JK1’s 7ft mixed reef

[JK1]

Hello and thanks for stopping in to my new build thread. I’m John, live in Oxford UK and have been reefing since the age of 12, some 25 years back! Things have changed a little since then.

At this point, I’m actually 9 months in to this build. It’s also not my first project in this tank. I initially set this up with a floating scape. The old thread can be found here:

Build Thread - JK1's floating reef

Hello from Sunny England Been a while since I've been here sorry but I'm back with a new build! It's a temporary 5x2 until I get an 8x2.5 built. I just moved house which came complete with a man cave! I decided to be bold and create a floating scape! Drawing inspiration from builds like...

www.reef2reef.com

I unfortunately suffered near total loss as the end of last year thanks to a power cut. My tank lives in what is basically a posh shed. I lost power overnight and discovered the tank little above freezing. I rescued what I could and closed the tank down to completely re-do my electrics and decor.

as much as I loved the floating scape and remain disappointed I never reached the end goal, I decided to rebuild with something more conventional. My biggest issue with the floating scape was the fact it looked rubbish when I was sat in the room. All I saw was the underside of rock. I’ve rebuilt this scape to deliver maximum eye candy from both standing and seated positions. I’m over the disappointment now and am certain I made the right choice. But, I’ll let you form your own opinions.

I’ll gradually try and catch you up on how I got here.

Here’s a little video of where I’m up to.

 

[harley32907]

Wow! Nice tank!

 

[JK1]

I’ll start with the tank location.

firstly, in the UK, we seem to settle for way smaller living spaces than you guys. As a result, it’s common to have living spaces built in your garden. Keeping a reef in one is a little less common.

There are plenty of pros to doing this but unfortunately, the cons are challenging. Pros include having the tank in my own personal space. It’s kinda like having a normal family house but also having my very own living room of awesomeness just away from civilisation. I think I actually spend more time out there than I do in the house. Largely due to me working from home most of this year due to a certain pandemic. It’s also great for maintenance, I don’t have to worry about flooding the house anymore and getting in trouble with the better half. The cons I’ve learned the hard way. Keeping 265 gallons of water in an outdoor building without central heating is tricky. It’s a drain on electricity and the load proved too much for the previous wiring. I have 2x ATI hybrid units and was running 5 heaters amongst my other equipment. I now have better wiring and I’m running just 2 600w heaters. I get a lot of evap over winter losing around 3-4 gallons a day. I have to run a powerful extractor 24/7 to prevent it raining from the ceiling! Lastly, when your tank malfunctions indoors, it’s usually noticed pretty quick. I don’t hear any safety alarms if I’m indoor.

so, this was the cave when I first set up about 4 years back

I initially set up a 5x2x2 before transferring to the current 7ft tank about a year later.

I brought the tank and the room into this century with a little facelift

 

[JK1]

So I got the tank wet again mid March. All of the rock came from my previous set up although much of it lived in the sump. I let the rock die off when I shut down so had to reseed it. I got myself a pair of common clowns. I’d not had common clowns since my first set up as a 12 year old boy. Over the years, I have always been drawn to the fancy clown of the moment, this time I fancied going back to basics. So I added the clowns and a bottle of colony. I also failed to resist adding a coral. I spotted a gumdrop shroom in my local for around $20. Having previously paid over $100 for one, I figured it would have been rude not to get it.

All set to cycle, the world went into lockdown. I spent the next few months locked away with 7ft of rock to stare at, 1 shroom and a pair of broken clowns! I say broken as they have 7ft of space to play in and decide to host my return pipe! To this day, they don’t dive more than 2 inches below the surface for more that a few seconds. I have come to the conclusion that my local misheard me when I asked for percular clowns and instead sold me peculiar clowns!

 

[Screwgunner]

My first one caught my house on fire. Lost all to that. Then aphasia fixed that with the ugly spine fish then red flat worms put in the flat worm x and my skimmer air tube got blocked and did not get the x out in time even with 2 pounds of charcoal and it nuked my fish. I have moved to a new house and I am starting over again. By the way that room is amazing good job.

 

[JK1]

With a nice quick cycle I had entered the ugly stage after just a few days. I’m now desperate to add clean up crew but had to wait a month as all shops were closed for all but essentials and online shops were shipping dry goods only. It was a painful month of staring at a very green box. I was getting a lot more algae growth than I’d ever experienced before. I put it down to a lack of cuc and leaching nutrient from my rock.

mid April, shipping began to resume so I ordered in a strong clean up crew consisting of turbos, astrea, cerith, nassarius snails, hermits and emerald crabs and let them get to work.

although they would leave nice clean trails, they just couldn’t consume the wealth of algae. At this point I began making a series of bad decisions.

 

[Screwgunner]

With a nice quick cycle I had entered the ugly stage after just a few days. I’m now desperate to add clean up crew but had to wait a month as all shops were closed for all but essentials and online shops were shipping dry goods only. It was a painful month of staring at a very green box. I was getting a lot more algae growth than I’d ever experienced before. I put it down to a lack of cuc and leaching nutrient from my rock.

mid April, shipping began to resume so I ordered in a strong clean up crew consisting of turbos, astrea, cerith, nassarius snails, hermits and emerald crabs and let them get to work.

although they would leave nice clean trails, they just couldn’t consume the wealth of algae. At this point I began making a series of bad decisions.

Impatience not a good thing in this hobby. Of course you have learned this the hard way. Like me.

 

[JK1]

My first one caught my house on fire. Lost all to that. Then aphasia fixed that with the ugly spine fish then red flat worms put in the flat worm x and my skimmer air tube got blocked and did not get the x out in time even with 2 pounds of charcoal and it nuked my fish. I have moved to a new house and I am starting over again. By the way that room is amazing good job.
Sane people leave the hobby after the house fire! I love that this hobby introduces me to other like minded narcissists. I applaud your unrelenting passion for reefing.

Sane people leave the hobby after the house fire! I love that this hobby introduces me to other like minded narcissists. I applaud your unrelenting passion for reefing.

I've faced so many issues in the last 5 years, probably more than in the 20 years prior.

I often think that experience can as bad as it is good. Overconfidence has made me miss simple mistakes that a younger me would have picked up on. Will get to that later in the thread.

Thanks, although it had been a painful and expensive journey, I’m confident that the end result will better this time around.

 

[JK1]

Impatience not a good thing in this hobby. Of course you have learned this the hard way. Like me.

Although I’m 100% guilty of impatience, this was not my downfall here. Lockdown forced patience upon me

 

[Screwgunner]

That is what I am hoping for also.

 

[Screwgunner]

Just to be nosey what are you running on your tank.

 

[tripdad]

Nice build! I love the repurposed salt buckets in the garden shot. And yes, we reefers are all a little bit off in our reasoning. Things that would make normal people quit just seem to drive us on.

 

[JK1]

So, the first error I made was misidentifying the cause of my algae growth. I assumed it was excess nutrients leaching from my rock and a delay getting my cuc in. It was in fact due to daylight. I was working in the cave full time so opted to have the blinds open. My lighting cycle runs 2pm to midnight but with the daylight coming in I actually had a photoperiod from 6am to midnight.

I foolishly began an aggressive assault on nutrients. With rowaphos and nutrifix pellets I successfully wiped out all the algae. I now had 0 nutrients and a ridiculously long photoperiod. This opened me up nicely to dinos! In all my years of reefing, dinos have to be the worst pest I’ve encountered due to the difficulty of beating them and the labour involved. I’ll get back to how I beat them later.

 

[count krunk]

Enjoying the story.

Could you go into a bit more detail on what you did to the building?

 

[JK1]

Just to be nosey what are you running on your tank.

Lol, I can’t believe I forgot to cover that! Thanks for the prompt.

lighting is a pair of ATI hybrids. Now I absolutely love these units. Absolutely hate the software. I’d barely call it software. You get no instructions at all. There is no lcd screen to program through. I spoke to another reefer with a unit to find out how to use them. He’d had to contact their customer support who gave him an IP address and login info. Surely they should be sending that out with the unit. The software is poor at best, glitchy and limited. I can’t pair the units, they don’t stay connected to WiFi, I can’t use the software on my phone. I expect way better for the money these cost. Rant over.

heaters are 2x 500W schego titanium which I rate highly.

the plumbing is terrible, the noise from the down pipes is insane, I keep meaning to sort it but fear I’ll miss the sound of running water and it’s hard not to spend any expendable income on livestock. I’ll fix it one day.

the down pipes drop into a sketchy diy basket made by the previous owner with I fill with floss.

the first chamber has a miracle mud bed and the second is filled with cheato. I have a BM Curve 7 skimmer and a reactor running nutrifix. I have a Kamoer doser to run FM balling which I’ve used for about 10 years.

Nice build! I love the repurposed salt buckets in the garden shot. And yes, we reefers are all a little bit off in our reasoning. Things that would make normal people quit just seem to drive us on.

Thank you. Was wondering if anyone would spot them I don’t limit my interest to growing coral.

“a little bit off in our reasoning” understatement of the year right there.

 

[JK1]

Enjoying the story.

Child you go into a bit more detail on what you did to the building?

Thank you. Of course. The main issue to fix was the electrics. All the sockets were running on a 6 amp breaker. This was probably fine for the guy who installed them. He used the building as a gym, not a power hungry man cave of computers, guitars and reef tank and garden lighting. The amp was so low because it was daisy chained. The main fuse box in my house feeds another outbuilding which is now my gym. The gym has a fuse box which subsequently fed the cave. Each fuse needing a lower amp than the one feeding it. I rewired the cave to be fed directly from the house. I also had very stupid digital plug sockets in there. In the event of a power cut, the plugs always restart powered off! I’ve replaced these with conventional manual switch sockets.

 

[Poseidon's snail]

I also live near Oxford!

 

[Screwgunner]

I will be running 110 pounds of dry rock pest free. Pro clear sump with marine pure blocks spunge filter pro clear skimmer 150 bio pellet reactor . Hand full of hydors.500watt finnex with 800 watt back up. Don't like using the 800 watt for tank it has melted a controller.

 

[JK1]

So, with all my algae gone, I decided it was time to start adding some coral. I obviously wanted to fill as much space as possible as I was bored of staring at rock and a single shroom. I spent a while deciding what to get in order to fill as much space as possible with the funds I had available. Naturally, after making multiple lists and meticulous planning, I impulse bought a jawbreaker mushroom blowing all my budget on another single leaf! Classic me.

with my blinds still open and me still blind to the cause of my issue, a bit more algae started returning, I figured it’s time to start adding tangs. I plan to have a yellow, purple, sailfin, naso and Achilles. My battle plan was to add the yellow, purple and sailfin as a young trio, equal in size. Add the less aggressive naso later and a larger Achilles last. The Achilles has to be able to fend off the purple who is likely to be the one to take issue with him.

I ordered the trio from my go to store. Unfortunately the yellow was slightly smaller than the others, only slightly but enough to be defeated by the aggression of the purple. This is my first purple. I was aware of the aggression but probably not to this degree. He’s an absolute butt hat! Stunning fish though. A mate of mine also sent me a care package at this point containing zoas, sps and lps to help kick start my return.

 

[revhtree]

Looking great!!