Yeti's 75G....... renovation

So I bought this tank off CL. Lets call it a do-er up-er.

Tank is nice, well after some serious time spent cleaning the glass. Stand is solid, and hopefully will take a 30G tank under it for a sump.
It came with a HOB something bio-wheel filter, Red Sea HOB skimmer, about 40lbs of LR, and a well established sand bed.

Live stock.
Hippo Tang, in not to good a condition.
Yellow Tang, with a lot of dorsal fin missing.
3 Percs "we never see them, they live in the Toadstool"
2 Yellow Tailed Damsels "Opps sorry Ian, I put one in the tank" (Jason)..... thanks buddy.
A selection of snails, Blue and Red Legged Hermits, and a crab...seen late at night.

Corals, various mushrooms, some nice electric greens, and some bluish ones too.

Oh... and a toadstool.... sorry that should be TOADSTOOL!!

This baby is attached to two good sized rocks, it's still sulking from the move, and still then measures 12 inches across. The 3 clowns, and at times the Yellow Tang all call it home. This Toadstool is so large I gave it a name...Esmirelda. I have never seen a shroom that could have it's own eco-system, only about 40% of the polyps were out today, not bad for 20 hours after move, and she had gone from 8 inches to 12 inches.

It came with no powerheads, the guy wanted to keep his coraline encrusted/non working power heads, so I put a couple of nano PH I had in the tank, and added a canister filter to get things moving. The tank cleared up fairly quickly then, but there is too much silt, so I need to move more water and increase the filtratiion. Poor fish are shocked to have a current in the tank, and that's from a couple of nano tank PH's. I think I need 2-3 of the Koralia 750's or 1050's. A whole load of LR, and then when I can decide what the lighting is good for, I will take a direction for the tank.

Oopps!

Pics? You know the drill... Lol

Hahaha. Exactly. Pics or it didn't happen!

lol, awesome sounds like you got a great deal. but where's the pics?

matt_longview wrote: Pics or it didn't happen!

think thats like a prime directive of the internetz lol... rule #1 if you will.... lol...

Wow, you are a tough audience to please.

It's almost a blank canvas, most import items I need are powerheads. I have a 30G tank which I think will be able to get through the front doors for a sump.



Esmirelda, the Toadstool of significance, known to eat Whopper Burgers or small children, if no Whoppers available.



Some of the fish, the not too healthy looking Hippo, but at least it's coloured up some in the last couple of days.

That's looking pretty sexy bud! Love that big toadstool. Too bad you can't feed it off of the dollar menu though...

I had thought of trying to keep it secret, and then if we had a coral growing competition I would have taken a small frag, and then a week later revealed the amazing growth I had achieved using Dr Yeti's patented Snake Oil & Coral Feed.

ROFL, I have to say nice tank and that is not a toadstool but a toadsofa I have a couple of extra powerheads trade for a coral or something? I will get the models for you.

nice lookin tank yeti! Any idea how old that toadstol is? I got one from gabe that was like an inch tall, and it was almost 6" in like a year or so. Looks like yours has been around a while lol.

Looks like you rescued someones Nemo tank. What kind of light is on that rig?

That's gonna be a sweet set up once you get it like you want it. What type equipment are you running or plan o runnin? Lighting, skimmer, etc"........ Also what type corals you gonna keep? Softies, SPS, LPS mixed?

Finally back on line at home, the satalite internet was playing up, and then down for a few days...mutters.

Gabe, the lights are Satallite PC, seems they are good for softies and maybe some LPS, but unlikely for SPS.

I got the skimmer working finally, its a Red Sea HOB, and dam but it's noisy, gurgling away like a man in pain in the dentists chair.

I finally got the Yellow Tang to eat, took a couple of days. They were all fed on flake, and although the others are showing a liking for Mysis, the Tang isn't interested.
I put some Nori in, and again no interest from the Tang, but the Turbo snails soon find it.

Updates? Has the beast risen?

BTW, I dig the avatar!

ritter678 wrote:

BTW, I dig the avatar!

AGREED!! Lol. I love that! I stare at it until I get uncomfortable...

Everyone is eating happily, the Yellow Tang now assaults the nori as soon as it's in place, and the Blue Tang shows it's amazing agility when I put Mysis in there, seeming to pull 180 turns whilst diving like something out of Top Gun.
The Toadstool has settled, and I now see that there is a fold of flesh hanging under the front section as though pushed back by the other growth. I'm wondering about cutting that off, but I'm worried about possible damage to the rest of it.
Any experience of doing this?

It would be great to save the section, as it's a decent sized chuck, which hopefully with direct light will regain colour and polyps.

As for the Abatar, blame Mrs Y, she is the Geek, both computer wise and Star Wars.

Yeti wrote:there is a fold of flesh hanging under the front section as though pushed back by the other growth. I'm wondering about cutting that off, but I'm worried about possible damage to the rest of it.
Any experience of doing this?

It would be great to save the section, as it's a decent sized chuck, which hopefully with direct light will regain colour and polyps.

If the coral looks healthy to you and your water is right then cutting that piece off won't harm it a bit. It may be unhappy for a few days but it should be fine. I've used razor blades and scissors to cut my with no problems.

Save what u hack off it lol rubberband it to a rock n it should grow into another

Somehow, the magical fairy of salt water brought me a couple of powerheads, and I saw an almost immediate difference, Esmirelda suddenly doubled the number of polyps from her fronds. I had to adjust the direction slightly, the 1050 has had to be directed at one of the more vertical rocks, as a deflector, but never the less, a major plus to the tank.

So next is the sump build.
I need an overflow, a skimmer, to build my sump (based upon a 30G I have), and then I will need to find the right return pump. I say that as I bought the wrong one for my 30G, and this time need to get it right first time, by calculating the volume/hour + head of water.

There isn't a real rush, the 400 HOB which the tank had for 2-3 years worked well, and I've added a canister filter. I need to increase more live rock, my inclination being to have to islands, one at each end, and then Esmirelda in the middle.
The 2 Damsels will be removed (gods I detest those fish, and think they are responsible for the fin nipping on the 2 tangs).

My inclination for this tank is to go Soft and LPS. The only problem I foresee is that the compacts give a very good vertical light, but seem to be weak once anything isn't directly under there. Anyone have any experience of compacts to give me their opinion? I would welcome it.

As I see it, from my struggles with SPS, it takes major water purity PLUS damned good lighting, and at the moment I'm struggling in the 30G to grow my SPS. When I can afford it, the 30G will go LED, but for the time being that stays T5's.

But back at the 75G, I want to add a Tang or 2. I really enjoy watching them, their activity and grace, and without the damned Damsels, hopefully no fin nipping.
Naturally any comments are welcome, as your experiences are how we all learn.

I am using PC's but it is a 8 - 60w bulbs (480W total) 4 - 420 blues and 4 - 12k daylights. I have some SPS and LPS loving it in my 75G. I have the SPS in the upper half (the green Monti I got from Jason is climbing up the wall to the point when I turn off the pumps a 1/4" sticks out of the water) and LPS on the sandy bottom. I need to get some pics and update my build thread.

Hey i got a 1" hob overflow i believe it rated up to 800 gph... i paid like 70 for it used from bump n jd lol.. i posted it for $40.

I'm not sure when I'll be over your way again Win. Do you know the make so I can look it up? As in 2 pipes or one pipe? (I'm thinking single).

No markings on it, there's one drain.. id post a pic but my phones acting up n won't let me copy n paste... its in my sale thread. $25 it could b urs lol.

Oh how delinquent I have been on posting on my 75G, sorry, but I've been enjoying it immensely, just not sharing.
Dam how things have changed since April.
So firstly an April pic.
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Minimal rock, the Toadstool hogging the centre, and lots of dead Coraline on the tank from the move. Fish hiding in her, I assure you Clowns don't need an Anemone, I have GHM lovers and Toadstool lovers.

Then my 30G sprung a leak. Panic stations... but fortunately I had a 24 JBJ at hand, so fish went in there, but it left me with a lot of live rock, oh life is so hard.
Except that my plan for the 75G was to have 2 islands at the end of the tank, and the beast in the centre. Well let's be flexible.

So here's the 75G a few months ago.
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And today
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Major Coraline explosion, everything is growing well. Thor has gone from 3 hammer heads to 8 hammer heads, the brown fuzzy stick has shot at least 2 other stalks, my Duncan in here has now gone from 2 1/2 heads to 4 1/2 heads. The Christmas Favia I got from Gabe is really swollen up and the Blasto, once I found that a piece of pipe placed over it, and then fed an hour later, is really swelling up nicely.
My love of LPS is a case of continuous learning. The Christmas must have night-time tendrils which reach 4 inches, as my Duncan, over night had areas which looked shriveled. Classic LPS stinging signs. You'll notice that the Stalking Duncan and Favia are now parallel, flow from right to left, and both are happy.
In a little more detail:
Left side of tank
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Centre of tank
[img][/img]
Right side of tank
[img][/img]

Successes, major growth in the hammer Head (Thor) 4 to 8 heads, spread of Coraline, my Cap Monti is encrusting like mad, finally.
Loss. Yellow Tang. It had from the day I got the tank, had a hole in the top fin, and no real full bottom fin. The hole became smaller and smaller so I was thinking I was succeeding, but alas, it died. I'm loath to add anything, as I have the 2 "Demon Fish" damsels, which I think would hound and harass anything added.

I've also had to cut 2 chunks of the Toadstool off from the underside as they weren't getting enough light. The first I pushed into my JBJ cube, to "frag", darned thing took root in 48 hours, but remains pale, but has heavy polyp exposure. The second I did recently and is in Mrs Y's tank. It seems to be moving around, but has good colour.

All in all, everything seems happy, and most of all, I'm loving the tank. Now maybe a few Zoa's to spread over the rocks.

Tanks looking amazing Yeti! Keep up the good work.