My first reef tank.

[NewbiePta]

Howzit.

Ok so first off my apologies, I started my tank thread in the "General discussions" section and thought I would make a proper one here.

I am not going to repeat what was posted there. But it is the very beginning, construction of the stand, LED lights so on.

Here is the link. Finally my tank is running.

Since the last post I have changed quite a lot of things.

For the lights I reduced the spacing between the bars and dropped them about 10cm from the water surface.



I changed my sump for more volume and added LR and a denitrate reactor.



I also changed my aquascape a lot to accommodate for more coral placement and swim troughs.



Added some frags.
Candycane & green plate.


Zoas


Birdsnest


Hammer head.


Red Mushroom.


Acro Frag


My Xinia is doing great and the mushrooms and zoas on the same rock look good. I do have a question about that fuzz at the bottom of the green zoas. What is that? I know that’s part of the zoa but will heads grow throw it?
http://s288.photobucket.com/user/Croatoan1984/media/20160131_090049_zpsyqczxtbh.jpg.html

As you can see I have a GHA problem but I am working on it. I added a DIY refugium last night that drains via gravity feed and one drain goes through some Phosban in a DIY canister. I am also considering doing a “3 days of darkness” and keeping the fuge lit 24h/day for those 3 days and set it to a 12h on off cycle after that.





As for livestock I have the following:

Electric blue hermit X4

Red Hermit X 1

Turbo Snails X 4

Nessarius Snail X 2

Brittle star (Have not seen him in weeks so don’t know if he is dead)

Dispar Antheas X 3

Bangai Cardinals X 2

Green Chromis X 2

Ocileras Clowns X 2

Cleaner Wrasse X 1

 

[NewbiePta]

Oh forgot my cleaner shrimp and some rics that came in on a rock

 

[RiaanP]

You can remove the lid on the refugium area.

And the portrait thing behind the tank.

 

[Franna29]

coming along nicely.

 

[NewbiePta]

The lid is to rest the light on and keep the noise down drom tge flow

 

[Bigbone]

That looks like bryopsis not GHA

 

[Lee33]

top set up.. goodluck

 

[FoundNemo]

looking good A+

 

[NewbiePta]

Woot got a new little fox face. He is a bryopsis eating machine! Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[Bigbone]

Glad I could help

 

[NewbiePta]

I spotted this red egg/tube/thing tonight? Any ideas what it is?

 

[RiaanP]

begin of red bubble algae?

 

[NewbiePta]

Ok everyone I thought it is about time for an update. Picture time! lol.



My acro frag started growing a little. It looks blue because of the lights. Its brown, I dont know if thats just its colour. You can see the colour in my previous pics.


My one Green birds nest frag broke at some stage and now I have 3 haha.




Some Zoas and mushrooms.



Xinia


New torch I added.


Carpet nennie


Candy cane. Still the same size....


Hammer with new heads forming.




Green branching monti. Dont really know about the placement.


Plating Monti


Button Polyps.


Green Plate


Purple foot nennie. Dont understand the behaviour though. In the mornings its nice and puffed up. But by late afternoon he is totally deflated.....


Some rics that were on LR I got.


GSP


Urchin, lol taking half the tanks sand with him.


Green BT nennie.


Orange carnation

 

[CameL]

Tanks looking very good

 

[FoundNemo]

Very good indeed

 

[tekkengal]

Looks very nice!
How often do you feed the carnation coral?

 

[NewbiePta]

I am struggling with it. But so far 2ce a week

 

[Xander]

looks amazing very nicely done

 

[NewbiePta]

Ok its been a while.

Its been a very rough year personally and unfortunately it has lead to a lot of losses in livestock and it saddens me that this happened. I have learned a lot over the past 6 months but its time for an update on the tank.

This is what my tank looked like when it was at its best this year.

Since then I have had the following events:
First the carnation coral died and to be honest I don't have any idea what i did wrong but I will not try a NPC again.

Then my purple foot nennie started dying and no matter what I tried he would not eat and slowly died. I did get caught up in some personal things and was not able to take out the remains fast enough. From there I think my fox face nipped at the dead nennie and got very ill and died before i could treat him.

After that the tank was stable for a while and then once again Life happened and my parameters went haywire and my alkalinity dropped very fast causing my motipora's, birds nest and green bubble tip nennie to die off.

WS was also very strong in my tank and that kept me from getting any other fish I wanted. Now I had to make a call and its time for a reboot.

Plan of action:
1. Got rid of my Mata Tang as he will get to big for my tank
2. Get rid of my Carpet nennie as I would rather have a RBT
3.Fish will be split into 2 groups that will go into bucket QT and then normal QT for 4-6 weeks. Buckets will get rid of WS. First group 2 X clowns + 2 X Bangai's. Second group 2 x Dispar Antheas + Lawnmower blennie + Chromis. If anyone has a home for my little chromis you can have him free of charge both his buddies died. Just come pick him up. He is just to shy for my tank.
4. During the 4-6 weeks QT will treat 1 x with SulfaPles & 1 x with KanaPlex.
5. DT will run the complete 4-6 weeks with no fish. Re-scape and sand will be cleaned out. This time I want to reduce the amount of LR in the display by 50%. Leaving more space for fish to swim easily and will solve some of my flow problems.
6. New Kit - I have bought a doser that will solve my parameter problem.
7. New Kit - Adding a UV to the system.
8. New Kit - Adding DIY GFO reactor.
9. Stand will have a repaint to get rid of rust.
10. Cladding will go up with PC fans as cooling.

Tonight it has started.
Obviously I had to take the aquascape apart to catch them.

Group 1 in the first round of QT.

Hope all will go well and will come back bigger better and prettier.

 

[groban]

Good luck!