Pictures of my new tank 3month old

[TomL]

Here it is 3months old. I want to get it to look more full and natural. What do you guys recomend.

[TomL]

All the little frags were just put in. I have no idea what the round marron disk is suppose to be (3pic from bottom, and top pic), it looked DEAD but i throw it in anyway. Also in the 4th and 5 pic from the bottom, there was suppose to be another tree, it is on a round thin rock in front of my toadstool, its been overnight and the thing is still all lying down. The stuff i bought was this, but he threw in something extra and substituted from whatever the green tree is

The frags i bought
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWA:IT&ih=020

[TomL]

Sump is in the basement.
5000K flourecent, takes 23W outputs 100W, found at Lowes
1300gph pump, I have 9' of head to go back upstairs.
Tom aquatics overflow with aqualifter.
T5 fixture with 2 54w actinics and 2 54w 10000k, 4 LED moon lights
Colupera algea in sump.

As you can see i have a VERY VERY big problem with microbubbles, they start right where my overflow tube dumps to the sump (mostly because of the bubbles in the overflow line, as shown in pic below). Then if you take a REALLY close look at the display tank, the water looks slightly cloudy, this is because my return puts out these microbubbles. I can see them coming right from the Tom aquatics nozzle. I know its not the nozzle because it did the same thing with a homemade return.

[greg97527]

first things first....more liverock

[melev]

Why do you have screen in your sump or refugium?

I'm very concerned that tank will break the way it is set up in the rubbermaid bin. I see the 2x6 boards, but it is pressing on the bottom of the tank rather than supporting the entire tank.

[TomL]

The tank is supported evenly by the boards. I did this just to raise the tank from teh tub in case of overflow there is more volume. The screen is there because my calupera had alot of small pieces that were overflowing into my pump area. I did this temp until the calupera builds up and gets wadded tightly, then i will make sure there are no more small pieces.

I should add more live rock then? I know more could not hurt, i was planning on getting more live rock next trip to the LFS but they get 9.99lb for Cured stuff. Melev, the white anemone is the one i was talking about in the other forum. It looks good in this pic but thats the best it looked since i wrote the post about it. It now looks bad again, missing alot of its tenticles on one side, its almost like its a big water sack on that side.

What about the corals, the 2 are def dead i think

[melev]

The boards are not supporting the full tank. They are covering most of the span of bottom glass, but that is up to you. Honestly, you have a beautiful home from the pictures I saw, and your low-budget setup doesn't match up.

Why are you using a HOB filter on the refugium?

The anemone looks like a Seabae to me, although the images aren't clear enough to be positive. Sorry about that, it is just a guess at this point.

There is something called alleopathy, a type of chemical warfare that occurs between anemones in a single system. It is better to pick one that you want rather than to have many different ones. With chemicals, they literally kill another one on the opposite end of the tank. Please do more research on that, in case that is what is occurring your tank.

It could be a water quality issue, or even a lighting issue. What lights did you put over this tank?

Cured LR is expensive. Do you have more than one LFS in your area? Or perhaps there are hobbyists or a club that you can visit with. Oftentimes there are people either downgrading or leaving the hobby that sell their LR for $2 to $4 per pound.

[dberrong]

You can get 50lbs. of cured LR on ebay for around $150 and that includes the shipping. I'm an ebay fanatic and I bought 70lbs. of really nice base rock for $99 and that included shipping. Take a look.
I also have an anemone that practically shrivels up to nothing just to open back up in a day or two. I've noticed that after it shrivels up it moves and then opens up 5 or 6 inches somewhere else. He may just be trying to find a happy home.

[br12349]

Try some purple up to get some coraline algae jumpstarted. Also the cured live rock even though expensive is a good idea. This is my tank that has been set up for about 3 months. How many watts per gallon? (but I moved some rock and fish from my 30gal. reef) Hope this helps

Brad

[TomL]

The boards are not supporting the full tank. They are covering most of the span of bottom glass, but that is up to you. Honestly, you have a beautiful home from the pictures I saw, and your low-budget setup doesn't match up.

Why are you using a HOB filter on the refugium?

The anemone looks like a Seabae to me, although the images aren't clear enough to be positive. Sorry about that, it is just a guess at this point.

There is something called alleopathy, a type of chemical warfare that occurs between anemones in a single system. It is better to pick one that you want rather than to have many different ones. With chemicals, they literally kill another one on the opposite end of the tank. Please do more research on that, in case that is what is occurring your tank.

It could be a water quality issue, or even a lighting issue. What lights did you put over this tank?

Cured LR is expensive. Do you have more than one LFS in your area? Or perhaps there are hobbyists or a club that you can visit with. Oftentimes there are people either downgrading or leaving the hobby that sell their LR for $2 to $4 per pound.

Dont worry about the boards, Being an engineer if i thought they were a problem i would have done it diff (just a fast way to add move usable volume in case of overflow and noone sees it).
The light fixture is a T5 unit. It has 2 54w 10000kelvins and 2 actinics. I have them on from 9am-4:00pm everyday. The blinds are closed during the weekdays to keep it as dark as possible in the room.

The HOB filter is used still just to run the carbons. I just swapped out the bags with new ones cause my amonia was .5ppm and i thought that maybe it was due to the bags (they were about 3weeks old). Although it could be some of the live rock, the last 2 peices i was told were cured and they did not smell to bad but i think they were not fully cured. There are about 4LFS in the area. the live rock ranges from 7.99 for some uncured to 9.99 cured, depending on the store.

br12349 I have about 4watts per gallon. Your tank is EXTREMLY clean compared to mine. My crushed coral is starting to turn a little green, and it apears i have a hair algae problem. You whole tank looks so clean. I changed my background to black and i seen that the whole back of my tank is brown/green. I have to scrape the 3 sides almost every other day. Toward the bottom near the substrate it gets a line of green pretty bad. Do you vacume your substrate often, it just looks so clean compared to mine, what am i doing wrong? Could it be that i do not have enough live rock and still waiting on my protein skimmer to arrive? Like i stated above, lights are on from 9-4pm daily.

Anyone have any ideas on the microbubbles, they make my tank look cloudy. Its a real drag on looking at it with the lights on.

Thanks for the input

-Tom