C14 187G mixed reef

CivicS14 · Apr 18, 2024

This tank was set up in Dec 2020 and has went through a lot. Specs below and I'll add post of all the issues to where I am now currently stable and very happy where I'm at.

Crystal Dynamics Aquarium Peninsula Tank: 60"L x 30"W x 24"H w/ custom stand built my local cabinet maker
Filtration
- Ice Cap 36xl sump
- Ebay pinky filter floss for mechanical filtration
- 4x Marine Pure 4" blocks + 2G of Seachem matrix in low flow Vertex Rx-U 2.5L reactor
- Vertex Alpha 200 Skimmer + Avast Skimmate Locker
Calcium Reactor: Vertex RX-C 6D with ARM coarse media + Zeomag
Salt mix: Instant Ocean
Temp control: 2x 300w Nicrew heaters + Inkbird controller
Circulation:
- Return - Skimz L90
- 6x MP40wQD, reef crest 30% during day, constant 15% at night
Lights:
- 7x Radion G5 XR15Blues running AB+ at 60% max intensity 12 hr cycle
- 4x Euroquatics t5 Leds blue pop 2 hrs AM and 2 hrs PM

I upgraded from my previous Red Sea P500 because at the time, red sea tanks were failing left and right, it started to get my paranoid and also I was dealing with a very annoying battle of aptasia.

Current Tank:

Previous Tank:

CivicS14 · Apr 18, 2024

Quick recap on my Reef Stages

Dec 2020, shortly after I set up the tank, I purchased a powder blue tang from a local reefer that told me that it was in copper for 30 days and has been its own QT. I was a week out from traveling and I trusted him. Put him in my display, ended up with velvet and wiped out my entire tank, several fish I had for years. I was devastated and no longer trust anyone with QT. QT/medicated all fish from there on out.
Transferring acros, torches and gonis into my new tank was a fail. I lost everything slowly even tho parameters were all in check. At this point, I wanted to just give up as I was recently promoted and super busy with work.
For the next year, I focused on the fish. Going through QT, copper, etc. It became a FOWLR. I didn't do any water changes, tank glass was dirty more often than clean, sand looked disgusting.
By Jan 2021, I decided to start adding corals back. Purchased a bunch of SPS frags and torches over the year.
AEFW fight 1: Even tho I took the time to dip every coral, remove every frag off the frag plug it came on, I still ended up with AEFW. Lucky for me, at the time, I only had about 8 frags, so I just took them out every week for 6 weeks to tip in Coral RX. Several months later, I find that this still didn't work.
AEFW fight 2: At this point, I had already glued frags to the rocks, so I decided to try a more natural method. I picked up some six lines and sapphire damsels. I started to feed minimally and blow off the acros nightly. Each time I blew a worm off, the six line or damsels would catch it and eat it right away. They started to follow my turkey baster around and wait for me to blow them off. After several weeks of doing this, I noticed they were more active in hunting around the base of the acros. After about 4 weeks of doing this nightly, I stopped seeing any bite marks or AEFW. I continued for a few more weeks and still nothing. It's been almost 1.5 years since I did this and to this day, I have not seen any more bite marks or any sign of AEFW. Either they are gone or my six lines and damsels are keeping them in check.
Even tho I set up my tank with new rock, sand, etc. to avoid aiptasia, ended up with aiptasia anyways even tho I removed all my frags off their plugs, scrubbed all the skeleton of the LPS with H202. Luckily local reefers are now breeding berghia nudis. Picked up 6 of them and cleared this issue out within a month.
Over the past 2 years, I added a bunch more rock as I added more corals, I couldn't stop, LOL. So, more rock was the answer to mount the additional corals.

CivicS14 · Apr 18, 2024

Fish stock list...

I'm sure I'll get hell for this, but whatever... it works for me and I'm not having issues. Also, I feed pellets about 4x 1/2 - 3/4 tsp of pellet mix, + 4 cubes of frozen, + 1/2 sheet of nori per day.