New pics of my 4 1/2 year old 415g DSB tank

[npaden]

Took some pics tonight and thought I would share them.

This tank was setup in July of 2001 and has had a few bumps in the road with a vacation disaster in 2003, and a major remodeling last December to get rid of the killer mushrooms, but overall I'm really happy with how it is doing.

Here's a pic of the center of the tank with all the fish thinking it is about feeding time and the guy who feeds us is standing in front of the tank!

Here is a picture from about the same angle that I took after I got done with the remodel in on Christmas day 2004 just over 1 year ago:

Biggest lesson learned is that if you ever want to keep SPS, DON'T add mushrooms to your tank as that is why I had to do the big remodel.

There are lots more pics here if you are interested - http://padens.com/tankpics_1-11-06/index.htm

And there are a little over a year's worth of pics here - http://padens.com/page3.html

Thanks for looking.

Nathan

 

[ChrisRD]

Looking good! 8)

Some of those colonies are getting big.

 

[Unarce]

Looks great, Nathan! Can't believe that's only a year's worth of growth 8O

I still get a kick out of the pic with your family in the tank :lol:

 

[npaden]

Thanks.

Taking full tank shots is about the hardest thing for me. If it isn't dark outside there are major reflections from the windows and the tank is 10 feet long so I have to take the picture at a slight angle. If it is dark outside then the tank tends to be way overexposed. I need to mess with it and set the exposure manually.

Here's a full tank shot:

Way overexposed but you can get an overall feel for the size of the tank with that shot maybe. The big clam in the middle is just over 12" long last time I measured it a couple months ago.

This picture usually helps people with the overall perspective of the size of the tank also.

Thanks again for the comments.

Nathan

 

[Shipbuilder]

stunning!
any problems with the Emporer picking at coral or clams?

 

[Anonymous]

Awesome tank Nathan.

Makes mine look like a nano for sure.

Louey

 

[brandon4291]

Nate we think that's the baddest home system in Lubbock> It looks mature and healthy, all the systems you have linked to drive that bad-boy (shed sump, reactors, refugiums) are balancing well and gives me something to shoot for in the large-tank arena someday. The pic of your family in the tank is hilarious, I think you ought to go buy that little RC sub they have at high-tech and tie some Nori to it and let your tangs attack it
B

 

[AF Founder]

Nathan, is the tank glass or plexiglass?

 

[SnowManSnow]

looks great! I like the nice full sps's If ya wanna frag lemme know

 

[Entacmaea]

Great looking tank- SPS look incredible. I checked out your website, but couldn't find any lighting information- what are you using?

The utility/refugium shed is really impressive- wish I had the space!

 

[npaden]

Thanks for the compliments.

To answer some of the questions.

The Emporer eats pretty much any soft corals and picks at some of the sps but so far doesn't pick at the clams. Hopefully it will continue to behave.

The tank is 3/4" standard glass. I really didn't want to deal with worrying about scratching an acrylic tank.

Lighting is 4 - 400W XM 10k Metal Halide with spiderlight reflectors and 4 - 110W VHO actinic.

Thanks again. Nathan

 

[Len]

Looking good, npaden I'm surprised you aren't blinded by the 400W XMs I think i may have gotten freak bulbs or something.

 

[npaden]

Thanks again guys.

I tried messing with the exposure on the full tank shots and did a little better.

Also took a couple end view shots:

Also thought it was amazing how much my emperator angel has grown.

My emperator angel when I first got it back in February 2005. A little deceptive on the pic because the clown is closer but the clown tang was larger than the emperator.

Same angel with the same clown tang today 11 months later:

Took a couple others that I just left in the directory: http://padens.com/files/misc_tank_pics/1-13-06/

Thanks for looking. Nathan

 

[DK]

Fabulous. I love to see the coral growth over a years time.

Looking at yours, I better not space the sps in my new 220 too close together....thanks!

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Nathan, do you do what changes on this huge systems? Or does that 1200G refugium clean the water up so much that WC's are necessary?

I am thinking about how you'd go about doing a 25% WC. That would be about what, 500G's?

How about giving us an idea of what kind of time you spend on maintanance on this monster system.

Thanks!

Louey

 

[npaden]

Hey Nathan, do you do what changes on this huge systems? Or does that 1200G refugium clean the water up so much that WC's are necessary?

I am thinking about how you'd go about doing a 25% WC. That would be about what, 500G's?

How about giving us an idea of what kind of time you spend on maintanance on this monster system.

Thanks!

Louey

Well, I haven't done an official water change on the system since I turned up the refugium. Of course that was a few months ago, and once I actually figured it out more like 10 months ago. 8O

I have a nice 200g water change bucket that would end up being about a 12% water change and I originally planned to do a water change every 6 to 8 weeks. I've thought about upgrading to a 350g bucket so I could do a 20% waterchange but I really don't want to spend $300 on a bucket! Of course I figured adding a 1,100g refugium to the system would count for a few months worth of water changes but I do plan on starting doing water changes soon.

I also raise clownfish and have a habit of doing water changes for the clownfish tanks by simply stealing the water from the big system. I knew I needed to check the salinity but didn't get around to it until a couple of my SPS started to recede. I checked the salinity and it was down to 30ppt and so I started adding a little salt to a high flow area in the sump a little each day. Well, 1 1/2 buckets of salt later I had the salinity back to 35ppt so I don't know if that counts as a 200g water change or not. I try to add a little salt every time I steal water out of the tank now so I don't have the fluctuations anymore.

As far as maintenance, I really spend little time on the actual display system especially in comparison to the time I spend on my clownfish. I clean the skimmer weekly, clean the glass with an magnet weekly, clean the glass with a scraper every couple weeks to a month depending on if anyone is coming over or if I want to take some pictures, and that's about it. I probably spend more time just checking the tank and looking to make sure everything is happy than anything. Of course there are days where I spend hours on the tank when there are major chores to be done like refilling the calcium reactor, cleaning pumps, fixing troubles of one sort or another. I spend about 15 - 20 minutes a day dealing with the clownfish stuff.

Overall I feel like it pretty much runs itself for the most part.

FWIW, Nathan