit with an integrated booster pump for a very reasonable price ($199), so I've gone ahead and ordered it. Previously on this tank I've just been using DI, primarily because my water pressure in my apartment sucks and I didn't want to spend hundreds of bucks on a booster pump. This combination unit should fit the bill nicely.

The threadfin cardinals are displaying spawning behaviour on a daily basis, but it's yet to go anywhere, at least that I've seen. No males with mouth full of eggs yet. So I've just been concentrating on fattening them up. Absolute gluttons for Formula 1 pellet food. They're getting a good bit bolder now, though it's still not common to see them in the top half of the tank unless they're chasing after a bit of food.

 

[dnorton1978]

Cant waite to see pics..

 

[bleedingthought]

Ok, time for pictures! It's almost 4 weeks since you promised them!!!

 

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I know, I'm behind

BUT....
Got two things being delivered friday. The first is a large livestock order. The second is a new digital camera. So gimme a few more days and you'll not only get tank shots, but tank shots featuring more than just rock, threadfins and snails.

Livestock order is mostly corals, but also a breeding pair of porcelain crabs and a couple of Vanderbilt chromis (google them if you haven't seen'em yet) 8)

 

[bleedingthought]

C. Vanderbilti are nice! Where did you purchase these from? It'd be really nice to have breeding porcelain crabs!! 8)

 

[Anonymous]

Liveaquaria.com for the entire order. It's mostly bread-and-butter stuff, with a few exceptions.... the vanderbilts, the crabs, a couple of gorgeous (and best of all, UNNAMED!) zooanthid colonies. Edit: Almost forgot, also what's supposed to be a colony of the green solomon glove polyps. We'll see.

The vanderbilts were a total fluke, but they just happened to get them in and they were too good to pass up. Especially at $14 each.

 

[bleedingthought]

I didn't know you were able to pick out the zoos from liveaquaria.com. It seemed a bit vague/"toss up" when I last looked at it. How often do porcelain crabs breed? What are the chances that they won't? Should you try more than a pair to guarantee a match?

 

[Anonymous]

I didn't know you were able to pick out the zoos from liveaquaria.com. It seemed a bit vague/"toss up" when I last looked at it.

You have to go through the Divers Den section of their site, their WYSIWYG offerings. Often times the nice looking stuff they get is snapped up within minutes of going up (leaving just the less nice pieces on the website), so if you're really after something in particular you have to kind of haunt their site.

The zoos I picked up from them are black with a bright orange/red center and matching skirt, and blue with a red center.

How often do porcelain crabs breed? What are the chances that they won't? Should you try more than a pair to guarantee a match?

Porcelain crabs are aggressive towards members of their own species, aside from pairs. So really, the best way to get a pair is to find them for sale that way. They'll breed every time the female molts. She'll carry the eggs under her abdomen until they hatch and end up as plankton. I have no idea what it would actually take to raise the planktonic young, but I don't intend to; I figure they're just a good snack food for the corals in the tank.

 

[bleedingthought]

Cool! Bring on the pics when you can! 8)

 

[Anonymous]

Photos attached, update to follow....

 

[Anonymous]

More pics. Sorry about the quality, but I figured you'd prefer bad pics to no pics right now

 

[Anonymous]

Okay, I'll apologize again for the quality of the photos. Don't have much time right now to snap pics, and those vanderbilt chromis are turning into the devil to take pictures of.

On with the update:
First, you can see in the top left of the full tank shot I changed the plumbing around. As I previously mentioned I used the Pentair CustomFlo kit to create a spraybar, and the plumbing for that is the bulky thing showing in the top left. I may end up changing that as I don't really care for it. Also, I've moved the remora skimmer so it sits in the sump area, with the pump in the main tank. The reason for that is it's just another way of trying to combat the particulates from hell in this tank.

A couple weeks ago after talking things over with my girlfriend I decided to change the focus of this tank from an acropora millepora species tank. The reason is simple; we're only going to stay in this apartment for another year. So right about the time the acro frags would have grown enough for the tank to look decent, I'd be tearing down the tank to move. Rather then deal with that I've decided to primarily focus on softies in this tank. I'll still add a couple of acropora milleporas, but they won't be the primary focus at this time.

Since maintaining intense coloration on acros is less of a concern at present I went ahead and changed out my 10000K halide to a pheonix 14kk. I love the look.

The order from Drs F&S came in pretty smoothly, only loosing one item to shipping: a yellow fiji leather. The rest of the order consisted of 4 vanderbilt chromis, 2 porcelain crabs, colt coral, a red lobophyllia, green clavularia, 2 different zooanthids, a toadstool, green star polyps, xenia, colt coral and a finger leather.

The porcelain crabs are doing great. One lost a claw during shipping, sad to say, but is settling in fine and should regrow it within a few molts.

The vanderbilts are amazingly, amazingly cool. Not quite the typical chromis body shape, and a coloration that's unique and drop dead gorgeous. It also photographs exceptionally poorly, making this a fish that has to be seen to be believed.

 

[trido]

Looking good. Time to break out that joes juice for that darned aptasia that jumped into the last pic. Those chromis are beautiful BTW.

 

[Anonymous]

Aptasia are kind of a non-issue in my book. I've never had them give me any trouble, so I tend to leave them be if there's just a few and they don't multiply out of hand. That said, I do keep a bottle of Joe's Juice around just in case.

Everything's settled in well. Corals are all fully expanded during the day and looking nice and healthy. The crabs seem to have decided on a mostly nocturnal lifestyle, probably as they have no anemone to host in for added security. One has taken up residence within the long polyps of my solomon cloves, the other likes the finger leather.

The chromis are getting much bolder. Unlike blue/green chromis they don't seem to be open water swimmers. They seem to prefer the mid-to-lower regions of the tank, and spend a lot of time darting in and out of the rockwork. Pretty constantly in motion, which has spurred the threadfin cardinals into much more boldness themselves.

These vanderbilts are seriously great fish. I can't recommend them enough.

Oh, and speaking of the threadfin cardinals, I noticed liveaquaria.com has some in stock right now (in their collectors corner). Not an easy fish to get, so if anyone reading this has been tempted to try them here's an opportunity.

Placed a small order with reefermadness this morning, for delivery this coming friday. See the attached photos

Also talking to a local reefer who has some giant anthelia he's willing to trim down, so hopefully in the next week or two I'll have some cuttings of that in there as well.