125G Aquarium Journal - Future Reef

Cycle is complete! I will still wait a week or two before I place any fish in. I added a lot of live rock today (50lbs) and want to make sure no mini cycles take place. It shouldn't (its cured rock) but you never know.

I am not sure how much live rock total I have since I added it over a period of time. But it seems to be a decent amount. Any suggestions are welcome. I can always move rocks.

Sadly no lights yet. The live rock took out a large portion of my budget. I will wait another month or two for lights. Hopefully the natural light will be fine for now. I won't add any corals until I get my light, but I actually have a tiny mushroom that is still alive in the tank. It hitched a ride from my nano tank when I moved a rock in.

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I would ignore the last picture. My family agreed that my rock work looked too "flat". I added more of a 3D effect and it looks totally different. I will post a picture tonight.
 
atnixon said:
you certainly have a nice array of coloured rock there...and a good ammount by the looks of it..Look forward to the re-arranged pix of it all...

Niko
Click to expand...

Thanks. I actually hid a lot of the color in the new layout. Some of the pieces would stand out too much and it didn't look very natural. Hopefully once I get my lights the color will even out nicely.

Any guesses on what type of rock is in the bucket/table? I forgot to ask which kind of live rock it was. I got it off someone on craigslist for a decent price. It would have cost me $700-900 to fill up my tank with the same amount of rock (total in the tank) if I had bought it from petstores.
 
my guess would be the carribean rock that they sell, although i could be very wrong.

Although, i have "wild caught" figi that looks like that.
 
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Thanks for all the rock suggestions. I think it might be fiji. I bought a couple of fiji pieces at my LFS that were a bit similar. They were actually rounder. Fiji rock is pretty much the only rock available around here.

Here is the new rock work: These pictures don't show the 3D effect so some structures look more solid then they really are. My favorite formation is the one of the right. You won't be able to see it well, but it acts as a curved wall with caves.

Full view
NewTankRock2.PNG

Middle Formation
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Right Formation
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Yikes! So far today hasn't been going too well. I asked my mom to pick up some more frozen bloodworms for my dwarf puffer at the fish store on her way home yesterday from work. I shouldn't have bragged about my cycle ending to her because she decided to pick up some fish and place them in my tank while I was at school. She is very supportive of my hobby but an impulsive buyer. I had to take back a mandarin she tried to give to me once for my nano. This time she bought 5 chromis. Not something I wanted for my 125G.

The worst part of the day was when she told me she had bought 6 of them. I saw only 5 and thought the other had died somewhere. I tore apart my live rock and filter looking for it. The last thing I need is a major ammonia spike. Turns out she had counted wrong. It was only 5, even the receipt said so.

Yesterday I spent all day trying to catch them. I think they are the fastest fish I have ever seen in a tank. I would try to catch them on one side of the tank and they would be on the other side in 2 seconds flat.

Any suggestions on how to catch them? I have been feeding them tiny bits of food while I place the net in the water to get them used to it. I also prepared a quick holding bucket (with live rock, heat and filter) to house the ones I catch so I can take them back.
 
I'd just leave em in for a splash of color. They're harmless, and they won't take over your tank with aggression like damsels would.

Tank looks nice!

Consider going used on the lights? Probably get a few 175s or 250s and light that baby up!
 
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