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Madison Motorsports
MM Reef - Printable Version

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MM Reef - ScottyB - 04-16-2006

i'm finally finishing up the last stages of my recently set up saltwater tank. i love marine biology and i've been into saltwater tank keeping since i was a freshman but never had the chance to actually develop a good setup since i was always low on cash or moving back and forth from home to school and back again. so now that i'm kinda settled i bit the bullet and got things set up the way i've always wanted them.

its all coral right now, but i'll add a fish and an some small invertebrates in probably the next few weeks. i actually got the coral today from a local guy who mentioned on a message board that he needed to harvest some stuff that was growing like crazy. its about 100 bucks worth of coral, i gave him a 20 after he said he only wanted 15 Big Grin i felt like i was practically stealing them!

anyway, it's a 10 gallon tank with a 10 gallon sump, using natural filtration and 80 watts of power compact flourescent lighting. the plumbing was actually the biggest PITA. don't let people tell you that you need a monster sized tank with computer controls and a room full of filtration equipment....you can make it work in any size, and in a million different ways. i could go on, but i'll just leave the pictures to talking and if you have questions, fire away.


hmm, a black stand could use a yellow sticker....hehe
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refugium, filtration is all natural baby! the macro algae will quickly grow throughout this area and take care of all the mechanical and chemical filtration i need
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green star polyp...this picture does no justice. they are fully extended now and glow a phoflourescent green...really vivid.
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anchor coral
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pocillopora coral
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because the glass on a tank this small is so thin, i can't drill for bulkheads so i have to use a siphon system. tank return on the top, siphon and priming reseviour on the bottom
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reefing is not necessarily expensive either....at least not much more than many hobbies that people like us are into. i ghetto fabbed alot of stuff after doing my research and learning that i could build something just as good for way cheaper.

for me, i find so much relaxation and fascination with a reef tank, when i come home from a long day just sitting there for a minute and observing it makes my blood pressure drop like crazy. its a very rewarding hobby and there are alot of good people involved with it :thumbup:


no project is complete without Hulk Hogan wailing in glorious celebration
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- bassmangrammy - 04-16-2006

Damn Scotty. That's cool.

- Dave - 04-16-2006

Scotty, you constantly impress me with the extremely wide array of interests and hobbies that you have. Rock on man :-).

- ScottyB - 04-16-2006

thanks fellas. its fun, but im a good example of someone with too many interests. its not good for your wallet :lol:

- Andy - 04-16-2006

Very cool. I've always wanted to start a salt water tank.

- WRXtranceformed - 04-16-2006

Very sweet Scott! That is a great setup!

We've had a freshwater tank for a while, but I've always wanted to make the jump to saltwater. I just haven't been able to justify to myself the exponential cost of it over the freshwater. The invertebrate reef sounds like a really cool compromise. The thing that gets me about saltwater setups is the price of fish! I would hate to buy a $100 fish and the thing freaking kicks it when you get home =p

- ScottyB - 04-16-2006

WRXtranceformed Wrote:Very sweet Scott! That is a great setup!

We've had a freshwater tank for a while, but I've always wanted to make the jump to saltwater. I just haven't been able to justify to myself the exponential cost of it over the freshwater. The invertebrate reef sounds like a really cool compromise. The thing that gets me about saltwater setups is the price of fish! I would hate to buy a $100 fish and the thing freaking kicks it when you get home =p

thanks man! funny thing is, in the long run saltwater tanks are really not much more expensive if you are dilligent about keeping your water quality stable (not perfect, just stable). a reef environment is the opposite of a freshwater one (in captivity) in that over time it becomes more self sufficient and more stable. many well established reef tanks require nothing more than a daily feeding, and a small % water change and a dosing of trace elements every couple weeks. it is literally a tiny ecosystem.

i won't lie about the price of livestock though...its more pricey. on the flipside though, if you are patient, and look through forums and classified ads, many people sell their fish/corals/invertebrates cheaply for all kinds of reasons. take the corals i have now --- i picked em up for 20 bucks, whereas one of those corals alone is worth twice that.

honestly though, if you are really interested just let me know. i'm still a noob, but over the past 5 years i've literally made every mistake in the book, and i could probably write a book on a few good ones myself. that being the case, i can give you alot of good tips and pointers if you need them.

- Mike - 04-16-2006

very awesome. definitely something i'd like to get in to, but there really isn't enough time in a day for all i want to do... sooo, please continue to post pics so i can live my salwater dreams vicariously through you.

- HAULN-SS - 04-16-2006

I just got done setting up a 25gal freshwater tank at my townhouse. no fish yet. I thought about doing saltwater - but thats a ton of maintenance for a tank that's going in our bar.

- ScottyB - 04-16-2006

Mike Wrote:please continue to post pics so i can live my salwater dreams vicariously through you.

heh, no problem. i'll be getting some fish and stuff pretty soon. i also want to post up some pics of the corals when they're really extended, they look wild.

Hauln-SS -- i love seeing tanks integrated into bars, that will be badass. yeah a saltwater would have made it interesting if it's kind of tucked away inside framing and stuff. post up some pics of that if you get a chance.

- Sijray21 - 04-16-2006

wow, that's come a LONG way since i saw it last time! when i saw it last time it was still a really cool tank, but that just looks awesome! Good job Scotty!

- Feersty - 04-17-2006

Nice Scotty.

- ScottyB - 04-17-2006

i found a local saltwater store with an awesome discount for Atlanta Reef Club members (just joined) so i stopped in a picked up a few critters:

i couldn't resist the blatant JMU colors, and plus i can now say i do own a seabass....
Royal Gramma Basslet :lol:

Coral Banded Shrimp

and some snails that are taking care of my algae bloom. the gramma is awesome, sometimes i'll catch him just hanging upside down under a cave...and i feel like he observes me more than vice versa! the shrimp is pretty neat too, has alot of character. sometimes i can't see his body behind the rockwork but i can always find him because his stark white antennas are so long. so, that's probably it for this project. i'll update with pics every now and then if i take some especially good ones.

- Jeff - 04-18-2006

This is really really cool scotty. You are in to all kinds of really interesting hobbies.

- ScottyB - 04-27-2006

talked to a guy who wanted to get rid of a few coral cuttings...went to his place, and found out he had an entire tankload of coral he wanted rid of! so i left with a bucket of cool stuff, i can't believe my luck.

better yet, i also found out he owns a supercharged NSX! i any of you were flagging the november VIR event, and remember a grey SC'd NSX then that's him (blew the engine on the backstraight as a matter of fact). we talked more about cars than our aquariums for the 2 hours i chilled at his place, ha.

i've noticed that a huge portion of aquarists are car guys...kind of a neat coincidence.

pics to come when i can catch the tank under normal lighting

- Feersty - 04-27-2006

Awesome, man. That's damn cool.

- ScottyB - 07-25-2006

little update. moving last weekend had me all kinds of worried about the tank. not only is it heavy as hell but everything is so sensitive. 5 hours later on a tuesday night i had everything moved, set back up, and working well enough that i didn't have to worry about the tank crashing. in the morning i found out the coral banded shrimp didn't make it. i was bummed, that guy was so cool. shrimp are like that though, real sensitive to water quality changes and especially temperature.

shortly thereafter i found out of a guy near me trying to get rid of a few things because he was moving. he had 2 peppermint shrimp that had to go due to them feeding on a very expensive coral of his, and let me tell you, just going to this guy's place was a new life experience, in a bad way. unbeknowst to me, this dude was in the freaking ghetto. i kept thinking how ridiculous my obituary would read, with me being shot while picking up free shrimp.

anyway he was cool and even hooked me up with some awesome coral fragments. they were all charity peices given to him freely by other reefers, so he thought he'd pass on the favor. i tried to offer him some money but after his constant refusing, i thanked him big time and went on my way (read: hauled ass to a big open road) and so far the corals are adjusting great.

so the new shrimps are Grits and Gravy (anyone remember that Chapelle skit? LOL)
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green star polyps, which are growing like weeds now (background). the green stars were looking pretty sad when i first got them, but after just taking time to let them adjust and trying to be consistent with my water quality they really came back. new frag of zoanthids (foreground) that have this crazy radioactive-like glow. they're very hardy so i'm excited to think i'll be able to keep these alive and well.
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small leather coral from earlier up top and a new frag of kenya tree coral. i had bad luck with one before but this guy has shown almost no ill effects so far.
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small frag of pumping xenia in the front and a large leather coral in the back...had that guy for a while too. pumping xenia are wild, the flowery looking parts expand their fingers and contract, its like watching a heart beat. nobody knows why they work like that, but it's awesome to see.
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another shot of the zoanthids, i just love that color.
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hope you guys enjoyed another episode of scottyb's wild world! and yes, my dining room smells like a tide pool... :lol:

- WRXtranceformed - 07-25-2006

Badass dude!

So are those shrimp going to eat your shit too??

- ScottyB - 07-25-2006

WRXtranceformed Wrote:Badass dude!

So are those shrimp going to eat your shit too??

ha no, they just happened to pick out one particular coral in this other guy's tank, which happens to be rare and pricey....go figure. they don't bother my stuff, and if they did then i'd have myself a nice shrimp cocktail

- Jeff - 07-26-2006

Very cool Scott!!