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Felicia's 40B Predator Reef

Got a fun gif of the antennata for you guys.

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Wow your tank is beautiful! The lions look great with the movement of the corals behind them. I have no experience with predator tanks and when I saw you were making the switch I was wondering what would be so fun and fascinating about it. Now I see!
 
MolaMola said:
Wow your tank is beautiful! The lions look great with the movement of the corals behind them. I have no experience with predator tanks and when I saw you were making the switch I was wondering what would be so fun and fascinating about it. Now I see!
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Thank you! The lions definitely look really cool in the mixed reef environment. I didn't have any experience with them myself, so I wasn't sure how it would go. I just needed to try something different and some of my favorite tanks at the public aquariums lately had been the lionfish tanks. The one at Monterey Bay Aquarium is especially stunning! They are definitely fascinating. Just such a different behavior and feeding is a lot of fun. The fact that they're so interactive with people is also really nice.
 
Did my weekly 10 gallon water change and other tank maintenance tonight. Before the water change, I tested the parameters, and here's what they were:

Alk: 9.9 (stable since last week after I adjusted it a bit higher, so no change in dosing)
Ca: 400 (finally where I'd like it to be, so no change in dosing)
Mg: 1140 (closer to where I'd like it but still not quite there, so I increased dosing by 2 mL per day)
PO4: 0.03
NO3: 10-25 (color was somewhere in between 10 and 25 on the chart, probably ~15)

I haven't added any more biopellets yet. I'm still letting the ~50 mL I originally added fully colonize with bacteria and drop the nitrates before I add a bit more. I started with about 1/4 of the recommended amount for my tank, so I'll have to slowly work my way up to the right amount. However, I did change out the carbon and GFO that are in a media bag sitting in the sump (1/4 cup of each).
 
I'm sitting on my couch enjoying the tank and I ended up snapping a few quick shots. I didn't adjust the light for the iphone or anything, so these aren't perfect, but I think they turned out pretty well. You can also see Draco (dwarf zebra lionfish) up in the front right corner begging for food in a few shots.

Loving the view from my couch right now!


FTS 6/23/15


Can you spot Draco?




And a bit different angle.
 
Time for an update. Let's start with a few photos of the lions.

The antennata.
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The dwarf zebra
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The fu manchu
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I also took some fun videos. First off, here's a top down view of the predator feeding frenzy.

And finally a video of the aquarium.
 
Fun side shot of the tank.


Let's start with the photos of the fish. First off, Draco since he loves to pose for photos.






Mushu


Mushu and Draco


Mushu and Falkor


Falkor








The clownfish


 
I placed an order with KP Aquatics because I wanted to get a bunch of nice gorgonians to intersperse throughout my scape to give the tank that lush, gorgonian forest feel. I thought the lions would look really cool swimming in between and perching on the gorgs. Basically, I wanted to make this take a combo of the things I loved from my mixed reef tank and the things I loved from the seahorse tank. I got 6 of the medium sized gorgs from KPA (purple angular sea whip, knobby sea rod, purple plume, purple sea rod, purple sea feather, yellow sea feather) and some blue leg hermits to augment my clean up crew. KPA delivered as usual! They sent some really lovely, big gorgonians!

How about some preview photos before the new FTS reveal?

Let's start with lions perched on my favorite of the new gorgonians.




Knobby sea rod and a glimpse of the antennata


The antennata really loves perching on these new gorgs.


Yellow sea feather


Little bit more of the lions! Mushu with a Draco photo bomb (fin in the upper left).


Draco being a ham. Ignore the stuff floating on the surface of the water. I had just fed and its bits of food that got skimmed up as soon as the return pump kicked back on.


I also took a few shots of some of my other tank inhabitants.

One of my two huge red mithrax crabs that do a great job eating algae. I call this one Godzilla
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Haven't photographed my two starfish before. One is a nano serpent star from KPA that I got a while back. The other is a huge monster of a harlequin serpent starfish that I got a few months ago. I needed some critters that would help pick up any food bits off the sand bed since I can't have any shrimp in with the lionfish. When the lions eat, they suck in the food so fast it sort of blows up and little bits go everywhere. The hermits and starfish do a great job getting those bits off the sand bed.


Wish I could get a full shot of this guy but he's shy and usually only comes out all the way after the lights shut off.


One of my two trusty fighting conchs. The two of them are like Roombas for my sand bed. Awesome critters and very hardy since I've had both of mine for quite some time now!


And finally, Falkor the eel and Mushu in the background.
 
Nice shots! The lions look great among the gorgs! What a cool selection of gorgs. What do you feed them?
My red mithrax attacks my baster when I feed and sticks a claw inside to grab meaty bits. I hope he wants to eat algae someday.
 
MolaMola said:
Nice shots! The lions look great among the gorgs! What a cool selection of gorgs. What do you feed them?
My red mithrax attacks my baster when I feed and sticks a claw inside to grab meaty bits. I hope he wants to eat algae someday.
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Thank you! I really like the new gorgonians. I like the mix of textures from the ones I got. I actually don't really feed the gorgonians. All the ones I got are photosynthetic, although they can also grab small particulates out of the water. The lions are messy eaters, so I figure the gorgs get some stuff out of the water column. I also feed AcroPower twice a week for all the corals, so the gorgs probably eat that too.

My red mithrax also goes crazy for food when I feed the tank. Luckily, I'm on a schedule of only feeding 3 times per week for the lions, so the mithrax crabs have to eat algae in between feeding days. Makes them more effective :)
 
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