SeahorseKeeper
Where's the mysis?
Joshporksandwic 125 Zoa Dominated Tank
https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/zoa-discussion-club-zoa/98197-zoa-dominated-125g.html
Introduction
Hello my name is Josh. It's an honor to be nominated and selected for tank of the month. As I am kind of new to the hobby, it really surprises me that others appreciate my tank as much as I do. It all started out by watching an episode of tanked and I got caught the reefing itch. I bought an established tank from someone who introduced me to the hobby and showed me how to maintain my tank. My primary goal when I started was to have nice fish and a few corals. Little did I know I was an addict in the making. The more knowledge I got the deeper into addiction I went. Throughout these few years, I have had the honor of meeting fabulous people with great tanks. They are the ones that made my tank what it is today. Thanks to Rick Molina, Miguel y Xiomara Hurtado, Rich Negret, Cesar Andino, Eric Ho, Mark Esquenazi, Carlos Hernandez, Carlos Southside and Victor from Coral Kingdom for helping me, and teaching me how to do everything and keeping my tank alive.
I have joined forums, gone to frag swaps, visited countless stores, gone through lots of websites, been to hundreds of people's houses and travel from the Keys (lol) to Jacksonville in search of amazing corals to add to my tank.
I love all corals but my passion is Zoas and Palys. As you can see I have over 300 different kinds. When I saw the colors and variety I imagined my tank covered with zoos and now that dream is becoming a reality.
Special Thanks and Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my amazing wife Martha for putting up with my addict self, helping with the water changes, rock rearrangements, tank cleanings, light holder, fragging, gluing, fish feeder, fish dripper, coral dipper, FedEx package receiver, and allowing me to spend our life savings buying 1 polyp frags at a time. Thanks My Queen!!!!
System Profile
Display tank: 125 gallons (72" x 22" x 18").
Type: Glass.
Stand: Wood, came with tank
Sump:15 gallon refugium with chaeto and caulerpa that gravity feeds 20 gal sump with bioballs (pics at bottom)
Protein Skimmer: Coralife Super Skimmer 125
Carbon/phosphate filtration: GFO and carbon in a Phosban reactor
Return Pump: Mag 18
Water circulation: 1 Jeabo WP40 in wave mode
Lighting: 3 Apollo 6. 75% blue 25% white non dimmable white on from 11am to 3pm Blues on from 4-9pm
Calcium/alkalinity/magnesium dosing: Calcium and Mag manually dosed once a week
Auto top-off: 5 gallon bucket dripped with 1/4 tubing
RO/DI: 5 stage H2O science Ro/di
Heating/cooling: House stays under 78 always. 400w titanium heater
System control: Aqua Controller Jr.
Eric Ho has shown me everything I need to know about taking pictures of corals and post editing. He's an awesome teacher and none of my threads would be possible if he had not shown me how to take good pictures. He hates me now cause my pics are better lol. Mark helped by lending me his 90mm tamron lens for a few weeks.
My tank started in Oct. 2011 completely covered with red algae and a few corals
By Dec. 2011 I had got bit by the coral bug bad!
After 11 months, in September 2012 I ran out of space and started adding ugly racks everywhere
After 1 year decided to redo my rockwork, get rid of the racks and sell a bunch of stuff and turn my tank into what it is now.
Jan 2013
Jan 2014
A lot of you ask me about the back of my tank and this is a creation of Craig Ganes the Ocean Builder of south FL. He uses shells, barnacles and dead corals to make panels that attach to any tank. It makes my tank look super awesome and full of life. I attach zoas, sps, and montis and they just grab and grow.
Anemones and fish love the barnacles to make their home!
On December 2013, we decided to finally upgrade. All of my colonies were fragged and I gave frags to friends to hold for me, in fear I might kill everything. Check out https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/la...-joshporksandwic-220-zoa-dominated-build.html for more info.
https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/zoa-discussion-club-zoa/98197-zoa-dominated-125g.html
Introduction
Hello my name is Josh. It's an honor to be nominated and selected for tank of the month. As I am kind of new to the hobby, it really surprises me that others appreciate my tank as much as I do. It all started out by watching an episode of tanked and I got caught the reefing itch. I bought an established tank from someone who introduced me to the hobby and showed me how to maintain my tank. My primary goal when I started was to have nice fish and a few corals. Little did I know I was an addict in the making. The more knowledge I got the deeper into addiction I went. Throughout these few years, I have had the honor of meeting fabulous people with great tanks. They are the ones that made my tank what it is today. Thanks to Rick Molina, Miguel y Xiomara Hurtado, Rich Negret, Cesar Andino, Eric Ho, Mark Esquenazi, Carlos Hernandez, Carlos Southside and Victor from Coral Kingdom for helping me, and teaching me how to do everything and keeping my tank alive.
I have joined forums, gone to frag swaps, visited countless stores, gone through lots of websites, been to hundreds of people's houses and travel from the Keys (lol) to Jacksonville in search of amazing corals to add to my tank.
I love all corals but my passion is Zoas and Palys. As you can see I have over 300 different kinds. When I saw the colors and variety I imagined my tank covered with zoos and now that dream is becoming a reality.
Special Thanks and Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my amazing wife Martha for putting up with my addict self, helping with the water changes, rock rearrangements, tank cleanings, light holder, fragging, gluing, fish feeder, fish dripper, coral dipper, FedEx package receiver, and allowing me to spend our life savings buying 1 polyp frags at a time. Thanks My Queen!!!!
System Profile
Display tank: 125 gallons (72" x 22" x 18").
Type: Glass.
Stand: Wood, came with tank
Sump:15 gallon refugium with chaeto and caulerpa that gravity feeds 20 gal sump with bioballs (pics at bottom)
Protein Skimmer: Coralife Super Skimmer 125
Carbon/phosphate filtration: GFO and carbon in a Phosban reactor
Return Pump: Mag 18
Water circulation: 1 Jeabo WP40 in wave mode
Lighting: 3 Apollo 6. 75% blue 25% white non dimmable white on from 11am to 3pm Blues on from 4-9pm
Calcium/alkalinity/magnesium dosing: Calcium and Mag manually dosed once a week
Auto top-off: 5 gallon bucket dripped with 1/4 tubing
RO/DI: 5 stage H2O science Ro/di
Heating/cooling: House stays under 78 always. 400w titanium heater
System control: Aqua Controller Jr.
Eric Ho has shown me everything I need to know about taking pictures of corals and post editing. He's an awesome teacher and none of my threads would be possible if he had not shown me how to take good pictures. He hates me now cause my pics are better lol. Mark helped by lending me his 90mm tamron lens for a few weeks.
My tank started in Oct. 2011 completely covered with red algae and a few corals
By Dec. 2011 I had got bit by the coral bug bad!
After 11 months, in September 2012 I ran out of space and started adding ugly racks everywhere
After 1 year decided to redo my rockwork, get rid of the racks and sell a bunch of stuff and turn my tank into what it is now.
Jan 2013
Jan 2014
A lot of you ask me about the back of my tank and this is a creation of Craig Ganes the Ocean Builder of south FL. He uses shells, barnacles and dead corals to make panels that attach to any tank. It makes my tank look super awesome and full of life. I attach zoas, sps, and montis and they just grab and grow.
Anemones and fish love the barnacles to make their home!
On December 2013, we decided to finally upgrade. All of my colonies were fragged and I gave frags to friends to hold for me, in fear I might kill everything. Check out https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/la...-joshporksandwic-220-zoa-dominated-build.html for more info.
Filtration
I have a very simple filtration setup, nothing too complex.
Elevated 15g tank with chaeto and caulerpa
This drains into 20g sump filled with bioballs. It's a mess.
I do a 20% water change every 2-3 weeks.
My best tip for anyone starting out is to do lots of water changes until you learn to check all your parameters and keep them as stable as possible.
Feeding schedule
I have a very simple filtration setup, nothing too complex.
Elevated 15g tank with chaeto and caulerpa
This drains into 20g sump filled with bioballs. It's a mess.
I do a 20% water change every 2-3 weeks.
My best tip for anyone starting out is to do lots of water changes until you learn to check all your parameters and keep them as stable as possible.
Feeding schedule
I make my own food and I feed every other day. My food consist of different kinds of seafood, fuel, spinach, carrots, broccoli and shrimp larvae. I turn off my return to feed and leave the powerhead on for 30 min. I also feed brine shrimp that has been soaked in water and spirulina powder for 15 min. Once a week I add half a gallon of phyto, rotifers and God knows what other creature from M. Hurtados Lab called La Sopa (The soup)
Kitchen where the soup is made
Kitchen where the soup is made
Tank Inhabitants
2 Chromis (Chromis viridis)
1 Yellow Tang (Zebrasoma flavescens)
Local Blenny (Scartella cristata), which feeds all my corals with 1 poop. He is also the puppy of the tank. He also likes to climb on my arm when I put it in the tank.
2 Squareback Anthias (Pseudoanthias pleurotaenia)
1 Lawnmower blenny (Salarias fasciatus)
1 Six Line Wrasse (Pseudocheilinus hexataenia)
1 Bartlett's Anthias (Pseudanthias bartlettorum)
2 Lyretail Anthias (Pseudanthias squamipinnis)
1 Pacific creole-fish (Paranthias colonus)
3 Carberryi Anthias (Nemanthias carberryi)
3 Yellowtail Damselfish (Chrysiptera parasema)
1 sea cucumber
3 marble starfish
3 red starfish
2 cleaner shrimp
1 coral banded shrimp
3 brittle starfish
1 sea urchin
2 Chromis (Chromis viridis)
1 Yellow Tang (Zebrasoma flavescens)
Local Blenny (Scartella cristata), which feeds all my corals with 1 poop. He is also the puppy of the tank. He also likes to climb on my arm when I put it in the tank.
2 Squareback Anthias (Pseudoanthias pleurotaenia)
1 Lawnmower blenny (Salarias fasciatus)
1 Six Line Wrasse (Pseudocheilinus hexataenia)
1 Bartlett's Anthias (Pseudanthias bartlettorum)
2 Lyretail Anthias (Pseudanthias squamipinnis)
1 Pacific creole-fish (Paranthias colonus)
3 Carberryi Anthias (Nemanthias carberryi)
3 Yellowtail Damselfish (Chrysiptera parasema)
1 sea cucumber
3 marble starfish
3 red starfish
2 cleaner shrimp
1 coral banded shrimp
3 brittle starfish
1 sea urchin
Corals
I wrote an article for Reefhobbyst magazine about taking care of zoas
Quarter 3 2013, pages 10 through 18 Check it out.
Something amazing that happened in my tank!
Dendros spawning!
[video=youtube;Tv8zqZkP1UY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Tv8zqZkP1UY[/video]
I would like to conclude by saying this hobby is very hard and stressful when things go bad, but when everything is doing great it's one of the most satisfying and relaxing feelings I can imagine. I'm still amazed that I was selected for tank of the month on Reef2Reef where there’s a lot of amazing tanks nicer than mine and I'm very honored. Thanks to Reef2Reef David and Tonya and I hope this site becomes the destination for my local friends from Fmas.
God Bless!!!!!
Last edited by a moderator:
