23" Cube Reef, DIY LEDs and DIY Shelf Rock......

I like the Cherubs a lot because of the coloration, they seem to me to be hardier and deal with acclimation easier.

Potters and Coral beauties are my favorites, but harder to acclimate and more difficult to feed initially.

Lemon Peels are monsters sometimes so I would steer clear of them.

I have never had an issue with Angels and shrimp, even Sexy shrimp. I have had issue with Angels and clams though.

 

Yes and I'm second guessing the dwarf angel thing because of the number of zoa eaters I've seen, particularly coral beauties (which are my #2 choice). But I know it's hit or miss with them. I can't seriously see myself actually getting one of those things out of this tank though lol. The rockwork is too complex!

 

Good point. I tell you, when I had to remove my Angel because of clam nipping I had to take all the rock out. No way was that Angel going to let me trap it, day upon day of failure. Finally I had it, lowered the water level and took the rock out. Not an option for you.

A nice trio of Fire Fish would look good.

 

Actually removing rock from this tank isn't that terribly difficult, since there is 0 risk of it tumbling/toppling around (they are all held quite secure by the PVC in the middle), but they all slide on the PVC standpipe one at a time. But, it's definitely not LESS work than the average tank lol. Every bit as messy.

Definitely crossed my mind. Except I might do a dozen instead. Either way I have my mind set on a Midas blenny or perhaps a canary fang blenny.


I'd love to have another fuzzy dwarf lion, but since I'm going to have this tank wall-to-wall peppermint shrimp, that's out of the question.

 

I'm now thinking of ways to put on a DIY skimmer in that baffled-off portion inside my tank (that's not an overflow). I have 6X10 footprint inside it to hide heaters and similar stuff, so I should easily be able to make a skimmer from 4" PVC, and probably use a modded soda bottle for the neck. It's just making the suds that's the frustrating part. I can make super-cheap DIY air stones from basswood (and I actually have a few dozen already made) but I hate using air pumps, just a lot of work swapping out the stones all the time.

Plus, i can't find my !#$@ Luft pump since the move. I fear it's still in my previous apartment in a cabinet somewhere.

 

Here are some pics of what I have in here.....


Green clove polyps (they were yellow when I bought them, an odd green color now, and have been for nearly a year).




Random green protopalythoa something-or-other.




Green wagon wheels.



Pink anthelia



GSP




Pompom xenia (pulsing)



Toadstool. Not sure what anomaly causes this unusual camera effect. Looks like my toadstool is trapped in black hole.

 

Brief update. All good news except for one minor issue with persistent cloudy water.


I've added a green finger leather and a pipe-organ frag (around 100 polyps). I have 3 different varieties of GSP in there now also.

All corals are doing fine . I toss in a few token fish food flakes every couple of days. Right now there isn't even much algae in the tank (none to be seen really) but I expect the diatom explosion any day now. It's about that time.


Now, the cloudy water is from the DIY rock. This is the first tank I've used 99.9% DIY rock, and I rinsed and water-cured this stuff for a couple months. It has not altered my tank chemistry at all (hasn't contributed any significant alkalinity at all, tank hovers at 9DKH).

But, it's been cloudy from day 1. I'm going to try one of those snake-oil water clarifiers to see if it can bind up these tiny dust particles.

 

Uh, whoops. One unintended mishap. But so far, so good.


I have a bottle of that "instant water clarifier" that actually does kinda work for water that is dusty (actual dust particles from dry rock...).

As I was squirting the drops into the tank, the dropper top came off and I ended up dumping over half the bottle into the tank (instead of the 50 drops!). It's probably a whole fluid ounce of product.


What's even more frustrating is that I don't have any extra carbon bags laying around, so I need to go hit the LFS before they close and get some carbon in the tank.


It's been an hour and all the coral seem fine though. Tank looks insane--- the water is tinged brick red, but also cloudy white, at the same time. A very, very strange look.

 

The tank is doing quite well, all the corals are all polyped out and extended nicely.

Diatom bloom, which is expected, has started. Tank will look like crap in about 2 days lol.

Light in this pick is the 15,000K, 20 watt LED. Colors look a bit washed out but this is just the dusk/dawn light.

 

love your rock placement