Ziggy953's 72 Bow

[dheck]

I hope I can get my tank to look half that good!

[Ziggy953]

Don't worry you will. It just takes time. When I started this tank I sat and stared at one rock and a bunch of sand for hours amazed that evertime I looked I saw something new on the rock. This hobby is a work in progress, always evolving and changing. I'm one of those nuts that has to spend "time" in front of the tank every day, and nearly every day I see something I hadn't seen before. My son loves the tank and we take a weekly trip to the LFS together to see whats new.

Thank you all for the kind words! There are so many tanks out there that make mine look like a goldfish bowl, so there is work yet to be done!

[lando]

Looking great Ziggy! I love all of the SPS corals...zoanthids are very nice as well. Keep it up!

[Ziggy953]

Thanks Brian!

[melosu58]

That is one impressive tank. Great photography also

[uscamaro]

how much have you spent on that setup? and do the liverock creatures grow a lot?

[Ziggy953]

I have a little over $3000 in the total setup but that includes the main tank and a 55g tank. That being said I didn't drop that much money right off the bat. I have spent that much over 3 years. I have pics of the corals you see when I first got them. All of my corals were tiny 1/2" - 1" in size when I got them. They have grown to what you see in those pics over the last 2 and a half years (1st 6 months I didn't have corals in the tank) I assume that is what you meant by liverock creatures. If not let me know.

[Ziggy953]

This is the Green cap when I first got it.



This is the green cap today


This is just an example of the growth I have seen in my corals. Now this is the most dramatic of all as well. But you can see that the corals are growing!

[uscamaro]

well in previous posts, people have been curious about the creatures growing on their liverock, so I assumed they were on there in the beginning. I was just curious if you have to buy every live plant/sponge/coral/etc. or if some are on the liverock when purchased

it's just that your tank looks so mature and there is so many different plants and other live things that I wasn't sure you bought all of them yourself.

basically, I wanted to get into the SW first but thought buying enough plants to make it look like a reef will cost too much, where the LR will take care of half of the live things

[Ziggy953]

Ok first...what you are calling plants are actually animals. Coral are animals not plants. Just letting you know. The rock has living things in and on it but not the kinds of things you see in the pics. All of those I have had to buy. The awesome thing is they aren't as expensive as you may think. Most of them were less then $10. Now granted they were small pieces but they grow as you can see in the last two pics I showed you. That coral cost me $5 and it is one of the show pieces in my tank. The tank is only 3 years old and the corals have only been in there for 2.5 years.

For the first 6-8 months the tank is going to look a bit dull because it isn't ready for the coral. There are a lot of things that you have to keep in balance before you go adding coral to a tank. My tank is a work in progress and is no where near what MANY other people have.