Reef Tank
Because I haven't posted in a while here is an update on my reef tank.
Well since I last posted my tank has been moved out of the nursery. Here it is.
I elevated the stand so that an adult could view it without having to hunch down.
Basically in this picture you have the tank. the blue stuff is a cushion to allow the tank to be self leveling on the stand. In the stand on the upper shelf from left to right.
1. The collection bucket for waste.
2. The protien skimmer. This creates wave-like foam that carries away waste from the tank. Essentially mimicks waves breaking on the beach. It is way way over powered for my 40 gallon setup.
3. That's food in front of the protien skimmer.
4. Next we have in (lower) and out (upper) to the protien skimmer.
5. Below is the power for the whole setup. This will be mounted in the right wall when I'm completely satisfied with the configuration of the stand.
On the lower part we have the Sump. The sump is a secondary tank that holds all the workings for your tank. My heater would be in here, but my sump is not big enough for it.
On the left we have a fan. It's just a computer fan. It can effectively cool the tank 5 or more degrees.
The right side of the sump is what we call a refugium. It is a refuge for little creepy crawlies to breed and grow. In turn they get returned to the tank as food :-D. The light there is for nighttime light to help the macroalgae grow and to help keep the pH swing from being as big.
To the right of my stand is my RODI (Reverse-Osmosis De-Ionized) water that is used for top-off. There is a little pump in there and when the water in the sump drops below a certain level a float switch turns on the pump and refills the tank. The water comes through the wall. Our laundry room is behind there and that's where the rodi unit is.
I should fix the stray thermometer probe :-P Right now there is not a lot in the tank. It's been set up for over a year and a half, but due to $$ and time and access I haven't put much livestock in it. It currently has 1 frogspawn coral, 1 red mushroom, 1 skunk shrimp and 2 paired firefish. I don't know if the firefish are a mated pair. I have never seen babies and there are no young in the tank, but they always hang out together and they burrow together.
I love my frogspawn. I got it for $12. It has done awesome. I've neglected the tank for almost a year and it's survived and thrived.
Here's a shot from when I first got it.
To be fair it was a bit agitated. :-P I got this over a year ago on 3/20/2006.
And because I love the frogspawn so much I'll post another picture of it
I'm going to fragment this guy soon and give each of those heads a bit more room.
Here's my mushroom. I'm shortly going to blender it. Really I'm going to stick it in the blender (with some salt water) and then put the slurry back in my tank. After that I will have mushrooms everywhere!
This is a picture of it from last june. Look how big it's grown!
I lost my big skunk shrimp last year some time, Jacques. This is the smaller one we called Cousteau.
Here's a picture of them both from last June. Cousteau is the one on the bottom.
Here's some pictures of one of my firefish. I scared the other one and it wouldn't come out. :-(
Sorry about the algae on the back wall there. I need to scrape that or something.
Here's one of my crabs being attacked by a bunch of snailes. Not really :-P. I have about 20 crabs I think. I had some snails at one point. Then there were no snails. Now there are 50 billion little snail babies everywhere! I mean everywhere. I can count 12 in this picture alone!
I also have tons of feather dusters. They are tube worms. They are fun and Courtney likes to bang on the glass and make them all go back into their tubes. 3 snails and 8 feather dusters.
Well that's my tank for now. Until my birthday on Wednesday! Then I will get to add 1 or 2 things! Yippie.
Well since I last posted my tank has been moved out of the nursery. Here it is.
I elevated the stand so that an adult could view it without having to hunch down.
Basically in this picture you have the tank. the blue stuff is a cushion to allow the tank to be self leveling on the stand. In the stand on the upper shelf from left to right.
1. The collection bucket for waste.
2. The protien skimmer. This creates wave-like foam that carries away waste from the tank. Essentially mimicks waves breaking on the beach. It is way way over powered for my 40 gallon setup.
3. That's food in front of the protien skimmer.
4. Next we have in (lower) and out (upper) to the protien skimmer.
5. Below is the power for the whole setup. This will be mounted in the right wall when I'm completely satisfied with the configuration of the stand.
On the lower part we have the Sump. The sump is a secondary tank that holds all the workings for your tank. My heater would be in here, but my sump is not big enough for it.
On the left we have a fan. It's just a computer fan. It can effectively cool the tank 5 or more degrees.
The right side of the sump is what we call a refugium. It is a refuge for little creepy crawlies to breed and grow. In turn they get returned to the tank as food :-D. The light there is for nighttime light to help the macroalgae grow and to help keep the pH swing from being as big.
To the right of my stand is my RODI (Reverse-Osmosis De-Ionized) water that is used for top-off. There is a little pump in there and when the water in the sump drops below a certain level a float switch turns on the pump and refills the tank. The water comes through the wall. Our laundry room is behind there and that's where the rodi unit is.
I should fix the stray thermometer probe :-P Right now there is not a lot in the tank. It's been set up for over a year and a half, but due to $$ and time and access I haven't put much livestock in it. It currently has 1 frogspawn coral, 1 red mushroom, 1 skunk shrimp and 2 paired firefish. I don't know if the firefish are a mated pair. I have never seen babies and there are no young in the tank, but they always hang out together and they burrow together.
I love my frogspawn. I got it for $12. It has done awesome. I've neglected the tank for almost a year and it's survived and thrived.
Here's a shot from when I first got it.
To be fair it was a bit agitated. :-P I got this over a year ago on 3/20/2006.
And because I love the frogspawn so much I'll post another picture of it
I'm going to fragment this guy soon and give each of those heads a bit more room.
Here's my mushroom. I'm shortly going to blender it. Really I'm going to stick it in the blender (with some salt water) and then put the slurry back in my tank. After that I will have mushrooms everywhere!
This is a picture of it from last june. Look how big it's grown!
I lost my big skunk shrimp last year some time, Jacques. This is the smaller one we called Cousteau.
Here's a picture of them both from last June. Cousteau is the one on the bottom.
Here's some pictures of one of my firefish. I scared the other one and it wouldn't come out. :-(
Sorry about the algae on the back wall there. I need to scrape that or something.
Here's one of my crabs being attacked by a bunch of snailes. Not really :-P. I have about 20 crabs I think. I had some snails at one point. Then there were no snails. Now there are 50 billion little snail babies everywhere! I mean everywhere. I can count 12 in this picture alone!
I also have tons of feather dusters. They are tube worms. They are fun and Courtney likes to bang on the glass and make them all go back into their tubes. 3 snails and 8 feather dusters.
Well that's my tank for now. Until my birthday on Wednesday! Then I will get to add 1 or 2 things! Yippie.