Mr. Aqua*Reef

[CenCalReef]

Hello everyone! Just want to start off by saying thank you to anyone viewing my post and answering any questions I may have. I started a saltwater tank back in fresh/soph year of highschool(about 10yrs ago) and it worked. Tap water, HOB Filter, flaky water changes, terrible under par lighting you know just about everything "wrong". Though it worked and it worked for about a 1.5years then i decided i was neglecting the tank so i took it down. 10 years later with a stable job and an itch to get back to it I set up a Mr. Aqua MA-610 which is 24x24x12 with a DIY Acrylic sump. I set it up back in November 17th,2019 and let it do its thing with bio-spira then after a month some dr tims and added a DaVinci Extreme with a Snow Onyx let the tank and them do its thing then after new years added a Lemon Peel Angelfish, This whole time with no lights on but occasionally dosing different bacterias like microbacter7 and that dang coralline in a bottle lol. Anyways here's the specs and a couple pics let me know what you guys think. Oh the best part is i was too impatient and bought someone else's Innovative Marine Nuvo10 that was set up and running for more than a year?? basically just moved it to my house while my main cycled and what not HA! ;Facepalm

Mr. Aqua MA-610 24x24x12 Corner overflow Herbie
2-MP10WQD AquaticLife DX18 24" paired with 2-Kessil A160WE as well as 1-AI Hydra 26HD

DIY Sump Total Actual Volume 9.8G
1-Reef Octo 110S(Space Saver) 1-Kessil H80 2-Eheim Jager TruTemp 100W 1-Neptune ATK V2 1-Reef Octo Varios-2 Return

 

[CenCalReef]

Sorry I had a weird time uploading pics lol. Has anyone had any issues with controlling the DX18 with VDM module? The whole reason I got it was to control the inside and outside lights through apex but when I "turn off" the lights they still remain on just very very very dim

 

[TheShrimpNibbler]

Those are very nice looking tanks. I will be following this build for sure!

 

[CenCalReef]

Thank you I appreciate the kind words. I’m glad someone sees something in them everytime I look at them I wish they looked better lol getting ready to add coral the big tank hopefully next week

 

[CenCalReef]

Got my first corals in after having my tank up and running with fish only for almost 4months. I might have gone a little overboard but I did have a birdsnest and green mushroom in there for two weeks and saw signs of growth on both corals soooo naturally I added 12frags all at once today since I received my order from @TopShelfAquatics right away after some temp acclimating and inspecting they are all puffy and opened up. Currently only running 1 Kessil A160WE on the other side of the tank to get them acclimated to the water and light before turning on the rest tomorrow at lowest settings and then finding they’re kind of permanent home in the tank!

 

[CenCalReef]

I received the following Orange Bubble Bounce, Mardi Gras Bounce, Space Invader Pectinia, CB Mind Blowing Paly, TSA Princess Leia Zoa, WWC Nirvanas, Pandora Zoa, Pikachu Favia, TSA Sugar Daddy Goni, Green Hydnophora, I think Scrambled eggs Zoa, and lastly a piece of WWC Yellow Tips Acro for an easy fast growing venture into sps in such a new tank. We’ll see how it does and maybe add another piece.

 

[CenCalReef]

Quick update, thank is/was doing great coralline algae started to consume all plastics and the corals where doing great including the sps saw some growth only thing that wasn't so great are my zoas/palythoas. They always seem to get thin and the lashes thin out as well, maybe to much flow? Maybe not enough trace elements/nutrients in water? idk. Overall tank was doing great weekly water changes and then after this epidemic,pandemic,pandemonium, quarantine, shut down or whatever else you'd like to call it i got lazy even with all this extra time on my hands haven't done a water change in a month or so tanks still rocking, my dosing schedule kinda fell off, I finally hooked up my Apex DOS so i wouldn't have to manually dose and hopefully get more consistent stable Alk and Cal levels welp i ran out of two part and never went to the fish store assuming they were also closed. I was wrong. Yet everything is still good or maybe decent. I am truly the poster child for reefers who setup and then fall out of routine. Yesterday I felt bad for neglecting my tank(although i felt bad for my corals after the first missed water change) so I hit my local fish shop looking for 2-part and some more salt mix, I LEFT WITH A BRAND NEW REDSEA REEFER 170 lol today yesterday I built the stand and plumbed it or I should say screwed everything together lol. Such a well built tank, The stand/cabinet is very nice as well but im waiting for more companies to adopt the aluminum based stands kinda like IM, I just fear mostoir over time will eventually warp or rot the wood even though its coated. Anyways thanks for reading my nonsense lol.

 

[CenCalReef]

My plan ford today is to add 60-70% new fresh mixed Tropic Marine Pro water and the rest my old tank water let it run and mix for a couple hours while move all my equipment over like skimmer, return pump etc.
Hoping to then add some bacteria in a bottle either dr. tims or bio spira, but id have to go some i do however have a brand new bottle of MicroBacter7 so maybe ill add some of that along with the "old live rock" from my current setup just to give the rock a fighting chance with such a great change in clean water and hopes that the bacteria will help to keep any ammonia build up from any die off if shocks occurs during transfer.
At this point I will have all my corals and fish in separate buckets with old tank water, not sure if I want to go bare bottom or reuse my "old" sand, I kept it pretty clean siphoning every water change and the tanks only been up since november 2019, I figure one of two things will happen the good bacteria could help establishing the new tank or nasties can come out of the sand during transfer and ruin the new setup. I think ill leave all the animals inside the buckets for a day or two and test the tank to make sure the live rock is keeping up with demands i figure ill add the inverts to the new tank to create some sort of bioload and will ghost feed to see if anything changes in water chemistry. Ill post pictures later tonight

 

[CenCalReef]

So it took me all day obviously to get things setup and transferred over into the new tank. There were some oh crap moments and dumb dumb mistakes but non the less I managed to make the transfer. I mixed 20-25gallons? I can’t recall lol. Of fresh saltwater inside the new tank. I then used a filter stuffed with filter floss to filter my old tank water just as a precaution and to try and get just the water and no debris. I transferred over all the live rock from one display to the other without thinking of aquascaping because that would take time and glueing and I didn’t want to disturb the tank anymore than it needed to be. Next came all the corals followed by my Clownfish, sixline wrasse, two blue/green Chromis and my lawnmower blenny as well as my three types of snails and my one single hermit crab. Next I took all the live rock/rubble from my old sump and transferred it to my new sump. I know a lot of people don’t like the idea of rock/rubble in the sump but I feel more comfortable having live rock in the sump over bio balls, ceramic media, those blocks that supposedly leach stuff. I just pull the rock every month and swirl it around in old tank water to knock off any built up detritus I’m also looking at adding a small powerhead to this area to keep the detritus suspended and either make its way into the skimmer or back through the aquarium and into the filter socks. Anyways I let the tank run with no lights or skimmer for a whole week and today I finally turned the lights back on. Only running the AI Hydra 26HD in acclimation mode starting at 20% lol everything opened up nicely earlier only thing I may have lost is a birdsnest but that was going before the tank move and actually has more polyps now than it did before the move? Maybe it’s coming back? Well see. Here’s some bad pics

 

[CenCalReef]

 

[CenCalReef]

I’m thinking about getting a smaller sized protein skimmer so I can get more space to grow chaeto and dragons breath I threw my chaeto out I figure I’ll start with a fresh batch and my dragons breath well I didn’t pay attention and during the transfer some of it went into my return pump and some of it was chopped up by a power head I placed in my sump temporarily. There’s still pieces of it floating around in my new tank kind of annoying lol any recommendations on smaller skimmers for RedSea Reefer 170?

 

[CenCalReef]

Long time since I've posted about my Red Sea Reefer 170, I recently moved in July to a new apartment and snuck my tank in have been getting adjusted still lol I sold mostly gave away a lot of corals since I knew I wasn't going to be paying much attention to the tank as I adjusted to my new home and furnished everything. Safe to saw I should be getting a lot of frags from the pieces I gave away so not to concerned, I still have mostly the same fish stock from when I started almost a year ago! Im stoked I still have my DaVinci Extreme and Snow Onyx Clown fish as well as the Sixline Wrasse and Lawnmower blenny, I had to give away the lemon peel angelfish... he got to some corals and should have done more research on their diet and behaviors. Unfortunately my reefer doesn't have a screen so I found a dry Chromis during the move and the other two Chromis just battled each other too much during and after feedings so I rehired them as well, Im looking to add a couple more fish to my reefer just not sure which to go with would like utilitarian fish but not sure what would be small and get along with the rest of the gang. Anyways here's some picture

 

[CenCalReef]

I know my rock work isn't the best and wish it was taller any recommendations? do you guys think I could add more rock from someone else established tank versus dry rock? My rock is almost a year old and started off as dry rock from BRS I believe. And yes I setup my mixing can next to my couch so I can sit down and slowly mix in my salt lol. Don't really have a way of running my RODI into the can so make water into 5Gallon jugs under my sink then dump them in. I also got rid of my AI Hydra 26HD and Aquatic Life DX18 T5 Hybrid and am back to two Kessil A160we with spectral controller, I just ordered an Ecotech Marine G5 XR15 and mount for a great price so I couldn't resist despite some of the reviews of Mobius and cracking cases. Hard time deciding on Pro Vs. Blue seems blue is more friendly as its already set at AB+ just need to set the point intensity and obviously I can manipulate the colors a little but I probably won't unless I see a program I like. Well if you guys could please help with recommendations on adding more rock as well as fish stock options! Thanks guys

 

[CenCalReef]