First reef tank - how hard could this be?

[psycjoe]

I don't really post on message boards/social media but reef2reef has been such a great learning tool over this 4 month journey that I had to post my experience in hopes that it might help one person out there...

My experience level: never had a fish tank in my life. In December 2022, YouTube recommended a BRS video. After a couple of weeks of binging on these videos I thought to myself "well this seems easy enough" and decided to tank the plunge.

Went to BRS to check prices on equipment and almost gave up on it right there. *cha-ching* My next strategy was to slowly accumulate equipment over time as not to be too much of a financial burden. Before ordering a 50 gallon tank, I decided to check craigslist and found a guy selling a Red Sea Max E-170 with the cabinet sump and a bunch of extra equipment for $900. Since he had the tank up and running, I thought this was my cheapest/best option to get started without getting ripped off with defective tank and without dropping thousands of dollars. Besides - who has patience to wait months collecting equipment before doing the build? I pulled the trigger and the day after Christmas brought all of the gear home.

Bought a 5-stage RO/DI system, Red Sea Coral Pro Salt, dry rock/sand, and a Dr. Tim's fishless cycle bundle from BRS. Spent the next few weeks putting the scape together and started the cycle 01/15/23.

Let the cycle begin...

Now by this time I've seen a few YouTube videos so I rated myself almost expert-level on reef tanks. I wasn't going to use the live rocks from the guy I bought the tank from because I didn't want to import his problems. My strategy was to start fresh with dry everything, throw some Dr. Tim's in and - boom - two weeks and I'm ready to put livestock in. I don't have that much patience but I told myself I could wait two weeks. Turns out - I was wrong on everything.

Mistake #1: I bought a Red Sea ammonia test kit. Followed the instructions on Dr. Tim's and it said if ammonia is 2ppm or less, re-dose ammonia. The test only goes up to 2ppm and I wasn't smart enough to think that >2ppm and 2ppm is going to be the same dark green color. So I kept dosing. Two weeks in and I was still the same dark green color. Found Reef2Reef and several discussions on "high ammonia" and "stalled cycle" with Dr. Tim's. Every discussion had the same recommendation "you need to be patient and let the cycle do its thing."

Mistake #2: I didn't follow the Reef2Reef community's recommendation. I did a 50% water change, bought an API test kit, and another bottle of Dr. Tim's. I started cycle attempt #2 only a couple weeks after the initial.

Mistake #3: Thinking I had the patience for this hobby. The cycle "broke my spirit" and really taught me a thing or two about patience. But, after much testing and forum reading, I finally completed my cycle in February. Ordered some clownfish from Cultivated Reef and added them plus two bottles of coralline algae on 2/23/23. I also added 5280 copepods from Algae Barn as well.

I started to see some brown stuff (diatoms) growing a couple weeks later so added a group of snails from ReefCleaners.org on 03/09/23. Rimless Snail Only Crew (25 Gallon) which includes 24 Dwarf Ceriths, 8 Nassarius, 10 Astraea, and 9 Florida Ceriths. A few of the snails didn't make the trip up from Florida to upstate NY and ReeflCleaners was great and issued a refund for the few snails that died.

Now I need to wait a few months for the tank to "mature" before adding coral. I've been training in patience for the past couple months so surely I could resist the urge to add corals too early....



*Spoiler Alert: I couldn't.

How can I tell when my take is ready to accept corals? Better throw some test corals in there to find out. WWC had a little sale going on so I bought a couple cheap corals - Muy Verde birdsnest, Green Star Polyp, Sour Grapes Chalice, and a Blue Polyp Montipora. The corals arrived 3/24/23 and I threw them in the tank.

That takes me through end of March. I'll post my updates for April later this week.

 

[srobertb]

Hi and welcome!

Cycles can be frustrating for sure. I’ve had tanks take 5 days (using gulfliverock) and tanks take a year (dry rock). I once, after getting bad advice, stunk up the whole house with 40 gallons of liquid death in a stalled cycle.

Congrats on finding a good deal too!

Looks like you have things going where you want. Keep in mind you should expect diatoms, cyano, and all sorts of interesting algae in the first year. The more light and bioload you have, the worse it will be. Let things happen naturally, focus on manual removal and not crutches and dumping in miracle cures and you’ll come out wiser and happy with a stable tank. You appear to still be in that magical “everything is normal and stable!” phase right before the “what’s that brown stuff on my rocks? Phase so stick with it.

I’ve made my share of patience-related mistakes; I’m sure you’re being hyperbolic but if not- please gently consider the idea that living creatures, even corals, are not test subjects. “I’m confident I’m ready for corals” sounds better than “I wonder if these things would live if I put them in here….” Then again, I’m old and it might be a little too early to bring out the soap box so I apologize.

 

[psycjoe]

Hi and welcome!

Cycles can be frustrating for sure. I’ve had tanks take 5 days (using gulfliverock) and tanks take a year (dry rock). I once, after getting bad advice, stunk up the whole house with 40 gallons of liquid death in a stalled cycle.

Congrats on finding a good deal too!

Looks like you have things going where you want. Keep in mind you should expect diatoms, cyano, and all sorts of interesting algae in the first year. The more light and bioload you have, the worse it will be. Let things happen naturally, focus on manual removal and not crutches and dumping in miracle cures and you’ll come out wiser and happy with a stable tank. You appear to still be in that magical “everything is normal and stable!” phase right before the “what’s that brown stuff on my rocks? Phase so stick with it.

I’ve made my share of patience-related mistakes; I’m sure you’re being hyperbolic but if not- please gently consider the idea that living creatures, even corals, are not test subjects. “I’m confident I’m ready for corals” sounds better than “I wonder if these things would live if I put them in here….” Then again, I’m old and it might be a little too early to bring out the soap box so I apologize.

Thanks, srobertb. I appreciate the candid feedback. I also agree that live animals are not and shouldn't be test subjects. Based on my research, it is safe to add corals after the nitrogen cycle is complete and after some algae blooms occur (though there seems to be no hard and fast rules on this). With my lack of patience, I waited for the diatoms to clear-up before ordering the corals. Based on my understanding, GSP is a great beginner coral since it's pretty hardy so my full intention was to start there but I couldn't resist spreading the shipping cost over a couple different "cheap" corals [my local reef store is about an hour away so I chose to get them shipped]. I'm fully expecting an algae bloom to blow up and thus have not glued any of the "test" corals to my scape.

I've seen/read a lot of "soap box" discussions on Reef2Reef and I think that's very important for experienced folks to beat their knowledge into noobs like myself. When i add my "April update" post, please feel free to remind me that I'm impatient and rushing the process.

 

[srobertb]

Thanks, srobertb. I appreciate the candid feedback. I also agree that live animals are not and shouldn't be test subjects. Based on my research, it is safe to add corals after the nitrogen cycle is complete and after some algae blooms occur (though there seems to be no hard and fast rules on this). With my lack of patience, I waited for the diatoms to clear-up before ordering the corals. Based on my understanding, GSP is a great beginner coral since it's pretty hardy so my full intention was to start there but I couldn't resist spreading the shipping cost over a couple different "cheap" corals [my local reef store is about an hour away so I chose to get them shipped]. I'm fully expecting an algae bloom to blow up and thus have not glued any of the "test" corals to my scape.

I've seen/read a lot of "soap box" discussions on Reef2Reef and I think that's very important for experienced folks to beat their knowledge into noobs like myself. When i add my "April update" post, please feel free to remind me that I'm impatient and rushing the process.

No worries. Watch that GSP. When I started out people would give it away for
free (and Xenia). Why? Because it becomes invasive- especially in high nutrient/newer systems. Then again, a rock covered in GSP is hypnotic. I’m sure your GSP will be fine!

You can and should add whatever you like when you’re confident. Sounds like based on research and time you believed you’re good to go. I was more speaking to the “my tank has been up for a week and I don’t see any ammonia. Let’s throw a fish/coral in there and see if it lives!” people.

I also buy a lot online as our coral and invert list has become very specific over the years. I admit my wife does most of the curating and sources things. My rule, especially for LPS and SPS is that the seller needs to run Radions (because I do). People discount the importance of light acclimation too frequently these days and this way I can skip it (see, I’m also impatient in ways too!)

We have a very poor selection of stores to buy coral from here but there is a large active FB group for buying and selling. I’d say there is 5-10 local home-business sellers who are decent human beings- a few of them can source things too. Check there if you haven’t.

 

[psycjoe]

Before I start on my updates from April, I wanted to highlight some other activities that I missed in the first post.

RO/DI: I'm currently using the BRS color changing DI resin. I was surprised at how quick I went through the first cartridge (not sure exact number of gallons but less than 100). Spent some time researching and learned about TDS creep. Now, when I'm done making water, I let the system flush for a few minutes. When I start the process up the next time, I continue to let the water flush and also pull the tube that comes off the RO filter after the TDS meter and before the DI canister. The TDS meter slowly spikes to >100 and then retreats back down to ~10. When it hits 10ish - I plug the tube back into the DI canister. Using this method, I don't burn through the resin as quick. I did add a second DI canister that I can rotate once the first canister is completely color changed and color changing starts in the second canister. Now I'm getting many more gallons and not risking a >0 TDS reading which occurred when I was using the single DI canister. I do have well water where I live and had to add a booster pump as the instructions say optimal water pressure of 50psi is needed for the RO membrane. There are different types of DI resin which I don't quite understand yet so maybe a mixed resin bed would help. That's a future research project.

Nitrate Test: I bought the Salifert nitrate test kit for the initial cycle. One thing that I learned through this process is I'm terrible at matching the colors on these tests. Salifert was definitely giving me higher readings (or rather I was reading a much higher number based on the color). I have been religious so far doing water changes weekly. Because of my "high" nitrate readings, I was doing 20-30% water changes which had little impact on my nitrate readings. Picked up an API test kit and was getting a lower reading, somewhere ~10ppm (again, terrible with the color identifications). In March, I picked up the Hanna Nitrate checker. Much easier! My tank is sitting ~8ppm when I check each week after ~10% water changes.

Fish Food: My biggest fear was overfeeding since that was what most reefers warned about. I did feed my clownfish pair daily, but small amounts of food at the start. Concerned I was underfeeding, I did ramp up the amount of food. Currently feeding a rotation of Hikari Marine Pellets, PE Flake Saltwater fish food, TDO-C1 Chroma BOOST, and frozen mysis shrimp. Since I couldn't find a consensus on the "best" food for clowns, I decided to apply a combination. It's amazing to see the Nassarius snails come out of hiding once I drop in the fish food - almost like they can smell it. Snails need to eat too so I'm not too concerned with overfeeding, especially since Nitrates are consistently 7-8ppm.

Lighting: I kept the lights off through the cycle and turned them on once that was complete. The Max E-170 comes with an AI Hydra light. As not to reinvent the wheel, I downloaded the Tony Rogers program from AI Signature. The lighting setting closely matched BRS recommendation plus it was scheduled to start/stop later in the day when I'm home to enjoy the tank.

Skimmer: I started off using the skimmer that comes with the 170 (MSK900). I couldn't get it to work properly and it sounded like Niagara Falls in my sump. After messing around with it for a couple of months, I gave up and bought Curve 5 Protein Skimmer by Bubble Magus. Starting giving me smelly gunk within a day or two which was more than the stock skimmer gave me over first couple of months. I also didn't need to crank up the TV volume to drown out the water noise.

Flow: I bought a couple random flow generators for the returns (one return from the cabinet sump and another for the pump in the AIO back sump). The tank came with a couple Hydor Koralia power heads and I did add one to the tank. Still not sure about optimal flow but have been tweaking the direction of the returns and the powerhead position.

Salinity Testing: My setup came with a regular refractometer. I started the tank with an SG of 1.025-1.026 and have been anal about keeping the water in that range (my eyes are not good enough to see the difference). I always calibrate the refractometer before I use it. Wanting the consistency of a digital readout, I picked up a Hanna Salinity checker. Calibrated the device and to my surprise was consistently getting a reading of 1.023. Did some research and came across many Reef2Reef discussions about the Hanna checkers being off by .002-.003. Of course there were people who said their checker matches the refractometer. So I ordered another refractometer off of Amazon as a third reference point. Sure enough, both refractometers matched and Hanna was giving me a lower reading. I calibrated Hanna checker several times with no change in results. Reached out to Hanna and they replied with:

Thank you for reaching out, this is an important and common question.

The short answer is – so long as you calibrated our meter, go by that instead of the refractometer.

The refractometer does not measure salinity, it measures water density – of which salinity is a part, but so are other molecules, detritus etc.

Our meter measures electrical conductivity, which is a much more accurate way to measure salinity.

I didn't want to change anything so I'm now using a refractometer reading of 1.026 and the Hanna checker of 1.023 as my consistent measurement. BRS has an "Ideal Parameter" cheat sheet and they recommend salinity of 1.023-1.026 so I'm sticking with my current testing results.

 

[psycjoe]

Here we are in April and I'm pleasantly surprised that the tank is still "alive". Diatoms have come and gone and I'm waiting for outbreaks of different algae. I haven't glued down any of my "test" corals in anticipation of an algae outbreak. I'm honestly surprised how much coral growth has occurred since I put them in. I read how "invasive" GSP can be but never would have expected the number of polyps to increase at the rate it did. The birdsnest growth is also quite impressive. Within a week, the small frag had started to "fork" at every tip. The chalice and montipora growth was much less noticeable.

I probably made a huge mistake by not dipping the initial corals from WWC (per their acclimation instructions) but haven't noticed any pests yet. Nervous that I've doomed my tank, I decided to order a sixline wrasse from Dr. Reef's quarantined fish. I also purchased a peppermint shrimp, emerald crab, and 10 more cerith snails (since most of my ceriths didn't make the trip up from Florida with reefcleaners.org purchase). I've read where sixline wrasse can help battle some pests and a peppermint shrimp can consume aiptasia. At this point I've heard the message loud and clear how important it is to quarantine fish and would be devastated if something happened to my pair of clowns. With no confidence that I could properly run a fish quarantine setup, I'm willing to pay a premium for this to be done correctly (also understanding that no process is 100%). Quarantining corals wasn't even a concept on my radar at this point.

Within the first week of April, I'm also noticing some coralline growing on some of the plastic in the tank. I put the bottled coralline in ~6 weeks ago. Now I can't confirm the source of the coralline since some of the snails from reefcleaners.org were covered in it but - who care - it's actually growing!

The picture makes the specks look white so you have to believe me that it's a purple color. I also use a flashlight to see some specks of purple/pink growing on the rockwork. At this point, I'm thinking of a quote from Ryan at BRS in one of his videos where he says (paraphrasing) "once you see coralline growth, that means your tank is ready for calcifying organisms." Almost immediately, I get an email from Reef2Reef on a WWC Easter live sale - it must be a sign

I have zero familiarity with these coral live sales so probably went way overboard - and spent way too much money (amateur mistake). Ended up picking up the following:

-Blue Eyed Girls Zoanthid
-Blondies Zoanthid
-Omega Gold Zoanthid
-Jason Fox Stargazer Zoanthid
-Tyree Fire Echino Chalice
-Hollywood Stunner Chalice
-Sunfire Grafted Cap Montipora
-Superman Rhodactis Mushroom
-Honey Eyes Favia
-Green Duncan
-Glowstick Hydnophora
-Alien Planet Bowerbanki
-Rainbow Bubbletip Anemone

Now that the new corals are ordered I thought it would be smart to figure out PAR levels in my tank. The Apogee par meter is expensive and I didn't want to rent one from BRS so I looked for an alternative way to measure to get me in the ballpark. I decided to pay the $5 for Photone Pro app using my iPhone 14+. Vacuum sealed the phone and tried to measure the PAR. Unfortunately, I had just upgraded my phone to the larger size which proved difficult to get around my aquascape. I managed to pull the following readings.

The readings felt right based on the BRS investigates output for the Hydra26 light so I think I'm in the zone (or hope I'm in the zone).

Noticing that the GSP is growing quite quickly, I decided to glue it to the rock on the sand bed (the bottom left rock in the image above) in an attempt to contain it. I take my bone cutters that I purchased from BRS to snip it off the frag plug only to watch the GSP shoot off the plug and fly across the room to the floor! I assumed my amateur mistake most likely killed the poor thing, but fortunately it came back to life about 36 hours later.

April 14th arrives as well as my new shipment of corals from the WWC live sale. Again, I didn't even consider quarantining/dipping these corals and threw them in the tank after acclimation. I did pick up a frag rack to house these corals near the bottom of the tank to acclimate them to the light setup, slowly bringing them up over the course of the next week or so.

I had an idea of where I would like to see the bubbletip anemone hang out so attempted to place it in that spot on the rock work. He hung on for a second and then decided to let go. At this point, I'm watching my most expensive purchase fly around the tank in the flow. It ends up lodged underneath a ledge at the bottom of the aquascape. At first I was going to let it ride since they're supposedly capable of finding their own spot. Not convinced, I start to panic that it will get stuck there. Like a bull in a china shop, I reach my hand in to save it and end up breaking a couple tips off my birdsnest coral. I managed to grab the poor anemone and place on a different section of the rock where he stayed for about a week or so. I did shut down my powerhead each night just in case it decided to move - I didn't want it to get stuck in the powerhead. After a week, I figured it was good and left the powerhead running all night. About two weeks after I put the anemone in the tank, it decided to move a couple inches from it's initial position and has been in that spot ever since. Interesting note, I took the small tip of the birdsnest that broke off and glued to a frag plug. I'm amazed not only that it started growing, but how fast it started growing.

During this time, I've noticed a strange growth on one of my snails from reefcleaners.org.

I believe this is Acetabularia or Mermaid’s wine glass but not really sure. I haven't removed it because I think it's neat - plus it's fun to track that snail around the tank. Does anybody know if this is or will turn into a problem? Maybe the snail came with a Starlink subscription that I didn't know about.

What's this? Another Reef2Reef email talking about a live sale from AquaSD?

Again, spent way too much money and purchased way more corals than I should have. I made the plunge and ordered ~30 more corals because they were cheap. Zoas, Acans, Chalices, Torch, a couple hammers, a couple Favias, some mushrooms, and a bucket lister - a couple small button scoly's. Basically, I bought one of every type of coral that I find fascinating and was less than $20. AquaSD gets pretty good reviews online but after I purchased I start reading about Zoanthid eating spiders. What have I done?! Am I about to infect my current display tank? As I mentioned before, I did not dip or quarantine the WWC corals before putting in the tank but started to research a coral quarantine process.

I had a week to get a coral quarantine tank together. Lots of good information out there with some folks saying there's no need to cycle the tank, others say you do. I picked up a 20 gallon Aqueon tank from PetCo, a mechanical filter (Marineland Penguin Bio-Wheel Power Filter), a cheap LED coral light (SMATFARM Aquarium Light), a heater (hygger 100W Titanium Aquarium Heater), and another bottle of Dr. Tim's One and Only off of Amazon. I had some left over sand from my display tank and pulled a couple large rocks out of my sump to put into the new quarantine tank. I also pulled around 10 gallons of water from display tank to put in the quarantine tank. With one day to spare, I had the tank ready for corals.

Wouldn't you know that my Dr. Reef's order and AquaSD corals are showing up at the same time. I received both packages on April 28th. I followed the acclimation procedure from Dr. Reef and got the new wrasse and inverts into the tank. I decided to take a couple of the cerith snails from Dr. Reef and put in the coral quarantine tank. The wrasse starting swimming in all of the nooks and crannies of the aquascape - much more fun to watch than the boring clowns who always just hang out by the return nozzle. I'm disappointed to find out that the shrimp just hides all day and the only way to see it is at night with a flashlight.

For the AquaSD corals, I decided to pop them off the frag plugs, dip in CoralRX, and then reattach to fresh frag plugs as a good way to attack any pests. I didn't see any zoanthid eating spiders post dip but did see several worm looking things and a couple other small critters. I made one amateur mistake when trying to break one of the hammer corals off of the frag plug - ended up cracking the stem right in half (cracked top to bottom). Assuming this coral wasn't long for the world, i glued to a new frag plug and hoped for the best. When I woke up the next day I found the Mille coral to have completely stripped of color.

A couple days later, I noticed one of my button scoly's skeletons showing and getting progressively worse.

Out of the 30-ish corals, I ended up losing just those two. AquaSD was good and said they'd include a replacement in my next order. They also had included a bonus/free coral in the package. I was pleasantly surprised how well the cracked hammer coral is doing. It seems to be surviving well.

As I end the month of April, I'd like to share some tank pictures from all directions as way to document the 4-month mark. Here is my display tank....

And my quarantine tank...

 

[TarheelGrey]

Be careful with the Wrasse. They are known to be aggressive for their territory and will consider any unclaimed area as theirs.

 

[psycjoe]

May did not start off very well with the tank. I've been enjoying the new wrasse. He hangs out in the smallest crevices and it's a game to find him. I tried to build the aquascape so there are a lot of hiding places yet visible from at least one of the three sides of the tank. Sunday I couldn't find the wrasse. Monday morning (May 1) before work still no wrasse. When I get home from work, I look over the tank very thoroughly to find him. Eventually, I found the wrasse dead in the corner of the rockwork on the sand.

Even though I only had the fish a couple of days, it really bothered me that it died. Was it something I did? I followed the acclimation procedures so I don't think it had to do with acclimation. It was alive for a couple of days in the tank. I reached out to Dr. Reef and he was real good and said he'd send another one which I appreciated. I've since ordered the replacement wrasse as well as Yellow Watchman Goby and a Red Banded Pistol Shrimp which should arrive by the end of the month. Dr. Reef said that wrasses are tough shippers and it was most likely not something I did (that did make me feel a little better).

Later in the week, I notice my Duncan coral all closed up during the day. I start testing every parameter that I have a kit for and all of the numbers seemed to be within my "normal" range. I immediately start thinking that maybe this is related to the fish death and caused by something that may have been on my skin as I dip my arm in almost daily to flip snails or pick up frag plugs that the snails knock over. I've always rinsed my hands/arms and dried with paper towels but maybe it wasn't enough. I ordered some full length arm gloves off of Amazon to use going forward. The next day, the Duncan opened back up to normal but now one of the Zoa plugs was all closed up. I also notice that the rhodactis mushroom has shrunk significantly. The zoa opened up the following day and is back to normal but the mushroom has stayed shrunken. I did a larger water change that weekend (~20%) just in case. Not sure what happened, but everything returned to normal (before the water change) and has been fine ever since. The rhodactis is still smaller than it was in the first month so I moved it to a shadier spot thinking maybe it's getting too much light.

I get through the second week of May and everything seems to be back to normal and not sure what happened. One day when I get home from work, I notice the strangest "growth" on one of the return nozzles. What in the heck is this now?! I immediately think the worst.

Went to Reef2Reef to do some research and learn that it's cerith snail eggs. Phew! Most people said that they will likely get eaten. Sure enough, in less than a week they were gone. Not sure if it was the clownfish or the peppermint shrimp.

Now that brings me to this week's update. On Monday when I get home from work, I see a patch of reddish colored algae that formed underneath the overhang where the zoas are sitting. The patch is exactly the size of the shadow and no bigger. I'm guessing this is cyano - it easily comes off the sand when I poke it. The algae patch slowly disappears as the lights dim down but ramps back the next day with the lighting program. I did a small water change to see if I could siphon off some of the algae. It worked for about a day and then has come back. So far it has stayed contained in the shadow. I tested Nitrates (7.8) and Phosphates (0.02) and they were normal. I'm expecting this to blow up as I knew I couldn't get away without these algae blooms. I'll keep an eye on it but if anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears.

Now that I'm all caught up to the present, I'll keep making updates as new developments occur.

 

[psycjoe]

Be careful with the Wrasse. They are known to be aggressive for their territory and will consider any unclaimed area as theirs.

Thanks. I'll keep an eye on my new one when it arrives. I read on LiveAquaria:

Though generally peaceful, the Six Line Wrasse may act aggressively towards peaceful Wrasses and other easily-intimidated fish, especially if inadequately fed or if its habitat is void of places in which it can hide.

Because I have so many hiding places, I'm hoping this will not be an issue. Do people recommend putting new fish in acclimation boxes within the tank for a few days before releasing?

 

[psycjoe]

I did a water change yesterday and attempted to siphon out some of this presumed cyano. Some of the edges are starting to flare up again already this morning. So far it is has stayed in one section of the sand and has not blown up yet.

I also noticed this morning that the peppermint shrimp molted overnight.

The Duncan coral is really p***** off again. It has been closed for the past couple of days. I'll be running the full gambit of tests again today to see if anything is off. It is sitting on the rock next to the cyano so not sure if that is creating some irritation.

Check out the growth of the birdsnest at the 2 month mark. I never expected growth to be this fast. The skeleton of the birdsnest seems to be pretty white so I think I'll try to find a lower PAR area for it and see if it helps. GSP is getting larger by the day as well.

A couple of days ago I found my emerald crab on its back. It's legs were curled up similar to a dead spider. I assumed it was dead and went to fish it out. As soon as I touched it with my long handled algae scraper, it started to move. I flipped it back upright and it walked back over to the rockwork. I have no idea what that means and hope there's nothing wrong with the little guy.

Clownfish are growing fast too. Always hanging out around the return spout.

It's too bad they have nothing to do with my lonely anemone.

Coralline seems to be growing well all over the rockwork. Here's my powerhead now speckled in coralline. I also see the first small spot growing on the glass.

I got an email from Dr. Reef's that the wrasse and goby will be here next Friday. I did decide to pickup an acclimation box to put the wrasse in for a couple of days just in case it reduces the chances of aggressiveness.

 

[Troylee]

I did a water change yesterday and attempted to siphon out some of this presumed cyano. Some of the edges are starting to flare up again already this morning. So far it is has stayed in one section of the sand and has not blown up yet.

I also noticed this morning that the peppermint shrimp molted overnight.

The Duncan coral is really p***** off again. It has been closed for the past couple of days. I'll be running the full gambit of tests again today to see if anything is off. It is sitting on the rock next to the cyano so not sure if that is creating some irritation.

Check out the growth of the birdsnest at the 2 month mark. I never expected growth to be this fast. The skeleton of the birdsnest seems to be pretty white so I think I'll try to find a lower PAR area for it and see if it helps. GSP is getting larger by the day as well.

A couple of days ago I found my emerald crab on its back. It's legs were curled up similar to a dead spider. I assumed it was dead and went to fish it out. As soon as I touched it with my long handled algae scraper, it started to move. I flipped it back upright and it walked back over to the rockwork. I have no idea what that means and hope there's nothing wrong with the little guy.

Clownfish are growing fast too. Always hanging out around the return spout.

It's too bad they have nothing to do with my lonely anemone.

Coralline seems to be growing well all over the rockwork. Here's my powerhead now speckled in coralline. I also see the first small spot growing on the glass.

I got an email from Dr. Reef's that the wrasse and goby will be here next Friday. I did decide to pickup an acclimation box to put the wrasse in for a couple of days just in case it reduces the chances of aggressiveness.

The wrasse will be fine when you put him in now… everything is new to him! Once he gets comfy he won’t allow you to add any more fish.

 

[Mav88]

cyano will attach to corals and could be irritating your Duncan. When dealing with cyano I blow off my corals while siphoning cyano. Tank is looking great!

 

[psycjoe]

Forgot to mention that I downloaded the Photone app onto my previous iPhone 8 because it is a smaller form factor and would be easier to maneuver around the tank. Compared the results side by side and the iPhone 8 was 2x Par versus the 14. Well what the heck?! Now I start questioning the previous results. I decided to buy the Seneye - found an open box deal from CoralVue for $132. Seneye was pretty close to my iPhone 14 results so something is wrong with the iPhone 8.

Algae seems to be blowing up in my tank now. Nitrates are consistently in the 6-8ppm range. Phosphates are are 0.04ppm. Looks like some green hair algae, red cyano, bubble algae, and maybe even some Dinos popping up (slimy stuff with bubbles).

I've been manually siphoning the cyano from the sandbed but I think all that is accomplishing is me spreading it around the rest of the tank.

I have also been manually brushing the rocks and siphoning out the suspected dinos. I will be borrowing my parents microscope in attempts to confirm if dinos are present. Luckily the bubble algae has so far been on two frag plugs from WWC. I removed the plugs and brushed them off in my "waste" water from a water change. The emerald crab that I thought was dying did in fact die.

The month of May really destroyed my "this is easy" mentality so it was fitting that we were doomed for a hard frost on the day my shipment of fish from Dr. Reef's shows up. Luckily, all contents were alive upon arrival.

Friday, May 26th I get the new batch of fish from Dr. Reef. I had purchased an acclimation box from Amazon to house the wrasse. When I open the box, I find two sixline wrasses! I ordered a pistol shrimp hoping it would pair with my goby but unfortunately I was sent a coral banded shrimp instead of a red banded pistol shrimp. The coral banded shrimp from Dr. Reef's was huge! Went through the acclimation procedure and released the shrimp and goby direct into the tank and put both the wrasses in the acclimation box.

Almost immediately, the larger wrasse started chasing the smaller wrasse. I put the divider in the box to separate them. I also included some PVC fittings to give them some hiding spots. The last wrasse I had showed up on a Friday and was dead by Monday so I wanted to hold them in the acclimation box for a couple of days. Not sure I should put both in my display tank (especially after the one started chasing/biting the other), I decided to take the more aggressive one and put in my coral quarantine tank. I really didn't want to since it kind of defeats the purpose of the coral quarantine and I don't know anyone else with a saltwater tank who I could give it to.

I wake up Saturday to find my peppermint shrimp dead. I assume the giant coral banded shrimp killed him since I read after the fact they can be pretty aggressive. Thankfully, Dr. Tim's will make it good for me with my next order.

On Sunday, the calmer of the two wrasses slipped out of the top hole on the acclimation box so I released the other one into the coral quarantine tank. Had to MacGyver a net structure on top of the tank to prevent it from jumping out. I did run a test and there is 0 ammonia in the coral quarantine tank but haven't done any "cycle" checking since I put the bottle of Dr. Tim's in about a month ago. I also plan on moving my coral banded shrimp to my coral quarantine tank before I get a new peppermint and pistol shrimp. Maybe I can justify another smaller display tank for the overflow of my livestock to keep the coral quarantine tank free?

My Innovative Marine PTC heater starting acting up this week. I have been getting the E2 error meaning that the heat probe is disconnected. At first the error started sparingly but has gradually increased. I reached out to IM to ask what the heck the deal is.

Their response:
An E2 alert is alerting that there has been an interruption in the communication from the heating element to the controller.
Please disconnect the element from the controller and inspect the connection pins.

Ensure that they are not damaged and clear of dust.
Once you have inspected the connection reattach the element to the controller securing it with the threaded coupling.

Double-check that the element line is not crossing with or touching other equipment cables.

Give this a try and let me know if the E2 persists.

After all of that troubleshooting, they decided to send me a new heating element. I hope it gets here soon since the errors are happening more frequent and I know the heater is about to stop working.

That concludes the month of May. I hope June turns out to be a better month for the tank. I'll keep cleaning/siphoning out the algae and continue the testing regiment to see if I can beat it. I purchased a Hanna alkalinity checker and 2-Part Pharma Calcium & Alkalinity Starter Package from BRS. I'll be honest that I haven't been testing alkalinity, calcium, or magnesium very often as I assume the weekly water changes are replenishing whatever is used by the tank each week. I'll now include all of these into my weekly testing regiment and learn if/when I need to start dosing.

 

[psycjoe]

Throughout the month of June I've been battling a bad cyano outbreak. I'd share the photos but I decided to drop my phone in my mower a couple of weeks ago and lost those pictures.

Innovative Marine sent me a new heater to replace my faulty one. Sure enough, my faulty heater died about a week before the replacement arrived. I did have a back-up heater in my sump that I used but I could not keep the temperature stable [IM kept the tank at 78 degrees but my back-up heater had tempt swings from 76-79 degrees]. Luckily, I only had to deal with that a few days until the replacement showed up.

Under the microscope, I confirmed the presence of cyano (long hair-like threads) as well as some dinos (looks like watermelon seeds). I decided to purchase a UV skimmer and use the Dr. Tim's waste-away method to help battle this ugly tank all while trying to understand the key drivers of this mess. I've noticed that my Nitrates are lower each week. I'm pretty sure I feed a lot but I'm thinking that my excess food is just settling on the sandbed or going down to the filter sock without being eaten. Maybe my snails are dead underneath the sand and not scavenging? Maybe my skimmer is working too well? Maybe I need to add more fish? These are my theories....

My Duncan coral has pretty much died. I'm not sure if it was the Cyano that killed it but I did try to blow off the cyano whenever it was covered. My BTA also seems to not be happy lately - it has moved a few times in the past week and has now perched itself upside down underneath the rockwork.

All testing parameters seemed to be within a "target range" except my Nitrates which seems to drop like a rock throughout the month. I've been trying to feed the fish a couple of times per day with smaller servings (vs. food floating around the tank). I also have been removing my skimmer cup to let the waste "hang out" in the tank a little longer. It doesn't seem to be helping Nitrates though.

Date	Nitrate (hanna)	Phosphate (hanna)	Calcium	Alkalinity (hanna)	Magnesium
6/7/2023​	4.1​	0.02​	435​	9.0​	1360​
6/15/2023​	2.0​			8.6​
6/22/2023​	0.3​	0.00​		8.5​

I purchased a UV skimmer (Pentair 18w) from BRS through an open-box promotional savings (saved ~$100). I also purchased a Milwaukee pH probe to test/monitor. I don't trust my ability to read the API testing kit and identify the correct colors. Sure enough - what i was reading as "8-ish" on the API test turns out to be 7.6 on my pH probe. I found that opening the window for a few hours will get the pH up to ~8.2. My house was built in 2011 using spray foam in the walls so I'm not surprised my house is lacking fresh air. I'm thinking of running tubing from the outside of the house to my skimmer so that there's a constant supply of fresh air to the tank.

Also purchased a 4-pack of copepods for the tank with some phyto from BRS (from AlgaeBarn). I put two canisters in my display tank and one in the quarantine tank. The 4th jar I decided to put in a jug in an attempt to create my own copepod farm.

I started Dr. Tim's cyano treatment program on June 12th starting with re-fresh. About a week later I started to dose the waste-away. After my second dosing of waste-away I have started to notice things moving in the right direction. I'm actually quite surprised how well the cyano is disappearing. It doesn't look like Dinos are blowing up yet even though my nitrates are rock bottom. I got the UV sterilizer hooked up and wouldn't you know the bulb is blown. BRS is sending out a replacement. I don't know if I have the type of dinos that UV will help or not but I figure it wouldn't hurt. Here are some photos with some lingering cyano. I wish i had the "before" pictures to share as it looked like i had a red blanket on everything about a week ago.

After all of the reading this month on cyano, nitrates, and dinos, I've decided to put another order in with Dr. Reef to get a pair of Benggai Cardinals and Midas Blenny in an attempt to increase my Nitrates. Most of my Astrea snails have died so I decided to order a few more snails and some hermits. Part of my reading was how important it is to have the sand bed disturbed so I also purchased a Conch to help keep things moving. The new livestock should be here June 30th. My approach to solving these issues is to feed less at a time but more often, add more fish, reduce my skimming, and run UV. I haven't done a water change in the display and QT tank all month.

The corals in the quarantine tank are doing well and the "75 days of QT" should be complete in early July (hopefully within time for my cyano problem to be resolved). The nitrates in that QT tank are 0ppm. I do have the second sixline wrasse in there so been feeding him to to see if that'll spur an increase in nitrates. I'm going to have to catch my coral banded shrimp in the display tank and move him to the quarantine tank since I did order a replacement peppermint shrimp that he killed.

I lost power for a couple hours last weekend which is the second time that has happened since I've had livestock in the tank. Due to the unnecessary stress involved, I decided to order a generator. It's amazing how much the reef tank impacts your decisions to purchase equipment. Freezing to death in the winter due to power outage was never really a concern - but my fish tank dropping a couple degrees is.