Pictures of Ninong's tank in progress.

[Ninong]

Hey Ninong

I noticed some cyano on the rocks....Your coming along quite nicely though....The question is are you enjoying your tank?

Rocky

Ah, if only it were cyano I would be quite happy!

The truth is it is not cyano. It is a very stubborn mysterious red algae that I can't seem to get rid of.

I'm not enjoying much of anything right now. In fact I'm typing this with one hand because I slipped and fell in the bathtub Dec. 30th. and dislocated the ring finger on my left hand badly, sprained my left wrist, and did major damage to my left thigh and bad left leg. The damage to the left leg was not so obvious until the next day. The hospital did a good job on my finger but it has to stay in a splint for a month. Because I am on Coumadin, a fall like that can cause internal bleeding in the tissues and I now have black and blue marks over the entire left side of me. I can barely move but it is improving. At least it's peaceful around here right now. I'm home alone. Everybody else went to Miami last Sunday and won't be back until tonight.

[Ninong]

Don't know if it will help, but mt Strombus alatus regularly vanish and reappear. I had given up hope on 2 of mine as I had only seen one for about 2 weeks. THen poof! all 3 were having a meeting in the front of my tank!!! They seem to do this about once a week now. As far as Pseudochromis eating worms, I'll confirm that!!! Mine Devoured a 3" long red bristle worm right B4 my eyes!! I had split a large rock into several pieces to frag my GS polyps and found one, dropped him into the tank and watched as he filled his belly with the poor worm!!

My two Strombus alatus are constantly disappearing, too, but up until now neither one has been missing for two weeks straight, especially the one that is now missing. That's the one that usually stays in the front of the tank while the greenish one is the one that usually spends most of its time along the back wall of the tank. I am hoping that it shows up soon but I have my doubts. I am almost certain that the little sand cuke is a goner because he has never been out of sight for more than 48 hours and even then I can usually find him in the tank if I look hard enough.

[zhenya]

George,

Tank looks quite nice for 6mo and if you consider that you just recently added those frags I'd say that they showed some nice growth. Too bad about your Strombus alatus , I've lost mine a little while ago and really miss the little guy. As far as those Eurytoe complanata worms, I see them once in a while on my corals,especially on a patch of green star polyps but never seen any damage on anything.I usually see them there at night when polyps are withdrawn but I think they just doing the clean up duties like they supposed to,ie. cleaning between the stolons as I see some detritus and some food remnants there as well when those polyps retract.

Have you tried putting your conchs ontop of problem patches or do they seem to get around good enough w/out you doing that? I noticed some cyano on the rocks....

Rocky, i think that red stuff is that nasty red algae that George had mentioned before.Maybe my eyesight is just as bad as Georges,though
Can't be so sure anymore after hitting 50

Edit: Looks like we typed at the same time and I don't know how you beat me with the bad finger but you did ;)

[Ninong]

The tank is now seven months old. I haven't had time yet to figure out why my pictures on Reefland vanished when the software was upgraded but I figured I would go ahead and post a current update anyway.

Back on Dec. 17, 2003 I received a gorgeous pair of Cirrhilabrus scottorum from The Marine Center. Unfortunately the supermale did not survive the shipping stress. The Marine Center promised to replace him with one from their next shipment or give me a refund. I requested a replacement.

It took about three weeks for them to get a new shipment in and another week or two to acclimate them prior to shipping them out to customers. In the meantime I was beginning to wonder if perhaps it might not be safer to ask for another female slightly smaller than my present one instead of getting a new male. I was concerned because it looked like my female had put on some weight and possibly grown about half an inch since I received her. I don't think there was any doubt that she appeared to be a mature female when compared to the larger and more intensely colored supermale who didn't make it. But now I began to worry that if the new male was not quite as large as the other one, I might have a problem on my hands.

I even thought about getting two females, both about an inch smaller than my present female, so that the resident female could change to male and I would have a trio. But then when the phone call finally came telling me that the new Australian Scott's were almost finished acclimating I decided to go ahead and let them pick out the nicest supermale from that batch. I even discussed getting another female. I couldn't make up my mind. I told Randy I would call him back in a couple of days to let him know what else I wanted shipped at the same time as my replacement supermale Scott's.

Now this is where there was a serious malfunction in my reasoning processes. Somehow I got to talking to him about his new batch of gorgeous Australian Cirrhilabrus lineatus fairy wrasses. For a few minutes there I was thinking about getting the replacement supermale Scott's plus another female Scott's plus a female Lineatus. Somehow I managed to switch from that idea to the idea that maybe I could keep a pair of Scott's and a pair of Lineatus in my little 120-gallon tank. This was NOT a good idea. In fact, it was an extremely BAD idea. In retrospect, I should have asked for two female Scott's both smaller than my present female. That would have been the safest way to go and I knew it but I am sorry to say I didn't do the right thing.

I asked for a replacement supermale Scott's as large as they could find plus a pair of Cirrhilabrus lineatus. This shipment arrived on Jan. 23rd., exactly five weeks after the first shipment. The fish were extremely well packed, as usual, in gigantic bags. The female Lineatus was in about 2 gallons of water and each of the supermales was in about 3 gallons of water. It was a very large and very heavy box. The female Lineatus was alert and swimming around in the shipping bag but both supermales were on their sides. This time I was determined not to panic and just do an extremely long and slow acclimation. All of the larger specimens of Cirrhilabrus spp. fairy wrasses are extremely sensitive to shipping stress.

I floated the unopened bags for a full hour in my tank with the lights out before opening the bags and beginning a very long acclimation. I had to remove about seven gallons of tankwater to allow for the displacement. After six hours total acclimation, I removed the female Lineatus and released her into the tank. She immediately swam off into the rock structure. I waited longer on the supermale Lineatus because I didn't want to take any chances. I had already removed half the bag water twice, all the while adding about a cup of tankwater every 10 minutes or so over a seven hour period (8 hours total acclimation counting the hour floating in the unopened bag). A cup of water may sound like a lot but it's not much when you're adding it to a bag with 3 gallons of water.

The supermale Lineatus was a truly spectacular specimen. His body coloration was mostly purplish. I was shocked when I added him to the tank to see him drift to the bottom sand bed and remain in the same spot unmoving for about 15 minutes. He had seemed alert in the bag. Finally he swam off into the caves in the rock structure.

I was so shaken by the experience releasing the supermale Lineatus into the tank that I delayed the release of the supermale Scott's until 10:30 p.m. that night. He got a full 9-1/2 hours of acclimation. He seemed alert and swam off into the central cave as soon as he hit the water. I felt a lot better about his chances.

The next morning at 8:00 a.m. the actinics came on. At 8:05 a.m. all hell broke loose in the tank. The resident female Scott's was chasing the new male Scott's all over the place, into and out of the rock structure and under the rock structure. Sand was being stirred up through the entire water column. This high-speed chase lasted a full ten minutes. It seemed like an eternity. The new male was weak from shipping stress and the female was able to outswim him and she was constantly biting him on the top of his head and his dorsal fin. Finally the male wedged himself into a narrow crevice in the rocks where his head and most of his body was protected.

This was a very traumatic experience and I was consumed with feelings of guilt as I realized that it was my fault that this was happening. And this was only the beginning. My "female" Scott's was just getting warmed up. A couple of hours later the supermale Lineatus made a brief appearance and she took off after him. This was a very brief chase that lasted no more than a minute. I believe he wedged himself under a large piece of rock at the left rear of the tank just beneath the Lockline return line. That was the last I saw of the supermale Lineatus.

While all of this was taking place, the new female Lineatus was keeping a low profile. I saw her moving around in the tank but she was being careful to avoid the female Scott's. Later in the day the female Scott's would begin the first of what would turn out to be almost non-stop chases after the female Lineatus. By that time the female Lineatus had fully recovered from the shipping stress and she was easily able to outswim the female Scott's and being much smaller than the female Scott's, she could go into holes too small for the female Scott's to follow.

The male Scott's made a second attempt to swim around in the tank later that same afternoon and the second high-speed chase lasted perhaps two minutes at the most. This time he wedged himself under some live rock at the right side of the tank where I could easily see him. He was in a sand foxhole with rock above him and sand all around him. The "female" Scott's displayed in front of where he was hiding. She would erect her fins and do a little back and forth jig for two or three seconds and then swim off. She returned to his hiding spot every minute or two for the rest of the day doing her little dominatrix imitation.

The following morning the male Scott's made his third and last attempt at swimming around in the tank. His last for the next 10 days. This high-speed chase lasted no more than 30 seconds and ended when the male retreated to his foxhole. He remained there without leaving that spot for the first seven days. He enlarged the foxhole so that it was about 10" across. This did not present any problems for the live rock in the tank because it all rests on acrylic supports beneath the sand.

During this period, I deliberately fed the tank very heavily with Cyclop-Eeze, mysis shrimp, brine shrimp and bloodworms. Things that I knew would drift all over the tank and into his cavern. He refused to eat. He wouldn't eat even when I positioned food within an inch of his mouth. The "female" continued to assert her dominance and even ventured into his cavern from time to time. It was difficult to see what was going on. In fact, I couldn't see what was going on. On the seventh day the male Scott's ventured out about three or four inches to grab some food. This was the first time that he ate anything that I am aware of. He was able to get away with this because I was deliberately feeding the female at the other end of the tank to keep her busy. Whenever she saw him out of his foxhole, she would rush over there and he would immediately retreat; but at least he was eating at last.

The female Lineatus was still being chased by the female Scott's but the female Scott's could never actually catch the female Lineatus. These chases gradually became more and more infrequent and less intense. After about a week they were reduced to ritualistic feints instead of an actual chase. Every now and then the female Scott's will make out like she's going to chase the female Lineatus and the Lineatus will make a high-speed U-turn but that's about it. I think the female Scott's has finally realized that she can't catch the female Lineatus.

Somewhere around Day 4 or Day 5 following the arrival of my three new wrasses, my nitrates zoomed up. I had been testing for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate twice a day starting around the third day to try to determine if the supermale Lineatus was still alive or not. I never did get any detectable ammonia but my nitrite reading went to 0.1 ppm compared to the usual 0.05 ppm and my nitrates went from the usual 1 or 2 ppm all the way up to 25-50 ppm. Let's call it 40 ppm. The next test that same afternoon came in at exactly 25 ppm and then the following morning's test was down to a clear 10 ppm. I measured 10 ppm nitrate for two or three days before it dropped to 5 ppm and now I'm down to 2 ppm.

During the afternoon of the 11th. day I noticed that the male Scott's was swimming around freely in the tank. I first noticed this around 4:30 p.m. and I fed the tank twice in the next two hours to see what would happen. The "female" Scott's ignored him just as she ignores the female Lineatus when she's busy eating. The situation from that point on has been that the "female" Scott's is the dominant fairy wrasse in the tank. If she makes a move, both of the other two wrasses -- the male Scott's and the female Lineatus -- yield to her and high tail it out of there; but the female Scott's is content that they recognize that she's the boss and usually she does not actually chase them.

Once the male Scott's started swimming freely in the tank I was able to get a good look at him. For the first 11 days I only got brief glimpses. He appears to be about the same length as the "female" Scott's, maybe a tiny bit longer, but she may be a little heavier. His coloration is obviously more intense than hers. His body coloration is deeper and his caudal fin is redder -- hers is more of a red-orange. His dorsal fin was mostly dark blue. I say mostly because the female chewed a lot of the blue off. He has bite marks all around his dorsal fin and the top of his head and the front half of his dorsal fin has been chewed down. The rear half of his dorsal fin is shredded and his anal fin has some damage. There is no damage to his caudal fin, his pectoral fins or his pelvic fins. His pelvic fins are slightly longer than hers and they have a brighter dark blue leading edge. The first supermale Scott's had really long pelvic fins but the first supermale Scott's was about 5.5" long. My best guess is that my new male Scott's is approximately 4.75" long and my "female" Scott's is approximately 4.5" long.

The female Scott's still has the mostly bright orange dorsal fin typical of Australian variant females. Maybe she has a little bit more dark blue in her dorsal fin now than when I first got her but that could be just my imagination. I guess it's possible that as a mature female she began the process of changing to male in the absence of a dominant male influence during the five weeks she was in my tank without any other fairy wrasses. I am relatively sure that the new guy is a male and that he is incapable of reverting to female. I would love to see him assert himself so that the sex change process that may still be taking place in the resident "female" can be halted and reversed but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. At this point it would appear that the worst is over. At least I hope so. But I'm not sure if the pecking order will change or not.



Full tank shot taken this afternoon. The "female" Scott's is on the left, the new male Scott's is on the right.





The male Scott's is on the left, the female Scott's is on the right and the female Lineatus is at the top of the picture. She is about 3" long.




Again the male is on the left and the female is on the right. You can see that the rear half of his dorsal fin is all dark blue. He has dark blue running the full length of his dorsal fin but a lot of it was chewed off. You can see that he has more intense body coloration than the "female."




Female Lineatus and male Scott's. The female Lineatus is a gorgeous fish. I wish I was good with the camera, obviously I'm not. The male Lineatus was spectacular and his body was more of a purple color.




I have a few more frags in the tank now. I don't remember if I mentioned it before, probably not, but I got three new clams from Clams Direct. Another crocea, an ultra maxima and a little gold maxima.




Another shot of the female Lineatus. I still have that nuisance red algae. My Foxface Rabbitfish nibbles on it but that just keeps it down, it doesn't stop it from spreading.




The blue maxima on the left is new, as is the crocea on the far right. In this shot you can see the ragged edge on the front half of the male Scott's dorsal fin.




Don't get confused. That's Primus, my Foxface Rabbitfish, behind the female Scott's. My orange Montipora capricornis discolored when my nitrates shot up. I hope it recovers.




Full tank shot from the corner. There is a green cap frag on the sand bed that I have to get rid of. I'll probably trade it in for credit or something. It came to me by mistake in a frag order. There is a new little pink open brain in the left front corner that you can barely see in this picture.




My new ultra max is my new favorite clam. I think the blue streak a little lower down must be Comus. He photographs blue when he's in the shade.


That's about it for now. Hopefully my wrasse situation will work itself out in spite of my stupidity. Yes, I have seen four and five species of fairy wrasses, including more than one pair, in the same tank but those were large tanks, much larger than mine. I should have known better. I wouldn't recommend more than one male Cirrhilabrus species wrasse unless your tank is at least 300 gallons.

[Poseidon]

Tank is LOOKING FaNtAsTiC!!!.. I know the exposed portion of your live rock support must be bugging you, it would me. Any plans to remove it?

[Minh Nguyen]

Look great. You are doing everything right, except maybe the two male wrasse. Your clams are growing great as seen on picture #2 and #6. When your picture show the top of the shell, there are some growth rings. So how many clams do you have in your tank now? I am always a clam man.
Minh

[Ninong]

I know the exposed portion of your live rock support must be bugging you, it would me. Any plans to remove it?

No, because that would entail removing most of the live rock in the tank in order to get the upright supports out of there. I wish now that I had removed more of the live rock when I took out that 25-lbs of Buna Spiney that I gave to Scott. I should have taken all of the rock out of the tank then and placed it in a Rubbermaid holding container while I rearranged things.

In retrospect it would have been better to have just the base acrylic supports without any of the uprights and I could have gotten by with about 120-lbs of live rock total instead of what I have now. Right now there is about 150-lbs of live rock in the tank and that's after removing a full 25-lbs.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of the acrylic supports, I just don't like looking at them. Next time I will do things differently. The base supports will be about 1.5" shorter and the uprights, if any, will be shorter and completely concealed by the rock before any livestock goes in the tank.

[Ninong]

Look great. You are doing everything right, except maybe the two male wrasse. Your clams are growing great as seen on picture #2 and #6. When your picture show the top of the shell, there are some growth rings. So how many clams do you have in your tank now? I am always a clam man.
Minh

Minh,

Thanks! I'm hoping that someone who is an expert on Scott's Fairy Wrasses will look at my pictures and tell me that I don't have two males but that may be wishful thinking. I have read that the Australian variant females have a mostly bright orange dorsal fin, which is the main reason that I believe the new guy is a male. It would be fantastic if the new guy is actually a mature female but I doubt it. He is an intense deep purple color with only a slight hint of green. The purple coloration is more typical of females in the Cook Islands variant. And of course the Cook Islands males have that bright red patch on their flanks, making them easy to identify. My first supermale Scott's was so huge that he could only have been a male but his body coloration was more green than purple and his pelvic fins were much longer than the female's.

There is no question that my resident "female" considers herself the head of the household. Her coloration is less intense than the new guy's but it is also a bit more greenish. There is also a slight difference in the profile shape of the body. I need for one of these fish to turn out to be female so that I can have Sonny and Cher instead of Seigfried and Roy. I don't care which one is which as long as they work it out among themselves instead of killing each other. Right now the newcomer is showing absolutely no aggression of any sort. None. Nada. Not even towards the much smaller female Lineatus.

Have you ever tried keeping fairy wrasses in your gigantic tanks? One of the local LFS owners has an 850-gal tank and he tells me that he has never been successful with Scott's Fairy Wrasses even though he has tried to keep them two or three times. But that could be because he has a lot of other more aggressive wrasses in that tank, too, plus a couple dozen large surgeonfishes.

Yes, my clams do show about 1/4" of new growth. You can see it when the Sea-Swirl happens to be blowing their way and the mantle lifts up temporarily. Everything is growing in my tank, especially that nasty red algae. At least Primus keeps it mowed down but it is still spreading all over the tank including the upright acrylic supports on the left side of the tank.

I started with just one crocea that I got locally by swapping a Montipora capricornis colony that Gene sent me that was too large for my tank -- I kept a couple of small frags that had broken off in shipping. Then a few weeks later I got a small 2.25" O.R.A. ultra maxima locally. It's the one pictured in the two pictures you mentioned. It's about 3" now instead of just 2.25". There is a similar white growth ring at the top of the shell of the crocea that I got locally, too.

I got a few small pieces of flat Acropora palmata live rock in my last frag order so that I would be able to set up another clam spot in my tank. I'm saving that spot for a nice turquoise color teardrop maxima. I don't have a large enough tank for any of the larger clam species right now but I hope to get a blue squamosa for my next tank, the 375+ gallon tank in the dreaming stage right now. Right now I have two croceas, two ultra maximas and one 2" gold maxima. They keep my nitrates down around 1 ppm -- the 7" DSB probably helps in that department, too. If I would stop overfeeding the tank I could probably get the nitrates down to less than 0.5 ppm. Daniel Knop claims that 1-2 ppm nitrate is ideal for a tank with clams.

How large is your new gigas? I would love to have one of those but only if my new dream tank is in the 500-gal range, which is the upper dream limit at the moment. The two really large gigas at the Waikiki Aquarium have to be seen in person to be truly appreciated. Pictures just don't have the same impact as actually walking up to the front glass and gazing down on something like that. They are awesome and the coloration is incredible -- much more complex than the pictures would have you believe.

[Minh Nguyen]

Minh,

....
Have you ever tried keeping fairy wrasses in your gigantic tanks? One of the local LFS owners has an 850-gal tank and he tells me that he has never been successful with Scott's Fairy Wrasses even though he has tried to keep them two or three times. But that could be because he has a lot of other more aggressive wrasses in that tank, too, plus a couple dozen large surgeonfishes.

I havenever try to keep Wrasse. They are beautiful but I don't have cover on my tank. I may want to try a Leopard Wrasse in the future.

I got a few small pieces of flat Acropora palmata live rock in my last frag order so that I would be able to set up another clam spot in my tank.

Really? This is really rare as it is illegal to take these coral from Florida. I would love a piece in my tank if we ever trade clams or frags.

How large is your new gigas? I would love to have one of those but only if my new dream tank is in the 500-gal range, which is the upper dream limit at the moment. The two really large gigas at the Waikiki Aquarium have to be seen in person to be truly appreciated. Pictures just don't have the same impact as actually walking up to the front glass and gazing down on something like that. They are awesome and the coloration is incredible -- much more complex than the pictures would have you believe.

My new Gigas is about 6 inches. I hope that he will grow quickly like my last one. All indication point to a rate of growth of about 1 cm per month (3/4 cm at the end and 1 cm middle of the shell) at this time. The two ends grwo slower than the middle of the shell so they will keep their basic shape as they get older. Their color is mostly loss when we tank picture of them. They do look increadible in person.

Minh

[Papa Doug]

Looks like its progressing along very well. Lost of frags in there, She,s going to be full one day.

[Ninong]

Minh,

I assume the rock is coming out of Haiti. It has been available for some time now at several of the online vendors. They call it flat elkhorn from the Caribbean.

[Ninong]

Looks like its progressing along very well. Lost of frags in there, She,s going to be full one day.

Thanks! A lot of my frags are too close already and they haven't really started growing yet.

[DEE]

Ninong-

LOOKS GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!! I know its' been along time in the making but I bet It was worth the wait.

Dee

[zhenya]

George,

The tank looks terrible... j/k. Frankly, I love it and seen your fairy wrasses(finally) make sme want to get a really BIG tank so I can have then as well.
FWIW, in my honest opinion, your tank looks great and your wrasses are simply spectacular. I just wish they picked their gender already so you don't have to go bananas over it ;)

[Ninong]

The tank does look terrible. Every time I look at it I see all the problems that I wish I didn't have. Like that nasty red algae for instance. And what about those ugly upright acrylic support rods that stick out like a sore thumb? I'm really pleased that I fixed the problem of too much viewable sand bed and finally blocked the light from the fixtures and enclosed the top with eggcrate so that I could get some fairy wrasses but I still have to deal with wide diurnal temperature fluctuations since I don't have a chiller. There are literally dozens of things that I will want to do differently with my next tank.

I just ordered a copy of Rudie H. Kuiter's book on Fairy Wrasses from Marine Depot. That means I probably won't get it until the 16th or 17th of the month. UPS from California to Louisiana runs 5-6 working days. Someone told me it had lots of pictures of the regional variants of Cirrhilabrus scottorum. I didn't buy it just for that but I figured it looked like something I would be interested in reading.

So far I have three "informed" opinions and all of them agree that I have two males. If that's the case, I need to find out if both are terminal phase males. They sure don't look the same. The coloration of the new one is much more intense than the one I thought was a female. Even if my "female" is only an intermediate phase male (subordinate male), or whatever the correct term is, it won't make any difference if the new guy does not take control of the situation. Gender in protogynous (and protandrus) hermaphroditic fish is determined by social aggression; so if the new male does not dominate the resident ________ (female/male, fill in the blank), her/his gender will be set as male by virtue of his dominance over the new conspecific. And I don't believe the new guy can revert back to female although I have heard that from one rather well placed source. The other sources do not buy that idea, assuming the new male is terminal phase (supermale).

[zhenya]

Oh, come on now,George

Your tank looks about as much terrible as muy life ;) It looks pretty darn good to me,FWIW.
Send me that Lineatus female so I can hold it for you untill that 375-500g tank is a reality.
I mean I like your fairy wrasses but that lineatus wrasse is just spectacular to my eye.
Do you think I could keep one in a 110 g tank if I got rig of the clownfish and the tangs?

[Ninong]

I mean I like your fairy wrasses but that lineatus wrasse is just spectacular to my eye.

Yes, she is spectacular. I just wish I could get a picture that shows what she really looks like. Her coloration and pattern are much more complex than what the pictures show. The supermale Lineatus was even more spectacular!

Do you think I could keep one in a 110 g tank if I got rid of the clownfish and the tangs?

Yes, you could keep one in a 110-gal tank. If your fish-load allowed it, you could keep a trio. I read somewhere that three Lineatus wrasses are a safer bet than two Lineatus wrasses if your tank is 120-gallons or less. If I were doing this all over again in my present 120-gallon tank, I would choose to go with either Cirrhilabrus scottorum or C. lineatus and I would get a trio. I would want one of the fish to be at least an inch longer than the other two. Ideally you would want a 5" supermale and two 3.5" females. And while we're talking ideal situations, it would be better to put the two females in the tank a few days ahead of the supermale so that they could acclimate and learn where all the hiding places are so that they could escape from the supermale during the initial territory claiming aggression that will almost certainly take place until the supermale is content that the other two fish accept him as their lord and master. Either that or put all three in together. You want to avoid putting the largest fish in first.

I think you should get rid of your two present tanks and just go for a nice little 300-gal tank. Tell your wife that would be cheaper than keeping the other two running.

[zhenya]

I think you should get rid of your two present tanks and just go for a nice little 300-gal tank. Tell your wife that would be cheaper than keeping the other two running.

That's the plan,George. I'm not sure,though, that the second part of your idea would work.

I just measured the wall that my 75g is up against and it has 7' of space that could be used for a tank and adjacent closet...I think that 300g tank could probably fit in a 7' space.What do you think? I'd love to have a tank at least 30" deep for ease of aquacaping.

[Ninong]

That's the plan,George. I'm not sure,though, that the second part of your idea would work.

I just measured the wall that my 75g is up against and it has 7' of space that could be used for a tank and adjacent closet...I think that 300g tank could probably fit in a 7' space.What do you think? I'd love to have a tank at least 30" deep for ease of aquacaping.

Yes, you could fit a custom-made 300-gal into that 7' space. Standard 300-gal tanks are 8' long.

Mitch made a nice 302-gal tank for Chad Bryant that is 84"L x 32"W x 26"H. It was made with 12 mm Starphire glass but it has a center cross brace because Mitch wouldn't make it with just perimeter bracing. It was RDO's TOTM for July 2003: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...3/aquarium.htm

One of the sizes that I have always toyed around with in the back of my head has been 80"L x 40"W x 30"H (415-gal), but that would require 24 mm Starphire (two 12 mm panes laminated together). The advantage is that it can be made without a center brace, just perimeter Euro-bracing. Another advantage is that I could use my present 4' Aquastarlight Future fixture at the rear of the tank between the two corner overflows and just add a new 6' Aquaspacelight fixture in front of it. That's assuming I decided to continue with suspended fixtures, which have their good points as well as bad points. Their major drawback is the heat generated by the onboard magnetic ballasts.

A really nice Starphire tank that I saw on RC was 500-gallons and it had just Euro-bracing, no cross braces at all. Mitch made that one with 24 mm Starphire on all four sides but he used tempered soda-lime glass for the 4" Euro-bracing all around the perimeter. It had dual overflows, one in the center of each end panel of the tank. The dimensions were 96"L x 40"W x 30"H and it was installed in the wall between two rooms so that it protruded equally in each room. All of the equipment was in the cabinet under the tank.

Oh, I just remembered another nice Inter-American (aka Bow Valley Aquarium) tank that I saw on RC. It was 84"L x 30"W x 30"H (327-gal) and it was made with 12 mm tempered Opti-White glass instead of Starphire. It had Euro-bracing without any cross braces except for the fact that the guy had it built with a 6" x 30" overflow compartment running the full width of the tank on both sides. In was an in-the-wall installation with just 6' viewable.

The price is quite reasonable if you avoid having to go up to 24 mm laminated Starphire glass. I would say, "Go for it!" And get one of those 2" tubular steel stands at the same time. They're very cheap. You could convert one of your present tanks into a sump or you could have him make you a new custom sump at the same time.

I would start my new, larger tank right now if I had a spot for it, but I don't. Just think of all the stuff you could put in a 300-gal tank!!!

[Poseidon]

I'm starting to get a serious case of TANK ENVY!!! Especially if you get that 300 Gallon tank going!!!