Rufessor's 57 Gallon Oceanic Rimless build

Here are some phone shots, honestly the iPhone does a better job than the camera in the 2 mins I have to take these shots.  

I tired to see if I could capture the way the light color changes, so during a cloud I shot a bunch of different photos, some are when the tank is very blue some more white/yellow.... the real blue ones kinda kill the sensor but the colors are great, just not as purple saturated as they appear here.  You know what I mean if you have ever taken a shot with a camera in actinic biased light.  NONE are from pure actnics.. its during a cloud so all white strings are one, but their intensity relative to blue becomes random while the blue is also random although they are both constrained to eachother, basically a calculation is made for them to be equal but vary in intensity as the cloud passes.  Then the whites are allowed to randomly wanted +/- 50% of their setpoint....if that makes any sense.

Here is a shot showing the canopy with the LED grouping...  The Canopy is entirely visible as its suspended and hangs from the ceiling but its so bright at the LED's that the rest of the room seems pretty dark- so its harder to see it prior posts will show it better if you want to look

This is a close up of the overflow column with all the coral growing on it!  Our yellow Tang "Sunny" (Yes we have young children) and the "Blue Shark" (AKA- Niger trigger/red tooth) are making cameos.  Its strange- we have 7 fish and most of the shots have less than 2 fish in them, all camera shy I guess.

... I guess I will probably have to start cutting larger and larger frags so if you see something you want- PM and in the next 3-6 months when I start having to cut I will simply PM you and see if you still want it.  For now I will continue to let it run as its been really fun to watch it grow in but I do intend to keep it under control and were nearing the point where frags will be available.  

On another note.  We suffered some power loss 2 days in a row.  First day, hard rain, power goes out about 11 pm... didn't come back on until around 10 am.... all was well.

Next day, power goes off a little later (asleep) and my wife is now out of town on business.  I have to work and drop kids at day care and I have zero I can do about this... so I leave and come back home at 5:30 pm with power coming back on around 4 pm (maybe a little before) to a tank full of dead fish.  

I pulled out 5 of my 6 fish, most over a year old, most finally growing up and starting to get beautiful-

RIP-

Yellow Tang "Sunny"

Niger Trigger "the Black Shark"

Male Lyre tail Anthias "Daddy fish"

Bi color blenny "Reese fish"

Yellow Wrasse- 

The only fish that made it is a 2.5 year old (in my continuous possession) clown.

He is a survivor- when we first got him (our first salt water fish in this iteration- i had many tanks years ago)- my wife called me at work one day asking where "Max", the clown, was.  He had been MIA all day.  Turns out he jumped the barrier on the BioCube and was sitting on top of a stack of filter floss slowly drying out.  We dumped him back in the tank, his tail fell off and he grew a new one back.  

Well. He is the survivor.  He also made it through two power outages.

Anyhow, did a water change, cleaned out all the filters even the skimmer, and all the coral is 100% absolutely unaffected at all- zero damage.  

Tank is now a few weeks out, all is well but for the fish.  

Thinking of just leaving it this way, its a little boring to look at now, but I am kinda gun shy about another few hundred in fish.  No budget for a generator, and with the bio load I had probably an air stone and a battery pump might have helped, but long term, that would not work and I simply think we will keep it beautiful and full of strong sturdy Acropora!  

I may go ahead and dump in a school of something small and cheap to add some interest.

Anyone want to suggest something I could dump in there, that will leave my coral alone, thats cheap, and will at least add some color and movement?

NO DAMSELS.  I may yet change my mind and I am not going to try to catch a bunch of those A** hats just so I can add something else. 

I was kinda surprised at my reaction, I knew they were likely RIP, I told my kids (3 and 6) on the way home and in the morning that they needed oxygen but we could not do much about it... they were fine with it, said good bye and surprisingly I was OK with this.  Not what I wanted but there are larger things in life to worry about.  

I am glad the coral are good, thats why I started this whole thing anyways, to be a coral gardner!  The fish loss does suck- every time I look at the tank its kinda empty!  I was considering the chromis- the only thing that made me hold back was the rumor that if you get 6 you will end with 1 a year or two later as apparently they like to kill each other off - but do leave everyone else alone.  Is this just urban myth?  Cause if they live as a school- getting even 10 of these would be really cool to watch.  Then maybe 1 show piece fish again... maybe.

Let me know if anyone has experience, MrGray seemed positive, but would you mind letting me know how long you have had yours and if they number you purchased still equals the number in the tank 

:)