Marauder's Tank

Marauder-m · 05-14-2006, 12:15 AM

Well, I've decided to start a tank journal. I guess a bit of history is a good place to start.
I've had a freshwater tank since about August 2004. Before that I had a little 50 L tank while in New Zealand, built into an old TV. It was a great looking tank, but it was far too difficult to keep, given the small water volume. I ended up giving it away to a friend who made it part of his collection, plumbed into his 1000 L system.
Then in April 2005, my Girlfriend decided to get a tank. While at the shop we were talked into buying a marine setup. With the experience I have now, I can honestly say that I was totally under prepared for keeping marine fish and corals. I was, by that stage, proficient with freshwater, but really had no idea about marine.
Of course I started with the bare basics. A float hydrometer, test kits for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and several spare water containers. The tank was delivered and I proceeded to rinse the marble chip gravel, place it and then add water and the live rock.
Within three weeks the tank had cycled and I added my first inhabitants... 2 Percular Clowns (Bert and Earnie), a Blue Linkia star (Cookie) and a hermit crab name Igor. 12 weeks after that we were feeding the tank and tragedy struck. Earnie, while darting around the place grabbing food, ingested a small stone. He choked and was the first official casualty of my Marine Aquarium Experience.
Then came the Hair Algae (HA). At one point it was about 12 inches long. I had also added a Cynarina (fugly), and each morning it would had a large rope of HA comming out of its mouth. It evidentally grabbed the stuff at night and pulled it in. I ended up getting 6 Trochus Snails, which solved the problem.

Marauder-m · 05-14-2006, 12:23 AM

A minor disaster occurred on 01 January 2006. While I was on holiday in New Zealand, the outside temperature topped 43 ºC. With no chiller and no-one around to put the air-con on, the tank temperature rocketed up.
I lost the Bubble Coral, 2 leathers, one bi-colour Blenny, several small softy frags and three large snails. To my suprise the Percular Clown, Cynarina, Hermit and Linkia all survived, dispite being in a rotting pool of decomposing coral and fish for three days.
My Bubble Tip Anemone had bleached, split and was looking very nasty, but still alive.

Marauder-m · 05-14-2006, 12:27 AM

I now have a 1/4 HP chiller, which I bought in mid January 2006. Over the past 4 months I am happy to report that the tank is thriving. I'll post pictures next week when I get back home from Queensland.

My new project is T5 Lighting. This will involve fitting a couple of 2 foot retro-kits on custom mounts. I've bought the kits and am in the process of designing the mounting system. Current lighting is 2 standard output fluorescent tubes. covering the front 2/3 of then tank. The rear is currently occuppied by a wet/dry trickle filter and sump with protein skimmer.

Below is a simple sketchup of the T5 tube arrangement. High light at the back, with less to the front.

***Rob*** · 05-14-2006, 01:50 AM

thanks for sharing the info craig.
i will enjoy following this setup..

Reefbaby · 05-14-2006, 04:01 PM

Great Craig! Fun to see your thread starting up! :-)

veriann · 05-15-2006, 10:18 AM

all the questions i asked in the other thread are answered here. cool

good luck with the custom stuff, im sure it will come up a treat

Marauder-m · 06-10-2006, 04:13 AM

Here are those pics I promised.
Below is my marine tank as of 10 June 2006.

I'm not actually sure what these are... ID please!?!

Next is our Bubble Coral.

A whisker coral (Duncanopsammia Axifuga).

Cant figure out why this one came out so large.... Rob, can you help with this?

and last , but not least... Fugly the Cynarina

Reefbaby · 06-10-2006, 05:16 AM

Craig - the pictures are great!

Try opening up Photoshop and re-sizing the image before uploading it. Just re-size it to 800x600 wide and it should fit nicely.

***Rob*** · 06-10-2006, 12:48 PM

if the images are put in our gallery or attached to the post they will be auto-sized...

eitherway, great images, and that second one looks like Glove polyps Clavularia sp.

DJGonzo69 · 06-10-2006, 07:30 PM

Man look at the corraline on those rocks!!! I like it!! It's a very healthy tank!

**CarmieJo** · 06-10-2006, 11:08 PM

Craig, beautiful tank!

veriann · 06-11-2006, 09:31 AM

extremely purple, & very smooth rockwork, what rock are u using millsy?.
sorry about the drop out last night, we had people come over, & the misses closed the damn laptop midflight didn't she! no brains that girl, oh shhh, i didn't say that out loud did i!

anyways what caused the bleach! it has dropped in overall size compared to last shot thats for sure!

Marauder-m · 06-11-2006, 11:42 AM

The pics V is refering to are below. First is my BTA before it bleached (and split) back in Jan 06. In this pic the BTA is not quite as large as I had seen in. I figure it is about 8 inches across in this pic, but at its best it got to 12 inches.

Then a pic of the BTA (or rather one of them) just a couple of weeks ago.

Same clown, but it has grown about 20%.

As described above, bleaching occured as a result of extreme weather we had in Jan. Tank over heated and cooked a whole lot of critters. So sad.

As for the rock, most is live rock from Coburg Aquarium, where I got the tank set-up from. There are several random pieces of sandstone though. Found them on the beach at Batemans Bay (New South Wales). Looked cool, so I threw them in.

gwen_o_lyn · 06-11-2006, 11:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DJGonzo69

Man look at the coralline on those rocks!!! I like it!! It's a very healthy tank!

This is the first thing I noticed- very intense coralline!! What's the secret formula Craig?

What is the size of this tank? Very nice pictures!!

My buddy Geoff from that other reef board had a TV/Monitor tank.
http://themantledmonster.thereeftank.com/macq.html

I'm sure Rob is gonna love that!