First marine tank: Mini Reef 160

[cookerynook]

This tank started cycling in December 2022 only a few weeks after being purchased second hand. After wanting to set up a marine tank since 2020, I finally took the plunge. I had only kept a few tiny freshwater tanks before this so this was my first attempt at keeping a 'big' tank.
I took photos along the way, capturing the journey, which I will upload here to bring the thread up to speed with the present day.

There have been a lot of problems, and I slowly bought equipment and implemented strategies as I learnt more instead of having everything ready in the beginning. This was due no small part to lack of funds, I'm a uni student who is dedicating much more money than I ought to on a hobby, but I love it so much and I believe I'm at the stage where I have bought the vast vast majority of the hardware necessary.

My goal was to set up an sps dominated reef, and still is. I believe my tank has matured enough by now to support this kind of system, so I hope it is just waiting for me to 'figure it out', and strike the balance to allow the corals to take off.

This is the most recent image I have of my tank, taken on the 15/2/2024 I think. Just after I installed my new lights and the stand I built for them.

Once the thread is up to speed, hopefully I can ask some questions on here and get some advice moving forwards as I post what I'm doing.
Looking forward to the coming year with this tank.

 

[cookerynook]

The tank after scaping it and first filling it with water in December 2022. I filled it with rainwater from the house tap because I thought it would be pure enough lol. First mistake, but I seemed to get away with it. Definitely wouldn't do that again.

 

[cookerynook]

Torch begging for flow, I only had one small wavemaker at this point.

The first corals I added, a torch coral and a frag of Monti cap. The Monti I added way too early and it didn't do too well, going quite pale.
You can also see the algae problem already started in the tank, and remnants of the ugly phase. I live relatively close to the beach and had already done some water changes with fresh sea water, introducing a bunch of species into the tank.

 

[cookerynook]

Skipping into the future to late August 2023, I've added a bunch more corals and animals such as trochus snails, turbo snails, 2 nassarius snails, 2 cowrie snails, a strombus snail and a coral banded shrimp. I had added a bunch of fish but didn't have a quarantine system for them so they all went straight in the display. Eventually one I added had a disease of some kind and it spread to them all and I lost them. I'm about to set up a quarantine system so I can add more fish safely.

In late June I bought a versa dosing pump to continuously dose kalkwasser, so by the time these photos were taken coralline algae had finally established itself in the tank, I think due to a correcting influence on the pH by the kalk.

You can see the algae issue, my nutrient export really wasn't strong enough.

I bought a blue branch of wild caught acropora to add some coral volume to the tank. To this day it has grown only 1 new branch, but its much more intensely coloured than the rest of it.

 

[cookerynook]

In an effort to tackle the nutrient problem, I siphoned most of the sand from the aquarium. This was in early October 2023. I distinctly remember how dirty the water was in the buckets when I did this.

I also added another wild acro branch, I think it is a millepora.

 

[cookerynook]

For some reason it took me until December 2023 to figure out I really needed more flow. I bought a maxspect MJ-GF4k gyre to fix this.

Here's one of the cowrie snails sitting on it.

 

[cookerynook]

This month I decided I needed a lighting system better suited to growing sps corals, I researched and bought an ATI powermodule, 6x 39w bulbs. I wanted a hybrid system, particularly the ones by aquatic life but they're nearly impossible to get here in Australia at the moment.
I bought the light system and made a stand for it. I decided a wood one would be the easiest and quickest to build.

I was going to paint it black but I thought I didn't mind the wood look.