Juiceman's Reef, The Good, The Bad, The Disaster, and Now

[juicemanatx]

Greetings all from Austin Tx. Been reefing since 2010. I had a humble start with a 90g drilled reef. I'm going to take you through 8 years of my reefing fails, disasters and successes in 1 page... hold on tight!

Here's my first tank over it's first year:



I found myself wanting more so I purchased a used 200 Gallon Oceanic Tank which was 7 x 2 x 2.

This is the last video of the tank before moving in 2012 when I bought a house.



Here it is all set back up after the move:

Some progress in growth over the course of this setup

This video is before I did a major reaquascape due to tons of Xenia.



I got rid of every bit I could and went with a rock tower setup.

Painted the Back of the Tank Black

Changed my lighting to All Build My LED

Plumbed in a second tank for LPS and Softies to separate SPS

Still didn't like my lighting so I switched to the ATI Hybrid Powermodule

 

[juicemanatx]

Continued:

I shut down the 60g and combined everything back into 1 tank

My tank was overrun with Aiptasia and Texas Trash Palys. So the plan was get all new rock, and start fresh, while I had the tank empty get a new stand and new equipment for the sump since I wanted a larger skimmer and reactors.

 

[juicemanatx]

Continue

 

[juicemanatx]

During all of this building I added a fish to my tubs which turned out to have Brookynella, I lost my entire fish stock over 3 days...

I feel If I would have known more about QT'ing I could have saved alot of them. this was Summer of 2016.

I continued with the build and ran Fishless.

 

[juicemanatx]

Right when things were starting to dial in, Disaster happened:



The Front seam split about 4' across.

So I had to buy a new tank. I'd just finished all that plumbing work and the new stand so I had AGE make me a tank with the same dimensions and drilling as my old tank.

 

[juicemanatx]

Started filling the tank with new water so I could rebuild the aquascape

Went with a similar setup of two structures.

Put the sand and everything back in and let it run for a while to stabilize

Once everything tested out as clear, I moved everything back in.

I could have fish again, I only added fish from Divers Den

Welp, Fail Diver's Den, I got Velvet!!!!! and yes, only fish from divers den went into the tank! had to go fishless again and QT everything myself!

I eventually had a batch that could go back into the tank after the 76 days had past.

Here's a vid from my tank sitter while I was on my honeymoon

Here's the most recent video:

 

[juicemanatx]

Here's how I put my chiller outside my house:

 

[juicemanatx]

Current Coral Shots!

 

[juicemanatx]

continue

 

[juicemanatx]

Continue

 

[juicemanatx]

And here is an iphone FTS from today

 

[NY_Caveman]

Wow! Love all of the detail. That aquascape is excellent.

I will say that Brookynella group fish image was one of the saddest I have seen, but you have come a long way from then and have a beautiful system.

 

[SPR1968]

Well Rory, you did say ‘hold on tight’ and what a brilliant write up with all the pictures and detail, and the video of the tank leaking will give me nightmares! Lol

Infact I’m now going to have to go back and re read it all it was that exciting watching the progress!

Definitely following along here.

 

[juicemanatx]

Wow! Love all of the detail. That aquascape is excellent.

I will say that Brookynella group fish image was one of the saddest I have seen, but you have come a long way from then and have a beautiful system.

It was a rough day for sure. Some of those fish were my first ones which i'd had for 6 years at that point. What i've learned from all of it is to do it right the first time and save you the headache (money+time) of doing it right the second time...

 

[juicemanatx]

Well Rory, you did say ‘hold on tight’ and what a brilliant write up with all the pictures and detail, and the video of the tank leaking will give me nightmares! Lol

Infact I’m now going to have to go back and re read it all it was that exciting watching the progress!

Definitely following along here.

Thank You, It's been a journey for sure. I know on my future setup in about 7 years (lol) There will be no used equipment or tanks, I learned my lesson the hard way on that one.

 

[jolt]

Juiceman, I've seen much of this on the local forum, but spread out over time. I have to say, going through it all at once in your thread here I am amazed at your journey and the tank looks awesome now!

 

[juicemanatx]

Juiceman, I've seen much of this on the local forum, but spread out over time. I have to say, going through it all at once in your thread here I am amazed at your journey and the tank looks awesome now!

It took me a while to go through all the posts and pull everything out that could chronologically account everything. I still need to go back and add dates and details when I have some free time

 

[juicemanatx]

took a quick Iphone Video to try out an orange filter a fellow reefer gave me. I think it's too yellow.

 

[Katrina71]

You have some major skills!

 

[NY_Caveman]

took a quick Iphone Video to try out an orange filter a fellow reefer gave me. I think it's too yellow.

Tank looks great, but yes, too yellow. I picked up a clip and lenses on Amazon that was about half the price of the AquariClip. It has both an amber and a yellow filter and a macro lens (15x).

https://www.amazon.com/Aquarium-Fil...uariclip&qid=1536137758&sr=8-5&ref=mp_s_a_1_5