A kitchen reef in Norway!

[Christoball]

Welcome to my first reef tank!

First i´ll post about myself. I´m a 32 year old guy from Norway. I have wanted to get a reef tank since i was a kid and went snorkling in the red sea outside of Egypt, and got bit by a clown fish!
But for the last year or so i started researching reef tanks, how to maintain it, coral care, tutorials etc. And i Actually thought i learned alot from youtube and so on, on the internet ( well get back to this part!) I spent 10 months searching for good deals on second hand aquariums online, and almost bought two. First one was a red sea max 130, second was a red sea nano. The nano had been stored for 2 years and was NOT cleaned at all before tear down. So in May 2020 i got my hand on a complete Waterbox 45.2 not even a year old for a steal!! I knew i had to buy it! So the following thread will be about the ups and downs of this tank. Feel free to post questions or give me heads up about possible dissasters comming and so on. Other then that i can say i have two gun dogs i use for hunting grouse. A Gordon setter and an English setter, 11 years and 11 months. Oh, and i do alot of salmon fishing in the summer. I think thats my story!



Aquarium
Waterbox MARINE 45.2 - 44.3 Gal (168L), Display 29.6 Gal (112L), Sump 14.7 Gal (56L)
Dimensions are 24"x18"x18" (60x45x45cm)

Circulation / Pumps
Vortech Mp10qwd
TMC Reef-Tide 6000s DC
TMC Reef-Pump 2000 DC

Filtration
TMC Reef-Skim 300 Pro DC
Dry rock (not sure how much i added or the type)
Live Sand caribsea fiji pink
Filterwatte (This white cotton´ish filtermedia. Not sure of the english word)

Light
AquaIllumination Hydra 26

ATO
Tunze Osmolator Nano 3152

Heating / cooler
25.5c
EHEIM Jäger Aquarium 150W
TMC V2 Therm 200W (spare)
InkBird Pro ITC-308 Wifi controller

Fish
1x Captive-bred Clown Fish - Amphiprion ocellaris

2x Dartfish - Nemateleotris magnifica
2x Captive-bred Clown Fish - Amphiprion ocellaris
1x Yellow watchmen goby - Cryptocentrus pavoninoides
1x Bicolor Blenny - Ecsenius bicolor

Corals
*UPDATED LIST COMMING SOON*

Invertebrates
1x Cleaner shrimp - Lysmata amboiensis

1x Spiny seastar - Ophiocoma echinata
1x Bubble tip anemone - Entacmaea quadricolor
9x Nassarius sp
9x Trochus sp
1x Turbo brunneus

Parameters

*Updated 25.07.20*

NO3, NH2, NH3, PO4:

PH, Salinity:

KH, Mg, Ca:

-----------------------

LETS TALK TANK JOURNEY!


Here we have it! Day one! the tank is filled up and waiting for temperature to hit 25 degree celcius. As the newbie i am i did not fill it up with RO water. I read so much about people not using RO water with great success i gave it no thought when starting up.

I think my dog is questioning my prioritys sometimes, but dont worry, he get loads of gun dog practice and excercise!

In my opinion with my OCD, my sump look like a proper trainwreck!!! i´m actually embarresed showing this picture. haha!

For the cycle i only used these two products fro KZ. I used what my LFS told me to and i trusted them. I still trust them if you are wondering. The store is actually 1,5h drive from where i live, but i really enjoy their shop! its called Tropestua and is located in Oslo, Norway. its a Reef shop only. Go check them out if in Norway!

I think my tank used 2-3 weeks to cycle through (in my opinion) the nitrates started to slowly rise, ammonia droped to zero, nitrite drop to zero and i started to get an ugly looking brown tank!
I then added the clean up crew, whitch cleaned it all up in 9 days! The Trochus did a good job!

Then the day came. We are now 5 weeks in. I drove to my LFS, told them how much fun i had with the previous clean up crew i bought. Especially the Nassarius snails! I showed them my parameters from the Aquarimate app and the gave me the greenlight for fish! SO, i came home with a starfish, bubble tip anemone, 2 clownfish a cleaner shrimp and a blenny. I was so happy!!
I had a good amount of life in my tank now!

When i woke up the next day, i had a blenny sceleton on the sand bed. This was my first reef-bummer and i could not figure out why. All Parameters seemed to be good and all other life thrived.

Here is one of my 2 captive-bred clown fish added to the tank. I bought two same sized clown fish. Oh boy, was that a bad decision.... Ofcourse one of them was abit more pale than the other when i added them. And as the weeks went, it got more and more pale, and just keept to one corner in the tank. The darker colored one bullied it ALL THE TIME!! As much as it bothers my still, it died two weeks ago. It was bullied for weeks! Last weekend i bought a slightly bigger captive-bred clown fish whitch now is the more dominant one. They have not couple up yet, but the keep swimming together and things seem to be normal.

So came the day i started to build a side-cabinet for my tank. I need cable management! i used some cheap "shelf" plates. I´m pretty happy with the result if i may say so myself.

Up until these pictures there is a time gap. I have since the first fish, added some corals each week, and three new fish. Two healthy darthfish and a yellow watchmen goby. In my opinion the goby look kinda **** when i got it home for acclimation, and is now missing in action. I assume it´s dead.... But other then that, things look healthy and happy!
You may also notice i have done a complete rescape and i like this new scape a whole lot more.

You may notice i got some brown algea on my sand bed. I think that is from not using RO water. I think this is my biggest mistake by far in this hobby. I actually feel bad about all the time now, so i´m gonna contact my LFS tomorrow to get some help and maybe a good deal on a RO water unit. I need help on this one, because i know nothing about it! I can mention i work as a plumber for a living, so i guess i will setup a proper RO unit with the very small available space i have.

Also my rocks are turning green, is this just maturing of the rocks? or bad algae?

I think this is all i can pull out from the top of my mind for today. I may have forgot a whole lot. haha! If any of you read this post, please let me know what you think. How am i doing so for after 2 months of reefing?
As i wrote earlier, feel free to point me in the right direction when it comes to reefing!

Chris.

 

[Christoball]

My LFS had one left. I took it as a sign. Been think about it nonstop the last couple of days... So I ordered myself this RO unit, de-ionising pod, an eheim pump for salt mixing and grotech Mg and Ca buffer.

Now, how often and how much can i do a water change?

 

[Christoball]

The RO unitarrived yesterday, and i’m very happy with it. Today i filled up the 10L ATO resarvoir and did the first of many 15% water changes.

I also notice my zoas are starting to grow more polyps. Each frag has 2-4 new polyps! And the big frag has stuck itself to the rock.

And one sad coral story, is that something is happening to my green Acan, and i cant seem to figure out what. It had this small new polyp that has shrunk over half it size, and split? It got some purple and black «sticky» substance groing on it. Also not as fluffycas before. The red Acan has grown a new polyp aswell and seem to thrive.

ps: it is pouting because i picked it up to inspect it

 

[Smarkow]

Awesome tank! Your stand/controller board is so well organized. And nice aquascape

I’ve never been able to get my acans to stay nice and fluffy. Not sure how to make that happen for you :/

 

[PBLRDom]

Love it. Especially the little side Cabo year for dosing and controls!!!!

 

[El_Guapo13]

Nice tank. Also, not sure if you did a meet and greet thread to introduce yourself when you joined (I never did, and I still somehow made friends and became slightly well known around here lol), but if you didn't, then allow me to say...
Welcome to R2R!!!

 

[Smarkow]

 

[Christoball]

Nice tank. Also, not sure if you did a meet and greet thread to introduce yourself when you joined (I never did, and I still somehow made friends and became slightly well known around here lol), but if you didn't, then allow me to say...
Welcome to R2R!!!

I did make a thread, but thank you

 

[Dcal]

Looks great well done!

 

[Viking_Reefing]

My LFS had one left. I took it as a sign. Been think about it nonstop the last couple of days... So I ordered myself this RO unit, de-ionising pod, an eheim pump for salt mixing and grotech Mg and Ca buffer.

Now, how often and how much can i do a water change?

There’s really no limit on amount of water changes you can do but generally no point in doing more than 10-15% weekly for maintenance purposes.

Side note: Holy hell! I thought that the prices in Sweden were stupidly high but that RO unit proved that it could have been worse

 

[Christoball]

There’s really no limit on amount of water changes you can do but generally no point in doing more than 10-15% weekly for maintenance purposes.

Side note: Holy hell! I thought that the prices in Sweden were stupidly high but that RO unit proved that it could have been worse

Thats the cheapest one over here

 

[Christoball]

Today i got to do something that i have been thinking about sonce i got my Euphyllias. And that is where to place them. I finally got the courage to mount them with putty, and decided to mount them right side of the tank. And while i dis that, i moved a rock, and oh boy was my aquascape mind blown!!! I got room for a bigger zoa garden and a coole looking rock on the left.

On a final note, i feel happy with my KH, Mg and Ca. I will try to keep them at these levels. So far i have only dosed for KH twice, as you can see frommy latest spikes. Mg and Ca has been stable since i switched from Aquaforest to Salifert test kits!

 

[Lasse]

Following - by the way "Ikke verst for å bli laget av en nordmann"

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Christoball]

Following - by the way "Ikke verst for å bli laget av en nordmann"

Sincerely Lasse

Hehe tar det som et kompliment!

 

[Christoball]

HELL, THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING!

After my last post i got a sweet Duncanopsammia i have had my eyes on for some time! i thought it would be a perfect next coral to add! Would this coral be the downfall of my tank? I think not, but it sure was bad timing and maybe a trigger factor to what would come next....

So it all started the morning after i placed this coral with my two component coral putty. My skimmer reacted to this putty somehow and went haywire, it produced this INSANE amount of micro bubbles!

I tried to run my skimmer in new saltwater. i tried overskimming. i did a series of water changes, to see no changes what so ever.

After 7 days the bubbles dissappeared over night. But as a result of all my water changes (?) my small diatom/brown algea on sandbed issue had exploded on to everywhere..... Today i must say it is moderate to very little on the sand and hellish on the rocks

This is how my filter looks each day. And i have to put in new one.

Now 3 weeks later, my Nitrate are at zero, my phosfate are at zero. And my unidentified algea is going on in full force!!
My bubble tip nem has dissappeared, my magnificas has died, one clown has died, my spiny starfish has died, ALL of my snails has died. What i have left is my "against all odds" clown fish, cleaner shrimp and my hermits.

I´ll leave some pictures of the algea below in hope for someone to help me identify it and possible help me get on my right path!!!!

Thise pictures are from yesterday after my waterchange, as you see all of my corals are closed, as they have been for 3 weeks. BUT they have opened upp SLIGHTLY more after the last water change, so i will do another one tonight, and maybe tomorrow. I know my corals have had some tissue death, but i hope i can turn this bad trend! But i must say i am out of ideas, and the money / enjoyment ration is at its max. As many other first time reefers, my mind is thinking about shutting the whole thing down and sell. I´m in a very dark place in this hobby now...

I feel like i´m caught between a rock and a hard place, because i THINK it is my alk swings that is stressing my corals AND the algea touching the soft tisue. So i tried to keep a closer look on my alk and keep it steady. But at the same time, i think all my waterchanges is just feeding the algea outbreak.


Here are my latest parameters:

If you read my post, i´m sorry, but i think i just needed to ventilate my frustration.

 

[PR_nano]

Check for dinoflagellates some are toxic which might have cause the deaths. I notice your Nitrate and Phosphate both bottom out which seems to be linked to the dinos. Something to consider.

 

[Christoball]

Check for dinoflagellates some are toxic which might have cause the deaths. I notice your Nitrate and Phosphate both bottom out which seems to be linked to the dinos. Something to consider.

yes i know, thats why i think i’m caught between a rock and a hard place. Save corals or fix algea...

 

[Hincapiej4]

Yea, I agree. I think it's Dino. Which is difficult to deal with. Water changes won't help. You need to have SOME nitrates and SOME phos.

 

[Hincapiej4]

BTW, I frigging miss norway. I spent a month in Otta. Loved it...too bad it didn't work out..

 

[Reverend Turtle]

Dose nitrate and phosphate to combat the dino outbreak.
Use super glue instead epoxy. Won't make your skimmer go crazy.
Looking at your test, I would say that when you started to have issues was when you alkalinity was swinging around. I wonder if that's what caused your losses. I know many of the animals we keep are sensitive to swings in alkalinity. Maybe this is what caused your losses.