nastronaut
Active Member
Hey there!
I'm relatively new to the community, and have been putting off this build thread for a bit. Things are going swimmingly, and I find myself spending countless sleepless hours scouring the forum for the best sources of calcium chloride dihydrate soooo, probably time to get a build thread up!
So like I said I'm a noob, but I'm the type to really deep dive (obsess) over my hobbies and I've been all up in my sandbed this whole month (just kidding, I try not to disturb it), but between my hermit crab moving my frags , and or trying to find that perfect location and flow for each one, my hands have been a little more wet than I would like to admit.
(The face of pure evil)
Okay so, the build?
When I first started researching reef tanks, I was thinking of starting with a 10-20 gal nano and started piecing together a build, I'm all about being frugal with these obsessions, but seeing as brand new equipment would cost a pretty penny, and only be marginally less expensive than larger setups (with more expense in incriminates, later) I decided to investigate the local market for used setups.
In my opinion I lucked out, I'd found an older model of the fluval Venezia 180 (approx 40 gal), with a fluval 206 canister, t5 fluorescent lights (x2 KZ superblue (basically brand new bulbs)), a stand (diy desk convert), with all the basics included (heater, powerhead, salinity refractometer, a brute trash bin full of cured live rock (Coraline is bleached but it's remained submerged, more than I need for sure), and an array of other accessories (pond water pump for mixing, enough salt to get me started, a few various reef supliments/buffers, etc.
Notably, what I didn't know I was getting, aside from most of the above, was a sand bed that was very mature, full of spaghetti worms, Copepods, small bristles, some Coraline algae, a conch, several snails, and a few small feather dusters - among others maybe I haven't discovered yet. For example today I've spotted what looks to be a nemertea worm.
I wasnt exactly aware I was getting a very much living sandbed, so when I got home and spotted living snails it was a bit of a crash course in cleaning what I could without contaminating the sandbed, and then getting it filled with water and cycling asap. Luckily, it all went really well and the conch, snails, and multitude of worms and other lifeforms are all living, active, and thriving.
(Survivor - Destiny's Child)
Once the water was cycling through, from setup I definitely had an ammonia spike almost immediately, as when adding water and putting in live rock - digging it down to the bottom glass, I stirred up a lot of waste. At max it stayed 1ppm and below, and while seemed to be correcting itself, I mistakenly attempted to siphon the sandbed a bit and released more, causing another spike, but with water changes and a dose of fritz turbo start it quickly returned down and then hit 0ppm about a day later.
Throughout this time began slowly adding CUC members, as the sandbed was quite dirty, the conch and narcissus snail (small) were still active and doing well despite parameters (which were probably better than the stagnant water they survived). I'd added 2 small hermits (about a week apart), and a trochus snail which quickly went to work on the glass, rocks, and other areas.
Once they were alive and well, for about a week, and parameters had remained level and undetectable, I (somewhat impulsively) grabbed some corals as the LFS weekend sale. They were small frags that weren't looking very well, and the LFS didn't seem too confident in them. But being the nut that I am, and a sucker for the disadvantaged, I decided to attempt to take them under my wing, and *hopefully* not cause their demise.
(Candy Cane)
(Green Nepthea)
Im happy to say that they're still doing well! The Nepthea is in the same spot and is reaching more and more everyday (Nepthea frags when? (No rush xD)). The Candy Cane is also doing well, but it's gotten a bit more tough love - had a bit of an algae problem that progressed after I got it, and a bit of dead skeleton, when I got it - currently, it's recovering from a peroxide dip, no more algae!, and the dead skeleton was clipped off, after cleaning it off a few times to no avail - I waited til it was doing really well and polyp expanding nicely before I did the surgery. Generally they're both doing well though - despite my periodic torture.
Sooo after the coral were showing signs of success, such as the candy cane opening and feeding, and the Nepthea expanding and getting the flow just right, I was hooked. Obviously I was/am all about my parameters and after a week or so of them staying nice and stable I felt it was safe to get my first fish. (Shout-out to the big narcissus, trochus, and the 2 hermits who helped clean everything up).
(Not dead!)
(Also not dead!)
So I went to the LFS and stared at fish for hours, literally. I settled on two cute little juvie misbar carmel clowns (A. ocellaris). They're likely siblings, but stick to each other like glue. After getting them home I had a mild freakout about potential incest in the future... But seemingly they'd be approx L2-3 so there shouldn't be too much to worry about. With the possibility of eventually producing Black Ocellaris, Carmel, or even standard colored - honestly I'm kind of stoked, and have been nerding out on Pickles various threads, guides, and breeder setups [insert my partners face when I talk about 3+ small 10 gal setups].
Hehe.
Yeah, I'm a proud clown parent.
With the clowns I'd also became a member of my local LFS, *discounts*, so naturally I also had to get a new coral frag, Anthellia. It hasn't taken over my tank just yet, but definitely seems a little bigger.
(This is it in the present, getting a lot of flow, might adjust it's position soon so it's not as side swept, but it doesn't seem to mind)
So after a week or so of my new ammonia producers exploring their new Haven, which I assume is the biggest tank they've been in, I was feeling pretty good and excited to expand. So I plugged in to all my local reef clubs and found an awesome local who has lots of corals, anemone, and giant blue legged hermit (free to good home, only slightly evil).
(Leave the dang feather dusters alone)
I was hard at researching anemone, and at this point was a little under a month in, with weekly water changes, and everything has been going quite well.
Obviously slightly less than a month isn't the 6 month mature tank reccommendation for anemone, but I did a lot of research, have a very mature sandbed, ample lighting, and found a really good deal for a small anemone along with a free evil hermit, and several other frags (green toadstool, green sinularia, and a big branching Xenia - all for just $30 - and they threw in a giant trochus!).
(Toadstool, present)
(Branching Xenia, present)
(Sinularia, present - it's looked better, but similar to the Anthellia I just added a new powerhead and need to move it's position a bit for variable flow (but it doesn't seem to mind too much).)
(Sherman Rose BTA, a few days after introduction)
The anemone has been in for a little over 2 weeks now. When I got it, it has a slight tear on it's foot, but after 2 days it moved down to this position and looked quite nice. When I took this picture, I'd also swapped one of my super blue KZ bulbs for an ATI coral plus.
While the BTA seemed to enjoy the added spectrum, I think the new bulb was overwhelming, and it moved into the dark for a few days, almost a week - it would shy its way into some light, but generally would stay in the dark. That said it would still exchange water during the day and expell waste, but it hasn't looked as good as the picture above since it receded into the dark.
Luckily earlier this week or end of last it came back out, it's retained it's florescence, but paired with moving into the new white light, and being in the dark for about a week, it looks a bit more pale, tentacles are a bit smaller.
That said, it's continue to open everyday, and atleast for a few ours a day it inflates, generally it expels waste in the morning, and would move around little by little. I think it was having a hard time finding an ideal location, as it moved down after healing it's foot, into the cave, and then came out on a side with less flow.
Yesterday I noticed it wasn't fully attached - so I gloved up and wanted to example the bottom of it (not necessarily planning move it, but to visually check on the underside to ensure there was no necrosis from the original tear). Upon gentely nudging it actually came right off the rock. The underside was/had been completely healed, and no signs of damaged tissue!
I gentely relocated it to a spot with more light and more flow - and almost immediately it looked so much better than it had in over a week. Shortly after my new powerhead had came in, which I'd gotten suspecting the anemone simply needed more flow overall to promote more water exchange, and once it was securely attached I plugged them both back in and wow what a difference it maked. Now the anemone is remaining inflated even at night, and expelling waste is not taking nearly as much time as it had been in low flow spots.
At it's worst, it's simply kept small stubby tentacles, but has continue to eat and expell waste, and direct itself to light, atleast for a few hou s, at it's best it's closer to the picture above.
(Yesterday, this is after it came out of the cave for a few days and when I blew it off with a dropper noticed it was loose and then decided to try and relocate it)
(Just 1-2 minutes after moving it to new spot it was already looking so much better! - it is more pale, but I do attribute a lot of it to the coral plus light, being directly under the bulb almost everything looks much more washed out. Compared to the first picture of the anemone - it was under almost only the superblue paired with my phone's auto white balance, making the non-red areas appear much more dark. For example, when I installed the bulb I tried to both ways, front and back, front (with anemone in front) it looked much more similar in color to the above compared to the first picture).
Okay so obviously the anemone has driven me a little crazy, but I'm pretty confident it's on the mend from it's grand adventure around the tank, and if my hermit crabs would leave it alone I could get a picture of it looking better today.
A big plus/good omen, this morning the anemone was looking awesome (comparetively) when the light came on and for the first time the clowns found it, hosted/cleaned it up a bit (tried to eat it's waste/moved the waste off of it) and then they swam away, but hopefully they'll give it more TLC now, but not too much).
(Anemone/clown vid, present)
Okay so now that I've given TMI about my anemone undertaking! I'll briefly go over other additions and our first death (rip).
Over the past two weeks I've introduced a small green star frag, a glove polyp frag, and a button polyp!
(Green star, Present)
(Glove polyp, present, hermit z.z)
(Button polyp, present)
As for death, the original scarlet hermit I'd added started to molt one evening, in the open, and both the other hermits were really close to him. In the morning, we found a dead hermit body out of its shell. They'd all 3 been super active, and eating lots, but my assumption is that he was attacked while vulnerable. Either that or there were complications while molting and he died - but since then the other scarlet hermit has successfully molted (she disappeared for a since bout a day, and I found the molt yesterday being eaten by worms).
-update- the other small hermit while sold as a scarlet, is actually blue legged like the big one - I feel dumb for not noticing, my excuse is the superblue lights, they all looked black.
Was sad to see his demise, but I assume foul play, probably by the large blue leg. As we speak/as I type he's knocked over my baby feather dusters, terrorized the anemone, walked over my toadstool, and poked the candy cane with his antenna (it doesn't like that)...
Anyone want a big blue leg? Haha. Oh look he's trying to tip my glove polyp....
A few tank progression pics:
(2 corals and snails/1 hermit)
(Day 1 of the very blue clown world)
(Full tank super blue)
(Yay, lighting update! Clowns really loved this.)
(Another angle)
(Present)
And that's about it! Will update more as time progresses!
I'm relatively new to the community, and have been putting off this build thread for a bit. Things are going swimmingly, and I find myself spending countless sleepless hours scouring the forum for the best sources of calcium chloride dihydrate soooo, probably time to get a build thread up!
So like I said I'm a noob, but I'm the type to really deep dive (obsess) over my hobbies and I've been all up in my sandbed this whole month (just kidding, I try not to disturb it), but between my hermit crab moving my frags , and or trying to find that perfect location and flow for each one, my hands have been a little more wet than I would like to admit.
(The face of pure evil)
Okay so, the build?
When I first started researching reef tanks, I was thinking of starting with a 10-20 gal nano and started piecing together a build, I'm all about being frugal with these obsessions, but seeing as brand new equipment would cost a pretty penny, and only be marginally less expensive than larger setups (with more expense in incriminates, later) I decided to investigate the local market for used setups.
In my opinion I lucked out, I'd found an older model of the fluval Venezia 180 (approx 40 gal), with a fluval 206 canister, t5 fluorescent lights (x2 KZ superblue (basically brand new bulbs)), a stand (diy desk convert), with all the basics included (heater, powerhead, salinity refractometer, a brute trash bin full of cured live rock (Coraline is bleached but it's remained submerged, more than I need for sure), and an array of other accessories (pond water pump for mixing, enough salt to get me started, a few various reef supliments/buffers, etc.
Notably, what I didn't know I was getting, aside from most of the above, was a sand bed that was very mature, full of spaghetti worms, Copepods, small bristles, some Coraline algae, a conch, several snails, and a few small feather dusters - among others maybe I haven't discovered yet. For example today I've spotted what looks to be a nemertea worm.
I wasnt exactly aware I was getting a very much living sandbed, so when I got home and spotted living snails it was a bit of a crash course in cleaning what I could without contaminating the sandbed, and then getting it filled with water and cycling asap. Luckily, it all went really well and the conch, snails, and multitude of worms and other lifeforms are all living, active, and thriving.
(Survivor - Destiny's Child)
Once the water was cycling through, from setup I definitely had an ammonia spike almost immediately, as when adding water and putting in live rock - digging it down to the bottom glass, I stirred up a lot of waste. At max it stayed 1ppm and below, and while seemed to be correcting itself, I mistakenly attempted to siphon the sandbed a bit and released more, causing another spike, but with water changes and a dose of fritz turbo start it quickly returned down and then hit 0ppm about a day later.
Throughout this time began slowly adding CUC members, as the sandbed was quite dirty, the conch and narcissus snail (small) were still active and doing well despite parameters (which were probably better than the stagnant water they survived). I'd added 2 small hermits (about a week apart), and a trochus snail which quickly went to work on the glass, rocks, and other areas.
Once they were alive and well, for about a week, and parameters had remained level and undetectable, I (somewhat impulsively) grabbed some corals as the LFS weekend sale. They were small frags that weren't looking very well, and the LFS didn't seem too confident in them. But being the nut that I am, and a sucker for the disadvantaged, I decided to attempt to take them under my wing, and *hopefully* not cause their demise.
(Candy Cane)
Im happy to say that they're still doing well! The Nepthea is in the same spot and is reaching more and more everyday (Nepthea frags when? (No rush xD)). The Candy Cane is also doing well, but it's gotten a bit more tough love - had a bit of an algae problem that progressed after I got it, and a bit of dead skeleton, when I got it - currently, it's recovering from a peroxide dip, no more algae!, and the dead skeleton was clipped off, after cleaning it off a few times to no avail - I waited til it was doing really well and polyp expanding nicely before I did the surgery. Generally they're both doing well though - despite my periodic torture.
Sooo after the coral were showing signs of success, such as the candy cane opening and feeding, and the Nepthea expanding and getting the flow just right, I was hooked. Obviously I was/am all about my parameters and after a week or so of them staying nice and stable I felt it was safe to get my first fish. (Shout-out to the big narcissus, trochus, and the 2 hermits who helped clean everything up).
(Not dead!)
(Also not dead!)
So I went to the LFS and stared at fish for hours, literally. I settled on two cute little juvie misbar carmel clowns (A. ocellaris). They're likely siblings, but stick to each other like glue. After getting them home I had a mild freakout about potential incest in the future... But seemingly they'd be approx L2-3 so there shouldn't be too much to worry about. With the possibility of eventually producing Black Ocellaris, Carmel, or even standard colored - honestly I'm kind of stoked, and have been nerding out on Pickles various threads, guides, and breeder setups [insert my partners face when I talk about 3+ small 10 gal setups].
Hehe.
Yeah, I'm a proud clown parent.
With the clowns I'd also became a member of my local LFS, *discounts*, so naturally I also had to get a new coral frag, Anthellia. It hasn't taken over my tank just yet, but definitely seems a little bigger.
(This is it in the present, getting a lot of flow, might adjust it's position soon so it's not as side swept, but it doesn't seem to mind)
So after a week or so of my new ammonia producers exploring their new Haven, which I assume is the biggest tank they've been in, I was feeling pretty good and excited to expand. So I plugged in to all my local reef clubs and found an awesome local who has lots of corals, anemone, and giant blue legged hermit (free to good home, only slightly evil).
(Leave the dang feather dusters alone)
I was hard at researching anemone, and at this point was a little under a month in, with weekly water changes, and everything has been going quite well.
Obviously slightly less than a month isn't the 6 month mature tank reccommendation for anemone, but I did a lot of research, have a very mature sandbed, ample lighting, and found a really good deal for a small anemone along with a free evil hermit, and several other frags (green toadstool, green sinularia, and a big branching Xenia - all for just $30 - and they threw in a giant trochus!).
(Toadstool, present)
(Branching Xenia, present)
(Sinularia, present - it's looked better, but similar to the Anthellia I just added a new powerhead and need to move it's position a bit for variable flow (but it doesn't seem to mind too much).)
(Sherman Rose BTA, a few days after introduction)
The anemone has been in for a little over 2 weeks now. When I got it, it has a slight tear on it's foot, but after 2 days it moved down to this position and looked quite nice. When I took this picture, I'd also swapped one of my super blue KZ bulbs for an ATI coral plus.
While the BTA seemed to enjoy the added spectrum, I think the new bulb was overwhelming, and it moved into the dark for a few days, almost a week - it would shy its way into some light, but generally would stay in the dark. That said it would still exchange water during the day and expell waste, but it hasn't looked as good as the picture above since it receded into the dark.
Luckily earlier this week or end of last it came back out, it's retained it's florescence, but paired with moving into the new white light, and being in the dark for about a week, it looks a bit more pale, tentacles are a bit smaller.
That said, it's continue to open everyday, and atleast for a few ours a day it inflates, generally it expels waste in the morning, and would move around little by little. I think it was having a hard time finding an ideal location, as it moved down after healing it's foot, into the cave, and then came out on a side with less flow.
Yesterday I noticed it wasn't fully attached - so I gloved up and wanted to example the bottom of it (not necessarily planning move it, but to visually check on the underside to ensure there was no necrosis from the original tear). Upon gentely nudging it actually came right off the rock. The underside was/had been completely healed, and no signs of damaged tissue!
I gentely relocated it to a spot with more light and more flow - and almost immediately it looked so much better than it had in over a week. Shortly after my new powerhead had came in, which I'd gotten suspecting the anemone simply needed more flow overall to promote more water exchange, and once it was securely attached I plugged them both back in and wow what a difference it maked. Now the anemone is remaining inflated even at night, and expelling waste is not taking nearly as much time as it had been in low flow spots.
At it's worst, it's simply kept small stubby tentacles, but has continue to eat and expell waste, and direct itself to light, atleast for a few hou s, at it's best it's closer to the picture above.
(Yesterday, this is after it came out of the cave for a few days and when I blew it off with a dropper noticed it was loose and then decided to try and relocate it)
(Just 1-2 minutes after moving it to new spot it was already looking so much better! - it is more pale, but I do attribute a lot of it to the coral plus light, being directly under the bulb almost everything looks much more washed out. Compared to the first picture of the anemone - it was under almost only the superblue paired with my phone's auto white balance, making the non-red areas appear much more dark. For example, when I installed the bulb I tried to both ways, front and back, front (with anemone in front) it looked much more similar in color to the above compared to the first picture).
Okay so obviously the anemone has driven me a little crazy, but I'm pretty confident it's on the mend from it's grand adventure around the tank, and if my hermit crabs would leave it alone I could get a picture of it looking better today.
A big plus/good omen, this morning the anemone was looking awesome (comparetively) when the light came on and for the first time the clowns found it, hosted/cleaned it up a bit (tried to eat it's waste/moved the waste off of it) and then they swam away, but hopefully they'll give it more TLC now, but not too much).
(Anemone/clown vid, present)
Okay so now that I've given TMI about my anemone undertaking! I'll briefly go over other additions and our first death (rip).
Over the past two weeks I've introduced a small green star frag, a glove polyp frag, and a button polyp!
(Green star, Present)
(Glove polyp, present, hermit z.z)
(Button polyp, present)
As for death, the original scarlet hermit I'd added started to molt one evening, in the open, and both the other hermits were really close to him. In the morning, we found a dead hermit body out of its shell. They'd all 3 been super active, and eating lots, but my assumption is that he was attacked while vulnerable. Either that or there were complications while molting and he died - but since then the other scarlet hermit has successfully molted (she disappeared for a since bout a day, and I found the molt yesterday being eaten by worms).
-update- the other small hermit while sold as a scarlet, is actually blue legged like the big one - I feel dumb for not noticing, my excuse is the superblue lights, they all looked black.
Was sad to see his demise, but I assume foul play, probably by the large blue leg. As we speak/as I type he's knocked over my baby feather dusters, terrorized the anemone, walked over my toadstool, and poked the candy cane with his antenna (it doesn't like that)...
Anyone want a big blue leg? Haha. Oh look he's trying to tip my glove polyp....
A few tank progression pics:
(2 corals and snails/1 hermit)
(Day 1 of the very blue clown world)
(Full tank super blue)
(Yay, lighting update! Clowns really loved this.)
(Another angle)
(Present)
And that's about it! Will update more as time progresses!
Last edited:
