My 48g mixed reef.

[Anonymous]

Hey guys, here's my tank! It's been up for about one year.

The glass tank itself is an ADA 90-P (30"x18"x18") drilled for a single 1" overflow.

Flow comes from two 6055 and one 6045 Tunze Nanostreams. That's the overflow box between them; there's an external Durso behind it.

The light is a Giesemann Infinity, and now has their "Coral" (roughly 12K) 250w MH bulb and four T5s (2 KZ Fiji purple and 2 Actinic+).

I use an Eheim 1250 (300gph) as the return from the sump. Sump is an undrilled 20tall with no baffles or sections- one advantage of having a very slow return pump. Skimmer is now a BM 200, though I used a ER RS-80 for most of the time. My Osmolator ATO tops off through kalkwasser, but I also add Bi-Ionic Ca/Alk when needed.

Some more:

This Acro is not this pink in real life, it's the KZ T5s playing tricks on my camera.

For fish there's a Tomini tang which needs to be extradited, a small Regal, a new Saddleback clown, and a Golden Sailfin Blenny (Atrosalarias fuscus? Goldstein?) My favorite fish is the Dwarf Moray. She's all smarmy and golden:

Parts of my LR came in with living Heliopora. In some places it's coming back strong.

Pachyseris- it grows as fast as diamonds.

Thanks for looking.

 

[Anonymous]

Wow! I love it.

Wonderful clean lines, great sense of space thanks to creative aquascaping and really good coral placement. I have at the back of my mind that I might have to be a bit less ambitious, size-wise, when I get to set my tank up in Japan, given the mobility of my career and the possible need to cart it around. You've just convinced me that small can be beautiful. 8)

 

[Anonymous]

Oh, and before I forget - good shots!

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Tom!

Some of the pictures came out a bit grainy, probably because of the low light or my shaky hands. And the colors are as close to reality as I could get by adjusting the camera's white balance, but with some, like that pink Acropora, they're still quite off.

The clean lines and creative aquascaping are both new to me. My last tank was an oversized, rambling monstrosity that would have made Dr. Frankenstein proud. It had ozone, a large refugium with a DSB, UV filtration, a many-staged sump, a giant closed loop..far too much equipment. When I left Taipei and had to take it all apart I decided that my next tank would be as simple as possible!

 

[Anonymous]

Simple looks best! Very smooth and clean. 8)

 

[Anonymous]

Lovely, simply lovely!

 

[MartinE]

Nice!!! Very clean and I like the minimal rock use gives it a more open look.

 

[Anonymous]

 

[saltydude]

What a nice setup. I am jealous. One of the things I appreciate is your tank not overloaded with rock. Again, awesome!

 

[TommyJB]

Hi there newbie to all this.

Your tank looks beautiful, clean colourful and excellent creative scaping.

I have kept tropical for a number of year now, But have been given a Fluval Roma 200ltr tank.

Not Sure it's about 50 US Gallon and 46 Uk Gallons. But I notice yours being 48G.

How many and what fish do you have and any plans to get more?

What Corals do you have they look colourful.

What Sand did you use and what depth?

I think this is enough question for you and me to get through just now.

I hope you have the time to respond.

Many thanks & Kind Regards
Tommy

 

[Anonymous]

WOW, that is sexy.

 

[Posh]

This tank is AMAZING! From the fish and coral selection to the photos.. this is TOTM material! Great job!

 

[JT]

Nice to see someone take a glass hole saw to an ADA tank. :mrgreen:

 

[Ben1]

Very nice tank, nicely done with the creative aquascape. I like how the light hangs off that bracket too all very nice.

 

[Saltlick]

When I left Taipei and had to take it all apart I decided that my next tank would be as simple as possible!

My new philosophy in a nutshell. I am looking at a crate of white Fiji and Tonga branch reef rock and various coral skeletons. I am thinking, "OK, you get 40 gallons max, you get some sand from someone to seed your sand, and you get one little piece of LR to seed your corraline algae, and you look at ROCK while things stabilize and return to life and color up from white. Then you get ONE fish max, two if you get adventurous, and if things go OK, MAYBE you get some corals." haha, I may never get started. But the crate of old LR is there to keep me thinking about settling down. But I gotta get out of Memphis. But my two favorite fish from reefing days were the Lunare Wrasse and the Regal Tang. Might get those two. But I always said if I ever get out of tangs, I won't get another herbivore.

 

[Sea Turtle]

Wow, very nice tank. I really like the Pachyseris. Nice job! 8)

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Craig, I'm bumping this as well. You've got lots of questions to answer from your fans.

And I'm going to add my own. How did you manage the aquascaping above? Are the pieces of live rock that are standing on their end anchored at the bottom somehow? Also, how did you fix them together? The classic acrylic rods method?

 

[Anonymous]

Apologies for my tardiness! And thank you all for the kind words. My tank appreciates them! :wink:

Saltydude: Thanks, I also like the look of less LR. It's my opinion that if you have enough flow, then you don't need too much rock. (Paradoxically, if you have a ton of rock, then you need even more flow.) I've taken some out since these photos.

Tommy: Wow, I'm VERY sorry I missed your post, it being your first here. I'll PM you and hopefully the message in your Email will catch your attention. To answer your questions...

My sandbed is between 1/2 and 1" deep and is just Caribsea Live Direct aragonite. If I could get it any shallower (without going barebottom) I would. Shallower is better because it gives you more room in the tank. :wink:

I'll post some updated tank shots soon and if you have any questions about specific corals please feel free to ask.

My fish have changed around quite a bit in the last 8 months. I now have just three, a yellow sailfin Blenny, a 3/4" unidentified (by me) blenny that came into the LFS in a shipment of grass shrimp, and an Odontanthias borbonius with which I'm in love.

 

[Anonymous]

Nice to see someone take a glass hole saw to an ADA tank. :mrgreen:

I wasn't man enough to do it myself. I have a friend who had drilled ADAs before this. After repetitive confirmation of this fact, I let him drill mine. "Extra slow and easy" is the technique he used.

Very nice tank, nicely done with the creative aquascape. I like how the light hangs off that bracket too all very nice.

Thanks Ben. The light is hanging from the wires, the bracket thing i think you might be seeing is just that adhesive wire conduit that you use to hide wires on walls. There's an extra (horizontal) piece snapped around the wires to the fixture, to keep them together and a little hidden. I need to redo the ceiling mount though, as the wires are nwo crooked due to how I've repositioned the fixture.

 

[Anonymous]

When I left Taipei and had to take it all apart I decided that my next tank would be as simple as possible!

My new philosophy in a nutshell.

Isn't it funny how philosophies change? I expect some day down the road I'll want to set up a giant complicated system with more wires and plumbing than water. But the ease of maintenance and lack of worry when out of town make this simple set-up much more relaxing than my previous Frankentank. Oh, and what do you do in Memphis?

Wow, very nice tank. I really like the Pachyseris. Nice job! 8)

Thanks!
The Pachyseris is a very strange coral. As far as I can tell it has not grown at all. I mean not at all. Occasionally I do see it with its polyps out. They are long and thin, and are technically IIRC unrelated to the feeding tentacles we see on other corals. If it wasn't for these and the pretty color, I'd have no way of knowing it's even alive.