GHayes
Community Member
Greetings Fellow Reefers,
My name is Gordon Hayes. I live, with my wife, in Abilene, TX. I am 66-yrs young and have been retired two years now. While I have had freshwater tanks for about 5 years now (solid), I didn't join the Saltwater Gang until Feb. 28th, 2025. I found a Coralife Biocube 32g AIO tank about 2-1/2 hours southeast of home. It came with two clowns (a regular ocellaris and a black & white Snowflake), a couple of corals and several invertebrates. It came with the live sand and live rock as well as a few extras. The lid had been retrofitted with two Fluval Nano Wing Marine 20w lights. My plan is to remove the lights from the lid and put them on brackets and install a mesh lid.
I have fought with my nitrate and phosphate levels since I brought the tank home and set it up. I jumped off the deep end and got some live sand from The Gulf recently and changed out about 18 pounds +/-. This dropped my nitrate level from 35 - 15 ppm. Now I am trying to lower my phosphate level. I just bought and installed a piece of Acurel Phosphate Reducer Infused Media Pad a few days ago. I will be doing my weekly water change this weekend. So, I am anxious to see if it is slowly bringing my nitrate/phosphate balance back in balance. Before I added the pad into the back middle chamber of my sump, my phosphate was 0.37 using the Hannah Ultra Low Phosphate test. I use Salifert for the rest of my tests.
I now have my original clowns, my original Green Rhodactis Mushroom Coral (split twice so I have three now) and most of my original CUC. I have added various snails (Nassarius, Red Banded Trochus, Cerith, and Red-legged & Blue-legged Hermit Crabs). My Trachy Coral died from beginner reefer syndrome. I have added a Skunk Cleaner Shrimp, two Pajama Cardinalfish, a Neon Blue Goby, a Bicolor Blenny, a Peppermint Shrimp (hoping it is an L. wurdemanni), an emerald crab, six Zoanthid frags, a Duncan frag, a Blasto frag, a Clove Polyp frag, a Bubble Tip Anemone, and some copepods. I have a dozen amphipods I purchased from Top Shelf Aquatics when I ordered my Tropic Marin ICP test kits. Will be adding the pods to the back middle chamber in back after lights out tonight.
I am getting ready to start a phytoplankton culture and a copepod culture. I saved about 1/3 of the bottle of copepods I purchased and added them to a 1/2-gallon jar of saltwater with an airline blowing about 3 bubbles a second into it. Was going to start my phyto culture today when my Guillard's F/2 arrived. But it looks like Amazon has delayed the shipping. Hopefully tomorrow.
I have learned a lot about saltwater tanks and reefing from Logan Brouillette and his crew on FB and YouTube. I have watched a lot of other videos also to build my knowledge base. Looking forward to continuing to learn how to be a better reefer here as well.
Here is a pic of one of my Zoa frags. Yes, I know. I have a diatom or cyano/dino issue I am dealing with because of my nitrate and phosphate issues.
Get ready because I know I will be asking a lot of questions. LOL I will take a pic of my tank tomorrow and place in a comment.
My name is Gordon Hayes. I live, with my wife, in Abilene, TX. I am 66-yrs young and have been retired two years now. While I have had freshwater tanks for about 5 years now (solid), I didn't join the Saltwater Gang until Feb. 28th, 2025. I found a Coralife Biocube 32g AIO tank about 2-1/2 hours southeast of home. It came with two clowns (a regular ocellaris and a black & white Snowflake), a couple of corals and several invertebrates. It came with the live sand and live rock as well as a few extras. The lid had been retrofitted with two Fluval Nano Wing Marine 20w lights. My plan is to remove the lights from the lid and put them on brackets and install a mesh lid.
I have fought with my nitrate and phosphate levels since I brought the tank home and set it up. I jumped off the deep end and got some live sand from The Gulf recently and changed out about 18 pounds +/-. This dropped my nitrate level from 35 - 15 ppm. Now I am trying to lower my phosphate level. I just bought and installed a piece of Acurel Phosphate Reducer Infused Media Pad a few days ago. I will be doing my weekly water change this weekend. So, I am anxious to see if it is slowly bringing my nitrate/phosphate balance back in balance. Before I added the pad into the back middle chamber of my sump, my phosphate was 0.37 using the Hannah Ultra Low Phosphate test. I use Salifert for the rest of my tests.
I now have my original clowns, my original Green Rhodactis Mushroom Coral (split twice so I have three now) and most of my original CUC. I have added various snails (Nassarius, Red Banded Trochus, Cerith, and Red-legged & Blue-legged Hermit Crabs). My Trachy Coral died from beginner reefer syndrome. I have added a Skunk Cleaner Shrimp, two Pajama Cardinalfish, a Neon Blue Goby, a Bicolor Blenny, a Peppermint Shrimp (hoping it is an L. wurdemanni), an emerald crab, six Zoanthid frags, a Duncan frag, a Blasto frag, a Clove Polyp frag, a Bubble Tip Anemone, and some copepods. I have a dozen amphipods I purchased from Top Shelf Aquatics when I ordered my Tropic Marin ICP test kits. Will be adding the pods to the back middle chamber in back after lights out tonight.
I am getting ready to start a phytoplankton culture and a copepod culture. I saved about 1/3 of the bottle of copepods I purchased and added them to a 1/2-gallon jar of saltwater with an airline blowing about 3 bubbles a second into it. Was going to start my phyto culture today when my Guillard's F/2 arrived. But it looks like Amazon has delayed the shipping. Hopefully tomorrow.
I have learned a lot about saltwater tanks and reefing from Logan Brouillette and his crew on FB and YouTube. I have watched a lot of other videos also to build my knowledge base. Looking forward to continuing to learn how to be a better reefer here as well.
Here is a pic of one of my Zoa frags. Yes, I know. I have a diatom or cyano/dino issue I am dealing with because of my nitrate and phosphate issues.
Get ready because I know I will be asking a lot of questions. LOL I will take a pic of my tank tomorrow and place in a comment.
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