7digits 29 gallon reef thread

[7digits]

I've been meaning to do this for a while so I guess I'll do it now. My tank is now just over 4 months old. I started out with some bad advice from a large chain pet store, but have learned massive amounts of info in the last 4 months. I am enjoying my new passion, and I owe alot to the fine folks that contribute to this site. Below are a few pics. The first of my little Clown fish.(lol) The second is me and the tank. The third is what my tank looked like when I had the Eclipse 3 Lighting and filtration piece of crap on it. I'm so glad that is gone. You can see how bad it leaked out the back. One of the lights burned out after 2 weeks. What a bad product. The fourth is the new light fixture I got. Thank you Chasman. I could never thank you enough. You are too generous, and I sometimes feel shameful about the deal you gave me. The fifth one is what it looks like today. As you can see it has come a long way, and I'm very pleased with the way it looks today. As for some tank stats heres what I have:

29g tank
AquaticLife 4x24 watt T5 light fixture with moonlights and built-in timer
5g Odyssea HOB Fuge w/skimmer(modded a bit to improve performance) and cheato
Eheim Classic Canister Filter (for carbon and extra flow only)
Koralia 2 powerhead
Sun - Sun 1300gph powerhead(I trimmed down the impellor to slow the flow a bit. If I didn't the fish wouldn't be able to swim.) Will probably be replaced soon with a Koralia Nano.
2 False Percula Clowns
1 Yashia Goby
1 Randall's Pistol Shrimp
1 6 Line Wrasse (Newest addition)
1 Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
2 Mexican turbo snails (which I hate)
1 Astrea snail (the other one fell on it's back while I was at work and I couldn't same it) RIP
2 Nassarius snails
2 Cerith snails
6 Margarita snails
1 Luzon Starfish (Impulse Buy, though it seems really happy)

[7digits]

Here's some pics of my inhabitants.
The Corals I have so far are mostly just frags, but in time I think my tank should be looking nice.
The coral I have are:
Elegance Coral - My wife and I were at the LFS and I said that I liked it but they are hard to keep. Well she gets her tax refund and brings one home. It seems pretty happy so far.
3 heads of frogspawn
1 Galaxea Frag
2 Duncan Polyps
Anethelia
Armor of God Paly Frag
Unknown Paly Frag
Baby Blue Zoa Frag - Well actually they fell off the colony when the LFS got them in. I spotted them and got em for $5, 5 polyps
Plutonium Zoa Frag
Candy Apple Red Zoa Frag

Some of the rock I have is Florida Aquacultured, and they came with some stometella snails that hitch-hiked
At first I counted 7, now there must be over 50 of them. I've overcome the crappy Eclipse 3 hood issue, and I think I beat my cyano problem. I'm now dealing with some amphipods that seem to like my candy apple red zoas. I got most of my stuff either locally or through ReefHotSpot. Everything I've gotten from them looks really good. I haven't been disappointed with anything from RHS, althought I did find a zoa eating nudibranch in my last shipment, and they didn't send my lobophyllia. They said it wasn't good enough to ship. The Candy Apples came from Reefs2Go, and I must say that I was not impressed with their work. They seem to be the only zoas being eaten, and it lookes like they were just ripped from the colony. I think they are showing some improvement. Anyway on to the real reason you came here.
I got my goby and shrimp from ReefHotSpot, and when I added them the shrimp swam to te other side of the tank and into a large porous rock. After about a month I decided it was time to break him out. It took about an hour and a half, and I was about to give up when I heard a loud pop, and got hit in the face with some water. When he shot me in the face he was definately coming out. I got him, and the 2 buddies are living happy. The first 2 pics are of them. In the second pic you can see the shrimp kicking up some sand. The third pic is the Luzon star. The Fourth pic is the new 6 Line Wrasse.

[7digits]

Here's some pics of the corals.
The first is the elegance coral. The second is the Duncans. The third pic is the 3 heads of frogspawn. The fourth is the Plutonium Zoas. The Fifth is the Armor of God Palys.

[7digits]

Here are some more pics. I left out the Galaxea Frag. Here it is.
Thanks for everyones advice and help. I'll update as things progress. I'm quite happy with the way things look at the moment and look forward to helping all of the fascinating creatures grow.

[7digits]

I forgot to mention that I am not afraid to experiment, and I got a small Blue tip stag acropora sitting about 6 inches below the water. I'm sure someone won't like that, but if you have ANY suggestions for this piece feel free to provide it. I know someone will say I need MH lighting, but I think as long as I have it close enough maybe it will thrive. I've been feeding it phytoplankton. I welcome any tips.

[charlie]

I will almost wager you may be moving the blue tip stag down in the future.;;;;;;

[Chasman]

Michael

Tank is looking good. Gotta love that light fixture! Don't concern yourself about it. If you hadn't come along and needed one, it would still be sitting in the basement. I'm happy to see it put to good use.

I would like to see a pic of your refugium and skimmer since we have systems that are pretty close.

Chasman

[metalhead]

Looking good!

[7digits]

Thanks I'm pretty happy with the way it looks at the moment. I hope the acropora does well. I like to add another if this one grows well. I think I'm done adding coral for the most part. I want to add an open brain, and another acropora, maybe a few more zoa colonies(some of them look really good), but for now I'm content to let it grow. I'll try to get a pic of the fuge, but it's goona be hard to get back there.

[7digits]

I have a bubble issue I'm trying to figure out right now. When the water returns from the HOB fuge it creates alot of bubbles, some pretty big. I'm working on a bubble trap like the one for the cpr fuge. I have the acrylic cut and painted. I just have to cut a hole in the bottom and piece it together. The inlet for the return from the fuge is not fully covered by water and I think that is what is creating the bubbles. Any ideas on how I can stop the bubbles without going the bubble trap route? I thought maybe I could raise the water level by adding a piece of acrylic to make the overflows water level higher, if that makes sense. I really don't want the bubble trap in the tank, but it would stop the microbubbles from floating around the tank.

[metalhead]

The inlet for the return from the fuge is not fully covered by water and I think that is what is creating the bubbles. Any ideas on how I can stop the bubbles without going the bubble trap route?

If you're saying that the inlet for your return pump is not completely submersed then it definitely needs to be, if not it would definitely create lots of bubbles as well as burn up the pump with a quickness.

I'm not sure what you mean by "bubble trap"... I'm assuming that you intend to extend or add bulkheads to your sump?

[7digits]

I have no sump, just a hob fuge. It is gravity fed back into the tank. The pump into the skimmer feeds the fuge then the water falls over a partition into the fuge overflow, then returns to the tank from there. It is just like a cpr aquafuge with some minor variation. The return pipe is only covered by water halfway on the fuge side, and all the way on the tank side. No return pump. The fuge sits slightly higher than the tank and the water is gravity fed back into the tank. The bubble trap is just a small box that keeps the bubbles in it till they pop so that they don't go into the rest of the tank.