JBNY's 270 Ver2.0
 

I am restarting my tank after an abysmal few years of problems. Hopefully this tank will be awesome and I will have lots of SPS pictures when the tank starts growing.

I have a tank thread that goes into excruciating detail about my build, but I will be more than happy to answer any and all questions here.

This tank is a reset. My last system, grown just from frags, burnt out spectacularly from this

http://cnidarianreef.com/vue/content...d/DSC_2064.jpg

to this a year later

http://cnidarianreef.com/G270/images...-07c2-5089.jpg

Here is the short version of what happened and then continued to happen for some time.

When I was first setting up this tank, it was an upgrade from a previous tank. While I was doing the build, I had all my live rock being held by a friend. While there it got infected by a sponge called Collospongiais sp. This sponge slowly grows and kills everything, nothing eats it, getting it out is very difficult and it easily rips apart. It grows and covers anything, I had found it earlier but thought I had it all removed. After the tank was going for about 2 years, I had a particularly nasty battle with Bryopsis, after I beat that I had lost a big chunk of coral and saw that the sponge was all over the rock work and under the coral. I had not seen it previously because of the amount of coral in the tank. So I spent 6 months trying to get the sponge out, and finally had to replace all the rock and start over. After the tank started to recover, I got hit by hurricane Sandy and lost all the rest of the coral. Three months later some fish disease hit that took out half my fish (3 that I had had for over 10 years). Finally once that was done I started some home renovations that set me back a year.

Unhappy times for me, but eventually it was time to get the tank back in business, so here were are. I started getting the tank ready for coral in December of 2014 and it took me about 5 months to get the system back. I had a tough time getting the tank in balance and stable and then a tough time getting SPS to start doing well. But since May the tank has been doing really fine, so now I am hopeful that the tank is back on track.

Unfortunately for you reading this thread, starting a tank with frags is what I like to do. When the tank fills up with coral, it is my least favorite time of reefkeeping, nothing to do but clip corals. Watching the tank grow from frags to a full reef is my favorite part, I am in no rush to get to the finish line.

Right now I think I have about 22 frags in the main tank. Most are wild corals that I was able to get clippings of. A few of the frags are a little beat up from the last few months but they are now recovering nicely.

Not much now, but hopefully soon.

FTS for now

http://cnidarianreef.com/G270/images/dscn2/_DSC0364.jpg

I like having rock in the tank, I feel the fish enjoy the tank more with places to hide and go in and out of during the day. I think I have it setup for me to be able to position corals well.

http://cnidarianreef.com/G270/images/dscn2/_DSC0367.jpg

http://cnidarianreef.com/G270/images/dscn2/_DSC0366.jpg

http://cnidarianreef.com/G270/images/dscn2/_DSC0368.jpg

Thanks for looking!

Wow, that had to be hard to watch. Best of luck on the restart.

Sub'd

I like watching frags fill out a tank too

Following along. I like your scape. Lots of room for corals. Looks great.

Nice scape, I'm in!

In 2002 there were hardly any acros being collected and sold in LFS in Australia. I had been in the hobby about a year from memory and had a tank full of LPS etc like everyone else and i remember showing the owner of my LFS your TOTM article when he told me SPS were almost impossible to keep and were all green or brown anyway. The collectors didn't like them because nearly all of them RTN'd prior to shipping or DOA at the LFS's.
Two weeks later i picked up my first two acros, both green and very boring looking compared to what we see now but to me they were like bloody diamonds and they grew and i never looked back. :)

Before you get any warm fuzzy feelings be aware that i was ranting in the shop with lines like ' it's a bloody joke that this yank has got a tank full of acros and you can't even get me some when we have the GBR - just get me some bloody acros ! '

It's thirteen years late but i wanted to say thank you Joe :beer: goes without saying that i'll be following your journal with great interest mate :)

Joe,
Congrats on the V2, I am sure you will have tremendous success. Best of luck to you:)

Excellent start to the rebuild!!!!

It's funny, I was subscribed to your original thread and followed along until I had to get out of the hobby some years ago. Now that my life is more stable and back in I'm thrilled to have V2 to follow!

Whiskey

Subscribed!

Thanks Mark, it was not a fun time, losing the fish was the worst. I had not added any fish to the tank for about 3 years and then one day, ick was all over my Coral Beauty (I had had him for 11 years at the time). From there, it just spread and I just kept losing fish over the next 6 weeks. My final thoughts were that something got into the tank (I have an open top) and killed off the fish.

Right? You never know what the coral will looks like when it has grown up, more fun for me than popping a full grown colony in.

Like this guy that I got in as a little frag.

12/2008 two months in the tank
http://cnidarianreef.com/G270/images...-d576-1ef4.jpg

2/2009 two months later it is starting to color up and branch out a little
http://cnidarianreef.com/G270/images...-5d53-9222.jpg

5/2010 15 months later, it grew to this beauty.
http://cnidarianreef.com/G270/images...-151e-09e6.jpg

Thanks, I used Marco rock this time, What you can't see it that most of the structure in the middle and back is all open. A few big pieces of shelf rock are in there and I was really able to keep the rock work open despite there being a decent amount of rock.

Your welcome Andrew! I am glad I was able to be a help in your berating of the LFS guy into getting you acros. The growth and coloration you have in your tank now is really awesome, I am happy to have played any part in getting you started. Cheers mate! :)

Many thanks!

I hope this tank with be longer lived than the last one. I wanted to have a thread here for the tank as well, last time I hardly posted my pictures in this forum because I had them all in the build thread. This time I'll try to post as many cool pics as I can!

Thanks Mark!

:thumbsup:

Keenly following your new thread. :)

Looks like you are off to a good start. I like the rock work, they look healthy. I totally agree, growing coral out is rewarding.

I'm thinking about doing a complete reset when I get my 185 going. Best of luck on the new tank. I'd be surprised if it didn't turn out fantastic.

Wow. I didn't realize that your tank had taken a turn for the worse. As much as it pained you, a reset is the best way to move forward. It just sucks that you ended up battling something that most people don't know about: invasive sponges. I know something similar happened to Adee(Amfynn) and sometimes its just time to start from scratch.

Maybe our reef environs are a little too successful in making things comfortable for all the pest algaes, sponges, hydroids, and critters. I don't remember the invasive stuff being such a problem years ago. The Marco rocks will at least prevent you from having to deal with some of that.

I am very very glad that you are sticking with it. You have a real love for the hobby and we need ambassadors like you. Its depressing how many former TOTM are shut down within a year or two of achieving that honor. Best of luck and Ill be rooting for you!

Thanks guys, I'll try hard to produce a kickin tank!

I like the rock work, I'm a little worried that I have too much shelf rock and not enough rock to tier the SPS as I get further towards the back, but I think it will be fine.

Thanks, I am hoping it does. At this point the tank has been in service for about 7 years so any of those bumps that one has in the beginning hopefully have been ironed out years ago.

Thanks Matt, Yeah it did suck pulling all the rock. The day I pulled the rock I was so annoyed about the whole thing I just wanted everything out, even the corals that were encrusted on any rock. If I couldn't cleanly break it off, I tossed it. I remember one of my friends that night at about 10PM looking at a chunk of live rock asking if that was a huge superman monti lying on the driveway. I told him to take it if he wanted, but I make no guarantee there is not a piece of that sponge on the rock. He took it, the rock was fine.

I actually was ready to pull to plug much earlier. About 2 months before the bryopsis set in, the tank basically still looked as it did in the first shot just a little more grown in. I called one of my friends to come over because I was thinking of breaking down the tank. So he, and another friend, come over and look at the tank, and I'm like, yeah I think I am going to pull it down and replace all the rock and start over. They look at me like I am out of my mind. I show them the sponge that is under some of the colonies on the rock. They both agree that with aggressive treatment I can get it out and not break down the tank. So they are show me how with Muratic acid and needles I can inject the acid under the sponge and it will come off in sheets. So I tried that for about a year before I finally gave in and started to replace the rock.

In on page one.

Joe, I've been following your original thread. Your 180 was stunning, and and your 270 newly set up was stunning. I look forward to this iteration of your 270 being better than the two previous set ups.

Joe any problems with the Dwarfs nipping? And how are the yellow Assessors doing?

Many thanks my friend. I am working hard to make this version a great one.

Hey Mike! Well the dwarfs are definitely nipping at the acros. I prefer to think of it as giving the acros kisses so they will know they are loved. lol :)

So they do nip, but whether that is a problem remains to be seen, I don't think they really do anything other than inhibit polyp extension, I'm fine with that. As they grow and color up, no worries from me.

The assessors are doing great, they just are not out in the open all the time. They hang out under the ledges and in the back of the tank. But they eat like champs during feeding, so hopefully in time they will actually be in the water column in the daytime.

Your last tank was an absolute inspiration. It must have been tough to finally make that decision to start over. The new setup looks very good, I really like the layout. Lots of space for corals. I'll be following along, best of luck

wow!!! That is amazing grow for 15 months...

Awesome. I'm happy that things are moving right along for you!

Thats a beautiful echinata. Hope mine grows up to look like that...:D

Good luck with V2 :beer:

JB...I have no doubts your green thumb has gone away...