Laura D & PitPat's 120 gal.

[Anonymous]

Thanks garagebrian.
I am still slowly moving up the corals in the sump. During my lunch break today I moved up a medium-sized yellow fiji leather. I have one more yellow fiji to move up, two different types of Cinularias, about three more "Nepthias" (in quotes because I'm not sure on this ID), some more cabbage leathers, some encrusting gorgonians, a bunch of Kenya Tree covered rocks, a few types of mushrooms, some zoanthids, and a bunch of little small frags of various stuff. Once all of my softies are up (and once my calcium reactor is back up and running) I will start stocking the top 1/3 of the tank with SPS. As far as fish go I'm pretty done I think. I might add a mate for the cardinal in the tank and I might get an orchid dottyback, but that would be it.

Chris, I'm sure Laura will start posting pics. Now that the hardware side of the tank is done she will probably start updating this thread as well. The plumbing/lighting/logistics of the tank is all my department, but livestock care is mostly her.

 

[Anonymous]

I was just ribbing you, Marcus, but now I feel bad because you got all serious on me! :lol:

 

[Anonymous]

Bah... I'm not serious, truth is I beat Laura if she gets too close to my tank.

 

[Anonymous]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Anonymous]

Here is the sailfin tang, we have had him since 2000.

My mom got him for her 75 and he eventually got kinda big for that so she gave him to us since we had a bigger tank.

 

[Anonymous]

Here are the three big 'uns.

I feel it's kinda cramped in a 120 for three large fish but they all get along lovely.

I fed the fish right before taking pictures so they would be out and about, of course now the water looks dirty. :roll:

 

[Anonymous]

How does teh purple behave? I am thinking of getting a small one for my 60. I'll just have to trade it when it gets big.

 

[Anonymous]

I think you are looking at the figi foxface head on. He kind of looks like a purple tang from that angle now that I look again with the yellow tail and brownish head.

He is a great fish!

Here is a side view.

 

[Anonymous]

Opps. Cool fish tho.

 

[Anonymous]

yeah, he is a cool fish. He is way less 'skittish' than the tangs are, real mellow. And eats any and all algae I have thrown at him.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

Fantastic tank! Have you had any issues with the foxface nipping at your corals?

 

[Anonymous]

Nope, not once have I seen him nip a coral.

He has always been a model citizen.

 

[Anonymous]

Yesterday was a busy day for our reef.
On Friday we saw a post on our local reef club's forum at ReefCentral that an area reefer is leaving the hobby and selling everything in his tank. So we exchanged PMs and then phone calls and drove up to thier place bright and early Sat. morning.

We ended up buying an orange M. Capricornis frag like the one in Laura's avatar (I personally think it came from our colony as we started fragging it in this area 4 years ago) a decent size green M. Digitata colony, and another decent sized brown M. Digitata colony, a small colony of Seriatopora hystrix. We also got a large acro colony... probably 7" tall and across. Laura calls it my big ugly brown acro... and it is pretty ugly and brown, but I am hoping it will color up in our tank. My guess is that it is an A. parilis or A. exquisita. We also got a hot pink ricordia and a big ball of chaeto. Total damage was $130... I think we made a good haul.

So we brought our haul home and acclimated the corals and put them in our sump. Then came the problem of the flame angels. The flames are marginally reef-safe with softies, but not reef safe with SPS. So we spent Sat. afternoon taking down the entire tank to catch the little bastards. Then we re-aquascaped the whole thing with our new corals. It was an exhausting day, but everything seemed to handle the transition well, and all the corals have good polyp extension this morning.

I will post some pics of the new set-up and the new inhabitants later today when the lights come on.

 

[Anonymous]

Wow, that is quite a day!!

Glad it turned out well, and I think you done did very well with your haul!

 

[Anonymous]

He didn't mention Chip!!!

When Marcus put the Chaeto in the 'fuge, we found a chocolate chip starfish in the bag!

I assume the guy accidentally grabbed him, because he gave us such a big wad of macro. I also assume he doesn't want him back as he is tearing down the tank. So I put him in our skimmer tank for now.

I think he is cute.

 

[Anonymous]

Here are some pics of the new additions.

 

[Anonymous]

Here is my big ugly brown acro. This is a terrible shot and it makes the water look milky (which I swear it isn't) but oh well.

I really hope it colors up some. Upclose I can see green in the polyps, so maybe it will look more green than brown over time.

 

[Anonymous]

We bought a few more corals from the same people who were taking their tank down. We got various zoos, ricordia, and some encrusting SPS which I don't recognize, but its bright green.

I made them an offer tonight on their Barr Aquatic SK1620 skimmer, we'll see how that turns out.

Here are some pics of the zoos we just got under actinics.

 

[Anonymous]

Ok, I tried to get some pics of the whole tank. I was jumping up and down on a trampoline as I took these, so the detail is blurry.

 

[Anonymous]

Nice

I really prefer the look of that style light to the big boxy canopies that so many tanks have.