I have always wanted to start a saltwater reef tank but my partner was against it. I wanted to start with a 4-6ft tank, we compromised and have a nano (70l). If it survives a year then im allowed to upgrade. I have had numerous freshwater tanks but that was the extent of my knowledge. Knowing the importance of cycling a tank I set my tank up with sand and rocks, then left it to cycle for 12 weeks while I did as much research as possible. There is a lot of information out there and a lot of different opinions, which makes this very difficult and confusing for anyone new to this. I would not recommend following this as a guide, as I had a lot of issues and almost crashed the system, due to human error. I have learnt from those mistakes and feel pretty confident in managing my system but time will tell.
The cycling went as expected. At four weeks into the cycle I added live rock from my LFS to seed the tank. At about 8 weeks into the cycle I had an outbreak of cyano and green hair algae. At this point I added a HOB filter to the tank which I put some chaeto in. After 12 weeks of cycling and a lot of research I figured I knew what I was doing. So at 12 weeks I added my clean up crew consisting of 4 turbo snails, a trochus snail, a stromb snail, 3 nassarius snails, and a coral banded shrimp.
After 14 weeks I added 2 percula clownfish, a yellow tail damselfish, and a humbug damselfish. Other than some issues with algae which at the time didn’t seem too bad, I was happy with how it was going. I was doing weekly water changes, but not dosing. My parameters were always in a comfortable range except for a low PH (7.8), but I didn’t want to chase numbers to correct it.
5 months in and I was at my LFS and ended up walking out with some corals due to naivety and some bad advice. I walked out with a large hammer coral, small torch coral, couple of mushrooms, and a free favia (damaged). At 6 months and still being overly confident, I added a purple crispa anemone. The anemone decided to move to the back of my tank, and looked healthy for the first week. At 6 months I then watched my tank go downhill very quickly. The GHA I thought was under control started to spread. I had issues with salinity due to evaporation, which caused stress on my corals. Within a week, the anemone was dying and my tank stability was gone. All my corals were dying or almost gone a few days after that.
At this point I knew I had screwed up and so I went back to basics. I removed the corals which were all pretty much gone except for the mushroom. I started to test everyday and chase stability and numbers. I added a ATO behind my tank to deal with my evaporation and salinity issues, which I then added kalkwasser to keep my calcium/alkalinity stable. I have been dosing Magnesium twice a week to keep that stable. I started carbon dosing to get my algae under control.
9 months on and my tank seems a lot healthier and stable. I have no GHA left in my tank, but I do have lot of dead organic matter settling on my rocks, which I think is due to issues with flow. I have two new 500l powerheads on the way which I will replace my current powerhead with, and I am hoping this will allow me to have better flow circulation around my rocks. My current light will be replaced soon with a proper marine led light. Once I have these then I will be looking to add some frags to the tank to attempt to keep corals again.
Picture Pre Crash
Tank: 70L Rimless
Filtration: Canister Filter (800lph) & Seachem Tidal 55 HOB
Filter Media: Chemipure, Seachem Purigen, Carbon, polyfilter, Chaeto
Rock: Walt Smith Reef Rock
Sand: Aqua Natural Bahamas Oolitic Aragonite Fine (0.05-1mm)
Salt: Red Sea Salt
Lighting: Vivagrow Planted LED 24hour Cycle
Flow: 1000l Powerhead
The cycling went as expected. At four weeks into the cycle I added live rock from my LFS to seed the tank. At about 8 weeks into the cycle I had an outbreak of cyano and green hair algae. At this point I added a HOB filter to the tank which I put some chaeto in. After 12 weeks of cycling and a lot of research I figured I knew what I was doing. So at 12 weeks I added my clean up crew consisting of 4 turbo snails, a trochus snail, a stromb snail, 3 nassarius snails, and a coral banded shrimp.
After 14 weeks I added 2 percula clownfish, a yellow tail damselfish, and a humbug damselfish. Other than some issues with algae which at the time didn’t seem too bad, I was happy with how it was going. I was doing weekly water changes, but not dosing. My parameters were always in a comfortable range except for a low PH (7.8), but I didn’t want to chase numbers to correct it.
5 months in and I was at my LFS and ended up walking out with some corals due to naivety and some bad advice. I walked out with a large hammer coral, small torch coral, couple of mushrooms, and a free favia (damaged). At 6 months and still being overly confident, I added a purple crispa anemone. The anemone decided to move to the back of my tank, and looked healthy for the first week. At 6 months I then watched my tank go downhill very quickly. The GHA I thought was under control started to spread. I had issues with salinity due to evaporation, which caused stress on my corals. Within a week, the anemone was dying and my tank stability was gone. All my corals were dying or almost gone a few days after that.
At this point I knew I had screwed up and so I went back to basics. I removed the corals which were all pretty much gone except for the mushroom. I started to test everyday and chase stability and numbers. I added a ATO behind my tank to deal with my evaporation and salinity issues, which I then added kalkwasser to keep my calcium/alkalinity stable. I have been dosing Magnesium twice a week to keep that stable. I started carbon dosing to get my algae under control.
9 months on and my tank seems a lot healthier and stable. I have no GHA left in my tank, but I do have lot of dead organic matter settling on my rocks, which I think is due to issues with flow. I have two new 500l powerheads on the way which I will replace my current powerhead with, and I am hoping this will allow me to have better flow circulation around my rocks. My current light will be replaced soon with a proper marine led light. Once I have these then I will be looking to add some frags to the tank to attempt to keep corals again.
Picture Pre Crash
Tank: 70L Rimless
Filtration: Canister Filter (800lph) & Seachem Tidal 55 HOB
Filter Media: Chemipure, Seachem Purigen, Carbon, polyfilter, Chaeto
Rock: Walt Smith Reef Rock
Sand: Aqua Natural Bahamas Oolitic Aragonite Fine (0.05-1mm)
Salt: Red Sea Salt
Lighting: Vivagrow Planted LED 24hour Cycle
Flow: 1000l Powerhead
