KimP

I've been looking at something like this. Thanks for posting.

Thanks. I'm certain the success is largely due to you getting it off to a good start! I actually pulled the stock light off, added 3 strips of leds from the ecopico to it, and I now have it over the frag tank (not pictured). I've been running an AI Sol unit over it, turned waaaaay down. I didn't feel like selling it when I shut down my big tank.

That's great news about the tunze. I figured they move more water than the koralias. About the lagoon lighting, it's actually way too much light. It's a 4 bulb T5 and it's on it's default timer settings of a 12hr light cycle. I have too many fish and feed a lot to keep nutrients up for the macro. It's been working well for a while now.

Thanks! You probably recognize half the corals in there

Now for the 65gal. I have a steel stand being built that I need to skin before setting the tank up. Not exactly sure what I'm going to do for that yet. Some equipment I've gathered or already had: Coralife 4 bulb T5 fixture came with the tank mp10 30 gal tank for a sump 2 AI Sol - super blue Nano wavebox ups several misc koralia powerheads I still need to get an overflow probably lifereef return pump to run inside the sump rock - leaning towards doing all dry rock from prof - I won a gift cert at the last meeting sand plumbing (I have no idea yet what all I need) I'm still deciding between getting some tunze powerheads, or sticking with the koralia's I already have. I've ruled out vortechs due to noise and not being able to have cords on the side of the tank (toddler) And of course I'm still working on what to put in the sump, if anything. I'm busy reading the Sprung and Delbeek book before making up my mind. Leaning towards a dsb as long as I can come up with good, reliable battery back up for flow and oxygen. I have a ups but also looking at battery powered air pumps. Anyone have experience with the tunze powerheads? It looks like there are only 2 choices. The tank is 48" long and only 12" wide, so I was thinking one on each end. No pictures yet. The tank is still sitting dirty in the garage. As soon as I get the stand I'll start getting things put together!!

First, here are pictures from my nanos. The lagoon is what I got from the the frag swap in April. It's been growing great! So great in fact, that it needs thinning as you can see. I have one really neat macro that has these triangle leaves. I have a few fish in there that get along great and I have to feed a lot to keep the macro growing and happy with so much light. I've really enjoyed it. I have a problem with cyano in the rubble box, but it's clearing up nicely with added flow. the pic is a little blurry but hopefully you can see the triangle leaves. some neat little blue cloves The LPS tank is my main tank and I'm going to keep it running as is when the 65 gets set up. I love this tank! For one, the tank itself is just awesome. It's a Cadlights 8g I got from jestep, with a cerameco arch already in it. I put my AI Sol over it from my 47g and kinda shocked the coral and bleached two of my blasto frags. I dropped the % of lights waaaay down (thanks to advice from timfish - thank you!) and everything has recovered and is thriving. I also added in a tiny powerhead that came with my ecopico for added flow. I don't run anything in the back except for a bag of chemipure. I try to do at least one small water change a week, sometimes twice a week. I was very happy to get this tank already running so the hard waiting part was already over. My favorite coral is blastos so I wanted a place to display them and the cerameco is perfect. When shutting down my 47g seahorse tank, I ended up putting my lobos in too, and a few others. I had a lot of trouble getting the colors to show up how they really look under these leds. That's frustrating. All of the colors are darker than they show up, and some even look white and they're not white at all, but hopefully you can get the idea. When I get the 65 set up, a few of the frags in here will go into it. Mainly a few from the sand bed and the frag up on the glass. The rest will stay. This has been a very successful tank. Most of my blastos have new heads in the past couple months, and my dendros are adding new heads too. I'm also having great luck getting the cup corals to add heads. Such an easy tank! these are my big blue blastos. I love these! these look brown but are actually purple with a white ring. they were completely bleached

Great pic!! Pham only has the best stuff, always very healthy! Can't wait to get my frag.

Giving her live foods and training onto frozen is the only option I know of, as long as she's in good health. Go to seahorse.org to the forums, and there's an entire section for wild caught seahorses and their care. It's a great resource! Good luck!

Thanks everyone, that's really nice of you. I'm trying to get good pictures. They don't come out well on my camera with the led's. Tonight I'll start a build thread for my new tank and include pics of the nanos.

Welcome to the club!

I'm also interested in the dendros

I think that will take several oceans and maybe a sea or two. Well it sounds like I'm going to need a (much) bigger tank.

Yeah, I didn't have any problems drilling it. It was pretty easy to do and didn't take very long. I was thinking the exact same thing. Does yours have a sticker on the bottom saying it's tempered glass? Every tank I've gotten from there has said that. Great looking setup btw!

Thanks for all the input from everyone. I just had a chance to catch up with this thread and it's given me a ton to think about. I've been spending a bunch of time over on RC reading about skimmerless systems and also the pros of skimmers. I don't know anything about anything, really. So many different systems can work. My feeling is that if I'm going to run carbon (which I always do), and possibly purigen or chemi-pure, than I'm already messing up the natural flow of things in my reef. So adding in a skimmer, which the best ones only pull 30% or so of stuff from the water, isn't going to make much more of a difference and they do oxygenate and can save you, just like carbon, if contaminants enter the water (I do have a toddler). I didn't ever mean for this to be about skimmer vs no skimmer, because I may very well use one, more of that I don't need to consider room for one in the sump. The discussion sure got me thinking though, so I appreciate it! Another thing I realized is I haven't thought of the sump at all as a place for nutrient removal. My main idea for the sump, besides not having equipment hanging on the tank, was for diversity. It excites me to think of creating another area for creatures to live that may not in the dt, like in a dsb or a cryptic zone. I think that the more diverse the life in the system, the more stable it'll be for me. And more interesting too. That's the microbiologist in me. I need to think about nutrient export and I need to look into the maintenance and risks of each of the options. And I need to start making some decisions of what I want to keep in the tank! That's a tough one because I want to keep it all

Wow, that looks beautiful!

I'm in. not exactly sure what all I need, but I'll know soon.

Wow, your cup corals look great! I love mine too! Everything looks nice. You should post a recent fts

Do you have the fluval on the DT or running off the sump? Also what do you keep in your refugium?

Thanks for the input. I was considering keeping LR in the sump because I was thinking of keeping less in the DT. Since I'm not going with cerameco anymore (boo) that's probably not an issue. I'd like to keep fish and mostly lps in the tank. As far as skimming, I've rarely used them and have had great luck. I have 2 hob skimmers that I really like, so that's why no need for room for a skimmer in the sump. Not positive if I'll use them, but I have them if I do.

I picked up a 30 gal tank to use as a sump that will fit under my 65 gal. That will also leave room for an ato container under there. So I have a few ideas for the sump and no real direction yet. I'm thinking I'll be limited by the size, so I wanted to get any advice here before getting my head set on any one idea. I'm considering putting: live rock down there a dsb refugium to grow macro algae scrubber Not all together and possibly more than one of those, but maybe just one choice. No skimmer. So just room for the return pump, which I don't have yet, so also advice on internal vs external return pumps would be nice. I'll read up on it too. Thanks!

Thank you so much for the huge colony of anthellia! That was very generous of you and I'm enjoying it in my lagoon. Thanks also for the macro. Very pretty!

I was wondering about the area, not so much the depth. That's good info though too, so thanks!

I'm glad to hear things are going well for you. Welcome back! The tank swap sounds like a good move. More manageable and nothing to flood your house (barring a tank leak).

Is there a minimum size for a dsb to be beneficial? A remote one.