Mark's 65 gallon soft coral reef tank adventure.

[Mark Shelly]

My 3 month old tank is 65 gallons and is not in the best location. I expect to do lots of water changes as I do not have room for a sump. To help compensate, I have over 70 lbs. of live rock and redundant filters. I use an oversized HOB protein skimmer and a HOB power filter to help aerate the water due to the tank depth. Improving lighting and adding alternating water flow are next on my wish list before trying too much coral. The first picture shows my tank with its first fish in December. My inspiration was a tank my brother had with xenia, green star polyps and crawling pods that I found very relaxing (And I was surprised so many people view them more like pests).

The second picture is its current configuration with the addition of better quality dry live rock after a small 2nd cycle.

My grandkids are providing the names. One crab is Stinky Pants and another has Diapers in his name. The shrimp is Mr. Pinchy and the tang is Mellow Yellow. One clown is Doodle E Do. The dark rock was my live rock brought over (probably not the best idea). I looks like it has a dark red coralline algae on it as the snails have spent half there time there waiting for the algae to replace the diatoms. I hope for the purple type.

 

[melypr1985]

Looks like a good start! Keep it up

 

[Mark Shelly]

Looks like a good start! Keep it up

I did a quick look at your blog. The fire shrimp section described mine well. I put it in a few days ago. I put in a pellet on my lone acan polyp and before it settled in, the fire shrimp grabbed it. I kept trying and it kept collecting them until it was dropping the pellets as fast as it could hold them. Today I put my hand in with a few pellets and the fire shrimp came out of its hiding place and took a few from my hand and went back to his hiding place. The acan then got its. I thought I might be being wasteful with the pellets as my clownfish hadn't taken to them. But the tang grabbed what the fire shrimp missed, and the clownfish saw the tang eating them and ate some themselves. The last thing I expected was to see the shrimp scamper to my hand.

 

[melypr1985]

I did a quick look at your blog. The fire shrimp section described mine well. I put it in a few days ago. I put in a pellet on my lone acan polyp and before it settled in, the fire shrimp grabbed it. I kept trying and it kept collecting them until it was dropping the pellets as fast as it could hold them. Today I put my hand in with a few pellets and the fire shrimp came out of its hiding place and took a few from my hand and went back to his hiding place. The acan then got its. I thought I might be being wasteful with the pellets as my clownfish hadn't taken to them. But the tang grabbed what the fire shrimp missed, and the clownfish saw the tang eating them and ate some themselves. The last thing I expected was to see the shrimp scamper to my hand.

Thanks for checking it out! Yeah, i love my fire shrimp. He's very social which is surprising sometimes. Glad yours is doing well

 

[revhtree]

Looking good!

 

[Mark Shelly]

While there is not much to see on the large scale in my tank, I do like this palm-like octacoral. I am still trying to figure its best location.

 

[Mark Shelly]

This shows part of the dark rock mentioned above. It is darker than most pictures or coralline algae. Does anyone have it this dark?

 

[Mark Shelly]

My saltwater fist tank is now 6 months old. I have survived my beginner mistakes: tap water salt mix; rocks too close to the glass; no sump; no quarantining; and insufficient water flow and lighting. As expected, I went through a diatom phase, followed by a cyanobacteria (I think) phase and now into a coralline algae phase with occasional spots of other algae. I thought I was going to have to dose with hydrogen peroxide to get rid of the cyanobacteria when I got back from a trip, but it is mostly gone no. It looked like strands of bacteria under a 40X microscope, but it was not verified. I thought I had been making it worse by baster blasting the rock and stirring the sand. My nitrates and Phosphates are very low so this may have helped reduce it. Or maybe the coralline algae is out competing it for the nutrients. The sand also looks very light now.
I also saw my first copepods under the microscope and some sort of protist (I could see the individual organelles). Shortly, after I found some anthopods, bristle worms, and some very small florescent tube worms in the tank. I enjoy looking at the tank at night under red and florescent flashlights when many of these come out.
I think I have added my last fish and am still pretty light on the corals. I lost one coral, somethink kept dislodging others, and I have some that appear to be thriving. I doubled the lighting (LEDS) for large polyps or softies in this tank due to its depth.

 

[melypr1985]

Sure is looking good!

 

[Mark Shelly]

Not too much change with the tank. Coralline algae is starting to take off with two different shades on the rocks and occasionally some green on the equipment. I have started feeding the fish with frozen food (Rod's and LRS Nano reef Frenzy) more often, as well as trying to spot feed some of the corals with Julian's thing. I still keep seeing aiptasia pop up, especially inside a group of polyps. I notice them more by unopened polyps nearby, especially after feeding the frozen food. I did add some zooanthids, a mushroom, and a toadstool mushroom. Sure enough it closed up and shed its skin shortly after I put it in. I have a few, 10-frond worms or corals I haven't identified as well as some pineapple sponges. The fire fish has quit coming to the top of the rocks begging for food, but spends most of his time sand level hidden by the rocks. You can barely see him below. The Yuma Ricordea have been moving about and leaving offspring in their wake. The acan has lots of new polyps as well, but not evident in the picture. My short bout with cyanobacteria or Spirulina has cleared up, and my nitrates and phosphates are low, although I do need to clean the glass often.

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

Keep it up! Looking better and better. Great work

 

[Mark Shelly]

9 Months have passed. I have not added any more fish (No quarantine tank + the current fish all get along well). I have added a few corals, mostly mushrooms, acans or zoas, slowly and am waiting for them to fill in. I also have a few sponges. Water changes are still my primary mineral replacement method as most of the LPS corals are fairly small. I do have a new coral on the bottom right that I can't tell yet whether it is a devil's hand or an Australian Toadstool Mushroom. Coralline algae has really kicked in. I have had almost no green algae, to my delight, even though I only have a small clean-up crew.

 

[Brew12]

9 Months have passed. I have not added any more fish (No quarantine tank + the current fish all get along well). I have added a few corals, mostly mushrooms, acans or zoas, slowly and am waiting for them to fill in. I also have a few sponges. Water changes are still my primary mineral replacement method as most of the LPS corals are fairly small. I do have a new coral on the bottom right that I can't tell yet whether it is a devil's hand or an Australian Toadstool Mushroom. Coralline algae has really kicked it. I have had almost no green algae, to my delight, even though I only have a small clean-up crew.

I hope my tank looks that good 9 months from now!

 

[trio91]

9 Months have passed. I have not added any more fish (No quarantine tank + the current fish all get along well). I have added a few corals, mostly mushrooms, acans or zoas, slowly and am waiting for them to fill in. I also have a few sponges. Water changes are still my primary mineral replacement method as most of the LPS corals are fairly small. I do have a new coral on the bottom right that I can't tell yet whether it is a devil's hand or an Australian Toadstool Mushroom. Coralline algae has really kicked it. I have had almost no green algae, to my delight, even though I only have a small clean-up crew.

looking good Mark

 

[Mark Shelly]

Weekly photo project. Week 1.
I decided to do a photo project, but keep it in this thread. Instead of doing a different picture every day, I decided to do a themed photo set weekly to try and demonstrate variations in time of day or growth over time for different fish or corals; a photo story of a reef tank. I base this on the fact that everyone won't have most corals or fish in their specific tanks and might be interested in how things change in others. My tank is a mixed reef with mushrooms, zoanthids, green star polyps and xenia for softies and Acans, a Duncan, a trumpet coral, a chalice, and a pipe organ coral for reef building corals. I have just entered the tank phase where corals and coralline algae are depleting calcium and carbonate faster that I am replacing them by water changes, so I am working out the dosing now. I take photos because I often can find pests and hitch hikers much easier in photos as my eyes are not that great anymore.
This first set of photos I call tank mysteries. Sometimes you see things that are unusual and it takes a while to figure out what they are. Of course if you have these items, it might be obvious and no mystery at all. Feel free to guess what these are.

 

[Mark Shelly]

Week 2 Yellow tang. The tang was very thin when I first got it.

At night, the tang gets pale.

It is a little fatter now.

When it expands its fins vertically, it is more aggressive.

Close-ups help reveal details, especially at the eyes.

 

[Mark Shelly]

Week three is a little unusual in that there pictures were taken from inside the tank. One advantage is that you can use a flash and not get a reflection off the glass. Since more colors are available for reflection compared to tank lighting, these pictures appear more colorful, and harsh. This first did not use a flash and the orage colors on the rock came from room light.

This rock I eventually hope to have covered in zoanthids.

My rock-scaping is more of a vertical wall. The blue mushroom on the right detached and fell into a hole. It is partway out, but not visible from the from to the tank.

Here is a look at the ridgeline.

Here is another view of the zoanthids.

Close-ups like this help me find pest such as aiptasia which often show up near closed polyps. In this case, there appears to be a zoa below the top left frag. I didn't put it there, but maybe it was attached to the frag base.

 

[Mark Shelly]

Week 4 is the Orchid Dottyback. There is some parasite in the tank that occasionally attaches.

 

[Mark Shelly]

Week 5 The pumping action of the Xenia tentacles is well know as is its spreading ability. The first picture is as I received it and split into 2 pieces

Then it grew a little longer.

At night it contracts.

Here one branch has attached to a rock and the base only connected by a thread.

You can see the spread in this top-down photo.

Now you can see 2 more branches attaching.

This picture shown the base moving to the attachment point. Look closely and you can see 2 tiny branches is the shiny slime where it had been attached.

 

[Mark Shelly]

Week 6 I have read the Yuma Ricordeas are a hard coral to keep, but they are doing fine in my tank. The first photo is of a Yuma directly under the lights. It has moved exposing numerous other Yumas, some of them green when young.

These have grown but are still more green in color. The photo is looking down at this group at a later time.

This one started in one location.

It moved leaving 2 smaller ones.

Here is a close up of the small ones.

Here is a close up of the parent mouth.

In this last one, the bubbles are hardly apparent.