5 week old reef cube......how am I doing?

[mkengr45]

This is my new reef tank. I re-entered the hobby after a 4 year break by buying a 30 cube setup. That was in late october. Here is what it looks like so far. Before leaving the hobby I had been in reefing from 1998 to 2007, so while some may think I am adding livestock too fast keep in mind that "this ain't my first rodeo". Happy to accept all criticism, and I can already tell at this point I need to get a bigger tank. So far inhabitants are few acan colonies from Austin Aqua Farms, 16 orange ricordea, 15 hot pink ricordea, a few blues and green rics, GSP frag from Allen (thanks), Krypto frag from lsingh (thanks Lucky), zoas, frogspawn, torch, one orange cap, other acan and chalice frags.

Hardware: 150w de MH, 2X32w pc actinics, octopus 150 skimmer, sicce 3.0 pumps, PM reactor. blah blah blah waiting on RKE and other goodies to arrive.

So, sucks or doesn't suck?
http://i1025.photobucket.com/albums/y315/spanky4888/PA141341.jpg
http://i1025.photobucket.com/albums/y315/spanky4888/PA141342.jpg
http://i1025.photobucket.com/albums/y315/spanky4888/PA141344.jpg

[BSJF]

wow, very nice. where did you get all your ricordia?

[350gt]

Looks cool...... Especially those acans:shades:

[allan]

Looking good dude. 'ware the GSP, it will go all over, but I do understand the need to keep wife happy. :)

[mkengr45]

Looks cool...... Especially those acans:shades:

haaaa, yeah man thanks again. To all reading 350gt has some great frags and is a heck of a nice guy to deal with.

[mkengr45]

Looking good dude. 'ware the GSP, it will go all over, but I do understand the need to keep wife happy. :)
Thanks again Allen, helped keep me out of the dog house by putting some stuff she liked in the tank. It's a tricky balance especially when you have multiple hobbies (racing, guns, and now reefs), to keep your wife happy or at least able to tolerate your obsessiveness when it comes to extracurricular activities.

[mkengr45]

wow, very nice. where did you get all your ricordia?

aaahh, now thats the milion dollar question. The pics don't do these rics justice by a long shot. Those that knew me back when I was heavily into the reeef game may remember that I had an obsession with the best, rarest, most colorful ricordea I could get my hands on. None of my rics are local. The majority of my ricordea have at least 2 mouths per polyp. About 16 of them have 4 or more mouths per polyp. Some came from Austin Aqua Farms, some came from a source in Houston. My source in houston is a very small place that has nothing but the baddest stuff you have ever seen (acans, scolys, chalice, rare zoas and rics, etc...). Its is a good thing this place is in houston or else I would be shooting off so much money every week it would rival the expenses of our racecars. If anyone is interested just PM me and I will give you their info. I am already looking for a bigger tank, at least a 240, prefferebly something with a HUGE footprint. Happy to be back in the reef stuff. It is more relaxing than the racing....

[mkengr45]

I had a hard time with some LFS in their interpretation of colors, particularly the colors orange and pink. I guess these two LFS I am talking about never played with the crayons when they were kids that said the name of the color on the wrapper. I would call and ask if they had any orange ricordea, they would say yes and I would make the drive over. Every friggin time I would go and they would have some lame brownish green ric that they claimed was an orange. For Christmas I may have to deliver a big box of crayons to their doorstep just to refresh their memory of the names of certain colors. I am sure that I am being picky when it comes to ricordea, but I figured colors were pretty simple to describe. FYI, the place in Houston only charged $15 per polyp regardless of how many mouths it had, and they know what orange, yellow, pink, blue, green, and purple look like.

[justahobby]

Looks good. 5 weeks is early but with seasoned rock and established bacteria there is no reason why you can't blast past those still curing dry rock for example. My one negative comment (if it can even be considered that)...The skimmer sounds terribly over kill. Are you trying to run a low nutrient system with acans and ricordeas? Feeding extra (especially phyto) to replenish all that the skimmer is taking out?

[mkengr45]

I am feeding heavily on meaty foods (spot feeding those that will take it), over skimming, and doing 25% water changes weekly. i will taper off on this routine and tune/tweek it as time goes on. I have always liked my ricordea and LPS to be super FAT and PLUMP and adjust as time goes on to make them happy. I keep an eye on everything, and tune as required. Wait until I post a 6-month ricordea pic.....that is...if my tank can house the ricordea that long. I did the same routine on my 250 cube and the rics went crazy!

[kkiel02]

I like the tank alot. I also love rics- they are so colorful and pretty hardy!