College Dorm Reef Tank!

[Gumbies R Us]

The time came and went so fast and now I am in college! the fish survived the move and are sitting behind me as I write this still asleep.

For the move, I used 2, 5 gallon buckets and 2 styrofoam coolers for the fish. One bucket had corals and inverts, the other had my rock, and then each cooler for the goby and clown pair respectively. I decided to keep the sand during the move in order to preserve bacteria but it ended up causing a very slight ammonia spike that quickly disappeared overnight.

I will send pictures of the tank once everything has settled down and the lights turn on. So far though there are no casualties that I can see and everything is well. My only issue is that I had to flip the tank so My flow is off and will need to be played with to get it right again.

Best of luck with school this year! Glad the fish survived

 

[AyoItsRocco]

I cant find that thread or article, do you have a link to it?

The threads called How to unstick any seemingly stuck cycle. Its a long read but its 100% worth the read. Tons of success so far.

 

[AyoItsRocco]

The time came and went so fast and now I am in college! the fish survived the move and are sitting behind me as I write this still asleep.

For the move, I used 2, 5 gallon buckets and 2 styrofoam coolers for the fish. One bucket had corals and inverts, the other had my rock, and then each cooler for the goby and clown pair respectively. I decided to keep the sand during the move in order to preserve bacteria but it ended up causing a very slight ammonia spike that quickly disappeared overnight.

I will send pictures of the tank once everything has settled down and the lights turn on. So far though there are no casualties that I can see and everything is well. My only issue is that I had to flip the tank so My flow is off and will need to be played with to get it right again.

Glad to hear the move went smooth! Goodluck on the college adventure. I'm going back to college soon aswell.

 

[DirectCherry]

Glad to hear the move went smoothly! Looking forward to following your journey!

 

[_cpate3_]

 

[AyoItsRocco]

Dope setup! That tank fits perfectly in there.

 

[_cpate3_]

Here’s some recent pictures of everyone!

Did a bunch of research on hardy Acroporas and found the PC Rainbow Acro, changes colors with lower lighting levels and grows relatively fast. Sign me up!!! My first time trying it out and luckily if all goes wrong I’m not out too much cash and hopefully the fact it is hardy will help me figure things out with my first SPS!

Any tips would be helpful since this is my first one and how to get some growth on this!

 

[_cpate3_]

2 weeks after moving in and so far so good!

Only had 1 casualty being my anemone crab. This is the 2nd one that has unexpectedly died in my tank. Every other invert is thriving (including the pistol shrimp I added day one) so I’m just going to stop trying on the porcelain crabs.

Having some trouble getting my Alk stable which is causing some problems with my newly acquired acros, but the LPS corals seem to be doing ok and are more open now then they’ve ever been. I make sure it is at 9dkh before a water change, and then it seems to drop and sit at around 4dkh throughout the week.

My rocks are starting to turn green so next week I’m going to try my hand at growing coralline algae (I started with dry rock) and seeing if it’ll get a hold.

On the brighter side, the frogspawn I added about a month ago is in the process of splitting heads which is super cool to see. The pistol shrimp is larger every time I see it (once a week if I’m lucky lol). And we have a new member!

I was heartbroken after my fire shrimp Jonas randomly died almost 2 months ago. So I added another skunk cleaner shrimp (not a fire shrimp because that would’ve hurt my wallet) and it has “hosted” my frogspawn sitting under the tentacles all day!

 

[AyoItsRocco]

2 weeks after moving in and so far so good!

Only had 1 casualty being my anemone crab. This is the 2nd one that has unexpectedly died in my tank. Every other invert is thriving (including the pistol shrimp I added day one) so I’m just going to stop trying on the porcelain crabs.

Having some trouble getting my Alk stable which is causing some problems with my newly acquired acros, but the LPS corals seem to be doing ok and are more open now then they’ve ever been. I make sure it is at 9dkh before a water change, and then it seems to drop and sit at around 4dkh throughout the week.

My rocks are starting to turn green so next week I’m going to try my hand at growing coralline algae (I started with dry rock) and seeing if it’ll get a hold.

On the brighter side, the frogspawn I added about a month ago is in the process of splitting heads which is super cool to see. The pistol shrimp is larger every time I see it (once a week if I’m lucky lol). And we have a new member!

I was heartbroken after my fire shrimp Jonas randomly died almost 2 months ago. So I added another skunk cleaner shrimp (not a fire shrimp because that would’ve hurt my wallet) and it has “hosted” my frogspawn sitting under the tentacles all day!

Unfortunately thats just part of reefing, win some lose some. Glad everything else is thriving!

 

[_cpate3_]

Good afternoon everyone hope you’re having a fine day!

I know I sure am because my tank is still doing good despite forgetting to do a water change and forgetting to replace my 5 month old carbon lol.

Thanks to the kindness of @James Bardwell who helped my tank looks amazing with some new corals and advice he supplied me with. I’m still amazed at this community every day and how well people help eachother. It truly is one of the wonders of this hobby!

Anyway back to the reason you’re all here for an Update!!!

I have added a red montipora, purple and green stag horns, as well as a hammer coral to my tank! Oh and don’t forget the BTA! Everything except the purple stag seem to be doing great! My frogspawn I believe has finished splitting its head and is massive.

Recent issues have been diatoms in the sandbed which I have a great sandbed team that wasn’t doing its job until one night I woke up to a perfectly clean sandbed! Another issue is that I have a cyphastrea on the way out due to poor placement as a noob. But just another learning curve! I also battling Zoa eating nudibranchs, I kill one, and then 5 more seem to come back. So not sure how long that’ll last but whatever it’s an easy problem.

My newest project I am looking forward to is keeping 1 (or a pair) of ruby red dragonets in a nano tank by getting them on frozen foods and even pellets. This is a far fetched dream but someday I hope for it to be a reality that will lead to the keeping of a mandarin.

And finally some pictures!

 

[rahger]

This is one cool little tank, I wish I had the guts to set a nano up in college.

 

[_cpate3_]

This is one cool little tank, I wish I had the guts to set a nano up in college.

The logistics of it were the hardest part. And nanos are easy as long as you do water changes!!! I definitely have a huge bio load with 3 fish a bunch of corals and inverts, but it’s definitely manageable

 

[AyoItsRocco]

Awesome as always!

 

[rahger]

The logistics of it were the hardest part. And nanos are easy as long as you do water changes!!! I definitely have a huge bio load with 3 fish a bunch of corals and inverts, but it’s definitely manageable

i remember my first 10g. It woulda been a great dorm tank, but I decided to keep it at home.
I'm glad you can manage it! Can't wait to see more.

 

[DirectCherry]

Glad the tank is doing well and thanks for the update! I'd love to see a full tank shot if you can snap one!

 

[_cpate3_]

Unfortunate event…

I went home for the weekend and came back to my BTA anemone in pieces around my tank and filter. So the one time I decided to leave it decided that was the time to walk into the powerhead. Luckily nothing else was harmed but still a sad day. It was a gorgeous anemone but lesson learned, get a nem guard!

 

[rahger]

if it can happen...

sad to hear though. hopefully nothing gets too stressed from the nem suicide.

 

[_cpate3_]

if it can happen...

sad to hear though. hopefully nothing gets too stressed from the nem suicide.

It’s been 2 days since the incident and everyone seems fine so far, I also just replaced my filter media so they’re happy with good water quality

 

[_cpate3_]

Glad the tank is doing well and thanks for the update! I'd love to see a full tank shot if you can snap one!

There’s some areas I would like to flesh out a little more, but instead of adding new ones I’m going to let the ones I have grow out except for the bottom left of the arch I’m going to put my pipe organ or a new coral there

 

[_cpate3_]

Good news! I see tons of pods on my glass and I didn’t even add them! Very happy that they are repopulating and thriving in my tank without having the cost of them. I am kind of stuck and need some help deciding my next steps. My tank is as healthy as can be (obviously not perfect), but I have had success (so far lol) with fish, inverts, soft corals, Lps and a few SPS corals that are starting to base out and show growth. I am definitely not bored of the hobby as I know that I’ll fall into multiple tank syndrome soon and get to start anew! Basically I am wondering what people do when their tank is pretty much full or close to it and how do you keep the spark alive while maintaining! I am mostly excited to see the tank fully established and covered in corals come a year or so. If there’s one lesson from this tank it’s that I went way too fast and didn’t appreciate the process and just wanted the end result which doesn’t really work out too well in this hobby. I would say my first tank is successful so far and I can’t wait to see what it develops into. I will be posting updates less frequently as there is not much to update on at this point. Thank you all for sticking with me in my first ever feeding journey! Hopefully I’ll have a new build thread to work on soon