Finally snapped a few pics tonight. The 265g is going primarly fish but im going to try to stock with some easy colorful corals that hopefully wont be eaten. The stand was custom built by me and the tank is a perfecto 84" X 24" X 30". Tank is BB and filtration is provided by liverock, a 40g BB sump/fuge with chaeto lit by 36" 2 bar T5, a Reeflo Orca 200 skimmer, and a denitrator. The return pump is a panworld and the light fixture is a 72" 12 bar nova extreme pro. Right now the inhabitants include a couple of fish from my 75g breakdown inlcuding my pair of maroon, hippo tank, green chromis, and royal gramma. The tentative stocking list is as follows 9 lyretail anthias, 5 percula, pair of longnose hawkfish, dwarf flame angel, achilles tang, blonde naso tang, emperator angel, queen angel, harlequin tuskfish, and a pair of crosshatch triggerfish. Instead of going with the cliche FOWLR and having all bigger and aggressive fish ive decided to go with a select group of larger, less agressive species and several smaller species that i hope will diffuse any potential aggression. Its a pretty safe stocking list that i dont expect to have too many issues with besides maybe the two angels and the hippo and achilles.
The fragtank is a glasscages 48" X 24" X 10" rimless with a 400 watt 20K radium bulb, lumen bright reflector and a dimmable coralvue ballast. Flow is provided by two maxijet mods on a wavemaker. Filtration is an in-tank refugium lit by a 12" coralife 2 bulb fixture and waterchanges. I only have a handfull of frags in there now because i want to see good growth before i move my nicer stuff from my other tank.
The vivarium looks better in person. Its a vertical 48" 40 gallon perfect. The top is used for the access side and has a hinged door and screen flushmounted to the trim. I build an automatic mister on a seconds timer that is tied in to my house’s coldwater to eliminate the need for a reservoir and pump, and the light is a sunlight supply 150w HPS fixture. I just planted the tank this week, no frogs yet, probably going to be at least another month or two before i can get the temp and humidity dialed in.
I also threw in a couple of shots of my Solana as well. The 4 threadfins are from my 75g. I plan to keep them in the Solana permanently but might move them back to the new tank if things dont go well. The new tank is going to be the 75g upgrade which will be a perfecto 150G 48" X 24" X 30".
wow logan nice!!! first off…your dogs frikkin awesome, lol…
the vivarium is really nice, i could probley sneak one of those im my house and my girlfriend would love the look, lol…does the glass ever fog up, making it hard to see in? or is that still a matter of fine tuning the humidity?
i love the solana and the frag tank…if u ever frag your digi, let me know, nice colors…i saw an article about a guy in california who kept a similar frag tank outside…
do u still have the cool fish that you didnt want to jinx yourself on?? i think we’ve only seen pics of it once on the board…
got some pretty sweet shots shawn. lemme know how the stock list works out for ya. ive been reading up on anthias especially, and large groups of them. and u have a few of my personal favs on there as well…
i also wanted to add i love those cardinals…do you know if they repro. relatively easy like the Banggais? I heard once you get the Banggais going, they breed like guppies…
does the glass ever fog up, making it hard to see in? or is that still a matter of fine tuning the humidity?
Fog is a big issue with vivas. However, to keep it clear i custom built a ventilation system that uses 2 X 40mm DC fans in a custom mount blowing fresh air through two bulkheads in the top of the tank that keeps i fog free. In the pic you can see the mist from the mister but it clears up pretty quick and im using an inline 1/4" micron and carbon filters to prevent water spots. The dialing in part is simply a matter of adjusting the misting, lights, and ventilation timers to keep the temp and humidty stable and the plants healthy.
do you know if they repro. relatively easy like the Banggais? I heard once you get the Banggais going, they breed like guppies...
As far as i know there are no CB threadfin cardinals and im not 100% if they are mouthbrooders or not.
i wanna see thebrain room, and how all this is connected and alll the cool stuff you were talking about..
my fishroom is actually only for my 75g. most of these systems are pretty much standalone. the solana is topped off from the fish room with a wallfished feed from the RODI downstairs and has a wallfished electrical outlet that shares the battery backup downstairs but other than that it is its own system. the frag is completely seperate from everything and has its own RODI feed upstairs above a deepsink that i put in my reptile room. the rodi for it tops off the frag and the 265g through another custom wallfish and the water change tank for the 265g is below the frag tank and is also wallfished to the 265g. the ATO for the 265g is actually upstairs and shares the same powersupply as the frag ato. the water change for the frag tank is also used for the solana and you can see it on the shelf above the frag tank. other than top offs and waterchanges, all of my tanks other than my other fragtank are seperate. the “brain room” that everyone talks about is for the 75g that i just broke down and it also has an inline frag tank. i will be getting the new 150g shortly and have everything back up and running and ill try to post pics then.
I dont really have a favorite. They are all so completely different that its really hard to compare. Ones a straight propagation tank, one is basically a FOWLR, the other is all SPS, and my 75g soon to be 150g was/will be a LPS/Zoa/Clam dominant tank.
Ahhh! The fine art of building a community tank of fish. It’s going to be good. Lots of nice lighting for the various tanks. I think you can grow some nice looking corals in them all.
You would think, but my 265g is DARK even with all 12 bulbs firing. I have a GSP near the bottom and i had to move it up about 6" to get it to open fully, 30" is a tought tank to light and even more of a PIA to work with, but it looks oh so nice ;D
So far ive been looking with the current bulb fiasco and have only blown one bulb but i do get a lot of flicker so i dont some of the bulbs to last much longer. Because of the costs of 36" bulbs versus 60" bulbs, when the bulbs go i plun to modify the fixture to run 6 staggered 60" bulbs instead of the 12 36" bulbs. With the money i will save in bulb replacement i plan to also replace the OEM ballasts with two 660s which will penetrate the 30" a lot better and compensate for the staggered 60" bulbs in a 72" fixture over an 84" tank ;D
Looks good Shawn, but I really don’t think the pictures due the size of the 265 justice. Even with the couch in front of it. You gotta get a pic with someone sitting on the couch to get a good comparison. Those of us that had to carry it in to the house would appreciate everyone being able to see the true monstrocity this tank is
I thought the same thing when i looked at the pic. Its actually why i moved the couch back in front of it for the rest of the pics. Its very hard to take a pic that conveys its size. For comparison, the tiny hippo tang in the pic is probably 5-6" long!
Dam Shawn I need to come over and check those out. Thanks Look AWESOME!!! Peeps I’ve seen Shawns set up in person and pics do no justice at all especially the 265. That tank is HUGE in person, looks small in the pics. I see the big bruser dog managed to get in the pics ;D
I really like the live rock in the 265. You did a great job with the aqua-scape. I am not a fan of BB and although I think it would look better with at least a shallow sand bed, it looks better than most BB I have seen.
That frag tank is super cool. I wish I had the time to have more tanks. I would love to check out your systems in person some time. Maybe we will have to start having some tank tours.
When I saw your pooch I wanted reach through the screen and scratch his back. He is a cutie for sure.
I thought you were going to build your own frag tank? What made you change your mind?
Love the cardinals. I think you and I talked about them a long time ago. Def one of my favorites for filling up a tank with some movement and isn’t something you see every day.
Let me know if you ever really decide on the Achilles tang. I’ll give you the name of the wholesaler they do best from and all the info I collected on them.
Would be cool to see a pair of long nose hawks. Why not a pair of flame angelfish vs just one? Could plan ahead for a DIYS larval collector system. It’s just crazy how much larval and fry are simply filtered out of large healthy tanks. Could have it set up and planned, but just not used. Then you could throw it into place when it comes time and the mood is right. Might plan your photoperiod and lunar cycle out as well to really get the mood right, lol. Just a thought.
