33 Gallon Long Build - First Time Reefer - No Sump, No Skimmer

ReefGoose

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First time reefer. I’ve lurked on the forum a long time but figured I should probably document with a build thread. Warning: Long post below.

Right at the start of the pandemic I started a low-tech freshwater planted tank as I anticipated a lot of time in the house with the then 5 and 3 year old sons. I bought a 33 gallon long aquarium (48" x 12" x 12") as I thought it was nice to get the 4’ profile but not deal with tons of water volume. We had some success and kept the same livestock for the 1.5 year life of the aquarium. It was also super nice that I didn't need crazy lights to grow stuff because nothing is more than about 12" from the lights. Our local LFS sells a lot of coral, and so naturally I had heard for 1.5 years about how cool the coral was from the now 7YO… Hence now we have a 33 long saltwater reef. I wasn’t going to want to maintain two tanks. It was bittersweet to get rid of the plants and fish we had grown over the year and a half we had the tank running, but we were super excited to try our hand at saltwater.

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Onto the new build:

I didn’t want to drill the tank and liked the idea of keeping all of the water in one box rather than worry about plumbing because this tank is upstairs in the room we have setup for remote work and kid stuff. So no sump. I decided to use the two aquaclear 30’s from the freshwater tank (they were super quiet too). I made a custom skimmer box for one of the intakes that magnets to another magnet across the glass. I bought some magnets that I hope won’t react in saltwater. (Note - if you look later in another post - these will not work on the salty side of the tank)
I also made a custom media basket for one that holds quilt batting poly and cut down sponges. I plan on running some carbon, sponges, and poly. I bought some Chemipure blue but I figured I’d wait until there were some nutrients in the tank before using it - if at all. I also got a polyfilter pad but haven't run it yet either. I had also considered building in a custom AIO to the 33 gallon, but ultimately opted to go the route of the two HOB.

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I’m going to try and keep this new build as budget as possible, but I want to use quality enough equipment (and elbow grease) so we have success too. I’m going to use the glass tops to try and keep evaporation down so I don’t need to use an ATO. I also wanted to keep the stuff hanging off the tank to a minimum so I am going to try and avoid a HOB Skimmer. I didn’t have an issue with the temp in summer of last year with the FW setup, hopefully I don’t cook stuff this summer because others consider glass tops to be a heat issue. I’m going to use reef crystals because it starts higher with Alk: so water changes will dose more in. With a smaller system I think a lot of water chemistry can be fixed by routine water changes. With the FW I changed 9 gallons out every week at the start - but as the system matured it became 9 gallons every other week, then 6 gallons every other week, then finally 6 gallons every 3 weeks as the plants were using up more and more NO3. I plan to start with the reef tank lightly stocked and changing 4 gallons every other week. One downside of SW is that the FW tank’s water change water made great fertilizer for our gardens and indoor plants. I won’t be doing that with the SW.


I picked up about 30 lbs of dry liferock. 20 lbs of pink Fiji sand. I brought it home and smashed up the rock for some smaller pieces so we could glue it into our scape. The 6 YO helped design the scape. I had some extra rock after it got all smashed up so I glued a magnet on one and we hold it on the back glass using the magnet. We only used gel superglue to create the scape.
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We cycled that tank with some bottled bacteria and fishless fuel (ammonia). I have two SLW-10 pumps at either end of the tank but I didn’t run the aquaclears as I wanted to colonize the rock and sand, not filter media with the bacteria.

I kept the ammonia concentration pretty low, we cycled fast and I didn’t have lights yet. I also had the water mixed to a low salinity (32 ppt) and kept the temperature around 83F for the cycle. I tested ammonia with salifert. I was testing nitrites and nitrates with some old test strips from the FW tank, but ammonia and nitrite obviously skew the nitrate readings so I didn’t pay much attention to the numbers just looking for presence. Unfortunately NO2 read 0, 5, or 10.
DayNH3 (ppt)NH3 dosed (ppt)NO2 (mg/L)NO3 (mg/L)
11/2801.500
11/290.52.0525
11/300.5-10100
12/10.5-10100
12/201.510+100
12/30.5-10+100+
12/40.251.7510+100+
12/50.5-10+250
12/60-10+250
12/70-10+250
12/80-10+250
After 10 days I did a 50% WC and brought the salinity to 34.6 ppt, temperature to 78F and the next day I was reading 0 NO2 and my NO3 was only reading 5 mg/L on Salifert kit. I was ready for livestock.

Lighting
This was hard to keep in budget. I ended up getting two hipagero aquaknight fixtures. It would have been nice to get something that I could time on an app, or something that I could control blue and white channels separately, but in a 12” deep tank I figured these would get it done and kept the price low. I use a smart outlet to set the time for the lights. I used an app on my phone and a ziplock bag to map PAR with blues on 100% and Whites around 50%. (https://growlightmeter.com/underwater-par-measurements-for-reef-aquariums/) I don’t know that these readings are going to be super accurate but I figure it gets me in the ballpark and they seem consistent with what I was expecting from other reefer’s and these lights PAR measurements with better sensors. They were also repeatable if I went back I would get the same readings again and again. Since I had a rim and glass covers I couldn’t attach the light stand to the aquarium, so I instead attached a wood 1x2 to the wall and have the lights mounted on that.

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I believe I got really lucky because these PAR ranges seem like I could grow a lot of different types of coral. I’ll probably stay away from stony corals because with a small volume and planning on manual dosing (or lack thereof) it would seem like more work than needed.

For salinity I tracked two weeks of salinity and found that in a week I won’t evaporate that much with my glass tops.

DateSalinity (ppt)
12/1134.6
12/1234.6
12/1334.6
12/1434.7
12/1535.0
12/1635.1
12/1735.1
12/1835.1 → WC → 34.5
12/1934.6
12/2034.6
12/2134.6
12/2234.6
12/2334.6
12/2434.7
12/2535.1

I’m hopeful that if I keep salinity between 34.5 and 35.1 that that should be enough stability for keeping coral. That corresponds to 1.0260-1.0264 specific gravity if I didn't top off for about a week. I wanted to record how much the salinity swings, I also used a salinity calculator along with my topoff amounts and how much salinity changes to figure out my system volume is in the ballpark of 28 gallons. Now I have a basis for any other parameter that might need to be dosed in.

We added some livestock. We got a pair of clowns - one lighting and one classic both ocellaris. Both juveniles but the lighting is much bigger so there wasn’t going to be any question about pecking order. I have been feeding frozen brine shrimp, pellets with garlic, and optimum flakes on a rotating schedule and feeding once per day. I have only been feeding what they consume and spot feeding - no broadcast feeding.

My son also wanted a toadstool so bad he had to pick one out - so we got a coral. The toadstool he picked out is kinda unique because he picked one that doesn’t have polyps in the middle. We noticed after dipping and observing in the tank that on the small bit of rock we got with the leather we brought in two aiptasia… I pulled the frag out of the tank and superglued over the aiptasia - but I believe now we have inoculated the tank and can anticipate aptasia popping up later. I believe the clowns and the toadstool were purchased on 12/12.

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Something that took a lot of consideration on my part - and I could see the shaking of the head from a lot of people in this forum is that I decided to not go the route of quarantine/treating fish before adding them to my system. My system will only have a few fish in it, and I feel I would have more losses in a quarantine situation than in the actual tank. It also appeared that despite quarantine that Ich still managed outbreaks in many tanks, my quarantine would probably not be super successful compared to a bunch of pros that seem to keep treating and fallowing. A couple days after adding the clowns I noticed some white spots (ich) on the smaller clown. Ammonia still 0. I thought - here I go. But I turned my two SLW-10’s down in the tank and fed well and the spots were gone in a day. Probably just stress - but a reminder that when the fish get stressed I know what is lurking.

By the way - SLW-10s I had been running on Random(else) but this sometimes has the pumps running at 100% which is about 1000 gph each. Two of those plus two aquaclears (running 150 gph each) would make a max of 2300 gph in the display - for a turnover rate of close to 82x my display unless I am missing something about how to calculate this. I moved the two pumps to the top of the water, pointing them slightly up to break the surface and put them on the lowest pulse setting. I think the corals appreciated the slower flow as well but the clowns swim the tank more and don’t stay in the corner. I think too much flow was the big stressor for the smaller clown.


We explored another LFS that specializes in coral and they had a bunch of really colorful and cool coral. They were running a 40% off sale so of course we picked up a bunch more stuff - Duncan, Two Ricordea Florida Mushrooms, Three Zoa Frags (I don’t have pictures of 1 of the Zoas, I since threw it away when it contaminated my tank with some pest algae - more on that in a minute), and some GSP which is isolated of course. I think I paid $50 for all the frags.
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The frags we got had some algae growing on them - so I also got two trochus snails since we are importing some algaes into our system. Our frag plugs and snails also had some coralline algae on them so we are also importing some good with the pest algae.

One failure so far is I added a bottle of locally grown pods to the tank and have been dosing in live phyto. I'm pretty sure the clowns took out enough of them because two weeks later I can't spot any pods in the aquarium with a flashlight at night. I'm still dosing the phyto in. I'll have to try adding more pods in the future.

At first I was happy because I started seeing some new algae popping up all over the tank (Life!) besides a really light scattering of diatoms in the sand. But quickly that excitement faded when the algae looked more like a macro than a typical algae. I believe I had Bryopsis sp, and it was everywhere in the tank. Rock, sand, glass…
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In lurking on R2R about bryopsis I decided I didn’t want to mess with this - so I went to the two LFS where one LFS told me it was a type of caulerpa, the other LFS said maybe bryopsis. I got some reef flux and dosed the tank immediately. A four days later the algae was struggling so I went to the store to get some hermit crabs (since the snails seemed to have no interest). I asked for two blue legged hermits and some extra shells. I had a small system overall and still just a light scattering of dying algae so I figured two would get the job done in a week or two. When I got home and dropped the shells in the tank - to my surprise all of them started walking around - all 11 of them. So instead of 2 hermits with 9 extra shells, I just got 11 hermits. To be fair they probably had 300 in the tank they grabbed them from.

They made short work of the dying algae - they took 3 days to remove any traces I can see in the tank. Reef Flux + Blue Legged Hermits Review - Five Stars. Sand and rock both look super clean, but I won’t water change for another week just to make sure that I don’t see that macro come back. I’ll probably need to buy some algae wafers/sheets to try and keep them alive until I hit another stage of the uglies. I’ll try to see if I can find some empty shells too.

I picked up some Pulsing Xenia. I was on the fence about adding it because some people describe it as a pest - but I like the look and the tank is for me and my boys. I put this on the rock magnet on the back glass to isolate it. It stopped pulsing the next day but I think it was getting too much flow, it was located in the middle back and the polyps were being battered pretty hard by flow- so I moved it to a calmer area (magnet rock is super easy to move around the tank). I have some subtle pulsing happening today, hopefully it gets back to the pulsing I saw when I got it from the store. It still looks cool just waving in the flow.
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That is where we are at today. I've already noticed growth on the leather, the duncan looks like it is ready to be throwing some new heads, and the mushrooms have increased in size just in a few weeks. The corals get fed some brine shrimp or just the supernate from brine shrimp as well.

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I’m glad to have started this project - I’ve definitely binged over the last about 6 months information into how to make this successful, and have learned how to glue my fingers together with gel superglue. If I can have just a little of the success we had with the planted - or that many others on this forum - I’ll be thrilled. The now 7YO is doing a science poster for school on coral. Hopefully I can grow his interest and knowledge in the hobby/science as well. Now I just need to convince him we need to wait for some stability before adding more corals to our tank. He really wants a frogspawn and torch...
 
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shwareefer

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Someone like you that's willing to research and do some DIY could easily rig up an ATO for that tank. That will elliminate your salinity fluctuations.
 
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Someone like you that's willing to research and do some DIY could easily rig up an ATO for that tank. That will elliminate your salinity fluctuations.
I have also considered this -

I just need to wrap my head around how to do this without a pump. The problem with using a pump is that I have to worry about the pump failing - and apparently the cheaper pumps/switches that is common - and I don't want to spend a lot of money when I'm only adding 1400 mL in a week. I feel like a DIY switch is probably going to look bad in the tank, without a sump I don't want to have more in the tank than I already have. I also considered buying a cheap one, but the problem again is the plastic rim at the top of the tank would mean most of them would need me to lower the water level lower to accommodate the sensor. I like when the water level is higher than the bottom of the plastic rim so you don't see the water level.

I think if I try to figure out a solution to this it will be by trying to use a gravity fed ATO where I make a sealed container that needs a second airline hose to allow air pressure to hold a siphon until the water level exposes the other tube allowing pressure to equalize in the ATO container - then allowing the siphon to drain into the tank until the second tube is below water again. The concept would be the same as something like this, where the tubes are a lot longer and the container sits on a shelf above and near the tank.


I also have a desk next to the aquarium with a shelf that could hold the ATO and hide the tubing. I tried to do this with some stuff laying around the house but my container wasn't rigid enough (hard plastic) and atmospheric pressure would collapse the container meaning a lot of RODI water was going into the tank and not stopping. I figured this would be a project for another day, maybe something to document if I figure out a sleek solution.
 

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I have also considered this -

I just need to wrap my head around how to do this without a pump. The problem with using a pump is that I have to worry about the pump failing - and apparently the cheaper pumps/switches that is common - and I don't want to spend a lot of money when I'm only adding 1400 mL in a week. I feel like a DIY switch is probably going to look bad in the tank, without a sump I don't want to have more in the tank than I already have. I also considered buying a cheap one, but the problem again is the plastic rim at the top of the tank would mean most of them would need me to lower the water level lower to accommodate the sensor. I like when the water level is higher than the bottom of the plastic rim so you don't see the water level.

I think if I try to figure out a solution to this it will be by trying to use a gravity fed ATO where I make a sealed container that needs a second airline hose to allow air pressure to hold a siphon until the water level exposes the other tube allowing pressure to equalize in the ATO container - then allowing the siphon to drain into the tank until the second tube is below water again. The concept would be the same as something like this, where the tubes are a lot longer and the container sits on a shelf above and near the tank.


I also have a desk next to the aquarium with a shelf that could hold the ATO and hide the tubing. I tried to do this with some stuff laying around the house but my container wasn't rigid enough (hard plastic) and atmospheric pressure would collapse the container meaning a lot of RODI water was going into the tank and not stopping. I figured this would be a project for another day, maybe something to document if I figure out a sleek solution.
There's some members on here that use that exact device you linked for top off. As for something with an optical sensor or reed switch, you would ideally hide that part and any return tubing in your skimmer box you made, since that should drop before the rest of the tank anyway.
 

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FYI, and you may be aware of this. If those white spots on your clown were ich, then the disease may not actually be gone. The life cycle of ich is that after infection, the parasite drops off, reproduces, then reinfects. So symptoms normally disappear on their own after a week or so, but then can come back again later.
 
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Great start! Love the dimensions.
Yeah I have really liked the 12" tall profile. It really makes lighting the tank much easier as the planted before, and as the reef now.

The only real downside is viewing can be hard. I have 5 and 7 YO boys in the house and the tank really is just a little high for them, but I have to kinda stoop down to see. I made the stand a little taller than typical because of that lack in height and where I wanted to be able to view the tank. I made up for it with them by making a little step stool that goes in front so they can get a better view and help feed the tank.
 
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FYI, and you may be aware of this. If those white spots on your clown were ich, then the disease may not actually be gone. The life cycle of ich is that after infection, the parasite drops off, reproduces, then reinfects. So symptoms normally disappear on their own after a week or so, but then can come back again later.
Unfortunately, I totally agree. I've gone the route of disease management rather than prevention/eradication. My hope is that if I can keep the fish in stable (healthy) parameters and well fed that their immune systems can keep those infections at bay.
 
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There's some members on here that use that exact device you linked for top off. As for something with an optical sensor or reed switch, you would ideally hide that part and any return tubing in your skimmer box you made, since that should drop before the rest of the tank anyway.
Here is a DIY ATO like I was thinking from R2R. I tried to do this same thing, but my container wasn't glass and just collapsed inward so the siphon kept running. I had rigid hard plastic from a pantry storage container that I thought would be strong enough, but the 14.7 psi of air pressure on the outside reminded me how strong it was. It is also possible my container would work if I used a smaller tube of water- which would create less pressure difference for the siphon. This design will not work if the container is not rigid enough. Eventually I'll retry this idea with glass - but I might need to make some other modifications if I want to be able to hide the tubing so they aren't hanging above my aquarium.
 
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Have you seen any ill effects from those magnets? I'm wanting to glue some to some shelf rock so I can make hanging shelves in my tank.
I have not, but to be totally fair mine have only been wet for about 6 weeks. Even if they weren't epoxy coated I don't know that raw iron in my tank would show issues in water quality. I don't see any oxidation on the magnets in the tank. Your post does remind me though that I should probably take this out of the tank every once in a while to inspect and make sure I don't see any oxidation anywhere.

The best chance of this leeching into the aquarium would be if the epoxy coating gets scratched, so be careful when moving it, you also don't want to scratch your glass if you tried to drag this across the glass and had sand caught between.

The magnets are thin, but pretty big in terms of surface area, and very very strong. For a shelf rock you would likely still see the magnet...
PXL_20220110_042333672.jpg
PXL_20220110_042347933.MP.jpg


Because they are thin, if you stack a few of them next to each other they can be really powerful. For the floating rock I have I have 1 magnet glued to the back of the rock with gel superglue. On the outside back of the tank I have two stacked magnets, one would not hold it up on a dry tank. One would probably hold my rock in water (buoyancy in water is greater than in air) but I figured I'd rather not have the rock fall in the tank and I still have empty magnets, so I used two. If you have a wide shelf you might need to have a set of magnets on either side so it doesn't rotate on you. I did this on the skimmer box, there are 4 magnets, 2 glued to the inside of the box (one top and one bottom) and two corresponding on the back of the tank.


Lastly, I would definitely not make a big stack of magnets like this near my tank - they are too strong and could break glass, especially if a magnet got loose and then attracted the big stack.
 

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I have not, but to be totally fair mine have only been wet for about 6 weeks. Even if they weren't epoxy coated I don't know that raw iron in my tank would show issues in water quality. I don't see any oxidation on the magnets in the tank. Your post does remind me though that I should probably take this out of the tank every once in a while to inspect and make sure I don't see any oxidation anywhere.

The best chance of this leeching into the aquarium would be if the epoxy coating gets scratched, so be careful when moving it, you also don't want to scratch your glass if you tried to drag this across the glass and had sand caught between.

The magnets are thin, but pretty big in terms of surface area, and very very strong. For a shelf rock you would likely still see the magnet...
PXL_20220110_042333672.jpg
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Because they are thin, if you stack a few of them next to each other they can be really powerful. For the floating rock I have I have 1 magnet glued to the back of the rock with gel superglue. On the outside back of the tank I have two stacked magnets, one would not hold it up on a dry tank. One would probably hold my rock in water (buoyancy in water is greater than in air) but I figured I'd rather not have the rock fall in the tank and I still have empty magnets, so I used two. If you have a wide shelf you might need to have a set of magnets on either side so it doesn't rotate on you. I did this on the skimmer box, there are 4 magnets, 2 glued to the inside of the box (one top and one bottom) and two corresponding on the back of the tank.


Lastly, I would definitely not make a big stack of magnets like this near my tank - they are too strong and could break glass, especially if a magnet got loose and then attracted the big stack.

I made a thread post right after I posted this bc I havent seen any that were plastic coated on Amazon or saltwateraquarium.com. I was given a website to look into and found some magnets. I will probably order them. I want more depth when I look into my tank and think floating shelves with zoas or frogspawn on the back wall would be cool.
 
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I made a thread post right after I posted this bc I havent seen any that were plastic coated on Amazon or saltwateraquarium.com. I was given a website to look into and found some magnets. I will probably order them. I want more depth when I look into my tank and think floating shelves with zoas or frogspawn on the back wall would be cool.
@CrimsonTide
Doing my water change this AM and this is what I found:
PXL_20220116_164914993.jpg

Epoxy coating did not last 8 weeks and I see some oxidation.

I just ordered these from K&J: https://www.kjmagnetics.com/proddetail.asp?prod=DC6PC-BLK

I'll probably use the magnets from K&J on the salty side of the aquarium and the magnets I already have on the dry side.
 

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January Update:

Pods:
Earlier I said one of the failures was that I added pods to the reef tank but I didn’t see anything. About two weeks after my last post and about 5 weeks after adding pods to the tank I noticed stuff swimming around when the flow is off for feeding. Now I have what appears to be a pod invasion. The strange thing is that the pods appear to be out swimming in the water when lights are on. All the pods look identical, no diversity, and the clowns are not interested in them as they swim right by them. Right when the lights go on, they seem to be plague proportions.


Flow:
I went through a few different flow patterns in the last month and I’m still not exactly sure where I’ll land but I cut the flow way back, then brought it up, then back down, now I am running the two wavemakers on smart outlets programmed to be on or off at different times. Below is the chart of which wavemaker is on depending on time, there are times that both are on. The yellow highlights the hours the lights are on.

LeftRight
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Hitchhikers:
I’ve started to notice some sponge and other cool growers. We have some pineapple sponges growing near our coral, I also found some tunicates growing. Aiptasia has arrived in a few new spots, but a few of them have been in the sand and I can quickly suck them out using the turkey baster.
HtAmyYOS-Q7to9CyLf-ycKhdzPQbgMsTN_U24OWMiLptQatCIS6387rGfFZonhSqqQTAlRTe_R2K7KCPlzc9yDS1oIu1y_jejCuQOhjxySandvxcmsj2DPOn2bDIhUcalk2MrbTS


New Tank Additions:
We picked up a peppermint shrimp, a splatter hammer, and two nassarius snails. The peppermint shrimp is new today, the splatter hammer is about 3 weeks with us. We do have a few aiptasia in the tank, and the local LFS says the ORA peppermint shrimp they have all eat aiptasia so I figured we would give it a try while there isn’t a big problem yet. The splatter hammer looks more like a splatter frogspawn when it extends because it branches and has multiple ends to each tentacle. I also think it looks like it is splitting into two heads from the view in this picture.
C8o5OfxDhJhPWFQbvSd2i8h0H_Wh-nFnDeUNgnt_6vYHrtbAGK2uPs-FFq5oF39htHF0xEL1bOWtHHF-bAzDhwBi14PBO9A6HTyOho3KjD22JFWuroCQPcpTTwnd4PUaIieP5mty


Other Updates:
I am interested in adding some more fish to the tank, the local LFS is going to try and get some of what we are looking for because they haven’t had any of them in. Since the pods have gotten out of control we are going to try a ruby red dragonette. I’m also going to get a royal gramma. The other stockings to eventually get will be a midas blenny and a falco hawkfish.

Corals seem to be doing well. Green star has reached over the plug and is now on rock, Duncan is throwing new heads, Xenia looks much bigger than when we got it.
hUc6fT-ds0VA-w9-fDcsMXz9oiAlQWI-6x5QmODdu9v1Hp3nHB6gzKxaMQeFPSvqpyNouhLiahXgSNFuJXALp6AiaHppRC-KvibiwHGQADgW-c1-jf0eeWBhvrzBFxB5FHUCvOoa

cpkdifg2Qu7ewEgGcrhLeUsh7fxPplDA0IQnkO8X-LPvtXopxK7WXzBqM3IWn8zpIXimPRsIEg57g5COk64aiMDzIsMQ9QTSc794EBuk4NVB0y5b1GRKWe187ezGck2Fh126uWlJ
-qERh2oGXSSzPfb0dWSveENfBnidgvjLGt86_40k4wdZRe7hC9qnAh_Uw0s00N0EA8_3TWzxdVcuP5SzEv_s9TGFj4pF4A3Vcjytl6qf7girh9U3BAbkH3M92tfdD5AvULQy8w8s
 
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February Update:

The crazy pod bloom is has receded, the free swimming pods aren't visible all the time. However, they are visible now with lights out. I think the population is a bit more stable and I see different types of pods on the glass.

I noticed the splatter frogspawn started not looking as great a couple weeks ago. I brought my water to the LFS to get tested and to my surprise the parameter that likely was an issue was ALK between 5-6. I proceeded to do a series of 3 four gallon water changes the next week. Since I'm using reef crystals that should have a high starting ALK, I figured this is all I probably needed to do to bring up to something more reasonable. After the first two changes the hammer perked up and now looks way better than when I first got it.

The peppermint shrimp took out all the aiptasia in the tank. It was really impressive, I didn't notice any change for about 3 days, then the fourth day I couldn't find any aiptasia in the spots I had noticed it before.

New Additions:
Strawberry Conch
Royal Gramma

I had noticed algae in the sand was starting to spread at a faster rate than I was hoping. During water changes I had removed some, but I also enlisted the help of a strawberry conch. The strawberry conch cleans the sand all day and definitely made a difference. To help I also reduced the light schedule. I reduced from 10hr to 8hr. There is no ramp up/down, just on and off.

The royal gramma is an awesome fish, tons of color and fun to watch. So far no aggression between the clowns and the gramma. The gramma seems interested in checking out the clowns, the clowns want nothing to do with the gramma.


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August Update:
It has been a long time since I've updated, and lots has happened.
PXL_20220822_005817869.jpg

First I think the low ALK I was seeing was actually the instrument from the LFS not totally reading correctly. After another low ALK measure I bought a salifert kit and tested my water and it has come in between 7-8 dkh each time I've tested. Another issue that started to pop up was that since I had been changing so much water (trying to keep up the mysterious ALK depletion) my Nitrate had dropped to zero and I started getting dinos. I started feeding the tank more frequently and now that I could test the ALK, stopped changing so much water, eventually other algeas started outcompeting the dinos. I have enough algaes growing in the tank that my nitrates sit at 0 or just barely detectable even with feeding a lot and dramatically reduced water changes. I also slowly brought my lights up higher so I am now running around 9hrs but the lights are 60% whites and 100% blues. Slowly I am seeing the coralline algae starting to cover up rocks, glass, and my pumps. I also just set the pumps to alternate about every 3 seconds.

Running no sump and no skimmer I decided to leave some stringy/bushy macro algae on a few of the rocks in the back. Nothing eats it, but I figure this can possibly be one of my nutrient exports? Every few weeks I pull some out and figure this might help some with my nutrient export? Granted that right now low nutrients is the battle. The picture below is my stringy algae.

PXL_20220822_005248903.MP.jpg

Trochus snails: I've seen a few spawn events from the trochus snails in my tank. Now the new hobby for me and my new boys is to see who can spot the most baby trochus snails in the tank. So far my personal best is 13, but if I can see 13 at any given time there must be a lot more in the rocks. They really blend into the rockwork, especially when many of them are super tiny. A few of our babies are starting to get much bigger. Somehow I also found a stomatella snail cruising the rockwork. The rockwork in the tank is kept pretty clean by the snail crew (I also picked up 9 astrea snails and another strawberry conch), but I leave the sides of the glass and the back glass for the snails so nobody starves.

Near Miss: I went on vacation for a few days in July and turned the AC to 78. When I got home the tank was running at 83 F. I got the tank cooled down quickly but it took a few weeks for the splatter hammer to forgive me. At this point the one head I had bought was now 4 heads, but one in particular was doing poorly and I thought I had lost it. Now it looks like it might be willing to come back but I'm not sure. The head that looks dead also split off at an angle where it doesn't get a much light, which might be another reason it did so much worse than the other 3. PXL_20220822_005145421.jpg

A problem for the future:
I see little spots of bubble algae starting to pop up. I didn't want to get an emerald crab, but one might be in my future. Also the peppermint shrimp I catch picking at corals here and there, my guess is some of the stress I've been seeing has come from him.

New Additions:
We got a really cool black capped jawfish. He normally hides in the back corner by the heater. (sorry no picture)

Really awesome elegance coral frag, it helps fill my "I really would like an anemone" urge I feel right now. PXL_20220822_005138757.MP.jpg

Rainbow Acan - This thing loves to eat, seems pretty happy.
PXL_20220822_005203455.MP.jpg
Green Goni - Not sure how it feels, by lights out it normally looks pretty miserable.

The original corals I had in the tank are much bigger, the xenia and GSP are prolific growers, but that was to be expected. The Leather is really cool and has grown a bunch as well. The blue zoas are easily triple the size they were before. The Duncan has 7 or 8 heads now.

PXL_20220822_005219983.jpg PXL_20220822_005154488.jpg PXL_20220822_005212150.MP.jpg PXL_20220822_005234469.MP.jpg
 
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October 2023 Update:
It has been a long time since an update, but right now I'm pretty proud of the way the tank looks. I have really enjoyed walking past the tank recently, almost every time I get detoured and just stand there for a few minutes.
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A lot has happened:
We had a battle with bubble algae. Tried 4x dose of ReefFlux, which would make a huge impact, but the moment I ran carbon to stop the treatment it would come back (always far worse than prior to treatment). There was a period of time when I stopped most tank maintenance (probably 7-8 months). Fed minimally, basically just grew thick bubble algae. This fall I manually removed a bunch of bubble, returned to a good maintenance routine and then did a treatment of Brightwell Razor with MicrobacterClean, then did it again. Both times I ran the treatment on days 6-7 the bubble algae started turning clear (and the coral started looking really ticked). Even though I started carbon, the impacted bubble algae just melted away. The second time I ran it was a few weeks later for eradication, there were still a few bubbles that survived the first treatment, but I'm about 4 weeks post the second treatment and I haven't seen anything. I also have 3 emerald crabs in a 33 long, they didn't do much in terms of the massive amount of bubble algae I had. I coach high school track and field, I'm hoping I don't get so busy that I neglect the tank again when season starts up in January.

Besides the battles with algae, I recently added some more fish. I now have 1 remaining clown, a leopard wrasse, a fairy wrasse, and a red firefish goby. The peppermint shrimp is still in there, and hasn't bothered corals too badly. We have various hermits, snails, and the emerald crabs as cleanup crew. The tank looks so cool now that we have active swimmers in the tank. For a little while I just had the one clownfish, and it was pretty skittish with no tank mates, just hiding in the corner.

The corals are looking pretty good. During the tank neglect period I lost the Acan, which is too bad because it had grown from 2 heads to about 6 in just a few months, then it melted away in about a week. Some of the little corals I had bought are getting huge. The Duncan was 1 head when I got it, now it is around 13 or 14 heads. The toadstool leather has probably grown 10x size since we got it. The blue zoas are planning domination of the rock they are on. The splatter hammer is up to about 8 heads. (I think I'm losing one that is getting shaded out by other heads). The elegance coral is up to 4 mouths and is probably my favorite coral in the tank. It is probably 4x the size in about a year, its hard to tell how big it is from the picture.
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I also have a rock flower and a Hawaiian punch bubble tip anemone. The rock flower has been in there for a long time, the bubble tip is newer. Unfortunately the rock flower planted itself toward the back of a rock, and the bubble tip has located itself so it probably will grow into the splatter hammer... but it looks so cool.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I would definitely say I think I've created a system that is stable without running a sump or a skimmer. If I ran a bigger system I would definitely go for a sump, but I'm not sure I would run a skimmer. I'm hoping to stay with this size a few more years before getting too much the bug to go bigger. I've definitely been looking at marketplace to see if there is anyone who is getting out that I could pick up stuff at a steep discount. So far nothing has tickled my fancy, but maybe just dreaming a bit longer is good for the soul.
 

A worm with high fashion and practical utility: Have you ever kept feather dusters in your reef aquarium?

  • I currently have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 64 36.8%
  • Not currently, but I have had feather dusters in my tank in the past.

    Votes: 59 33.9%
  • I have not had feather dusters, but I hope to in the future.

    Votes: 25 14.4%
  • I have no plans to have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 26 14.9%
  • Other.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
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