Kaledrina's 50g Predator Reef - New lion 3/18!

K

kaledrina

Current Specs:
50g not quite cube
Hardware:
  • 2 MJ1200s
    1 Koralia 2
    Skimmer
    250w Icecap MH
Live stuff:
  • 1 Green Spot Puffer
    1 Damsel (gr)
    1 Wrasse (If I could catch her I would.. :p )
    1 Sargassum Angler
    1 Waspfish
    Eventually 1 Fu Manchu Lion
    2 kinds of Frogspawn, Pocillopora, Zoas, Gorgonian, Candy Canes, Toadstool Leather
    1 Angry Pistol Shrimp

And 5g Water changes roughly every 4-5 days depending on who ate what and how much.
___
Yeah! I decided to downgrade to a 50g.. Mostly the 75g was getting too hard to care for and needed a lot of new stuff. I went super cheap with it and it showed like a hot pink bandaid on your face.

So at Petorama I found a gorgeous 50g not quite cube w/ stand, canopy thing, and glass tops for $100!!! I repeat... $100 for a BRAND NEW TANK. :shock:

Of course first water test one corner had a leak.. Bit of silicone and the tank is perfect. I can set it up as either a rimless :love: or with the hood. I opted for the hood for the sake of jumpers, dust, and it looks really pretty.

The downgrade was done in 1.5 days.

Here's the tank, empty, in its final resting place.
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And here's the old tank... Byebye, Beast!
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Aaaand here's the liverock, my puffer, my corals.. (Poor things)
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It took my bf and I alllll day to transfer everything. The hardest part was everything. We had to catch and sell a lot of livestock.. My mom's truck and my mom went MIA so we had to shove the tank in the backseat of my little Suzuki, and one of the gentlemen from the LFS offered his truck for the stand. We filled the tank with water and sand simultaneously. Somehow I was left in charge of the sand. I'll remind you that sand is HEAVY when wet.. And my yellow wrasse was in that sand. I think he made his way over to the new tank.. :roll:

We set up the liverock blindly in the middle so it looks really open. We're going to put a few caves in the back for future inhabitants. Today I'm going to home depot and hobby lobby to make my own frag magnets. I'm going to mount my zoas on the back glass.

I'm also getting a killer MH setup. Can't wait to install it over the tank. (Should have done that first huh?)

The livestock so far will be my green spot puffer, a Fu Manchu lionfish, a pair of Leaf Scorpions.. And something else. Not sure what. Leaning towards a butterfly but that's a lot of fish for a 50g.

Here's the tank as it looked the first night:
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I've added the corals and the puffer. It's still lacking in roughly 10g of water which I'll be dealing with later on today. I'm so excited about it.. It looks so beautiful already. The best part is that its in my bedroom so I can look at it all the time. :D
 
sounds nice, and seems like you had all kinds of fun...i just cant see the pics for some reason

.:edit:. now i can...very nice...cant believe you got that for 100 bucks, man oh man...
 
Thats an awesome tank for $100, wish I'd seen it first :twisted: (assuming you bought it at the Bedford store).

Congrats on the tank by the way and good luck with your new tank.
 
Just made some frag mags.. They're really sweet, the zoas and palys are facing up towards the light but the tank is still so cloudy you can't see them headon anyways. Got the skimmer going but its going to be cloudy for a while.

I also got a killer MH setup. My room looks even more like alien spacecraft landed in it. I love how you can see the ripples of the water on the sand, Definitely more natural than T5. I'm going to be lowering the pendant in about a week... Then lower it again in another week. All my corals seem to have made the move.

And I found my yellow wrasse hidden in the leftover sand in the other tank. fished him out (Wasn't easy) and just threw him in the new tank. I should have acclimated but if he survived a 60 odd degree tank.. He can handle it. I'll get more pictures later when the tank clears up more.

This tank is still cold (70degrees) but thats a 4 degree increase from their old habitat. Hoping having the MH closer will also increase the temp. Don't want to shock the corals.. They've gotten used to the chilly water.

I love the effect two powerheads on opposite ends facing eachother has. The frogspawn is waving around really nicely and in random directions. Can't wait to have more corals and rock... And some more fish.

Really wondering about having a butterflyfish with the FuManchu and the two Leaf Scorpions. I want somebody who swims other than my little puffer.
 
Awesome!

It looks like you were keeping the sun in your old tank from that picture :p

Like the new tanks size and it sounds like you are having fun! I cant wait to see what it looks like after the water clears up :)
 
Lol yeah... My nice camera decided it was too cool to upload the photos onto my computer so I had to use my camera phone. Good pics for a camera if I say so myself.. :D The water looks really clear tonight and my feather dusters are out in full force. Everybody is happy
 
Sooooo... Went to DNA. Got a beautiful, fat, healthy, eating Scorpionfish. :)

Aaaannndddd... Umm.... He/she (I think it's a she)... Kind of tried to eat my pufferfish.

Luckily my bf saw what was going on and I managed to net the scorpion, who released the puffer as soon as I did so. Puffer doesn't look happy at all. He puffed up in the scorpions mouth and is now at the waterline on a powerhead. Hoping maybe its a lesson learned.. I don't want to get rid of the puffer, I've had him for 2 years and I'm really attached.
 
@PhilliePhil wrote:
[I]@kaledrina wrote:[/I][quote="Sooooo... Went to DNA. Got a beautiful said:
:shock: Wow!

Hopefully it works out for you, but I would think if he/she's tried it once he/she may try again.

Is there anyway you could possibly trade in your scorpion fish for a smaller one who may not try to taste the puffer?"]

It was the only one... I've gotten attached to Ursula. Since the new additions will be a Fu Manchu and another Scorpion or two (depending... not sure yet) the puffer might have to go. He survived the night and now I'm going to feed the scorpion a damsel tonight to get the bloodlust out of her. She's hiding so no pics...

Speaking of predator reef... I cleared out a dragon's lair so to speak and got bitten. Or, well, punched by my pistol shrimp. I'm tempted to just add a Foxface too so it'll be a right little party every time I reach in the tank! :twisted:
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Naaah, go for the gusto! Add a Blue Ring octopus and a collection of Textile Cone Snails, make it REALLY interesting! :wink: Maybe a stone fish or two as well...
 
@Serk wrote:
Naaah said:
LMAO. That would be something. Would you be willing to supply some Epi-pens in case I'm allergic? Or cover the hospital bills? :p I have a sense of adventure but nooooooooot that bad. Blue Ringer Octos are pretty though... Ursula is hungry. Waiting for other half to get home in about 30min so we can feed her. She found a perfect ledge in the rocks to go after anything.

Here's some pictures of Ursula. She's facing towards the left so it's head-on, tail to the right. She's so pretty.. :D (Click for larger)

Can you see her?
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I guess you older folks might need some flash to help this boat get off the pier..
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If bit by a Blue Ring Octopus or stung by a Textile Cone Snail, you wouldn't hafta worry about allergies or hospital bills...

...just funeral expenses...

(Although I have seen a Blue Ring in a LFS once... ONCE... And the (*$@#)@( idiot running the place had his arm in the tank cleaning it like there was nothing out of the ordinary! (The LFS has since gone out of business, but not due to the death of the owner!)

Anyway... Sorry to sidetrack your thread... That's a pretty fish! Some day I want a huge 500+ gallon inwall reef and a 500+ gallon in wall predator tank, so I can have all the fish I've always wanted but never been able to keep in my reef...
 
Tank temp is increasing slowly... from nearly 64 to 71.5 yesterday. I also lowered the MH lights by about 1.5 inches. Will lower again tomorrow.

The puffer is happy... There's a lot of flow in the tank. He nearly got himself hit against the glass by accidentally swimming in front of a powerhead. :roll: He has a death wish.

There's a surprising amount of flow w/ two MJ1200s and a Koralia 2. Definitely not adding any more powerheads.

I added a damsel and 6 ghost shrimp last night. I saw Ursula eat one.. The damsel has survived the night. Only time will tell. Now everybody is on a diet for a couple of days too while I get a water change done.
 
The damsel has disappeared. Ursula has taken her throne again by the lonely GSP rock. Wedged between it and the glass - Perfect for photos! She's a really pretty yellow dappled with white. The flash washes her out but I didn't want to have to turn on the MH lights. She's so beautiful I can't get over it. Seriously... Scorpion, Nemo, Scorpion, Nemo...... Scorpion! Heck yeah!

Still debating getting one or two more. ReefCentral says they do best in groups of 2-3. WWM says they dislike being together. Debating taking the chance and losing $$ having to sell it back to the LFS. My main concern is having a number of predators that only eat at night, and only eat live food, which the puffer is really fond of. So it's going to be stressful but I might just get a breeder tank and get the puffer to hang out in there for a couple hours until all the little fishies get to eat some shrimps. Luckily scorpions and lions don't need feeding daily so this hopefully won't be a problem.

Update: Tried a frozen silverside (thawed it, of course). After two minutes of wiggling it around..She ate it! Yay! :D
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After lengthy discussion and prodding by my boyfriend... We did some research on Ursula and found out that she's not a leaf fish. Nope, she's a $90 Sargassum Angler that we got for $20! Yeah! :mrgreen:
 
Yay! My wonderful BF bought me a beautiful little Wasp fish! He/She had been in the same tank as the Angler and were fine for over a week.. They're both eating and the angler isn't interested in anything other than silversides and live ghost shrimp. I guess the Damsel I bought her might end up as a meal for the lion one day..

This tank is going to rock. I'd get a pic of the wasp but of course it's wedged up against the glass where you can't get to him easily. It needs a name though. The angler is Ursula, I wanted Fluffy for the Wasp but BF said no. :sad:
 
Update..

Coraline is starting to grow on the glass. I have a beautiful giant light green gorgonian with lavender polyps. Pistol shrimp is making short work of my collection of snails and crabs.

Best part of everything!? PetORama finally got my Fu Manchu! I should be picking him up tomorrow if everything goes well. I'll try to get a lot of pictures.

We also got a HOB refuge but haven't had the desire to move the tank forward enough to install it.. So... Yeah.

Unfortunately the angler is sick. She's basically... swollen like a little balloon from her waist down. She didn't swallow air as far as I know. I'm going to see if she can figure it out herself. It's been at least 4 days.
 
Ursula (the angler) died overnight last night. She was just really swollen.. like a little balloon of water. She didn't float at all so I know she didn't swallow air.

Sigh. I was really proud of her and took great care of her. Really stinks that she passed. Probably won't buy another fish from DNA since they don't really try to sell healthy fish as much as sell fish.

PetORama's fish guy asked me to wait another week on the lion since they want to make sure he's reaaaaally really healthy. It's hard to resist! But I'll thank them later.

Debating on what to do so far as replacing Ursula. Whether or not to even get another angler or just get a maroon clown or what. Don't know how to sex Fu Manchu's although it would kick some serious *** to have a mated pair.

It's really upsetting that a fish died in my care for the first time in ages. Doesn't help that there wasn't anything I could have done for her.
 
Sorry the fish died. You added the fish to a 64 degree tank and it died 6 weeks later? How is that DNA not really selling healthy fish?

@kaledrina wrote:
 
The 75g was at 64* for the longest time.. I added her to the cycled 50g and it's at a steady 75*. The house is chilly since it's wintertime..

Now it's getting warmer my dad is leaving the doors open. I might need a chiller or raise the lights since I estimate the tank will start getting warm really fast as we get closer and closer to 80-90* weather.
 
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