First reef Tank...and Second at the same time

[onejob]

I've got two reasons for creating this build thread. One is some where for me to capture all the lessons I've learned along the way. Which there has been lots. The other is to show that this isn't an impossible task to build a reef tank. This build is very much a team effort between me and my wife. We have been looking at reef tanks for a long time now and honestly been scared of doing by how difficult it appears to be.

Historically we have not had good luck with fish. Over the years we have attempted a few times with freshwater fish, then tropical fish. Looking back our failures in the past have simply been not understanding the nitrogen cycle (or even being aware that it was a thing). Last year we were gifted a 3 Foot tank that we turned into a functioning planted tropical tank. It's been running for 18 months now and I would say it is thriving. This has given us the confidence to have a crack at a mixed reef tank.

This is kind of a long thread...follows about the first 3 months of our setup. Just like our tropical tank this started with a gifted tank. A Fluvo Evo 52l.

Based on our previous experience with "free" tanks, our last free tank, by the time we replaced everything we needed to, ended up costing more than a brand new, larger and much nicer tank, we decided to just go out and buy a new tank. We bought an Aquaone Mini reef 160.

Straight away upgraded the skimmer from the standard aquaone that came with it. Chose the GW-5 skimmer. Been running a few months now with no issues. Only trouble is the sump water level probably sits a little high on the skimmer but it still seems to work. I did consider making a stand and even bought some eggcrate to raise it up...Just haven't really had the need to so I've left it. Pic below is the sump after plumbed in with no water. Skimmer came out when I filled it and went back in after it was cycled.

Kept standard lights that came with it...but that's going to change pretty soon.

Setup was simple enough the aqua one is pretty basic (=simple) in terms of sump. Added 1 20kg bag of Crushed coral base and about 20kg of caribsea life rock. Messed around with the aquascape for about 4 days on and off, both in and out of the tank.

The last pic is roughly what it looks like now. As you can see rock spent a little time in there with water before we added the sand. It was about a week just because we couldn't get our hands on any sand and didn't want to wait to fill it. Again scape changed a couple of times and had pretty much a full re-scape when the sand was added. None of the rock is glued, carefully placed to be structurally sound as possible without gluing anything.

We filled it with NSW and have been doing water changes with NSW since starting it.

Skimmer didn't go in straight away- Did roughly a 4 week fishless cycle, started it with a dead prawn, no bacteria added just natural cycle. Being our first reef tank I followed the cycle pretty closely testing Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate every 2-3 days. Took about a week for nitrite to show up, about two weeks for ammonia to hit zero, then a week after ammonia hit zero nitrite hit zero. Nitrates started showing up pretty much the same time as nitrite. Skimmer went in when Nitrite hit zero and ran for about a week before we added any stock.

No prizes for guessing our first fish. Pair of clowns...

First lot of corals went in pretty soon after. They were throw outs from our closest lfs. Scolly was really unhappy with a fair chunk of skeleton exposed. You can't quite see it in the pic below because of the lighting. Blasto had a few exposed skeletons as well but it has grown out of sight since it's been in.

Fungia Plate didn't make it... Blasto has nearly doubled in size since being in, Scolly and Lobo have really perked up in colour. Both were pretty unhappy in the LFS. They seem to be getting along fine now. I've been spot feeding them with Hikari Coralific Delight since they went in and they are all seem to be eating like crazy and growing.

Another thing I had heard was harder was water changes and tank maintenance. I've actually found water changes to be easier with this tank than my tropical. The photo above is mid water change. Basically all I've done is take the pump out of my ato and drop it in a drum of NSW. Then I syphon into a bucket. Tops up as it goes, no tipping buckets in. Yes I'm not vacuuming my sand, the plan is to have enough of the right kind of clean up crew to avoid having to do that. So far it's working. CUC I think I'll talk about in the next post.

So I haven't done everything perfect. There was some aptasia on the plugs of the scolly when it went in. the 3 peppermint shrimp I added seem to have taken care of that. I haven't dipped or quarantined anything that has gone in. I think I'll stop this post here and create a new one for the next stage. This kind of covers the tank up to it's first lot of fish and corals and first water changes.

Next post will be the next lot of corals and our next fish. Any guesses on what went in next?

 

[onejob]

So for a second post I'm going to go into the Fluval Evo we were given. We initially decided not to set it up and go for a new tank. However with it only being 50l and using NSW that is costing us nothing for the sake of a couple of pieces of rock, some sand and free water, we decided to fill it.

Took the same cycling process. Dead prawn, no bacteria added and let it run. It took about 2 weeks longer to cycle than the larger tank. After some reading I decided to take the prawn out after 4 weeks. The tank then sat for another 4-5 weeks before we decided to put something in it.

The tank has no light, no skimmer, just the fluval return pump and some floss to filter.

This is where this tank gets interesting. I understand that there are certain things that are pretty much understood to not do in reefing. One of those is adding certain livestock to newly cycled tanks. This is one point where my wife's new found confidence in reef keeping was somewhat misplaced. We visited our lfs. In the shop was a quite nice looking RBTA. My wife can be somewhat impulsive, and she figured I could just make it work. We walk out with a pair of Mocha clowns and a $600 RBTA. Oh yeah and a redsea 50HD light to go over the tank, and a skimmer to go in it.

Previously the tank was just the Fluval return pump and some floss for filter. $1300 later we have two Mocha clowns, a RBTA and redsea 50 light and a skimmer. The "free" tank just cost in 2 hours more than our brand new tank...

High points here, this is well and truly the most we have ever spent on livestock for any fish tank ever...$800 for the clowns and nem, and then put them in a newly cycled tank as the first things to go in. It's a recipe for disaster.

I knew this was a bad idea, my wife didn't care. she liked the bright red nem with the mocha clowns and the white rock in the tank. Which to be honest does look amazing, I can't get a decent photo still trying to work out how to take photos with all the blue but I'll get it eventually.

Keeping in line with my testing regime I used when cycling I was actually testing this tank twice daily once the nem and clowns went it. Good thing to. Had a nitrite spike. Started 12 hours after fish going in. I'm not surprised, there had been nothing in the tank for a few weeks after cycling, I'd taken the prawn out I used to cycle and wasn't ghost feeding. I was expecting it so was readyish. Nitrite hit 0.2 in 12 hours and peaked at 0.5 24 hrs after adding. I did water changes, added seachem stability and prime and took some of the biomedia balls out of the other tank (previously had none in there). Nitrite gone within 36 hours and has been all good since.

Clowns and Nem are all good.

However the Nem has failed to settle in the tank and has been moving every night. Usually just to different places on the rock. I haven't been sleeping an aweful lot and have been getting up multiple times through the night to check on it. One night I moved it off the back wall, looked to be working it's way towards the overflow. One night it did find it's way into the overflow. I woke at 4am and checked the nem as I've come accustomed to doing.

I wish I had photos but wasn't the first thing that popped to mind. Nem had completely blocked the overflow, return pump had overflowed the tank. So water all over the floor and cabinet the tank is on. The tank temp, because the heater was no longer in the water, was 19. Clowns were pretty motionless on bottom of tank.

Pretty much the worst case scenario.

Emergency water change- took out another 20% and topped up with warm water out of the other tank. got temp back up to 23. Fish and Nem have recovered and doing well. Heater is now in the DT under the overflow in the hope that 1. The nem actually can't get to the overflow with the heater there 2. If it does at lease the temp won't drop in the tank.

So 3 weeks later Nem and fish are doing fine...Tank is running without a skimmer. Levels are stable. Weekly water changes are keeping nitrate below 5. PH 8.2 Alk 9. I'm not testing anything else at the moment.

Nem has mostly settled kind of found it's home under the rock and fish are starting to play with the nem. They aren't hosting in it but they are scooting around it and rubbing against it from time to time. Found the larger of the clowns sucking on one of it's tentacles.

Lesson: It was a bad idea, it's been challenging and stressful. Both clowns and nem are doing well. I think it's going to be OK. It hasn't been easy and I definitely wouldn't do it again.

Just some pics of the clowns and nem

The red sea LED 50- Seems like a great light. The colour difference we are seeing between this tank and our other tank with the aquaone mariglow lights on it is unbelievable. Can't say what the difference is in coral growth but aesthetically it's significantly better.

As for the light levels for the nem, I've wound it back to around 30% power and nem seems to have settled. at 80-100% blues it was really unsettled. With the lights wound way down it seems to be more content. It was going out of it's way to hide under the cave so I figured it was looking for "shade". I've put the light on a 60 day acclimation mode so it is slowly ramping back up. The plan is that when the nem starts to go looking for shade again I'll stop it and that's the level I'll leave the light at.

Oh yeah had a minor cyano outbreak as well. No big deal, water change, vacuum it off the sand. Nitrates now stable <10, hasn't come back.

 

[onejob]

I know this is the third post to this thread in one day, give me a break I've got about 3 months of two new tanks to catch up on.

Second lot of corals and wavemaker in the big tank. They've become affectionately known in our house as the big and little tank. Little tank is 52l (13.5g) Big tank is 160l (42g). Yes they are both little tanks.

So after success with adding a pair of clowns and a couple of corals it was time to add some more. Selection of these was purely based on cost and look. Ended up with
1 Goni
1 Elegance
1 Hammer.

Also adding the new coral meant it was probably time to think about flow in the tank. After some careful consideration a red see reefwave 25 was our choice.

It works a treat and gives a pretty good flow around the tank. Only thing that bugged me was when I set it on Random Wave it would quite often do a 10% power wave...which isn't quite enough. Somewhere between 30 and 70% seems good in the tank. To get around it I've gone with a stepped flow. 3 steps upto 70%. So I get a 20 60 and 70% flow rates. Works a treat.

Placing corals for best flow Vs adjusting flow rate on wavemaker.

So there was several hours of playing with coral position and wavemaker to get flow right. Priority wise we placed corals where we wanted them and then adjusted wavemaker to get the flow that looked right in their positions. Where we couldn't get the flow right in a certain position we moved the coral and tried again. So far seems to be working. Hammer and Elly have nearly double in size since going in. Goni has probably 3 new stems on it. So everything seems happy.

And it was also time for next fish. All right I'll admit that this whole reefing thing in our house started because of Nemo and Dory. It was always the goal to have Nemo and Dory in the same tank. F*#k the police. Tang police can jump all over this for all I care. I have a Blue tang in a 40G tank...Yes I know I will need to rehome, yes I know it will probably get Ich (that's a whole other post to come). But it was always going to happen and we knew what we were getting in to. And would do it again if we started over so pfffft.

So Dory had a rather stressful introduction to our tank. Or rather a rather stressful extraction from the tank at the LFS. As soon as the net went in to get her out she disappeared into a hole in the rock and refused to come out. Re-enforcements called in, rock attacked with cutters to break the hole open...no go. Our suggestion to the staff, we are in no hurry, we'll keep looking around. Leave her alone, wait until she comes out and take out the rock. So after 20 mins of trying to get her out of the rock, another 30 min waiting for her to come out we finally got her out.

So we bought home one stressed out blue tang. As soon as she got into our tank she ended up finding a hole to get into and was not coming out.

After 24hrs she settled and eating and happy in the tank. She still loves her hole though. It has become her bed. Every night at lights out she heads in and goes to sleep. When the lights come on in the morning she's back out. Most character in any fish I've had so far.

In case you are wondering, no none of the stock that has gone into this tank has been quarantined, corals have not been dipped. Bad idea? Probably. But reality is we don't have a QT setup. Yes probably could have used the fluval as a QT. In hindsight that would have been a better use of it rather than throwing $800 worth of Nem and fish into it.

Next post I'll go into a minor Ich problem with Dory and how we have over come it and our plan to manage into the future.