So this is my first thread in order to track progression through my newly restarted mixed reef from a disaster that occurred roughly 2 months ago. What had happened is my mixed reef had been established for about 4 years, and since setting up and RODI system and making my own water is impractical for me, I rely on my LFS water. Let me say that this fish store really specializes in reefkeeping and the owner is a knowledgable marine biologist. I regularly get water from another store, but sometimes I will head to his store and look at everything and get my water. I went to his store to get my water, went home, did my regular weekly 20% water change, looked at my tank 6 hours later, and my hammer coral was skeleton white and barely any flesh left, so I removed it. Woke up the next morning, my 6 headed gold torch was half skeleton, with the other half about to be skeleton, my baseball sized WWC grafted monti cap AND grafted sunfire monti cap were both skeleton white, nothing left. There were more fatalities but those were some of my favorite. I tested my parameters, everything perfect. I tested the water I had bought, and the RODI came back with 30+ TDS. This was upsetting to see, and the owner claimed it to be "fine" and I should "get my own water system then." I know this may not be the exact culprit (it may be), but what I believe also caused this catastrophe was the fact that the saltwater reservoir in his store "most likely" (according to one of the employees) had red tide contamination leftover from the last batch of seawater. The store had put the fresh mixed saltwater into the natural seawater container that had just been emptied because of red tide contamination, obviously I had no idea of this at the time of purchasing the water. So yeah, I ended up losing about 75% of my corals overnight, with the rest being in hospital at my friends store. But heres the restart...
Tank- JBJ Rimless 45
Lighting- 2 AI Primes. Maxspect Ethereal.
Flow- 2 Jebao PP4. Sicce Syncra 3.0
Heater- Cobalt Neotherm 100W
Filtration- 2 InTank Baskets. 250 mL PolypLab Carbon in each.
Biological Filtration- 40 lbs Fiji Pink. 20 lbs Bimini Pink.
Rockwork- ~30 lbs shelf rock hand built by Pristine Rock here in South Florida.
Setup Date- November 15th, 2018.
Cycle Finished- December 9th, 2018.
First Life Added- December 10th, 2018 (3 Mexican Turbo Snails)
Plans
Tank- JBJ Rimless 45
Lighting- 2 AI Primes. Maxspect Ethereal.
Flow- 2 Jebao PP4. Sicce Syncra 3.0
Heater- Cobalt Neotherm 100W
Filtration- 2 InTank Baskets. 250 mL PolypLab Carbon in each.
Biological Filtration- 40 lbs Fiji Pink. 20 lbs Bimini Pink.
Rockwork- ~30 lbs shelf rock hand built by Pristine Rock here in South Florida.
Setup Date- November 15th, 2018.
Cycle Finished- December 9th, 2018.
First Life Added- December 10th, 2018 (3 Mexican Turbo Snails)
Plans
- SPS dominating the upper portion of the rockwork and a mix of different LPS/softies throughout the rest of the rockwork.
- Grow a small wilsoni frag into a beautiful centerpiece.
- 2-3 smaller bottom dwelling fish. 1-2 fish that swim in the water column.
- Rainford Goby(s). Blue Spotted Jawfish. Sunburst Anthias. Need some suggestions as to what else, or maybe in place of these.
- Setup Jebao DP-5 (5 Channel Dosing Pump). Dosing Red Sea Alkalinity/kH, Calcium, and NO3-PO4-X. Also dosing AquaVitro Fuel.
- I currently have a very interesting lighting schedule that I plan to "experiment" with, as well as adding a source of very specific light. I don't want to specify on any of this yet because the research is scarce and the results are unknown. If it works, it may be some sort of breakthrough...
- Alk- 8.2 (Need to raise slightly)
- Ca- 500 (Need to lower slightly)
- pH- 8.0
- PO4- 0.01-0.03
- NO3- 0.2-0.4
- NO2- 0
- NH3- 0
