NirvanaandTool

Hey gang, I finally got around to cleaning and reaquascaping the LR in my 55 gallon tank so I took some pictures. Figure I would post them up for everyone here to check out. Not much now but soon I will be getting more fish, inverts and coral.

I have 3 tanks: a 55gal FOWLR (Soon to be reef), 35 gal Hex FOWLR (damsel haven and future frag tank), and a 20gal QT tank. MTS set it right after the 55 was set up. Haha

Livestock in the tanks are the following:
55- ~85 lbs LR, 1 Bicolor Blenny, 1 Bluedevil damsel, 11 astraea snails, 10 red leg hermits, ~18-19 blue leg hermits, 2 emerald mithrax crabs
35- ~25 lbs LR, 1 Bluedevil damsel (had to separate from the other Bluedevil cause this guy was getting bullied), 1 False Percula Clownfish, 4 astraea snails, 2 red leg hermits, 5-6 blue leg hermits
20- 2 Clarkii clownfish currently in precautionary QT
The clowns will be moved in the 55 in 3 weeks if no diseases show up. The blue devil in that tank will likely be traded in for something else cause he is a bully.
The blenny was hiding when I took the pics but I will get some pics of him when he decides to leave his LR fortress.
Just went out yesterday (7/24) and picked up one False Perc clown for the 35 gallon tank. Needed something to liven up the tank cause just the damsel was pretty boring. The clown is bigger than the damsel so hopefully there wont be too many territory issues.

Lights on the 55 are Catalina 6x54W T5 lights. Has 2 Tunze 6025's and 1 Koralia 2 for flow along with a Penguin 350 power filter and a crappy Red Sea Prizm Deluxe protein skimmer (will be replaced in due time). RO/DI system is next on the To Buy List!

Onto the pics! They arent the best but they will do until i get better at using the SLR to take pics of the tank.

Pre LR pic (Couldnt afford LR and was waiting to buy at a later date so had fake decor in the tank)



Post LR





Blue damsel in the 35 tank... Love this pic!


Clarkii's! Bad pics but they were being skittish and not very camera friendly since they have only been in the QT tank for a week.



Let me know what you all think!
Thanks for looking!
-Ralph

Darlene

Nice looking tank. I don't know much about SW, but love to look. I love your clowns, very cute.

Slug

Nice upgrade with the LR for sure!

Do you prefer your Tunzes over your Koralia? I'm stuck on what to get, but leaning towards the Tunzes. Everything i've heard is they outperform the Koralias and are less intrusive to the eyes.

David C

It's a beautiful tank, you make me green with envy

NirvanaandTool

I kind of jumped into it last fall and found this forum to help me out with the adjustment from fresh to salt. Learned alot thanks to the salt section here!
Thanks! The clowns are so cute. They like cuddle together and barely leave each other's side. Not to mention they kind of wiggle as they swim. Its weird to describe but its so cute to see them swim around.

Thanks. What a difference the LR makes. Not to mention it finished the cycling period in no time.
The Tunze are definitely a nicer powerhead than the Koralia. Much smaller, quieter and put out more flow (when modded they can put out ALOT of flow as well.) It depends how big your tank is. The K2 is about 2x as long as the Tunze so it sticks out alot in a 12" wide tank. But the K2 is about half the price of the Tunze so it depends on your wallet as well. I recommend the 6025's but thats cause im spoiled with them now I guess. Hope that helped some.

Thanks. I feel the same way about alot of people's reef tanks on here. My tank is so plain right now. Need coral!!! haha

Thanks for all the comments everyone!

NirvanaandTool

Update!
Got some coral for the tank as well as 2 new fish - a Lawnmower Blenny (for some serious hair algae issues), and a Royal Gramma Basslet. Also got 3 mexican turbo snails to take care of some of the film algae problems. Also moved the 2 Clarkii clownfish into the 55 where they made a nice home in a big cave in the live rock.
The coral that I got are a bunch of frags from a local NJ reefer - leather, zoa, mushroom, button polyp and green star polyp.
Lost a fish as well - lost the false perc clownfish sadly. He wasnt eating much - only live blackworms which are a freshwater food so I just think he wasnt getting the correct nutritional value. He didnt eat anything else including frozen brine and live brine. Its a shame but I kind of expected it to happen from the way he was eating. Plan to replace him with a tank raised false perc eventually.

Anyway here are some new pics of the tank. Please ignore the abundance of algae in the pics. Picked up the LM blenny and turbo snails to take care of that. Also switched from using tap water to RO/DI water from my newly acquired RO/DI system from Air, Water, Ice Inc. The algae is much less now, slowly winning the battle against it. But some of the pics are about 2 weeks old showing the amount of hair algae the tank had in it.
No pics of the gramma yet either. He's still too new and is kinda skittish right now.

Onto the pics!

Bicolor Blenny saying hi!


Bicolor and Lawnmower Blennies. The BC looks like he's talking. Probably saying how he doesnt like all the hair algae in the tank! Thats why tap water is the devil!


Invert Time! Blue Leg Hermit!


Red Leg Hermit


Emerald Crab


The King of the Tank.... Blue Damsel. But not for long!


Clarkii's when they were in the dirty QT tank. (Havent taken a pic of them in the 55 yet)


Coral!
Button Polyps



More Coral Pics in the next post!

NirvanaandTool

Leathers



Zoa's


GSP


Mushroom


Thats it for now!
Should have some new pics soon though. Switching over to sand and will get some pics of the Royal Gramma.

Thanks for looking!

-Ralph

Darlene

I love the new pictures. Thank you for sharing them.

Oil_Fan

Great pics!!

Have you had an issue with your emerald crabs and your corals? I had to take mine back to my LFS because they started mowing through my yellow polyps.

NirvanaandTool

Thank you for the nice comments and thanks for looking!

Thanks!

So far no, the emeralds are actually well behaved. I have 3 in the tank currently and havent noticed them chowing down on any coral. Maybe its cause I have an abundance of algae for them to eat? They usually just stay hidden in the rocks and eat the algae on the inside of the rocks.
I saw your thread about your emeralds eating your yellow polyps, are they still doing that? If mine start eating coral, its back to the LFS for them!

agsansoo

Look good. You'll really going to like the sand better. Remember to get fine sand if you can.

NirvanaandTool

Thanks agsansoo! You are the one who helped spur my change from a fowlr to a reef. So thanks for the inspiration!

Yea I cant wait for the sand. The cc is getting to look really dirty and with so much LR in the tank, I can barely clean it with the siphon.
Yep. Going to get fine grain aragonite sand. Should be picking it up tonight so new pics should be posted once the sand is in the tank.

Cody

what does fowlr tank mean i see it alot but i cant figure it out

sirdarksol

Fish Only With Live Rock

Neat tank. I really like the change from resin decor to live rock. It's really beautiful.

Cody

that makes sense, thats easier to do then spelling it out like that lol

COBettaCouple

Beautiful new pics!

NirvanaandTool

Thanks for the nice comments everyone!

I'll have some new pics up soon!
Just swapped the crushed coral for live sand (went with a mix of black and white aragonite fine grain sand) and in the process removed the blue damsel from the 55 gallon tank cause he was being a big bully to the clownfish. Also picked up 2 scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp for the 55 when I picked up the sand.
Just need to reorganize the live rock later today - couldnt see to do it last night and I want to let the tank settle some before redoing everything again.

Oil_Fan

I took my emeralds back to my LFS. I still haven't replaced but am thinking about it. On the plus side, my yellow polyps have since rebounded. I went from a low of about 4 polyps left to having around 30 or 40 now.