GILLty Guppy Journey

GILLty Guppy · May 7, 2020

You don't realize how much has happened on your journey until you go to write it out. I started my tank 5 years ago and a lot has happened in that time.

My tank sat in my living room for anost 3 months with nothing in it as I bought the equipment needed, carefully and thoughtfully picked out what fish and corals I wanted. You know what they say about making plans..lo

Finally I put water in my tank, let the power heads and filter work on the converted tap water for a week, then added a very deep sandbed ( if only I had known ). My tank is 50 or 55 gal glass tank not drilled and I gave it a 6inch deep sandbed and under the sand a thin layer of pebble rock ( to somehow make my structures more sturdy before I knew how much the rock weighed). 5 years later I am still picking those pebbles out of the sand when they surface ( eye roll). Then I added my live rock slowly over the next month from various shops in order to get different colored rocks ( another eye roll ) . Because I added rock over time and then seeded it with extra beneficial bacteria and then copepods I let the tank cycle almost another 2 months before putting anything in it. I started with invertebrates and thej worked my way up to fish. Started with Bengaii and Pajama Cardinals. Then clowns, a foxface, etc. More to come...

littlefishy · May 7, 2020

What's your filtration method with the tank undrilled?
Did you remove some sand?
At 5 years, it should have some corals ready for pics, or is it fowler? Either way, let's see some pics!

Chrisfish · May 7, 2020

Welcome to R2R, we love pictures

GILLty Guppy · May 7, 2020

At about 6 months I got an anemone, think it was a bubble tip. Of course my clowns wanted nothing to do with it. Anemone was healthy, well feed, things were good. Got my first tang, an absolutely beautiful bright yellow tang. 2 days later my anemone ate it ! Ugh..thankfully my LFS rehomed the anemone for me..swore off anemones from that point on. When my tank was about a year old and I had survived with no other major disasters I decided to get a Blue Tang...little did I know that a friend was buying me one for my birthday. Tada I had 2!! I quarantined them in the same tank so they could get used to each other. To my surprise they got along fairly well. They were in that quarantine tank for 3 months as I was nit taking any chances. They were dosed for ick preventative, given antibiotics as a preventative, etc. After 3 months I realized I have left them in there for that long because I was scared. Decided it was time to bite the bullet. Slowly acclamated them and in they went. A week later all the fish had ick !!!!
So I began ti treat the tank...blonde moment #1924 - forgot to remove the carbon filter so my treatment did nothing. Lost all fish and invertebrates except my foxface and a dwarf angel. Nit sure how they survived !!! Swore off Blue Tangs...

GILLty Guppy · May 7, 2020

growoldplease said:
What's your filtration method with the tank undrilled?
Did you remove some sand?
At 5 years, it should have some corals ready for pics, or is it fowler? Either way, let's see some pics!

ITangs..
.I have a HOB double filter and HOB refugium. In the beginning it was FOWLR but niw has coral.

GILLty Guppy · May 7, 2020

I don't have any old pics unfortunately, they are all videos. Will post some newer ones in just a bit.

GILLty Guppy · May 7, 2020

At year two of my tank I began my coral journey. Suprisingly I could not get Xenia to grow in my tank..probably for the best..also can't grow trumpets or monti

either.

Then finally corals started to do well. I had some zoas, a scoly, Kenya tree, gorgonians and a brain coral. Then my houses flooded and had to have the hardwood floors redone. Had to break my tank down. I put all the live rock that had corals attached in one tank, the rest of the rock in another in an attempt to make the tank light enough for me and my brother to move the tank. Got it moved to the kitchen. The flooring ended up being almost 2weeks late coming in then had scheduling issues with the install crew. All in all my tank sat broken aoart for almost a month. One morning woke to find all of the coral dying. Took a break from coral. Then 6 months ago decided to give it another try and things are going well. Here are some updated pics mixed a few old of the fish.

GILLty Guppy · May 7, 2020

Pics starting from newest going to oldest

GILLty Guppy · May 7, 2020

Here is one more. I don't have a good camera so unfortunatrly don't take many pics.

GILLty Guppy · May 7, 2020

Anyhow, despite having had my tank for 5 years I am still a newbie when it comes to coral. I mostly have zoas, palys, 2 birdsnest frags added a little more than a month ago and added a chalice added just a couple of weeks ago. Added an acropora at that time and it was doing well the first week. Did a water change, added pH buffer and the next morn it was bare of skin. I am currently battling vermetid snails and aptasia and some green hair algae. My tank is a dirty mess atm. I am making good progress with the aptasia, only found one this morning. I very regrettfully let the vermitid pop go nuts so am tackling one section at a time as my many bumble bee snails want nothing to do with them.

GILLty Guppy · May 7, 2020

I have a foxface, a lieutenant tang, a mandarin, yellow goby, 3 clowns and 3 green chromis. Can't get anymore fish or coral until I take care of the issues in my tank but hope to soon.