I love the digi forest looks awesome
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jlanger's Reef Build: Episode II - The 120gal Strikes Back (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter jlanger
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- 120 gallon coral fish reef tank build
Great photos, Jason. Wow you are getting some great growth in the tank!
Really digging how the digi forest looks like an actual reef. That’s the goal we all strive for!
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jlanger
@thatfishcookieguy
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It's easy to fill in a tank with easy to keep corals. 
Toying with the idea of updating my profile picture... thought I might put this here for no peticular reason...
All joking aside. Picked this guy up with some other fish to help someone out, not thinking I would like him. He is about 8" eats like a pig! Rips the nori clip right of the glass. Sucks down the nori spits back up everytime. Despite a couple down falls easily my favorite fish. I have to work on my photography skills obviously but couldn't resist. @jlanger
All joking aside. Picked this guy up with some other fish to help someone out, not thinking I would like him. He is about 8" eats like a pig! Rips the nori clip right of the glass. Sucks down the nori spits back up everytime. Despite a couple down falls easily my favorite fish. I have to work on my photography skills obviously but couldn't resist. @jlanger
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jlanger
@thatfishcookieguy
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They say the best thing to get you motivated around the house to to host a party. So I'm doing just that.
A few weeks ago, I pulled every single one of my flowerpot corals (39 in total) out of the tank and gave them a ChemiClean bath every night.
I set up my fragging tray for the baths. There's a small heater and an air pump to keep the water warm, aerated and moving during the 30 minute bath. I added 3 cc/l of ChemiClean; which is a lot and spendy! After the 30 minute bath, I would give the corals a quick dip in Lugol's before going back into the display tank.
To make it easier for me to move the corals back and forth, I placed them all in a basket. I was somewhat surprised to see that the corals didn't mind the treatments or the temporary home. Even the clownfish eventually found its way into the basket so it could sleep in the "flower basket".
I left the all of the corals in the basket for another week for observation. I did end up throwing out four more corals that didn't appear like they were getting any better. At this point, it was time to just throw out any potential problems. Before moving them out of the basket, I wanted to remove much of the exposed skeleton and frag some of the corals.
I set up my fragging station in the mechanical room; coral saw in a tray, dipping containers and the fragging tray. I built the fragging tray so that I could keep the corals in warm tank water as much as possible. I also have a custom Slide-Loc (@RSnodgrass ) fragging rack that is adjustable so the rack can be elevated out of the water for gluing frags and then lowered back into the water. I ended up fragging three colonies and cleaned up six other corals. The frags were once again dipped in Lugol's before going back into the display for observation.
I'm hoping that after a couple weeks of healing, and all looks promising, that I will replant the flower pot corals back onto the reef. Regardless, I'm hosting a meeting and I am motivated to get the gardens looking nice again.
I seriously hope that I have gotten beyond the bacterial problems that the corals were experiencing. I would really like to be able to buy new frags as the variety of flowerpot corals is amazing right now!
A few weeks ago, I pulled every single one of my flowerpot corals (39 in total) out of the tank and gave them a ChemiClean bath every night.
I set up my fragging tray for the baths. There's a small heater and an air pump to keep the water warm, aerated and moving during the 30 minute bath. I added 3 cc/l of ChemiClean; which is a lot and spendy! After the 30 minute bath, I would give the corals a quick dip in Lugol's before going back into the display tank.
To make it easier for me to move the corals back and forth, I placed them all in a basket. I was somewhat surprised to see that the corals didn't mind the treatments or the temporary home. Even the clownfish eventually found its way into the basket so it could sleep in the "flower basket".
I left the all of the corals in the basket for another week for observation. I did end up throwing out four more corals that didn't appear like they were getting any better. At this point, it was time to just throw out any potential problems. Before moving them out of the basket, I wanted to remove much of the exposed skeleton and frag some of the corals.
I set up my fragging station in the mechanical room; coral saw in a tray, dipping containers and the fragging tray. I built the fragging tray so that I could keep the corals in warm tank water as much as possible. I also have a custom Slide-Loc (@RSnodgrass ) fragging rack that is adjustable so the rack can be elevated out of the water for gluing frags and then lowered back into the water. I ended up fragging three colonies and cleaned up six other corals. The frags were once again dipped in Lugol's before going back into the display for observation.
I'm hoping that after a couple weeks of healing, and all looks promising, that I will replant the flower pot corals back onto the reef. Regardless, I'm hosting a meeting and I am motivated to get the gardens looking nice again.
I seriously hope that I have gotten beyond the bacterial problems that the corals were experiencing. I would really like to be able to buy new frags as the variety of flowerpot corals is amazing right now!
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jlanger
@thatfishcookieguy
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Since I spent some time making the reef look spiffy for the house meeting, I took some time to take some photos to share with those that didn't make it to the meeting.
I didn't get the flowerpot corals planted on the rocks so there's a couple of frag racks still in there. (Boo!)
FTS from a week ago.
A collection of photos of the corals.
And a few photos of fish that don't often get the spotlight.
And, of course, the Copperband Butterflyfish loves the camera.
I didn't get the flowerpot corals planted on the rocks so there's a couple of frag racks still in there. (Boo!)
FTS from a week ago.
A collection of photos of the corals.
And a few photos of fish that don't often get the spotlight.
And, of course, the Copperband Butterflyfish loves the camera.
Those sun coral are awesome in person.
obsessed with those sun corals. Sorry I couldn't make the meeting :/ Tank looks great though Jason and so do the picture.
I actually just walked past the tank and thought... 'I could put those right there'.
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jlanger
@thatfishcookieguy
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Small update.
A couple of weeks ago, I swapped out the three Radion XR15 G4 PRO and T5 fixtures for two Neptune System SKY fixtures. I'm bummed about losing the supplemental T5 bulbs but the overall coverage and appearance are much better. I'm annoyed by the cords dropping from the canopy to the stand but there's not much I can do about it now. If I ever need to remove the tank, I'll run cables through the wall to eliminate that eyesore. (Or I can PS them out of the photos so I don't see them when looking back at the photos.)
Here's a couple FTS of the reef with the new lighting fixtures.
I'm still not ready to replant the flowerpot corals. I tossed out yet another frag yesterday that was developing the brown jelly-like disease. Based on a few recommendations, I have some Aqua Cipro on order and will try trading the entire system with that to hopefully put this issue to bed.
I trimmed up the montipora corals yesterday as well. I tossed out over 200g of montipora plates because they were encroaching on other corals, adjacent rocks or the front and side glass. In doing so, I uncovered a couple of aiptasia anemones that were tucked beneath one of the corals. Before I could even get the removed coral out of the tank and into a collection dish, the Copperband Butterflyfish discovered the anemones and feasted; even though you can see that it is not underfed by any means.
A couple of weeks ago, I swapped out the three Radion XR15 G4 PRO and T5 fixtures for two Neptune System SKY fixtures. I'm bummed about losing the supplemental T5 bulbs but the overall coverage and appearance are much better. I'm annoyed by the cords dropping from the canopy to the stand but there's not much I can do about it now. If I ever need to remove the tank, I'll run cables through the wall to eliminate that eyesore. (Or I can PS them out of the photos so I don't see them when looking back at the photos.)
Here's a couple FTS of the reef with the new lighting fixtures.
I'm still not ready to replant the flowerpot corals. I tossed out yet another frag yesterday that was developing the brown jelly-like disease. Based on a few recommendations, I have some Aqua Cipro on order and will try trading the entire system with that to hopefully put this issue to bed.
I trimmed up the montipora corals yesterday as well. I tossed out over 200g of montipora plates because they were encroaching on other corals, adjacent rocks or the front and side glass. In doing so, I uncovered a couple of aiptasia anemones that were tucked beneath one of the corals. Before I could even get the removed coral out of the tank and into a collection dish, the Copperband Butterflyfish discovered the anemones and feasted; even though you can see that it is not underfed by any means.
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jlanger
@thatfishcookieguy
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Frozen foods; primarily LRS Frenzy Blends and PE Mysis and sometimes blood worms.
It shows no interest in flakes, pellets or nori. When I feed flakes, the other fish are busy chasing the food and the copperband will just look at me incredulously wondering where the real food is.
The wall cable organizers that are paintable work well to hide the cables. I used them when I had a floating canopy like this.
These are easily some of my favorite tank shots. I LOVE the look of those red and green digi and the monti caps below. This is some really great inspiration! I'll have to make sure I can make it to your next meeting for sure!
BlindSwordsman
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I think you do know that some of the flowerpots you have actually are not goniopora but they are alveopora (as far as I can tell visually)? ... I believe goniopora and alveopora don't mix. I see you placed them pretty close to the each other in the basket. I had an alveopora frag that I grew to a colony. I made sure that I gave it enough space. But one day it was getting happier, more aggressive than usual, the polyps extended out much longer. I think it touched the goni next to it and next day, the alveopora's flesh just fell off, and it was dead! It was fast.
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jlanger
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Yeah, I know which is which. There's three types of flowerpot corals in my system; Goniopora, Alveopora and Bernardpora.
I've actually had a different experience in terms of aggression among the three types. I have found Bernardpora to be the most dominant, followed by Alveopora and then the Goniopora being the weakest. After the corals let me know that they don't play well together, I planted the three types into their own separate gardens. The basket was used only during the antibacterial bath treatment which didn't result in any loses from close contact. Those corals that I lost were those infected and didn't react well to the treatment. The Alveopora especially didn't like the baths as they stayed closed up the most. The Bernardpora responded the best, but they also never exhibited any signs of infection either.
The bottle of Aqua Cipro should be arriving this weekend so I will treat the entire system and hope that it works as well with the flowerpots as well as it does with the Euphyllias.
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jlanger
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At some point soon, I'll make a more thorough update to the build thread. All is well again.
But for now, I wanted to share a quick look at my hungry Tubastraea colonies from tonight.
View attachment TubastraeaHungry.mov
But for now, I wanted to share a quick look at my hungry Tubastraea colonies from tonight.
View attachment TubastraeaHungry.mov