First Reef Tank - 2mo checkpoint (wild ride!)

[alexisawerewolf]

I'm coming into the 3rd month of having started this saltwater aquarium that was converted from a Fluval Flex 15gal AIO. I was originally thinking it would be a freshwater dwarf cichlid tank, but at the time I was also seeing youtube videos about nano saltwater tanks. Once I installed the blue backdrop I just suddenly had a desire to try saltwater. I didn't know anything about exactly how to start at the time, but I went and bought a bag of Instant Ocean salt and a refractometer right away. I already had RODI squared away from keeping my freshwater aquariums and raising shrimp, so it wasn't a huge investment to make. The Fluval Flex was donated by a friend who was moving out of town, and I had a spare Sicca Silent pump that was too powerful under normal circumstances anyway. I put a ball valve on the return pump, added an entire 20lb bag of CaribSea Fiji pink live sand, and a collection of live reef rocks from the lfs.

My initial thought was to speed up the tank cycling by using the live sand, and live rock, and also adding macro algaes. There was originally grape caulerpa, chaeto macro algae, a mermaid fan, and a couple others. During the first week I added 2 snails, 2 red-legged, and 2 blue-legged hermit crabs. It went through a brief phase of diatoms, then brown algae, hair algae, and green algae.

I've managed to keep nitrates under 10ppm, and started phosNet to bring phosphates to 0.08. The major struggle thus far has been lighting, and getting used to the very slow process of acclimating corals to their new environment. I rented a PAR meter and set the sandbed to roughly 100 and the top of the highest rock to 250. This level of light however, within a week had began bleaching my hollywood stunner chalice, killed a stylo, and caused problems with some of my zoas.

I didn't know what went wrong and I thought that maybe the meter was miscalibrated. But the meter was fine (recently calibrated Apogee). So I recently, just in the past 2 or 3 weeks now, have been dialing the light back further and further. I don't know what the level on the sandbed is now, but the level just below the water is below 200 PAR. I'm now watching what the corals are doing, rather than doing PAR measurements. I can tell you that I saved good sized frags from the chalice, and that it's now growing again, and the zoa polyps are opening up.

I think it will be another week before I change the settings, but from now on it will be very very gradual changes. The only SPS in the tank thus far is the yellow birdsnest coral. It's seemed fine with higher levels of light, but it's just as happy with it set lower too. The birdsnest is pretty much my favorite of the bunch, but it's unfortunately taken the most abuse from my hand breaking one or two of the stems.

On the topic of water parameters - I did an ATI ICP test and found low levels of iron, manganese, and molybdenum. So I decided to try switching to Instant Ocean Reef Crystals for a partial water change. I noticed a difference right away, and found that the zoa's opened and colored up more. The only problem I'm having with IO is that the KH is very high, and I'd like to lower the alkalinity to avoid harming any animals. I have a Royal Gramma and I worry that the high KH might be irritating her since it's reading over 12 at this point. I'm waiting on sodium bisulfate so that I can slowly dilute the alkalinity down.

I have been dosing All for Reef, and since switching to Reef Crystals the dose has been lowered. I also figured out that I can lower the alkalinity a little by carefully lowering the salinity. I've brought it from 1.026 down to 1.024 over the past week.

So yeah, that's been my experience so far. It's been so hecking stressful getting to this point too. I'm only now beginning to feel that I'm not going to kill more corals and have to start over!

Oh! Oh yeah.. AND there was this HUGE bristleworm that was hidden in one of the rocks. I caught it out at one feeding and decided it was too much. I globbed a bunch of superglue over several of the holes where they were coming from. lol

 

[JumboShrimp]

Seems like you jumped in with both feet, and are doing terrific!

 

[MiltonMMLN]

You’ve actually done a lot of things right here — especially catching on to the light acclimation issue and adjusting based on coral behavior rather than just PAR readings. Many of us have learned that lesson the hard way, and your corals bouncing back is a great sign you’re on the right track.

A few thoughts going forward:
1. Lighting

• Keep changes slow — even 5–10% adjustments once every week or two is plenty.
• Continue using coral extension/color as your main feedback. Birdsnest tolerates more, but your LPS/zoas will tell you quickly if it’s too much.

2. Reef Crystals & KH

• Reef Crystals is richer in trace elements, which explains the improvement you saw after switching.
• The high KH is normal for this salt. Lowering salinity slowly, as you’ve done, is safe; sodium bisulfate works too, but go slow to avoid shocking corals/fish.
• Once KH is in your target range, you may be able to reduce All for Reef dosing even further.

3. Stability mindset

• You’re at that “turning point” where it’s tempting to tinker less, and that’s a good thing. Stability > constant changes.
• Any future additions (corals or fish) — add one at a time, and give 2–3 weeks to let the system re-balance.

4. The bristleworm

• Unless they’re huge and truly problematic (like yours sounded), most bristleworms are great clean-up crew. Removing a giant is fine, but the smaller ones help your tank.

It’s stressful in the first few months, but you’ve already handled several common pitfalls and learned from them. If you keep your changes slow and steady, I think you’ll find the next 3 months much smoother than the first 3.

I hope the coming days, months, and years are good for you, with as few losses as possible. I'm glad that, despite the difficulties, you were able to overcome the problem and seek solutions in the best possible way to provide comfort to the animals.

 

[alexisawerewolf]

You’ve actually done a lot of things right here — especially catching on to the light acclimation issue and adjusting based on coral behavior rather than just PAR readings. Many of us have learned that lesson the hard way, and your corals bouncing back is a great sign you’re on the right track.

A few thoughts going forward:
1. Lighting

• Keep changes slow — even 5–10% adjustments once every week or two is plenty.
• Continue using coral extension/color as your main feedback. Birdsnest tolerates more, but your LPS/zoas will tell you quickly if it’s too much.

2. Reef Crystals & KH

• Reef Crystals is richer in trace elements, which explains the improvement you saw after switching.
• The high KH is normal for this salt. Lowering salinity slowly, as you’ve done, is safe; sodium bisulfate works too, but go slow to avoid shocking corals/fish.
• Once KH is in your target range, you may be able to reduce All for Reef dosing even further.

3. Stability mindset

• You’re at that “turning point” where it’s tempting to tinker less, and that’s a good thing. Stability > constant changes.
• Any future additions (corals or fish) — add one at a time, and give 2–3 weeks to let the system re-balance.

4. The bristleworm

• Unless they’re huge and truly problematic (like yours sounded), most bristleworms are great clean-up crew. Removing a giant is fine, but the smaller ones help your tank.

It’s stressful in the first few months, but you’ve already handled several common pitfalls and learned from them. If you keep your changes slow and steady, I think you’ll find the next 3 months much smoother than the first 3.

I hope the coming days, months, and years are good for you, with as few losses as possible. I'm glad that, despite the difficulties, you were able to overcome the problem and seek solutions in the best possible way to provide comfort to the animals.

Thanks so much for the feedback and encouraging words. I'm thrilled with the hobby so far. They are all such alien creatures to me compared to freshwater. The diversity and biological system is so interesting! Seems like a wonderful and welcoming community, too.

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

Welcome to Reef2Reef

 

[BryanM]

I'm coming into the 3rd month of having started this saltwater aquarium that was converted from a Fluval Flex 15gal AIO. I was originally thinking it would be a freshwater dwarf cichlid tank, but at the time I was also seeing youtube videos about nano saltwater tanks. Once I installed the blue backdrop I just suddenly had a desire to try saltwater. I didn't know anything about exactly how to start at the time, but I went and bought a bag of Instant Ocean salt and a refractometer right away. I already had RODI squared away from keeping my freshwater aquariums and raising shrimp, so it wasn't a huge investment to make. The Fluval Flex was donated by a friend who was moving out of town, and I had a spare Sicca Silent pump that was too powerful under normal circumstances anyway. I put a ball valve on the return pump, added an entire 20lb bag of CaribSea Fiji pink live sand, and a collection of live reef rocks from the lfs.

My initial thought was to speed up the tank cycling by using the live sand, and live rock, and also adding macro algaes. There was originally grape caulerpa, chaeto macro algae, a mermaid fan, and a couple others. During the first week I added 2 snails, 2 red-legged, and 2 blue-legged hermit crabs. It went through a brief phase of diatoms, then brown algae, hair algae, and green algae.

I've managed to keep nitrates under 10ppm, and started phosNet to bring phosphates to 0.08. The major struggle thus far has been lighting, and getting used to the very slow process of acclimating corals to their new environment. I rented a PAR meter and set the sandbed to roughly 100 and the top of the highest rock to 250. This level of light however, within a week had began bleaching my hollywood stunner chalice, killed a stylo, and caused problems with some of my zoas.

I didn't know what went wrong and I thought that maybe the meter was miscalibrated. But the meter was fine (recently calibrated Apogee). So I recently, just in the past 2 or 3 weeks now, have been dialing the light back further and further. I don't know what the level on the sandbed is now, but the level just below the water is below 200 PAR. I'm now watching what the corals are doing, rather than doing PAR measurements. I can tell you that I saved good sized frags from the chalice, and that it's now growing again, and the zoa polyps are opening up.

I think it will be another week before I change the settings, but from now on it will be very very gradual changes. The only SPS in the tank thus far is the yellow birdsnest coral. It's seemed fine with higher levels of light, but it's just as happy with it set lower too. The birdsnest is pretty much my favorite of the bunch, but it's unfortunately taken the most abuse from my hand breaking one or two of the stems.

On the topic of water parameters - I did an ATI ICP test and found low levels of iron, manganese, and molybdenum. So I decided to try switching to Instant Ocean Reef Crystals for a partial water change. I noticed a difference right away, and found that the zoa's opened and colored up more. The only problem I'm having with IO is that the KH is very high, and I'd like to lower the alkalinity to avoid harming any animals. I have a Royal Gramma and I worry that the high KH might be irritating her since it's reading over 12 at this point. I'm waiting on sodium bisulfate so that I can slowly dilute the alkalinity down.

I have been dosing All for Reef, and since switching to Reef Crystals the dose has been lowered. I also figured out that I can lower the alkalinity a little by carefully lowering the salinity. I've brought it from 1.026 down to 1.024 over the past week.

So yeah, that's been my experience so far. It's been so hecking stressful getting to this point too. I'm only now beginning to feel that I'm not going to kill more corals and have to start over!

Oh! Oh yeah.. AND there was this HUGE bristleworm that was hidden in one of the rocks. I caught it out at one feeding and decided it was too much. I globbed a bunch of superglue over several of the holes where they were coming from. lol

Tank looks great!

 

[alexisawerewolf]

I'm coming into the 3rd month of having started this saltwater aquarium that was converted from a Fluval Flex 15gal AIO. I was originally thinking it would be a freshwater dwarf cichlid tank, but at the time I was also seeing youtube videos about nano saltwater tanks. Once I installed the blue backdrop I just suddenly had a desire to try saltwater. I didn't know anything about exactly how to start at the time, but I went and bought a bag of Instant Ocean salt and a refractometer right away. I already had RODI squared away from keeping my freshwater aquariums and raising shrimp, so it wasn't a huge investment to make. The Fluval Flex was donated by a friend who was moving out of town, and I had a spare Sicca Silent pump that was too powerful under normal circumstances anyway. I put a ball valve on the return pump, added an entire 20lb bag of CaribSea Fiji pink live sand, and a collection of live reef rocks from the lfs.

My initial thought was to speed up the tank cycling by using the live sand, and live rock, and also adding macro algaes. There was originally grape caulerpa, chaeto macro algae, a mermaid fan, and a couple others. During the first week I added 2 snails, 2 red-legged, and 2 blue-legged hermit crabs. It went through a brief phase of diatoms, then brown algae, hair algae, and green algae.

I've managed to keep nitrates under 10ppm, and started phosNet to bring phosphates to 0.08. The major struggle thus far has been lighting, and getting used to the very slow process of acclimating corals to their new environment. I rented a PAR meter and set the sandbed to roughly 100 and the top of the highest rock to 250. This level of light however, within a week had began bleaching my hollywood stunner chalice, killed a stylo, and caused problems with some of my zoas.

I didn't know what went wrong and I thought that maybe the meter was miscalibrated. But the meter was fine (recently calibrated Apogee). So I recently, just in the past 2 or 3 weeks now, have been dialing the light back further and further. I don't know what the level on the sandbed is now, but the level just below the water is below 200 PAR. I'm now watching what the corals are doing, rather than doing PAR measurements. I can tell you that I saved good sized frags from the chalice, and that it's now growing again, and the zoa polyps are opening up.

I think it will be another week before I change the settings, but from now on it will be very very gradual changes. The only SPS in the tank thus far is the yellow birdsnest coral. It's seemed fine with higher levels of light, but it's just as happy with it set lower too. The birdsnest is pretty much my favorite of the bunch, but it's unfortunately taken the most abuse from my hand breaking one or two of the stems.

On the topic of water parameters - I did an ATI ICP test and found low levels of iron, manganese, and molybdenum. So I decided to try switching to Instant Ocean Reef Crystals for a partial water change. I noticed a difference right away, and found that the zoa's opened and colored up more. The only problem I'm having with IO is that the KH is very high, and I'd like to lower the alkalinity to avoid harming any animals. I have a Royal Gramma and I worry that the high KH might be irritating her since it's reading over 12 at this point. I'm waiting on sodium bisulfate so that I can slowly dilute the alkalinity down.

I have been dosing All for Reef, and since switching to Reef Crystals the dose has been lowered. I also figured out that I can lower the alkalinity a little by carefully lowering the salinity. I've brought it from 1.026 down to 1.024 over the past week.

So yeah, that's been my experience so far. It's been so hecking stressful getting to this point too. I'm only now beginning to feel that I'm not going to kill more corals and have to start over!

Oh! Oh yeah.. AND there was this HUGE bristleworm that was hidden in one of the rocks. I caught it out at one feeding and decided it was too much. I globbed a bunch of superglue over several of the holes where they were coming from. lol

Tank looks great!

Thank you! I'm thinking of making a few small changes but so far i like it.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I'm coming into the 3rd month of having started this saltwater aquarium that was converted from a Fluval Flex 15gal AIO. I was originally thinking it would be a freshwater dwarf cichlid tank, but at the time I was also seeing youtube videos about nano saltwater tanks. Once I installed the blue backdrop I just suddenly had a desire to try saltwater. I didn't know anything about exactly how to start at the time, but I went and bought a bag of Instant Ocean salt and a refractometer right away. I already had RODI squared away from keeping my freshwater aquariums and raising shrimp, so it wasn't a huge investment to make. The Fluval Flex was donated by a friend who was moving out of town, and I had a spare Sicca Silent pump that was too powerful under normal circumstances anyway. I put a ball valve on the return pump, added an entire 20lb bag of CaribSea Fiji pink live sand, and a collection of live reef rocks from the lfs.

My initial thought was to speed up the tank cycling by using the live sand, and live rock, and also adding macro algaes. There was originally grape caulerpa, chaeto macro algae, a mermaid fan, and a couple others. During the first week I added 2 snails, 2 red-legged, and 2 blue-legged hermit crabs. It went through a brief phase of diatoms, then brown algae, hair algae, and green algae.

I've managed to keep nitrates under 10ppm, and started phosNet to bring phosphates to 0.08. The major struggle thus far has been lighting, and getting used to the very slow process of acclimating corals to their new environment. I rented a PAR meter and set the sandbed to roughly 100 and the top of the highest rock to 250. This level of light however, within a week had began bleaching my hollywood stunner chalice, killed a stylo, and caused problems with some of my zoas.

I didn't know what went wrong and I thought that maybe the meter was miscalibrated. But the meter was fine (recently calibrated Apogee). So I recently, just in the past 2 or 3 weeks now, have been dialing the light back further and further. I don't know what the level on the sandbed is now, but the level just below the water is below 200 PAR. I'm now watching what the corals are doing, rather than doing PAR measurements. I can tell you that I saved good sized frags from the chalice, and that it's now growing again, and the zoa polyps are opening up.

I think it will be another week before I change the settings, but from now on it will be very very gradual changes. The only SPS in the tank thus far is the yellow birdsnest coral. It's seemed fine with higher levels of light, but it's just as happy with it set lower too. The birdsnest is pretty much my favorite of the bunch, but it's unfortunately taken the most abuse from my hand breaking one or two of the stems.

On the topic of water parameters - I did an ATI ICP test and found low levels of iron, manganese, and molybdenum. So I decided to try switching to Instant Ocean Reef Crystals for a partial water change. I noticed a difference right away, and found that the zoa's opened and colored up more. The only problem I'm having with IO is that the KH is very high, and I'd like to lower the alkalinity to avoid harming any animals. I have a Royal Gramma and I worry that the high KH might be irritating her since it's reading over 12 at this point. I'm waiting on sodium bisulfate so that I can slowly dilute the alkalinity down.

I have been dosing All for Reef, and since switching to Reef Crystals the dose has been lowered. I also figured out that I can lower the alkalinity a little by carefully lowering the salinity. I've brought it from 1.026 down to 1.024 over the past week.

So yeah, that's been my experience so far. It's been so hecking stressful getting to this point too. I'm only now beginning to feel that I'm not going to kill more corals and have to start over!

Oh! Oh yeah.. AND there was this HUGE bristleworm that was hidden in one of the rocks. I caught it out at one feeding and decided it was too much. I globbed a bunch of superglue over several of the holes where they were coming from. lol

Your tank is looking great!