HomebroodExotics
Well-Known Member
So This is how I left my 40 gallon breeder the night we left before the storm. It was about 4 months old. I wanted a final video and picture because I knew it was unlikely I would be coming back to this. Unfortunately I was right. I use the zeovit dosing system with a BCB basket and a box filter.
We were evacuated for about a month total due to unfortunate circumstances. We had no power for something like 16 days. This is what I came home too.
Pretty rough and upsetting. I lost multiple tanks and fish of freshwater and saltwater. Oddly enough there was 2 freshwater tanks that survived by getting just enough sunlight through a window I believe. But anyway this is about the saltwater. It took me a couple days to figure out what route I wanted to go with this but I decided that I would push this recovery to the limit and see what can be done by doing everything wrong, technically. I do everything incorrectly as standard operating procedure but really pushed it for this. I did no water changes and no gravel vacuuming. I use tap water that I pump directly into the tank with safe when I need to top off the tank. This tank was off the chart with ammonia and nitrites as can be expected. I resumed dosing the zeovit system and within 2 weeks ammonia and nitrites were down to zero again and I started things off again by adding clean up crew of hermit crabs, snails, and conchs. Photos below show the progress of this. There was many bacteria blooms during this process.
Eventually I felt ready to add some fish. Fish have been a huge challenge. Coming in DOA or near DOA. I was able to revive a flasher wrasse and Eibli angel.
Then I ordered some more fish from LiveAquaria. I think one of them came in with Uronemia and wiped out everything except for my flasher wrasse. Will be using a 10 gallon tank or 2 for quarantine now. On November 19 I added some corals. A torch, 2 hammers, birdsnest, leptastria, favia, and goniopora.
Below picture is what the tank is looking like today.
I'm having a dino outbreak at the moment, but not that big of a deal. I know it will pass in enough time and the corals are doing amazing. I actually mounted the torch and hammers yesterday and will post updated photos in a couple days I'm sure. Nitrates are running near zero. Phosphate was at .09 last check.
The reason behind my madness: I love to breed fish and have multiple aquariums. The traditional methods of reef keeping are not conducive to these goals. It's too much equipment and too much money to make it feasible. This was a proof of concept that a saltwater aquarium can be run very simply. I think this is critical to make hobbyist breeding for saltwater fish a viable thing. No one is going to keep multiple 10k dollar aquariums. We need to find ways around this.
I could speed things up by vacuuming gravel and scrubbing rocks but from my results it's not necessary. I just change out the box filter occasionally which does a great job of collecting detritus. My moto is keep it simple stupid. Zeovit is an amazing system and it works well for me with this method. I'm sure I've left some things out but I'll be updating as time goes on.
We were evacuated for about a month total due to unfortunate circumstances. We had no power for something like 16 days. This is what I came home too.
Pretty rough and upsetting. I lost multiple tanks and fish of freshwater and saltwater. Oddly enough there was 2 freshwater tanks that survived by getting just enough sunlight through a window I believe. But anyway this is about the saltwater. It took me a couple days to figure out what route I wanted to go with this but I decided that I would push this recovery to the limit and see what can be done by doing everything wrong, technically. I do everything incorrectly as standard operating procedure but really pushed it for this. I did no water changes and no gravel vacuuming. I use tap water that I pump directly into the tank with safe when I need to top off the tank. This tank was off the chart with ammonia and nitrites as can be expected. I resumed dosing the zeovit system and within 2 weeks ammonia and nitrites were down to zero again and I started things off again by adding clean up crew of hermit crabs, snails, and conchs. Photos below show the progress of this. There was many bacteria blooms during this process.
Eventually I felt ready to add some fish. Fish have been a huge challenge. Coming in DOA or near DOA. I was able to revive a flasher wrasse and Eibli angel.
Then I ordered some more fish from LiveAquaria. I think one of them came in with Uronemia and wiped out everything except for my flasher wrasse. Will be using a 10 gallon tank or 2 for quarantine now. On November 19 I added some corals. A torch, 2 hammers, birdsnest, leptastria, favia, and goniopora.
Below picture is what the tank is looking like today.
I'm having a dino outbreak at the moment, but not that big of a deal. I know it will pass in enough time and the corals are doing amazing. I actually mounted the torch and hammers yesterday and will post updated photos in a couple days I'm sure. Nitrates are running near zero. Phosphate was at .09 last check.
The reason behind my madness: I love to breed fish and have multiple aquariums. The traditional methods of reef keeping are not conducive to these goals. It's too much equipment and too much money to make it feasible. This was a proof of concept that a saltwater aquarium can be run very simply. I think this is critical to make hobbyist breeding for saltwater fish a viable thing. No one is going to keep multiple 10k dollar aquariums. We need to find ways around this.
I could speed things up by vacuuming gravel and scrubbing rocks but from my results it's not necessary. I just change out the box filter occasionally which does a great job of collecting detritus. My moto is keep it simple stupid. Zeovit is an amazing system and it works well for me with this method. I'm sure I've left some things out but I'll be updating as time goes on.
