Snoopy's sun blasted "fully scrubbed"corner reef tank

[Snoopy]

http://i1225.photobucket.com/albums/ee391/Choppa_Dan/Tank%20Shots/BF0EC6BE-7176-4C1E-B0AC-C5A233E3F40E-1511-0000002C506EAA37_zps34c20e3a.jpg
http://i1225.photobucket.com/albums/ee391/Choppa_Dan/Tank%20Shots/AE4FAEBB-6F0C-4D15-B7F5-4DA4121FB0BC-1511-0000002C38592382_zps45e5baf7.jpg

Cheers

[Snoopy]

A couple more pics - why not :)
Sun light shimmer
http://i1225.photobucket.com/albums/ee391/Choppa_Dan/Tank%20Shots/7ECC7C45-8D34-4B15-B921-3A2B9D3BBE40-1511-00000030180946AE_zps88457d43.jpg
http://i1225.photobucket.com/albums/ee391/Choppa_Dan/Tank%20Shots/F9192798-A8A3-4377-AE38-A2AE08D97E52-1511-000000302039425F_zps77da36ff.jpg

Cheers
Snoops

[Floyd R Turbo]

Sweet, is that a solatube?

[Snoopy]

Sweet, is that a solatube?

Thanks,

Nope it's a Velux sun tunnel (cheaper and wider) but they have a flat roof cover (no dome).

Taken around 11am (we are just starting our summer) on a clear day about 29 deg Celsius
http://i1225.photobucket.com/albums/ee391/Choppa_Dan/SunTube/55CF1C0D-BA11-4901-9120-902521784E5C-11670-00000158EB118FD9_zps2dd47d03.jpg
http://i1225.photobucket.com/albums/ee391/Choppa_Dan/SunTube/0602D3B1-3FC6-45F9-A7E3-EBE571C0EDE3-11670-000001592D324B42_zpsf7fbffde.jpg

Cheers

[Floyd R Turbo]

Do you have any supplemental light, T5, LED? Looks really nice. I recall a big solatube tank build on Aquarium Advice I think. Haven't seen that many though!

Nice 92 corner also, great layout of rock and corals - top notch!

[Snoopy]

Thanks for the comments.

Yes I have 105w of led suppliments - two Aquaray (white/blue) tiles in the front corners and three (2white/blue &1 Fiji blue) strips along each side (around the tube). The sides and corners benefit from the supplemental lighting and also allows me to view the tank into the night under colour changing blues etc.

I had the same again in the middle section before I installed the tube so in essence I've halved my LEDs since installing it. IMO the combined daytime lighting is looking great. I'm trying the natural light to round out the colour spectrum as a lot of my corals were loosing colour intensity just under white / blue. It's also increased the par im getting by about 3-4 times over the LEDs which should help with the sps.

Cheers

[Snoopy]

Hi all - new vid - hope you like it - cheers



http://youtu.be/2eVQ-XDJ_28

[SantaMonica]

Nice... love goni's that are stretched out.

[anders moon]

hey that is one nice lookong tang/reef you have there!
Do you feed your LPS corals?
how old are your gonioporas and do you feed them some kind?

[Snoopy]

Thanks

I've never direct fed any of my LPS corals however they catch and eat pods and left over fish food all the time. In the vid below (better on a larger screen) you can see a large polyp Pagoda eating some pods I feed my tank once.

http://youtu.be/bAYMG-7HPZs

I've had most of the gonni's for about 12- 24 months without directly feeding them mainly due to having a mixed reef tank with a lot of SPS i didnt want to brown out with a lot of food. Whatever food they were getting was from left over fish foods. In this time I dosed a liquid rotifer based reef food called nutra-kol and I used to run GFO and a product called Eco reef base (rich in minerals like iron) in media reactors, which is what I think has allowed the gonni's to do well.

Here is one of the small ones reproducing from budding from this set up.
http://i1225.photobucket.com/albums/ee391/Choppa_Dan/gonioporas/3D264FFF-1C3C-4785-AE7E-99150A3EE7F2-21705-0000027A3DAE7CAF_zpsa7ab6190.jpg

I still do not directly feed the gonni's because i work away however here is my routine more or less. Ill just point out too that most of what I'm doing is based on reading other people's success stories with gonniopora corals.

Since becoming an ATS convert I no longer run GFO but I dose a liquid iron supplement for the gonni's which will also help the algae no doubt. I also dose no-pox and run my skimmer week days. I work away during the week so I auto dose a range of powdered phytoplankton, zooplankton and small fry foods 4 times a day and have a phosphate free dissolvable invert feed block in my return section of my sump that lasts for about 10 days.

My wife feeds my fish 4-5 mixed frozen cubes (mysis, brine, Rotifer, artmia, fish eggs or lobster eggs, cyclops) thawed in tank water. When im home on the weekends I turn off the skimmer. I also add liquid amino acids, nutra-kol reef feed and a complete mineral liquid. I also add collected pods and seawater monthly. My water is NSW collected locally and bulk delivered, and I do weekly 20% water changes.

Sounds like a lot and probably is but the ATS and no-pox with the skimmer are keeping the water free of nitrates and about 0-0.3 phosphates depending on when I test (about every other month these days). I will probably trial stopping the nopox dosing too when it runs out as it probably reduces the effectiveness of the ATS.

I think too that tank flow is very important with gonni care - not including the return flow angled straight down - I now run a single internal power head on an on/off timer that allows the gonni polyps time to catch food in between getting blown around in indirect current. During the off times in the stillish water you can see the polyps feeding and some even pulsating at times.

Cheers
Snoops

[anders moon]

thank you for sharing!
Good infoooo