Avery's 90 Gallon Tank Build

[avery155]

So I think that I found some other critter. It is about the size of pencil eraser, and looks like a mushroom that I would find in my yard. It is a yellow or golden color. I am not sure what it is.

On a side note I also bought a raw shrimp tonight and cut it up into a few pieces, hopefully this will start some type of cycle because I have been yet to notice any cycle. Also maybe it will entice any critters that are in the rock and hungry to come out tonight!

My protein skimmer is pulling out some yellow junk though, it looks like the green tea you get in a bottle, so something must have been going on in there for the last week. I will wait till tomorrow or a few days to check and see if the shrimp is helping anything.

 

[rwynn]

If the rock is really good and didn't see a lot of die off you might get a short cycle....the little bitty critters moving around sound like pods(food) for fish, they live in the rock and come out at night. Your fish will love them later on!

 

[avery155]

OK Update time!

So I have a few additions to the tank..
Currently tank contains
3 emerald crabs
3 nassarius snails
6 astrea snails
10 smaller hermit crabs
1 huge hermit crab
and...
2 True Perc Clowns.

And...

These guys are hard to get pics of...

 

[Leslee]

Looks great! Are you going to name them? I LOVE your stand by the way! I really like the drawers!

 

[avery155]

Thank you Leslee. The drawers are nice, but every time I do anything in the sump the drawers have to be removed. My fiance wants to name the female (Which ever one that decides to be..) Coral, and the male Marlin (Yes after finding nemo...)
The names are not set in stone but that is what she came up with.
We also finally decided on what fish we hope to have.
2 Clowns
1 Blue Hippo Tang
1 Yellow Tang
1 Flame Angel

And if it is not too much I would also like a scooter blenny or a goby. I haven't decided which type of goby would be good to start with. I seen a really nice diamond back goby. I also haven't decided if that is going to be too much or not.
Personally I would love a Mandarin goby, but I know they are very hard to keep so that will will have to wait until my tank matures a lot more. So the goby or scooter blenny are just thought for now... and probably just thought for a while.


As far as corals, we hope to start with some zoanthids sometime in the next month or so I really like them. Or might try to find a hairy mushroom in hopes that the clowns will stop living in the corner of the tank.. All the do is swim up and down the corner. Then at night they reside to the bottom of the tank...Still in the corner though.

 

[rwynn]

You could keep a whole bunch more than you already have in a 90....I've seen more than that in a 50.

 

[Bifferwine]

You can be safe with ~9 or 10 fish in a 90 gallon tank. But the fish you've picked out so far would be great choices.

 

[avery155]

Well I am in need of some updating I see.
New additions are:
1 Hairy Mushroom Rock
1 Rock of Green and Red zoanthids
1 Flame Angel
1 Blue Hippo tang
2 Cleaner Shrimp

I also put a Turbo Twist UV Sterilizer in as well

 

[avery155]

Thinking about adding a coral beauty to my list of to get fish as well!

 

[Bifferwine]

Unfortunately, the two angels will probably not be compatible -- they will probably fight til one of them eats it.

I like your choices so far, though! Where are the pics? :D

 

[avery155]

Pics.. Some pics tonight if i took some already with my camera and some tomorrow when daylights come back on.
I was unaware that the two angels would fight. MY lfs said they would be ok, well I guess more research is needed before I think about getting one! Thanks for the heads up biff!

 

[OmegaOmega]

Hey avery - what kind of sand did you use, and how long did it take before your water cleared?

 

[avery155]

The sand I used was Caribsea Fiji Pink. It took about a day to clear up if that.

Ok Some pics!
This is the mushroom coral when I first got it. Some of you may remember it in my post when I got it.

And here is the mushroom coral as of a few days ago:

It grew a lot since I got it and I think one of the heads is starting to split :)

Heres my Zoa's

Cleaner Shrimp:

Corner Tank shot with my third new Koralia #3

Refugium, it doesn't really look this dirty (Biff does the cheato look familiar?):

I found a serpent starfish is now living in my chaeto...
Here is a few blurry pics of the serpent stars living on my rubble rock

Turbo Twist UV:

And finally my snails spawning... And you can see a glimpse of my hippo tang and flame:

I just found an app to upload pics off my iphone to photo bucket so I got some more pics coming up in a bit!

 

[OmegaOmega]

Ugh - I'm so annoyed! My tank has been running since Friday morning and it's still COVERED in white silt - it's all over the plumbing, the sump, everywhere. I'm hardly getting an indication that its clearing :( - very discouraging.

 

[Bifferwine]

Is your salinity correct?

 

[avery155]

Omega you may have had the same problem as I did!
You may have mixed too much salt or mixxed the salt too quickly and had calcium carbonate precipitate out of the mix. I had to clean everything and put some filter floss in my bubble trap to clear it all up...Check your salinity as biff said I would bet it is a little high.

 

[OmegaOmega]

I used ocean water from the LFS - it looked to be correct and my conductivity tester is within parameter. Temp is finally stable at 78.2.

Did you see the pic I posted yesterday for my tank build thread? Still the same murkiness... Is that not normal? Can I do anything about it? At first I was afraid, I was petrified... Kept thinking cloudiness would be my life... and I've spent so many nights, thinking 'I want the murkiness gone' - and I've grown strong... I've learned how to get along...

 

[avery155]

Ok some Iphone pics!

My blue hippo all mad about not being in the tank yet!:

About 10 min after being put in the tank:

More pics of cleaner shrimp:

And my tang again:

And... not my tank or fishy at all (well except the fish fillet in the background!)
My two chinchillas:

 

[OmegaOmega]

Not to go all Gloria on y'all... I'm just sayin'

 

[avery155]

No I haven't seen it Im going to go look for it now, maybe an algae or bacteria bloom?