Sniperhank's UPGRADED 55 gal Build

[Sniperhank]

So I decided to make a future additions list today.
-Acan Lord
- Brain Coral - prob favite
- Acro - Purple Na Na and Blue Voodoo
- Birds Nest
- German Blue Polyp
- Pink Stylophora
- Marshall Island Lantana
- Bottlebrush

[needmorecowbell]

Those would be nice, I love birds nest as you may know..

I wouldn't limit yourself yet, there's always that impulse coral buy lol. Luckily, if your keeping those corals, you'll be able to handle almost any impulse coral buy.

[Sniperhank]

For corals yes. My inpulse invert buys still end up dead. Rip purple lobster. **** thing ate last night too. Was fine in his cave before i left for work. Inverts are impossible for me to keep i swear.

[needmorecowbell]

I've had problems with my fire shrimp also. He had a bad molt a little while back, nothing i did wrong or could have done to fix it supposedly, wish it wasn't like that though.

[Sniperhank]

Its ok, my disgruntled self just utilized reefs2go's 25% off coral sale...and with the almost 50 bucks they owed me from the last order I ordered an orange/blue acan lord, purple/green acan lord, red acan lord, pink bird's nest, and a green pocilliora. This should solve me being disgruntled over the lobster AND solve me not being able to find acro lords anywhere...

[needmorecowbell]

Lol I'm having the same problem, luckily, the lfs around us are great about importing stuff in if you ask. I'm getting an african peocock Midas Blenny in soon.

[Sniperhank]

Well i cant wait to see the new fish in your thread. Though po'd about the loss of the lobster, the acans have me excited. They are one of my favorite corals. Being able to get 3 different acans at such a low price was great. I had been watching liveaquaria for different colors to come in, but they were so pricey. Im sure its because theyll be more than 1 head like what im getting, but ive been having decent growth on some of my corals so i have faith in their growth as well. Just looks like im going to need to get my flowerpot out of the sandbed for their arrival. Stupid thing keeps ending up down there. It even crushed my plate coral. And the flowerpot just keeps doing great. The fact that it budded me a new flowerpot was so exciting. Ill have to trade it for something once it becomes more established. Just no room for 2 flowerpots and so many aggressive corals in a 55!

[needmorecowbell]

I'm excited to get it too, I just hope one of the lfs actually gets it for me by saturday..

I'd give you a chunk of my acan, it's lost it's red and white color and now is a greenish blue, I'm not sure if I like it yet, it would probably color up better with radions. It's grown like crazy, used to be 2 heads and now has about 15. Just don't know how to frag it.

[Sniperhank]

That is actually a good question...I'd assume you'd take a razorblade along the seperation between the different heads. But I've never fragged a thing. Only fresh corals I have budded themselves, them being the flowerpot and my orange ric from the 55. My orange ric that died when I switched tanks over had split a couple times too. It will be interesting how I end up positioning the 3 acan heads in the sandbed since they aren't high light corals and don't like a ton of flow. I'll probably keep them in the sandbed as I have most of my flow pointed towards the top of the tank in "prep" for SPS and increased air exchange.

[Flreefer]

Sorry to hear about the lobster, Sniper.
On a brighter note... I love Acans too. The big colonies are WAY expensive. I got a nice little 6 header last time I traded in some frags, for $25, but he cut me a deal cause I brought him in quite a bit of Red Monti. He also gave me a nice 3" by 4" piece of Meteor shower ( Cephastrea) for free. That stuff looks soo cool.
Good luck with your new acquisitions!

[Mpfaff77]

Don't mean to keep bringing up your lobster but is it possible that it is a molt?? I have mistaken molts for dead inverts just for them to show up days later to my surprise.

[Sniperhank]

It's fine you can bring it up. Yeah, most def not a molt. I'd notice a second lobster in my tank lol. I've been caught by molts before, but for whatever reason I have issues with inverts in my 36.

[Sniperhank]

I woke up today and had more algae on some of my new rockwork. Added more GFO and turned my lights down to I believe 60%. Will be doing more work on the algae this weekend with a brush and water changes.

[Bearchumjs]

Originally Posted by Sniperhank

I woke up today and had more algae on some of my new rockwork. Added more GFO and turned my lights down to I believe 60%. Will be doing more work on the algae this weekend with a brush and water changes.

Good luck!! It sounds like it is a very troublesome problem.

[Sniperhank]

It isn't that bad to deal with in all reality. This is just going to take time. It took a month to get this way and it'll take atleast that long to get it under control. With my lights turned down and very minimal feedings tied in with manually removing the algae prior to weekly water change things are improving. It will get better and easier with the sump going. Tomorrow I'll plumb my PVC and give it 24 hours to set up. Hopefully one of my hardware stores will be open so I can get the one fitting for the pump to connect to my dual reactor. With that tackled the only thing left will be a clip for my old reptile light or finding a cheap light with a clip.

[needmorecowbell]

I was thinking of using my old reptile light also.. Do you think that it would be safe? I kept the clamp for some reason so I just have to plug it in. I think it might raise the temp too much though..

[Sniperhank]

I wasnt going to use the same bulb. Thinking about the 10 watt energy saver bulbs that are like a 40 was and cover the 6500 spectrum. The heat from a reptile light is really from the bulb if i remember correctly.

[needmorecowbell]

Oh interesring.. I might do that also, but right now my t8 10k bulb will do.

[Sniperhank]

That lighting is more than fine for a fuge. I wouldn't worry about doing anything different with it and put the money towards something else later on.

I spent my time scrubbing algae off the rocks I could remove from the tank and scrubbing the glass. Still growing quickly. Did the plumbing, it should be ready to go tomorrow. Wasn't sure about the seal from the flex tube onto the PVC, so I siliconed around the outside of it just incase. It is pretty crazy looking between my 2 tanks. My 36 is still algae free for the most part. The LED lighting is really feeding the fire since I'm only running the 2 actinic bulbs on the 36. The lawnmower blenny and coral beauty are doing great munching away at the algae. The rock I can't remove they have almost fully cleared up, pretty impressive since it looked like a field of grass.

Seaclone skimmer has once again stopped skimming. Will need to take it apart, scrub it down, and put it back together to get it going again. This has been a weekly ordeal. Hopefully at walmart I can find a piece that will connect the pump to the dual reactor so I can get that up and running instead of having the GFO in a sock right away.

While I was cleaning I spooked out my green clown goby! I thought he was dead. Hadn't seen him in a long time. Was a nice surprise.

I also moved my 550 PH over into the dead spot on the one side of the 55. Hung it on the back rather than the side so we'll see how that goes. Already alot of the buildup is gone without disturbing the sand which is a nice change.

[Sniperhank]

A couple updated pics from when I got home after lights out.



And the new fuge light