James Weir's LPS and Soft Coral Tank

Dimensions:
36x15x18inches

Volume:
35 Gallons/159litres

Filtration
Substrate: 12kg Medium sized crushed coral
Live Rock: 16kg
Skimmer: TMC v2 400 Protein Skimmer

Flow
Minimum: 5100 lph
Maximum: 21,000 lph
Average: 13050 lph
Flow provided by Resun Wave Maker, Fluval Power head and Rio Power head

Lighting: 150w M.H. 14000k
39w T5 20000k
39w T5 10000k

Temp Range: 26.5-27.2 Centigrade
Salinity: 1.026
pH range: 8.1-8.2

Stocking
Coral:
Various Acans, Trumpet, Candy Cane, Frogspawn, Various Duncans, Blastos, various Zoanthids, Multiple Yuma, Various Palys, Various Xenia, Multiple Sponges, Porites, Hysterix.

Fish:
Randal's Goby, Green Chromis, Six Line Wrasse.

Current Shot of tank:

Hi James

Sounds like a good plan, although i would say the following.

Firstly, i would put the substrate in AFTER youve got the rock on.
Secondly, 6-10kg wouldnt be enough LR to filter efficiently for that size of tank. The tank works out at about 180 litres and it is recommended to use a kg for every 10 litres, so you would need closer to 18 kgs.

sounds good mate. shimmy seems to have you on a good path there. where are you getting the rock from i would say you will still get a cycle so just be careful with your pico stock.

oh and i would stick with the black background

I went for no back for now. Going to stick a black one on I think. I couldnt be doing with spraying. I got a rollocking last time for spraying the patio tiles haha.

Rock will be about 16kg and 12kg of sand. I'm happy with that for now. There will be 10 mangroves too hopefully.

So far there are a few xenia frags in there, a couple of zoas and three hermits, 4 or 5 bristle worms 10 mini bristle stars and two stromella. I'm leaving it like that till i get a full test tomorrow.

are the mangroves going to be on show? i think they look really nice out the top of a system

The mangroves will be on show, they will be in one half of the tank. on the left . I have my m.h. over the rock and then the spill off will light the mangroves, my room is about 4m by 2m so its very bright in there no need for lights for the mangroves. The plan was to sump the tank but my parents didn't want want such a big system in a bedroom. The sump was about the same time as this tank so it would have been in the region of 80g. Not huge but yeah, they worry.

Tank shot of it with substrate and 25l of the salty stuff:



Heres the rock in slightly unsettled water thanks to my scaping.

My clown that is desperate to move into his new tank:



Notice how my clown is better looking than Adams :p

Here is the comic of my pico:



Randal's Goby. He's a right card, doesn't really eat from food I put in, he eats live mysis that are in the tank. He will steal food from corals and from in front of the clown though.

Tank is starting to get stocked. I ran out off ammonia test last night, but I did a diluted test and it turned the correct colour. The nitrite levels have dropped and I've added some algae which is on some life rock from the other tank.

All softies that arent on 1kg rock have been moved over other than xenia, that all needs to go onto frags.

Get it topped up

nice idea with one half mangroves, what about addin an in tank dsb too? its gonna look really cool.

ps will the mangroves be open for the fish to swim through

DSb? Deep sand bed?

Its about an inch deep theres another 4kgs from the pico to go in. Not adding more than that really.

The mangroves will be open for business, the idea is this would be a nursery site in the wild.

May try and get some clowns breeding in here.

That would be very cool if you could raise some.

Indeed, i'm a while away from that though yet! Need to get the tank full to the top and get my mangroves first!

Tank is fully stocked and now has a deep sand bed in the half where the mangroves will be. Mangoves will be here in a week or two, getting them off ebay but didnt want to risk post so close to christmas.

The mandatory FTS (Sorry about the quality) Its come on a bit from last week


Good news! My two headed duncan was really struggeling when in the pico with the 18w whilst the new tank was cycling. It even bleached twice. Its now open and extended. I love this coral as I got two heads for the price of one and when it opens fully its one of the biggest two heads i've seen.

I've decided I def need a blue back ground from the aquatic store on my next visit. I've added the power head from a fluval 3 for flow of a night, it isnt the strongest of pumps but for 4 hours a night it will manage to keep pH stable.

The acros look much better in a bigger space and finally on rock!

Sorry about the bad pic but here are the sps:



The candy canes are looking blue and green like never before. I love these t5's I can't wait to replace the bulbs for even better colour!

I found a small colony of zoas/palys in the pico buried, i'm excited to see what colour they come out.

The rock with both types of xena on are now next to each other and look good, the purple of the pom poms isreally standing out.

My blastos that Etet gave me are looking very healthy i'm shocked at how well they did with just 18ws in the pico, hopefully they won't have forgot the mh too quickly as they are in the mh light rather than t5s. Obviously the light will cross paths but they are almost dirrectly beneath.

LPS rock, will be getting more corals next week once these have all settled. The extension isn't great due to the had been moved and puttied about 30mins before. I hope they look better for tomorrow so I can show off the tank to family.

The clown and randal are loving the tank, the clown is swimming and chilling in the corners. Maybe he's a bit scared of such a big open space compared to the pico though there are plenty of caves for him should he get scared. The randal goby lay in the sand and seemed to enjoy being pulled towards the wave maker then swimming out of its grips, I grabbed my phone to film it but it decided it didnt want to be filmed and scarperd into the rocks. I doubt i'll see it again until its hungy, probably a weeks time!

The clown who shall not be named...

The infamous Randals Goby that has decided to make home in a large cave that I can see him in which is a first!

I'm really happy with the tank, I was suprises at how quickly it looked filled up. For positioning, i have: a paly corner in the back right, open rock rolling down to the front which will be for lps, so fare, candy cane duncans and blastos, soon to have a few treats from santa, possible next week when the lfs has its next delivery. I then have a shelf of zoas with two rics, i hope to add a few mushies and a few more zoa frags and then that shelf will be left on its own.

Can you see the baby ric to the left of its mum?

To the left is a rock with a (not so) blue tipped acro, a red acro and a seriotopora sp and a porites sp. below that are a couple of rocks with xenia and and macro algaes.

Looks cool I really like the layout of this system. Why did you not paint that back?

Truthfully? I scrubbed a layer of white emulsion off the back of it and thought can't be bothered to alcohol wash and spray it.I had to go out in the afternoon so i didnt bother. I'm going to go with a blue background. I didnt like the black on my pico. It looked horrid when green algae grew on it. so a back ground will be better on the outside than i can still use the magnet to clean it.