Tony's 25g Solona

Got this set up about a month ago, previous owner had it set up for about 2-3 months and bought it brand new.

It is an ecoxotic set up, a smaller version of the Solona. 18"x18"x18" which comes out to about 25g. Did not come with a light, had my 24" wavepoint fixture over it for a week until it went out and i replace it with a 150w viper k2 mh with a 14000k bulb. Saving up for LEDs. Everything else is stock in the tank including skimmer and return pump. Running chemipure and purigen in the back, going to switch the back to a refugium with chaeto.

There is a purple firefish and an ORA mandarin, hasn't been eating but hes still alive, barely. There is also a cleaner shrimp, planning on getting a pair of percs in there to host the Rose BTA.

Mostly zoas/palys in there with the exception of the hammer, a ric, birdsnest, and gsp.

Here are some pics...

FTS





Side view





purple firefish



ORA mandarin



cleaner shrimp



Rose BTA



gsp



zoas/palys...

















yellow polyps, kaleidescope, and hammer

Beautiful tank!!! You should find the mandarin a new home. I see it's side bones and I think a 25g is small for a mandarin.

Beautiful tank!!! You should find the mandarin a new home. I see it's side bones and I think a 25g is small for a mandarin.

Thank you. I've been trying to catch him but it's impossible. He came with the tank and the previous owner told me he was an ORA so he will eat anything especially the cyclopeze so I didn't think of taking him out.

Haha yeah, it's pretty tough catching a fish. What other corals are you planning on adding? It looks like a paly/zoa tank.

Haha yeah, it's pretty tough catching a fish. What other corals are you planning on adding? It looks like a paly/zoa tank.

a couple more zoas/palys... tank should be full soon.

Got a pair of percs for my birthday. :D

Your tank looks awesome! With the mandarin you can add in some trigger pods and buy some live brine shrimp to get him eating. I keep a mandarin in a 29g but I am able to turn the pumps off and target feed him frozen brine and mysis. If your mandarin will eat the live brine try mixing in some frozen at the same time, that is how my mandarin learned to eat frozen food. Now he sees the baster and swims to the top of the tank to eat!

Your tank looks awesome! With the mandarin you can add in some trigger pods and buy some live brine shrimp to get him eating. I keep a mandarin in a 29g but I am able to turn the pumps off and target feed him frozen brine and mysis. If your mandarin will eat the live brine try mixing in some frozen at the same time, that is how my mandarin learned to eat frozen food. Now he sees the baster and swims to the top of the tank to eat!

Thanks I will try that, always thought ORA would eat anything but apparently not. I recently got some tigger pods from Rift to Reef and even though I dont see him eating it I think he has been because he doesn't look as skinny as he used to be.

[matt_longview]

I decided to get my mandarin out of my 29g as well. It was trained and ate frozen, but it still got skinny from time to time. I was overfeeding my tank to make sure it got enough to eat, but it still couldn't. I ended up with too much food in the tank, and the mandarin still wasn't fat and happy. Whenever it would get skinny I would hatch some brine and feed it to the tank... that would fatten her back up, but I still decided to get rid of her. I think she would have lived a long time in my 29g, but it wasn't best for her or my tank. Just dropped her off with a friend who has a huge tank yesterday. :-)

I decided to get my mandarin out of my 29g as well. It was trained and ate frozen, but it still got skinny from time to time. I was overfeeding my tank to make sure it got enough to eat, but it still couldn't. I ended up with too much food in the tank, and the mandarin still wasn't fat and happy. Whenever it would get skinny I would hatch some brine and feed it to the tank... that would fatten her back up, but I still decided to get rid of her. I think she would have lived a long time in my 29g, but it wasn't best for her or my tank. Just dropped her off with a friend who has a huge tank yesterday. :-)

Catching it is really a last resort, I just don't want the hassle of tearing the tank apart just to catch one fish.

[matt_longview]

Try a trap maybe... the 2 liter bottle trap should work for that size of fish I would think. Might take it a week or more (if ever) to get into it, but it's worth a shot unless it's getting fat. Honestly I had a section of the tank that I thought I would be able to trap mine in... and I just waited for like a week. Every time I checked the tank I would see if she was in that area... one day she was... I grabbed two nets that I had sitting out in case she was there... and 3 minutes later she was in the bag. I got extremely lucky to catch her on the first try and that quickly, but I had a plan and tried it. Doesn't have to be a terrible two hour experience. Develop a plan and try it for 5 minutes. If it doesn't work, change the plan or just try again later.

Good luck with the mandarin either way. I LOVE them. Can't wait till I get a big tank so I can keep one well fed. :-)

Been awhile since I've updated this thread... well here goes

About 2 months ago our A/C went out while I was at work, came home and 75% of the corals in the tank either melted or closed up. The water was about 92' but luckily my rainbow anemone, pair of clowns, cleaner shrimp, and clam was still alive. So anyways about 2 months later, now, everything is starting to make a comeback and I couldn't be happier. Ditched the koralia 420 for a 750 and also ditched the back refugium for some rubble rocks with chemi pure elite, purigen, and poly-filter pad. Eventually I will ditch the 750 for a mp10es, maybe this weekend. Added my fuzzy dwarf lion and switched out the mh with my retrofit led fixture. Also my anemone splitted, so now i have 2. Also added 2 neon orange plates as well as various zoanthids/palythoas and ora sps.

Here are the pics for those of you that didn't even read what i just wrote up there :hehe:

[matt_longview]

You've got some very nice frags on those frag racks. I can't wait until those babies grow out and get placed. I can see some awesome potential! :-)

Love the plate coral!

You've got some very nice frags on those frag racks. I can't wait until those babies grow out and get placed. I can see some awesome potential! :-)

Love the plate coral!

I had nicer but theyre goners, well half of them i gave to a friend to health back. So hard to capture their colors with this crappy point n shoot need a camera like yours

Those plates are nice, they glow under my leds and have purple tips but hard to capture it.

Looks great!!

[matt_longview]

t need a camera like yours

Those plates are nice, they glow under my leds and have purple tips but hard to capture it.

You need a camera like my wife's! It's a great combo to have a husband that's into reefs and a wife that's into photography!

Even my camera has a tough time capturing the colors put off by these corals under my blue LEDs. A yellow filter can really help... even if you just have some of those yellow lensed sunglasses around try taking some pics through those (most cameras are smart enough to filter out extra yellow because of household lighting and such... and it tones down the blues in the process but leaves the extra pop on the corals).

t need a camera like yours

Those plates are nice, they glow under my leds and have purple tips but hard to capture it.

You need a camera like my wife's! It's a great combo to have a husband that's into reefs and a wife that's into photography!

Even my camera has a tough time capturing the colors put off by these corals under my blue LEDs. A yellow filter can really help... even if you just have some of those yellow lensed sunglasses around try taking some pics through those (most cameras are smart enough to filter out extra yellow because of household lighting and such... and it tones down the blues in the process but leaves the extra pop on the corals).

will have to try that, thanks.

[cabi]

Nice pictures!

[Heath]

Wow, nice picture of the plate coral. I have yet to see mine get like that during a feeding. Tank is looking great.

Tank looks really good. Good work !

Thank you all, the tank is recovering great from the incident over the summer. Looks like I'm going to run out of room soon haha

installed a brand new mp10esw last night as well as a 5g w/c, replaced poly filter pads and chemi-pure.



loving the mp10, right now it's running about 50% TSM.

The new plate I'm getting in from Reef Pets, can't wait. Been looking for one for some time now, also still looking for an ultra-colored/rainbow mini maxi...

Nice tank, and that plate is SICK

Purple plate with green tentacles, Orange with purple tip tentacles, and white/grey with neon green tentacles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBtYyIMnrJQ

a little update

[Origin]

Your tank's lookin better than ever! Really diggin that plate coral garden, makes me wanna add more to my collection. I see u have some mini maxis in there too, could you post some pics of those?