Cali Kid Corals

SFSU's (Fishnfst's) 180g temporary tank.

One thing I'm wishing I did differently in the aquascape was put all the tall stuff (i.e. what you see in the picture) towards the back of the tank), and then the low lightly LPS can be in the front and more viewable.

Also going to start getting vicious with removing some overly brown acros and the like.
 
I discovered the same thing Mike. Thankfully I was able to rearrange stuff and take care of it. Put the tank in a bit of a dissaray for a while though.
 
Yeah I'm really tempted to do some major re-aquascaping, I'll most likely make a TON of frags :D However my biggest concern is how my vortechs will play in the grand design as they might very well be blocked by rocks close as opposed to 2+ feet away where it makes less of an impact.

Oh well after I get my LEDs and get playing around with them I'll see how much I feel like changing stuff up.
 
Alright I did do some re-aquascaping, and some how ended up with less room?? Anyways no pictures of that (sorry, but I can't take Bryan's critique of my acrylic needing to be cleaned :D). Mostly the left side got pushed back quite a bit, almost to the back wall, all the lps came forward, the "fuzzy" corals my wife so loves went to the back as well (I don't care what she says!), also the big middlish rock with the montis went towards the middle, unfortunately my lighting didn't get rearranged at all, damn T5s! I'd love to run a couple set of halides at the back, but the math of PG&E doesn't add up on that one quite yet. Ok maybe I'll take a photo sometime soon Bryan be damned!

However I did take some pictures of corals that I managed to snag from OTA in the final death throes of the store, lots of them were pity pieces, and literally got them pennies on the dollar. However one thing I just noticed, I also rescued some flatworms as well, the ugly planeria kind though not the acro-eating variants.

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Snatched these guys up because they were on the side of a rock in the tank, watching some guy just pulverize the large pieces of rock in their show tanks just to get at a montipora was quite sad.

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These were the definition of rescue special, it was a rock under another rock completely shaded, the colors were white and hot pink, a tell tail sign of serious bleaching, had to have them, kind of hard to identify when they were all white told me they were blastos but they looked closer to acans or micromussa (a bit too big though IMO). Tossed this in the tank, not under any rocks though this guy needed light (not tons of it mind you) but didn't need to be babied around... since the close of the shop (wish I had a photo when I got it) its actually colored up quite nicely, still has a way to go mind you but night and day difference on this guy. To give you a feel for how bleached it was, even those ones on the far right are bleached less than it was, it really had that neon hot pink bleach look.

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Pastel colored acan that looked cool enough to toss in a bag, that small one just below it unfortunately is the last of my "no name" acans, I don't know what happened one day they just started to recede where I saw skeleton and flesh retracted, I noticed this guy on the side and I decided to try and save the one little bugger, fortunately he's still alive... I'm thinking it was either the foxface or the peppermint shrimp in the tank).

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One of a handful of a brownout specials I saw and rescued, these guys were actually in a dark tank with the fake corals, I figured what the hell, I'll try to color them up, then frag them in time for the swap.

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Another

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Another

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Ok this wasn't a brownout special, I saw it, I wanted it before anyone else got it!

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Finally a fungia! Never had one, figure by the way people talk these are pretty unkillable just because they'll regenerate from nothingness.

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Random Chalice that looked like there could be some potential, maybe a blast it with quite a bit of light chalice, instead of those sissy chalices that bleach out if you so much as turn on the room lights.

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One red chalice

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One red and green chalice


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Some neat colored rhodactis mushrooms that were also there!
 
Ok, forgot about my herpie rhodactis, those actually came from Jim at GM, I just put them on that rock since they didn't have much of a backing.
 
Ok, since my RBTA MikeMar retro came down due to aiptasia outbreak I didn't want to deal with, I added this little piece of joy to my SPS system, Arnolds Swiss-cheese Sump (ASS!). Now even those all the holes in the ASS were covered, some of them did leak, so I had to redo around the seams on some of them. The ASS is thick walled too, and I left one divider in there, its clear acrylic and I think it is confusing some of the fish in it.

Well after carefully making sure no aiptasia were on anything going into this tank, I got my ASS in gear and online!

For lighting I simply reused the lumenarc-mini that was over the 80g tank, its about as wide as the tank, so where it's hanging it keeps the floor illuminated... there's no room for actinic lights (I don't care at this point), so the T5s I had over the old tank I sitting pretty in a closet. I wanted to do a 150W DE bulb, since the thin profile yet somewhat long reflector might be perfect, however I didn't have one handy, so this will do.

Here's a front shot of the tank, rock o' roses on the right (that's not one huge one, that's about 8 or so smaller ones). Fred is on the right the large toadstool which was given to me by a BAR member back at the first frag swap because it outgrew her tank, I'd like to "pass this on" as well, however I think the wife is quite attached to it... *sigh* (I feel your pain Bryan!), so much so I also was requested to get a mini-punk rock Fred (green hair! :D). The upside is this also will double as my refugium since I got a big honkin light over the tank. Fish include 2 colorful random damsels, a chromis and Tom.. my first fish ever, a Tomato Clown (which I've also been told I can't get rid of because it was my first fish!)
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Here's the back side of the tank, many people have thought that was just one big anemone (which would be cool if it was) but nope its many, and I keep getting more (see around Fred?)
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Now to anyone who sees a super bright colored BTA online and MUST have it, here's a bit of advice, when they're small they very often will be in full bubbly goodness, also because those tentacles aren't stretched out they colors are really vibrant, however as soon as they big the bubbles most likely will go away, and the super bright colors will turn into more of darker color.

Don't be fooled!! Here's one such tiny guy $150 anyone?? :D
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Now I didn't want to drill into the existing sump and connect these via pipe, as that would make the water level in this tank be the height of that in the sump (skimmer compartment) which is a bit low, so I got creative and I built this ramp, angled it so it didn't drip back towards the tank, and all was sitting pretty... until I tried it out. It worked great, however the water level in the tank was literally within a quarter inch of the top, and I could just see some snail or anemone covering it up slightly and then SPLOOSH water on the floor. So I drilled for a 1.5" bulkhead as a secondary/primary overflow. Put some plastic grating over it to keep things in this side, however this morning I saw I need to redesign, make it a bit further away, as there's a bit too much pressure from the flowing water right next to it... one anemone managed to squeeze through the tiny holes... and I pulled a Jason and saw the other half next to the skimmer (although it already re-attached!.. I swear I'm going to have a couple dozen of these bastards by the end of the week!).

The PVC pipe is from the tank overflow, figured all the food that makes it there can hopefully get snatched by the RBTAs here (plus it's added flow in the tank... I do got a vortech in there too :D), but it was from pieces I had laying around so don't judge :D
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Here's a side shot, practical? probably not.. but who else has a waterfall on their reef tank! Yeah I didn't think so! WHOOP WHOOP!!!
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