# MonkE's Reef - upgrade after upgrade... now 125 gallon!



## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

The first salt tank started as a simple 20 gallon FOWLR... that lasted all of a couple months before I put a shiny new LED light fixture on it and started keeping simple soft coral. Then i found a 60 gallon tank with an overflow and decided that I liked the salt water tank so much that I needed to upgrade... Que the cha-ching cash register noise... 
THEN... my friend got a smoking deal on a 125 gallon complete setup and required a hand moving it.... well that never made it to his house because i decided that it would look better in my apartment! ya I know...

The new tank has a perfect footprint for me ... 4x2x2 giving me ample space for rock work as well as offering me swimming room fro larger tank inhabitants

The tank was complete with a massive skimmer, return pump, MP40W, t5x8 light fixture (which unfortunately quickly blew both ballasts) and it came with all the necessary plumbing. I bought 60 lbs of dry rock and used the 75lbs of cured live rock in my 60 to seed it. I also did a rookie move by not being very patient with the tank swap but im relieved to say that I did not loose one fish from the 60 in the process.

Coral: softies and LPS 
Fish: Volitan Lionfish, unidentified Trigger, Coral Beauty Angel, Yellow Tang, Convict Tang, Tobacco Basslet, Cleaner Wrasse, Vroliks Wrasse, Ornate (Christmas) Wrasse, Sand Sifting Gobys, Common clownfish, 
Inverts: Reef Lobster, Hermit Crabs, Nassarius snails, cleaner shrimp

Ok here's the pics.

full tank shot... notice the custom moon light mounting apparatus 


Mystery Trigger.. staff at JnL and also IPU have been unable to identify this guy. He doesn't show any aggression towards the other fish in the tank, but is all over the feeders when they go in. Tough to see in the pics but it's a very deep violet colour with yellow and green accents. 







My favourite fish that I've ever had - Volitan Lionfish







Vrolik's Wrasse


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)




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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)




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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

Now two cool feeding videos... a couple feeder fish managed to avoid the Trigger and the LionFish and the Basslet... too bad it's a dangerous world on the reef for a gold fish.

Check out what a tube anemone does to this guy 





And then the Reef Lobster joins the party...


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## aQ.LED (Nov 13, 2012)

I fear for your clown fish's life. I would remove the lion fish, it is actually a natural predator of clown fish. without a hosting anemone, your clown fish has no chance to survive once the lion fish grow big enough.
Also watch for the "reef lobster" there is no true reef safe lobster/crab. Some of them just prefer other food than fish but you never know when a fish look a bit week, it might look like a great Sashimi dish to them as well.

Mike, I understand sometimes you want to have everything in the tank but some of the fish and inverts are not meant to be together. Take my snow flake eel for example, I only able to keep it there because it is one of my wife's favour, but if u ask me if I would get another one now, I would not getting it myself


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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

Volitan should be in a predator tank, I agree. Also, be very careful working in a reef tank with lionfish. Been stung before and it was by far the worst pain I've ever experienced.

Great looking tank Mike. Lots of colour, movement and life.


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## scott tang (Jan 29, 2012)

your trigger will eat your lion when they get big the lion willl eat clowns wen its big 

awsome looking tank btw you should get a big brain coral !!


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## The Guy (Nov 26, 2010)

Great pictures update there Mike


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## scott tang (Jan 29, 2012)

also hate to be a downer but its sooo bad for your fish to eat feaders some mollys might be beter for them


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## JTang (Apr 21, 2010)

Nice Reef Predator tank! Lol

You aren't too bad with this salty addiction. It took me just 6 weeks to upgrade from my first salty (46gal) to the 120gal. BTW, mine has the exact dimensions as yours (4'x2'x2'). Should mine be a 125gal then???


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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

When I got back into sw, (after watching "Finding Nemo"), it took a couple of months for my 7 fw tanks to disappear and for 4 saltwater setups to appear in their place. BTW, I'm in the process of upgrading my RSM 34g into a 2' cube (60g). BTW pt.2 - 4'x2'x2' is a 120g not 125g.


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## Tn23 (Apr 21, 2010)

Great looking fish and corals!


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## scott tang (Jan 29, 2012)

no jtang yours and monkies is a 120 gal my 125 is 6 feet. the 120 has way beter dementions to aquscape


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

aQ.LED said:


> I fear for your clown fish's life. I would remove the lion fish, it is actually a natural predator of clown fish. without a hosting anemone, your clown fish has no chance to survive once the lion fish grow big enough.
> Also watch for the "reef lobster" there is no true reef safe lobster/crab. Some of them just prefer other food than fish but you never know when a fish look a bit week, it might look like a great Sashimi dish to them as well.
> 
> Mike, I understand sometimes you want to have everything in the tank but some of the fish and inverts are not meant to be together. Take my snow flake eel for example, I only able to keep it there because it is one of my wife's favour, but if u ask me if I would get another one now, I would not getting it myself


Thanks for your concern frank...honestly i'll take the Lionfish over the clowns any day  I'll enjoy them while they live and if they get eaten well so be it. I will have an anemone in there at some point... hopefully i have some time before the lion gets that big. It's funny you mention the snowflake eel... I'm looking to put a zebra eel in there



SeaHorse_Fanatic said:


> Volitan should be in a predator tank, I agree. Also, be very careful working in a reef tank with lionfish. Been stung before and it was by far the worst pain I've ever experienced.
> 
> Great looking tank Mike. Lots of colour, movement and life.


Thanks Anthony! I'll keep my eyes on him, plus i bought a coral life glove, but haven't used it yet while moving stuff around. I hope i dont learn this lesson the hard way!


scott tang said:


> your trigger will eat your lion when they get big the lion willl eat clowns wen its big
> 
> awsome looking tank btw you should get a big brain coral !!


Thanks scott! i really should get a big brain coral.... hmmm i wonder where i can get one of those for a decent price.... hmmm...... 


The Guy said:


> Great pictures update there Mike


Thanks laurie! 


scott tang said:


> also hate to be a downer but its sooo bad for your fish to eat feaders some mollys might be beter for them


I have been trying and trying to get the lion to eat frozen silversides but he just looks at them... i've tried everything i can think of and i don't want to starve him. If you have any advice it would be greatly appreciated. The trigger and basslet both eat anything that goes into the tank but the lion fish is super picky


JTang said:


> Nice Reef Predator tank! Lol
> 
> You aren't too bad with this salty addiction. It took me just 6 weeks to upgrade from my first salty (46gal) to the 120gal. BTW, mine has the exact dimensions as yours (4'x2'x2'). Should mine be a 125gal then???


well i never did the math on the tank area, i just thought that's what it was when i bought it... it seems the general consensus is it's a 120... sorry for the mis-information!



SeaHorse_Fanatic said:


> When I got back into sw, (after watching "Finding Nemo"), it took a couple of months for my 7 fw tanks to disappear and for 4 saltwater setups to appear in their place. BTW, I'm in the process of upgrading my RSM 34g into a 2' cube (60g). BTW pt.2 - 4'x2'x2' is a 120g not 125g.


lol my 6 foot cichlid tank is looking like a great place for another reef! lol


Tn23 said:


> Great looking fish and corals!


Thanks!


scott tang said:


> no jtang yours and monkies is a 120 gal my 125 is 6 feet. the 120 has way beter dementions to aquscape


I agree, i'm loving the space in this tank for my rockwork as well has having a ton of swimming room.


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## Luke78 (Apr 24, 2010)

Quite the setup and changes since your last freshwater setup Dove into the SW stuff huh? Looks great,lots of activity i bet! Didn't know you saltie guys feed feeders to your stock,thought otherwise! Quite the start, keep us posted on it!


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## Diztrbd1 (Apr 21, 2010)

monkE said:


> lol my 6 foot cichlid tank is looking like a great place for another reef! lol


Shocked that it stayed a cichlid tank this long :bigsmile:
If you decide to sell em..lemme know I might know someone looking for a bunch at once 
Tank looks great bud!


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

Luke78 said:


> Quite the setup and changes since your last freshwater setup Dove into the SW stuff huh? Looks great,lots of activity i bet! Didn't know you saltie guys feed feeders to your stock,thought otherwise! Quite the start, keep us posted on it!


Thanks Luke! i loved my planted and my current cichlid tank but they have nothing on this reef stuff!! lol People have actually told me that feeders are bad for the fish... unfortunately i've been unable to get the lionfish to eat anything frozen, very fun to watch them go after the feaders though! 


Diztrbd1 said:


> Shocked that it stayed a cichlid tank this long :bigsmile:
> If you decide to sell em..lemme know I might know someone looking for a bunch at once
> Tank looks great bud!


oh i'll keep that in mind! lol thanks John!


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## scott tang (Jan 29, 2012)

if you tie squid to the feader it will get gim to eat 

also have you tryed thawing out silver sides ?


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