75g w/ 33g frag tank system

do you have a stocking list yet? Im interested in what you are planning for this beautiful tank!

 

This is what I'm thinking of right now, fish-wise. Coral is more difficult to say because I will have a lot going on in the frag tank and may do some mixing and matching over time based on how things go. It will definitely be a mixed reef though if I can swing it, I'm hoping the lights aren't too much to keep LPS down low in the tank. If anything I may have to wait for some SPS to grow out higher up to shade some LPS below.

Fishes:
Pair of Yasha gobies w/ Pistol shrimp (stocked already).
1 male and 2 female McCoskers Flasher Wrasses (hoping to stock them next).
Pair, maybe trio, of some type of fairy wrasse, haven't decided which one exactly yet it might come down to what I'm able to find. On the list of potentials are these wrasses: Exquisite (C. Exquisitus), Lubbock's (C. Lubbocki), and Labout's (C. Laboutei) I think. I'm not sure about the Labout's being so expensive, but I'm not planning on a lot of fish in the tank so I might spring for the pretty ones if I can even manage to track them down.
Tomini Tang

I think that will probably be it for fish, the frag tank will be fish-free although I did consider putting something cool like a frogfish in there but I decided I didn't want to deal with it.

As for inverts, I plan on a serpent star which I already have in my old tank, as well as a couple brittle stars (although I will probably have one in the sump and one in the frag tank as meaty cleaners). I may be able to move over my old pistol shrimp from my old tank as well if I can get him to come out of the rock. I'm not planning on any Lysmata shrimp because of bad experiences with them in the past (at least with peppermints).
No anemones, at least mobile ones.
I will consider an urchin at some point if algae (even coralline) gets obnoxious.
I'm hoping to have a population of feather dusters and maybe even some sponges, if not in the display then hopefully in the sump on the live rock down there. I'm also hoping for self-sustaining populations of gammarus shrimp, mysis shrimp, and potentially even ghost shrimp. Although I'm not sure how that will all work out I think it would be cool. I love all the little critters that come with reefs.
I may do a Crocea clam as well further down the line, I don't want the others because they get too big eventually although I'm actually waffling a little bit and might end up getting a clam for the sandbed.

 

sounds like you have some colorful and active fish planned!!! cant wait to see what it looks like when they are in

 

Sounds good. That tank is going to look amazing with all of those wrasses!

 

very nice setup! subscribed

 

Thanks guys, I'm really looking forward to it as well! I'm having a hard time tracking down female McCoskers wrasses though.

I might end up going through Inland Aquatics that does a pairing program where they charge extra but will put together a pair/harem for you and make sure they are getting along and are nice and well established in a tank. It depends if anything else comes up soon because the IA service is a little on the expensive side but it should be as close to a sure thing of getting that harem into my tank and surviving as is possible.

I may consider putting in the fairy wrasse group first if I can't track the McCoskers down somewhat soon although I'm not sure if I'll be able to track down that pair/trio much easier than the McCoskers hehe.

 

McCoskers are awesome! If you got a harem from inland that'd be pretty sweet, but yeah their prices are high... I guess you get what you pay for?

 

Yeah I think in this case I might get what I pay for. Maybe I just don't have enough "connections" to more easily track down female McCoskers. Finding some types of fish that apparently aren't easy to sex for sale is tricky. I may end up stocking a fairy wrasse pair first, or at least get them started in QT.

Tank Update:
Still have algae. My snails are starting to cut through it though pretty good, especially some of the trochus, one in particular is a rockstar right now clearing a swath along one of the most heavily infested rocks right in front of the Vortech as well.

I'm not worried right now though, I'm feeding just the two fish I have right now pretty heavily and hoping that anything left over will satisfy all of the inverts (micro and otherwise) in the system so I wouldn't be surprised if the system is slightly overloaded with nutrients and still adjusting.

I feel like I can see the algae slowly dying back on it's own and with the help of the snails I feel pretty confident it will get taken care of, I may take a scraper to the back glass as well just to speed things up and get more skimmed out more quickly, the exposed glass and rocks that don't have algae already are not growing algae at a significant pace so I think the snails will keep up along with some regular glass cleaning on my part, no problem.

Another semi-poor picture taken at least a week ago but I forgot to post it. The Yasha's are much more bold now, they will even come away from the rock by 6-8" to get food and they are much more comfortable with my presence.



The female seems to be dominant and is the one always peeking out of the burrow while her mate is nowhere in sight. She eats the bulk of the food and I'm almost a little concerned that the male isn't getting enough, but he's out there swimming along right behind and to the left of her while she eats and he gets some food as well. Even when he's out on his own he sometimes passes food up so I'm guessing he's getting enough to eat.
I'm not sure but I think I'm seeing them depositing food into the burrow, possible for the shrimp, or maybe the female is leaving some food for the male when he's not out and about. I don't know but I see them duck just a head into the burrow for a second after grabbing a piece of food and then coming right back out and eating more. Hard to say for sure.

 

Love it.... I know it must have been a lot of work... but definitely worth it!!

 

Oh yeah, and it's not over! ;D

But thanks, I'm really not looking forward to having to organize all of the cables and wiring and everything, ugh, makes me shudder just thinking about it. That's the next big project, as well as grounding my reflectors which isn't as big of a deal. I hope to get it done in the next week or so, kinda busy this weekend. I'll probably just shut the whole system down for an hour or two and pull all the wiring out that I can and try and put it back in place in a sensible fashion.

I also found I have some salt creep forming on some threaded connections on my calcium reactor so I'll have to redo those, possibly when the system is shut down for wire organization.
I might try a new method that a guy at my LFS recommended. Instead of using plumber's tape and putty on the threaded connections he puts a bead of silicone around the threads and he says you don't even need to tighten it all the way, the silicone takes care of it, and isn't an issue taking apart and cleaning (according to him, I haven't tried it). He helped setup the LFS and said he used it on all the threads in the store and no leaks yet and it's been almost 2 years I think, so that's a vote of confidence for that method.
So I'm considering doing that, seems a lot more failsafe than tape/putty. Only problem is you have to let it cure for a day or so, which isn't really an issue on my reactor since I'm not using it right now but we'll see how ambitious I am and when I get around to it.