# Iroc's new 7 gallon planted



## diablostr (Sep 26, 2007)

Looks nice.


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## Roc (Mar 16, 2007)

Thanks I actualy had the scape already I just downsized becuase the markets so bad...LOL


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## vibes_jedi99 (Jun 20, 2007)

What kind of substrate do you use?


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## Gatekeeper (Feb 20, 2007)

Looks great!


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## Roc (Mar 16, 2007)

vibes_jedi99 said:


> What kind of substrate do you use?


The substrate is Florabase (it has some sand mixed in becuase the old tank had sand over the substrate)



gmccreedy said:


> Looks great!


Thanks a lot


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## Pooky125 (Jul 30, 2002)

Gorgeous! Where did you get that tank?


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## dufus (Nov 13, 2006)

Cool, but i have a few suggestions/tips.

Suggestion 1- show me your reef!

suggestion/question2- why didn't you just buy an aquapod or something to make the reef in? i mean you already bought a nano cube for the planted tank.
tip 1
blyxa japonica doesn't do so well uner low light.


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## Roc (Mar 16, 2007)

dufus said:


> Cool, but i have a few suggestions/tips.
> 
> Suggestion 1- show me your reef!
> 
> ...


Answer 1

(this was the frist day i set it up)









Answer 2.

I bought this cube for 10.oo from creigslist. total spent so far on converting this tank and setting up the Reef has been under 100.00

Thats why I didn'r buy a aquapod

And the blyxa is doing great, I mean it's like 2.2 wpg not really low light just a lot lower then I have on my other tanks


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## joshpg3412 (Sep 26, 2007)

What are the foreground plants you have there?


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## Roc (Mar 16, 2007)

joshpg3412 said:


> What are the foreground plants you have there?


blyxa japonica


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## dufus (Nov 13, 2006)

Cool, nice find on the cube too.
My 3gal. reef has cost me ~120$ and i'm at the same point that you're at.
[moneypits!!!]


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## Roc (Mar 16, 2007)

dufus said:


> Cool, nice find on the cube too.
> My 3gal. reef has cost me ~120$ and i'm at the same point that you're at.
> [moneypits!!!]


I don't know if I agree, it is all about using your resources like tonight I am going to buy over 150 polips of different zoas for 75.00 I looked this weekend and a lot of places were 10.00 a polip so at that cost it would be 1500.00 for the ones I am getting for 75.00 a savings of 1425.00


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## dufus (Nov 13, 2006)

yea, you really have to shop around, i bought my first LR for 7/lb, then a week later found some for 2.25/lb.

On the zoas, nice find. 10$/polpy for most any zoa is ridicoulus, IMO.


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## MyMonkey (Jul 17, 2007)

Great start on both the 7 gallon and the SW tank. I have always found the best deals on corals etc from my local fish club. If you have one near you this might be a good idea. I have bought lots of stuff for pennies on the dollar. Your polyps will frag easily then you can trade them at your LFS for credit as well.


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## jaidexl (Sep 18, 2006)

Resources rule. I just got some LR for 50¢/lb and a free mantis shrimp, then went to the beach and brought home a handful of nassarius and a hermit.  Put it all in a $3 used 2.5gl with some aragonite from my other SW tank and topped it off with an old 2 x 13w pc landscape light fixture that I mounted a chord and switch from an old Odyssea into. Stocked pico reef for $6. All I need now is to change the 2500k bulbs out to an actinic and 10000k, those are like $10 shipped.


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## Roc (Mar 16, 2007)

MyMonkey said:


> Great start on both the 7 gallon and the SW tank. I have always found the best deals on corals etc from my local fish club. If you have one near you this might be a good idea. I have bought lots of stuff for pennies on the dollar. Your polyps will frag easily then you can trade them at your LFS for credit as well.


I have been trying to find a good club in the bay area, it's more a chosing the right one VS finding one at all since there are so many.

I have been wondering how you frag, mainly becuase some of my corals are attached to very large rocks, does one just "smash" (for lack of a better term) the rock into smaller pieces?


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## Saraja87 (Jul 18, 2007)

It looks awesome, I love cubes.


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## dufus (Nov 13, 2006)

Ideally, fraggin would involve placing LR rubble next to established colonies, and letting them climb on and then cutting inbetween the rock and rubble.

For acros and branching leathers, i believe you can just cut a "branch" off and glue it to aragonite or rr.


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## Roc (Mar 16, 2007)

Saraja87 said:


> It looks awesome, I love cubes.


Thanks a lot, I really like the ease of this tank, I think a WC tankes about 4 mins LOL


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## MyMonkey (Jul 17, 2007)

Not sure what corals you have. The example post above on fragging is correct. For softies, just placing a plug or small rock near the base does the trick. SPS are fairly simple depending on the shape. Caps spread easily and portions will come off that can be glued to a plug or if this is a branching type, trimming like a tree branch is best. Use special cutters though and keep the coral under the water as much as possible. LPS are a bit different. They generally need to create a new polyp. Once that sprouts and matures, you can break it off. I have fragged only SPS and softies never LPS though I have seen others to it. Good luck.


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## Roc (Mar 16, 2007)

Well I thought I would do a quick update.

Tank is growing very well, it has nearly no maintence and basicly just a great addition to the house.

Oh for the record the 18 watts is growing the bluxa GREATTTTT and I have had to trim in order to see the rock.


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## Roc (Mar 16, 2007)

So time for a quick update. This tank is basicly maintence free I do a 20% water change once a month just becuase I think I should but the water always test perfect. Plants grow like mad and the shrimp are having babies


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## Church (Sep 14, 2004)

Very impressive!


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## Roc (Mar 16, 2007)

I thought I would do a quick update as I sold some of the super growing Blyxa (whoever said this wasn't going to grow under these lights couldn't have been more wrong) Anyway I decided to try a hand at aquascaping after the fact , meaning changing an exsiting planned aquascape for artistic improvment. I actually think it turned out quite well, here is a pic of the slightly improved scape


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