Long Overdue Update

So it's been a long time since I've done anything with this blog. In my defense things got a little busy... I got a job offer from a company in Chicago, had to find a place and move within a month, go to some training within that month, take down all the tanks and get everything ready for the move. All while still working and going to school haha. It's been about a year since I've actually posted anything. There have been some losses and some gains during the whole process. I lost the vast majority of frags I had in the frag tank from the move. My fish died from being kept from new water for to long. My banded brittle starfish almost kicked the bucket, but I got to him just in time. Here's the newish setups.

40 Gallon Breeder
This tank has mostly remained the same. Same corals, same livestock, everything. The few changes that were made include moving the hang on breeder box that was on the 20 gallon over to here as a refugium, building a small frag rack for the side of the tank and keeping all the surviving frags over here. The fish have been replaced and are all doing amazing. Yes, I know... People will say that a blue tang belongs in a bigger tank. Well there is plenty of room for him to swim around, plenty of places for him to hide and we've become very good buddies haha.



20 Gallon Long
This is the tank that has changed the most. It used to be set up as a frag tank, which was the plan after the move as well. However, things changed, frags died. Right now it is in the process of a major cycle. The purpose of this is to clear the water up 100% then drain it all and fill it with water from the 40 gallon so I can move everything from there to here for about a week or so. After that, it will be set up as a mini shallows tank. I'll be moving my Rock Flower Anemones over to this tank along with the sexy shrimp and anemone crab who is doing great!

5 Gallon Cube
This tank started off as a safe place for a couple small RBTA's that I had. They, sadly, didn't last long. So I decided to do an invert only tank. I moved all my Rock Flowers to this tank, added a couple sexy shrimp and an anemone crab for visual pleasure, and some snails to help clean. This tank requires extremely low maintenance even though it's small, just because of the small bio-load. As said above, this tank will shortly be torn down because everything will be moved to the 20 gallon to create a mini shallows tank. The plan is to have a small rockscape with the rock flowers on the bottom, mushrooms and zoas on the rocks, and maybe a few other things that I haven't decided on yet.

75 Gallon
This will be replacing the 40 Gallon Breeder. I got lucky and scored a 75 gallon tank for $15!!!! It's in awesome condition, but just to be on the safe side, I'll be replacing the top and bottom frames since they don't have a cross bar, and I'll be replacing the silicone as well without even doing a water test because I don't have the room and I don't want any surprises. Within the next few weeks, I'll be working on cleaning it out, taking the frames off and putting new ones on and replacing the seal as well as finishing the stand doors. The plan is to set it up mostly like the 40 gallon, but with a higher rockscape, more shelves for coral, and more overall space for things to grow out. All the rock-work will be held together with epoxy and rods made from coat hangers (got the idea from the interwebs).