Dkmoo
Valuable Member
Hi All,
Thought I'd start off the new year by doing a build thread for my 3 year old mixed reef tank to document the progress of the things that I've been doing lately and share my journey of what I want my tank to eventually become. Hopefully I will get there.
The Origin:
I started this tank 3 years ago after converting from 4 years of freshwater. Initially, I did my research, got a RODI, built a sump/refugium, did a proper cycle, started off on the right foot with only FOWLR, a pair of nemos, CUC, and everything was dandy. Slowly, I added more fish, got me a couple of AI primes, and added LPS/softies. Because I had a small tank and a pretty good nutrient export system, my maintenance consisted mostly of 15% WCs every couple of weeks and 30% every month. I know about the other params but didn't really paid too much attention to it because of a combination of life/work/kid/not enough time/laziness. I would test for them once in a blue moon and dose occassionally. So, naturally the tank went thru its ups and downs with a mix bag of survival rates between different livestock. When everything was going great and I kept up with husbandry, my tank would look like this:
But, more often then not, especially when I got busy/lazy, my tank would look like this:
Over the years, nothing really "totally crashed", and things kind of just struggled along. The strong survived and the weak perished. My RIP Memorial wall includes (from what I remember): a YWG, Royal Gramma, Elegance Coral, Scolys, Favites, Favias, Leptoseris (mis-IDed and sold as Psammocora), zoas, plate coral, cleaner shrimp, and a firefish that jumped out of the tank.
The Realization and Road to Recovery:
About 3 months ago, I decided enough was enough, and really started to take care of the tank and see where i could take this tank. I didn't think about doing a build thread then so didn't really keep detailed records, but below is a run down of all that happened:
October: I rearranged rock work and moved the tank from against the wall to perpendicularly next to my sofa to give it a 3 way viewing angel and I can sit on the sofa to enjoy the view - to both change things up and give me more incentive to keep it looking nice. I tested all params and started the processed of correcting stablizing them. Initial params were:
Ph: 7.7, Alk 7, Calc 350, Mg 1200, No3 0.5, phos 0 - much of this would swing quite a bit in between each WC.
At the end of the month, params stablized around:
Ph:7.7, Alk 8.5, Calc 450, Mg 1350, No3, 0.5, Phos 0 - better, but still a lot of work to do. I also started dosing Alk/Cal/Mg during the week to keep them from swinging too much in between WCs.
November: Watched the BRSTV video on PH and realized my PH was a big issue. Switched from dosing Bicarbonate to Soda Ash. Also started to feed Brightwell Amino, Restor, and Reefroid. Things started to perk up a bit. The corals that were on decline stopped the decline. started to have a bit of an algae problem from increased nutrient but overall corals showed improved signs of health. At the end of the month I bought a few more frags to spice thing up abit in the tank.
New additions: 24k lepto, frozen lepto, red monti cap (since I have enough light, decided to venture into SPS), and meteor shower cyphastrea.
Avg params during the month:
Ph 7.9, Alk 9, Calc 450, Mg 1350, No3 - 5, Phos 0.03 - improving, still have work to do, Ph swung a bit but never got over 8.
December: All the new additions survived! Encouraged by what I saw, I took advantage of the holiday deals and made many improvements to the tank:
1) Ph was still and issue, so installed a CO2 scrubber, after a few trial and errors, managed to stablize PH at 8.3
2) bought an autodoser to dose 2 part - now my paras are stable daily at 9.5 Alk and 475 calc. Mg i still dose manually with WC, this doens't change much and stable around 1350.
3) Coraline started to grow for the first time in 3 years!
4) Bought an AI Nero 5 wave maker to increase flow for the SPS
5) Bought another Acro frag, a sun burst monti, a neon green stylo and a BTA for my nemos during the xmas sale from LPS
6) Started Vibrant treatment for the algae so took out the Chaeto and turned the fuge to just a sump. Noticed big changes after 4 weeks and now algae mostly are gone except for Bryopsis. This increased dissolved organics in the water that made coral and filter feeders both flourish. Unfortunately this also started an explosion of branching/digitate hydroids...
7) 4 weeks into the vibrant treatment i started a single dose of Reef Flux for the bryopsis.
The New and Improved Current Tank:
After 3 months of TLC, this is what the tank looks like:
Front View:
Back View:
Still some work to do. Currently have a bit of diatom from the vibrant/increased nutrient, not too concerned there it will eventually clear up but the hydroids are a problem. So I stopped feeding the corals for now and added a filter sock to reduce dissolved organics + manual removal.
Reef Flux worked like a charm - my tux urchin used to have a "ghillie suit" of bryopsis that is completely gone today.
Added 5 more SPS frags over the weekend - 1 candlelight acro, 1 light green acro (dunno name), 1 green monti cap, 1 monti digitata, and 1 birds nest. Decided to use the "acclimation" function on the AI prime and glued them directly to the rock, instead of putting everything on the bottom first like I did before. Probably wasn't a good idea, most reacted fine but the birds nest bleached overnight. still good polyp extension so it should recover, still, feelsbad. Guess I'm gonna go back to the proper way of acclimating for the next batch.
Current full tank description:
1) 29G with 10G sump, Skimmer, Nero 5, AI prime x2, auto doser, co2 scrubber.
2) Livestock: Nemo x2, Black Cap Basslett, Banggai Card, Neon Goby, Orange dot Goby, Pistol Shrimp, Purple Tux Urchin, 4 red leg hermit, 4 blue leg hermit, 1 turbo, 4 cerith.
3) Corals: Torch, Frogspawn, Toadstool, Gold Psammorcora, gold/green leptastrea, gorgonian, pink goni, purple goni, blue aveopora, neon green duncan, green/red blasto, dragon breath favia, Red Acan, blue acan, Orange Ricordia, Orange Lobo, Blue lobo, 24k lepto, frozon lepto, purple cyph, meteor cyph, BTA, Forest Green/light green/purple candle light acro, red/green monti cap, birds nest, stylo, monti digit, and pink chalice.
Over the coming months, I plan to keep documenting my hydroid battle, future updates, and eventually, hopefully, before/after pictures of the remaining struggling corals and how they turned out.
Thought I'd start off the new year by doing a build thread for my 3 year old mixed reef tank to document the progress of the things that I've been doing lately and share my journey of what I want my tank to eventually become. Hopefully I will get there.
The Origin:
I started this tank 3 years ago after converting from 4 years of freshwater. Initially, I did my research, got a RODI, built a sump/refugium, did a proper cycle, started off on the right foot with only FOWLR, a pair of nemos, CUC, and everything was dandy. Slowly, I added more fish, got me a couple of AI primes, and added LPS/softies. Because I had a small tank and a pretty good nutrient export system, my maintenance consisted mostly of 15% WCs every couple of weeks and 30% every month. I know about the other params but didn't really paid too much attention to it because of a combination of life/work/kid/not enough time/laziness. I would test for them once in a blue moon and dose occassionally. So, naturally the tank went thru its ups and downs with a mix bag of survival rates between different livestock. When everything was going great and I kept up with husbandry, my tank would look like this:
But, more often then not, especially when I got busy/lazy, my tank would look like this:
Over the years, nothing really "totally crashed", and things kind of just struggled along. The strong survived and the weak perished. My RIP Memorial wall includes (from what I remember): a YWG, Royal Gramma, Elegance Coral, Scolys, Favites, Favias, Leptoseris (mis-IDed and sold as Psammocora), zoas, plate coral, cleaner shrimp, and a firefish that jumped out of the tank.
The Realization and Road to Recovery:
About 3 months ago, I decided enough was enough, and really started to take care of the tank and see where i could take this tank. I didn't think about doing a build thread then so didn't really keep detailed records, but below is a run down of all that happened:
October: I rearranged rock work and moved the tank from against the wall to perpendicularly next to my sofa to give it a 3 way viewing angel and I can sit on the sofa to enjoy the view - to both change things up and give me more incentive to keep it looking nice. I tested all params and started the processed of correcting stablizing them. Initial params were:
Ph: 7.7, Alk 7, Calc 350, Mg 1200, No3 0.5, phos 0 - much of this would swing quite a bit in between each WC.
At the end of the month, params stablized around:
Ph:7.7, Alk 8.5, Calc 450, Mg 1350, No3, 0.5, Phos 0 - better, but still a lot of work to do. I also started dosing Alk/Cal/Mg during the week to keep them from swinging too much in between WCs.
November: Watched the BRSTV video on PH and realized my PH was a big issue. Switched from dosing Bicarbonate to Soda Ash. Also started to feed Brightwell Amino, Restor, and Reefroid. Things started to perk up a bit. The corals that were on decline stopped the decline. started to have a bit of an algae problem from increased nutrient but overall corals showed improved signs of health. At the end of the month I bought a few more frags to spice thing up abit in the tank.
New additions: 24k lepto, frozen lepto, red monti cap (since I have enough light, decided to venture into SPS), and meteor shower cyphastrea.
Avg params during the month:
Ph 7.9, Alk 9, Calc 450, Mg 1350, No3 - 5, Phos 0.03 - improving, still have work to do, Ph swung a bit but never got over 8.
December: All the new additions survived! Encouraged by what I saw, I took advantage of the holiday deals and made many improvements to the tank:
1) Ph was still and issue, so installed a CO2 scrubber, after a few trial and errors, managed to stablize PH at 8.3
2) bought an autodoser to dose 2 part - now my paras are stable daily at 9.5 Alk and 475 calc. Mg i still dose manually with WC, this doens't change much and stable around 1350.
3) Coraline started to grow for the first time in 3 years!
4) Bought an AI Nero 5 wave maker to increase flow for the SPS
5) Bought another Acro frag, a sun burst monti, a neon green stylo and a BTA for my nemos during the xmas sale from LPS
6) Started Vibrant treatment for the algae so took out the Chaeto and turned the fuge to just a sump. Noticed big changes after 4 weeks and now algae mostly are gone except for Bryopsis. This increased dissolved organics in the water that made coral and filter feeders both flourish. Unfortunately this also started an explosion of branching/digitate hydroids...
7) 4 weeks into the vibrant treatment i started a single dose of Reef Flux for the bryopsis.
The New and Improved Current Tank:
After 3 months of TLC, this is what the tank looks like:
Front View:
Back View:
Still some work to do. Currently have a bit of diatom from the vibrant/increased nutrient, not too concerned there it will eventually clear up but the hydroids are a problem. So I stopped feeding the corals for now and added a filter sock to reduce dissolved organics + manual removal.
Reef Flux worked like a charm - my tux urchin used to have a "ghillie suit" of bryopsis that is completely gone today.
Added 5 more SPS frags over the weekend - 1 candlelight acro, 1 light green acro (dunno name), 1 green monti cap, 1 monti digitata, and 1 birds nest. Decided to use the "acclimation" function on the AI prime and glued them directly to the rock, instead of putting everything on the bottom first like I did before. Probably wasn't a good idea, most reacted fine but the birds nest bleached overnight. still good polyp extension so it should recover, still, feelsbad. Guess I'm gonna go back to the proper way of acclimating for the next batch.
Current full tank description:
1) 29G with 10G sump, Skimmer, Nero 5, AI prime x2, auto doser, co2 scrubber.
2) Livestock: Nemo x2, Black Cap Basslett, Banggai Card, Neon Goby, Orange dot Goby, Pistol Shrimp, Purple Tux Urchin, 4 red leg hermit, 4 blue leg hermit, 1 turbo, 4 cerith.
3) Corals: Torch, Frogspawn, Toadstool, Gold Psammorcora, gold/green leptastrea, gorgonian, pink goni, purple goni, blue aveopora, neon green duncan, green/red blasto, dragon breath favia, Red Acan, blue acan, Orange Ricordia, Orange Lobo, Blue lobo, 24k lepto, frozon lepto, purple cyph, meteor cyph, BTA, Forest Green/light green/purple candle light acro, red/green monti cap, birds nest, stylo, monti digit, and pink chalice.
Over the coming months, I plan to keep documenting my hydroid battle, future updates, and eventually, hopefully, before/after pictures of the remaining struggling corals and how they turned out.
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