How not to start a reef tank, my first reef tank build

[Why-Me]

Doesn't look bad to me

 

[living_tribunal]

Doesn't look bad to me

Doesn't look bad to me

I think this should definitely hold water then. A 10mm bead is pretty dang thick. I also went a little overboard glopping silicone in the corners but no one has to see that.

It’s hard to really see the judge from the pictures as there is just so much random silicone from previous jobs but I’ll get her cleaned up and send pictures once I’m back from vacation.

 

[Why-Me]

Sounds like a good plan
Have fun on vaca

 

[living_tribunal]

Out of sheer paranoia, I ran a 16mm bead on top of the 10mm bead through the bottom seams.

I was confident before but anytime you can gain a little bit more peace of mind, take it.

I’m going to call this tank the “Titanic”.


Wait....

 

[living_tribunal]

By the way, it does appear like you CAN get a decent bond with silicone on top of silicone.

Here are some of the things I read/watched before laying the second layer. To be clear, it’s a slightly weaker bond but will definitely add a lot stronger coverage if you’re ever worried about your seals.

Top 3 Ways to Adhere Silicone to Silicone

archive.constantcontact.com

 

[living_tribunal]

Thought I’d provide a quick update since you can actually see in my tank right now (cleaned it last night).

Everyone is doing great. The zoa has started spreading to the rock that I glued it to. The chalices are starting to regain their color, one is even popping new color I haven’t seen, the polyps on the acan move with the slow current and he eats like a dog. The blastos sprawls open very wide and has a new head! The clove has a new head that has started to open its polyps. Both leptos fluoresce like crazy again with the pink starting to show the green underneath. The Duncan is an absolute monster and eats everything in sight. Him and the cloves stay open even through the night now. The acan echinata and favia have also gained a ton of strong color as well.

I think I’m starting to get lps down somewhat. These guys like their water like I like my drinks, dirty.

The longer I waited before a water change, the better they did. They all love to eat a lot as well.

I’m kind of on the second stage of a maturing tank which is hair algae as you can see. I don’t mind it, it’s a sign of progression. I am keeping an eye on its growth on some of the corals. If it gets any worse, I’ll step in. If not, I’ll let it run it’s course.

 

[Why-Me]

My lawnmower blenny loves to eat GHA, that's all he will eat!! Keeps things neat and tidy!
He even eats the GHA off of the frag racks.

 

[living_tribunal]

I decided to just get a professional to reseal the tank.

Problem. Solved.

 

[living_tribunal]

Running the first 5 gallon water test now.

 

[living_tribunal]

So it’s holding water just fine! I will say, I have been talking to a local aquarium company about completely rebuilding it. There are too many conflicting opinions on whether a reseal is good enough or if you need to completely rebuild it.

Hiring them to rebuild it is still a lot cheaper than buying a new 65 gallon rimless so I think I may do it.

Yes, my reseal holds water. For how long? No one knows. I’m sure it would be fine but I think having a professional do it right would be the best course of action.

I have two fish that need a new home in less than a week and I plan to deliver this 65g tank to them.

 

[living_tribunal]

So sad to see her go

 

[living_tribunal]

Alright, the tank has been completely and utterly destroyed by my hand.






Just kidding, the tank has been torn down and dropped off at a professional aquarium builder. The only sensible way to solve this mess was having it done correctly. This wasn’t cheap but I’ll essentially have a brand new 65G DSA tank for the two babies in a few days.

I couldn’t be more excited to OFFICIALLY START MY REEF TANK

After this, I can proceed to waste my hard earned money on frags, fish, and overpriced wave makers like everyone else.

 

[living_tribunal]

I’m going to have a whole lot of new frag pics coming in in a bit, including my first few sps.

 

[living_tribunal]

I’ve become more active in local reefing Facebook groups in pursuit of more basic frags that are on my coral list.

One of those is a simple neon candy cane. A lady in one of our groups was selling candys for $10 a head and I messaged her my interest.

Turns out she lives an hour away so I inquired about other frags she has for sale.

I’ve never seen a more fantastic display of cognitive dissonance in my life, fiercely fueled by the love of this hobby in both directions.

She proceeded to send me a 360 of her tank and said “here’s what I have, I can frag what you want”, welcoming words to a newly captivated addict.

I of course pressed her on some of her snazzier pieces. Her response was swift, with equal amounts of brevity as her original gesture that everything in the tank was for sale, “you’re going to kill me!”.

I could sense the hesitation pulsing through her fingertips as she relentlessly sent me pics of frags for sale.

In a state of confusion, I agreed to just pick up a hammer and the candy cane.

Fast forward to today (unless you’re concerned with my sleeping habits), I messaged her I’d be venturing her way around 5.

I messaged her regarding the address of our meeting and began to head her way. After braving 30 minutes of Dallas rush hour with another 30 minutes of country road in my windshield, I realized she had not responded.

I followed up with several more hints that I needed her address to no reply. I arrived in her city 45 minutes later and no clue where she was located.

45 minutes after that, she frantically apologized for missing my messages and sent me the address.

Once I arrived, I realized this was obviously her first time selling frags but her display tank was out of this world. We chatted it up for about 20 minutes or so but just wanted to get the frags since this had somehow became a three hour excursion.

Something told me that she could pick up on how far I had driven and how long I had waited stationary after that when she started chunking frags from all of her main pieces into the bag that was just intended for the hammer and cane.

I copped a frag of this amazing red and green monti her friend had paid $200 for a fingernail frag for, a beautiful purple birdsnest, two extra candy cane heads, a epic bright orange Jason fox monti, and other stuff.

This lady was so unbelievably kind working me through sps care, and was a Uberly passionate and sharing hobbyist.

I’m so happy I’ve decided to hang out with the local community more, they are eager to teach and share.

Since all of y’all glossed over the story to check the frags, I’ll get to the pictures.

The first few photos are the mature frags from her tank and online so you can see what they’ll look like.

 

[living_tribunal]

Side note:

Avid readers of this build thread know I never planned on acquiring too many sps other than maybe a monti or two. This will be an lps dominated tank.

I’m also not even close to being ready to care for them, let alone be able to given I keep my tank dirtier for lps (they love it).

But who am I to say no to free frags? It’s better to learn how to kill a free sps frag than attempt to keep an expensive one alive.

If anyone has care tips, I’m all fingers.

 

[Why-Me]

Great update.
Beautiful corals
Great story
My only pointer now is if you put them in the current QT your other corals are in you should reset QT timer back to Day 1.

 

[living_tribunal]

Great update.
Beautiful corals
Great story
My only pointer now is if you put them in the current QT your other corals are in you should reset QT timer back to Day 1.

You don’t have to reset coral quarantines like fish. Theronts from encysted tomonts can’t reattach and encyst on other corals, they need a fish host or they will die in 7-13 days.

 

[living_tribunal]

Today I’m tasked with getting the sump/plumbing clean.

An incredibly foul odor permeating from the sump has perpetually reminded me of this task since I acquired it. My failure to adhere to its demands displays how strong my procrastination is.

On a cleaner note, the new frags are doing great. The hammer has sprawled out and the sps have colored up. It will take a lot of work to bring the plating monti back to health but I think I can do it.

Also, @aqua_code, copious amounts of coralline algae are taking over my display tank that never was. I’ll have to get another bottle of purple helix because this stuff is the real deal.

 

[living_tribunal]

Also, I did quite a bit of maneuvering in the frag tank. The goal was to give more flow to the hammer and sps.

I moved the sps directly below the filter return and the hammer in front of the powerhead on the left.

I think the favia/echinata (which have been doing great) wanted more light and slightly less flow so they got moved to the second deck.

I wanted to also run an experiment to see if my chalices wanted more light. I moved the pink one (which has been brownish), to the top deck and kept the blue that has recovered very fast on the bottom. This should give me an indication as what would work best.

I hate having to move the Duncan one spot over since he’s been growing like nobodies business but he needs to be open to other roommates. He can’t control the whole bottom rack.

I’m just going to keep an eye out and see if any of these changes work well and will move around again if I need to.

 

[living_tribunal]

A short letter to those who say that you can’t seed coralline algae:

This is one month after dumping the bottle in.



@aqua_code @Katrina71