Welcome to
Reef-Madness!!
(Darren's fanatical Reef Website)
Welcome! My name is Darren. The above picture is my 75-Gallon tank as of 7-9-2002.
It is lit by a CustomSeaLife VHO hood that is running 2 - 48" 110 watt URI Actinic 03 Bulbs and 2 - 48"110 watt URI Actinic Whites forr 440 Watts total. The hang-on overflow box feeds down into a 20-Gallon Sump where the heater and the Skimmer are located. The water temperature is maintained at 80 degrees.
I would estimate that I have over 160 lbs. of Fiji and Tonga Live Rock, although it has been hand-picked over the last year and a half and I honestly have no idea exactly how much is in there. I have at least 150 lbs. of sand, giving me about a 4" Deep Sand Bed. I used a mixture of Live Sand from my LFS, some rock rubble, CaribSea Aragonite of several different styles, and some Arag-Alive just because I found it pretty cheap. This tank has been set up for about two months at this point, although many of the specimens have come from my original 20 Gallon setup.
My Corals include: A large "Colt" Coral, some Toadstool Leathers, Green Star Polyps (frags and mother), Branching Bubble, Xenia Enlongata from frags, many varied Mushrooms including melon-striped, purples, blues, blue-spot, and some Red Ricordea Yuma that I really like which propagates extremely well. I have a Green Open Brain (that is angry at something in this picture, it closed up LOL), Trumpet (Candy Cane) coral, a Torch, a Kenya Tree, Pectinia Paonia (Spiny Cup or Lettuce coral), something I believe to be encrusting Montipora, and some unidentified tree-like corals.
My cleanup crew consist of Turbo and Astrea snails, a few Scarlet Hermits, multiple Blue-Legged Hermits that are killing each other (and some of the Astreas), a few Mexican Blue Spot Red-Legged Hermits, 4 Peppermint Shrimp, and misc. wormy creatures. I also have a Green Brittle Star and 3 other obscure types of Brittle Stars that take care of any big food the fish and corals miss. So far they have not eaten anything I don't want them to.
I also have a pair of Maroon Clownfish (one of them went slasher on me and nearly killed the other, so I named him O.J. and banished him to the Sump for all eternity!), a Copperband Butterfly that immediately destroyed my spreading Aiptasia, a very camera-shy Orchid Dottyback, and a Mandarin Dragonet that I have had for over a year now. (I am one of the lucky ones- My Mandarin will actually take frozen foods as well as taking care of the pod-hunting responsibilities!)
I have successfully propagated the Toadstool, Green Star Polyps, Mushrooms, Ricordea Yuma, the Trumpet, the Kenya Tree, and the Xenia. I will have a coral propagation page coming soon.
I just got my Kodak DX-4900 Digital camera that I am very happy with. I will be putting new pictures out here constantly, so please visit again soon!