My 150L new tank

[Onixom]

Hi all im completely new to marine fish tanks and starting with a 150L rimless tank. After all my panicing (which some of you may have seen) about my cabinet under my tank and trying to get it level only to have it start its decent into its own destruction, finally after building it a new skeleton out of timber the cabinet became sturdier and using some leveling feet i got the cabinet bob on level and of course put some polystyrene under the tank to prevent the pressure cracks?
Filled the tank up and placed my rocks ontop of 1/2 an inch on coral sand to avoid it being on the bare bottom and left it for 1 week with pumps and heater going as i was told thats what you do prior to putting fish in.
Today I went out and bought a pair of clownfish and 2 peices of live rock, placed them in with some bacteria from a bottle and began the process of cycling. Hoping to be adding a few peices of coral into the tank later on down the road but i think i'll need a better light

 

[blaxsun]

Off to a good start! You'll want lots more rock!

 

[Onixom]

3 Month Update- So its been about 3 months now since setting up my tank and it may look painful to the expert reefers.
I think my tank is going through the ugly algea phase?
Theres currently a bubble algea outbreak from the live rock that i bought with Lady Bittington and john wayne gacy (Poking their head out on the left of the left rock

Some eventful things have happened.
I bought some corals (Xenia, kenya tree, GSP some zoas and a rhodactis mushroom)
Mushroom went MIA then reapeared 1 month later and bleached himself before he found a shady rock and has settled there and started re-gaining his colour

Im looking to buy a small foxface rabbit fish from my LFS amd when they get to big trade them for a smaller on but i have to lower my Nitrites (Only a trace amount)

The next question is there any substrate cleaners that will eat flakes after the algea is cleaned (not looking for hermits as my snails spend alot of time on their backs lol)

 

[Onixom]

 

[Onixom]

So on the 20th of febuary i added this guy as i had trace Nitrites in tank for 3-4 weeks consecutively so LFS said to add another fish and it should settle (spoiler alert they settled beautifully).
The Blenny has added alot of character to the tank, this is the first photo i have gotten that not just his head poking out his cave, coincidentally he invaded the clowns territory here (they are in the hole just under this rock plate lol) normally if i got near the tank he is sound and swims happily but as soon as i slowly get my phone for photos he's like nope.

And on the 26th February i added this little guy, this filefish has been hard at work in my tank to clean the smaller aptasia from the rocks and substrate, had a little panic at the start with him as he wasnt eating any of the marine flakes that i put in for the fish, so the first 2 days he didnt eat, however i decided to see if he'll eat any blood worms and by god did he go scranny at them, so for this last 3 nights i have added a cube of BW as well as flakes.

All in all i think my tank is going beautifully just need to sort the bubble algea out however LFS hasnt got any foxface rabbitfish in stock at the moment however im waiting patiently as yes it looks ugly but its not affecting qnything directly that i can see

 

[Onixom]

So its been a hot minute since my last update and alot has changed.
So i finally got my foxface to clean up my bubble algea and he was a lazy b*****d ate absolutely hardly anything like 5 bubbles a week.

So the story is with this guy is i casually went to LFS like normal for my water (rodi and salt) and had a look around untill the owner finnished with their customer and he walks over and says have i seen the foxface. Turns out someone had brought it in because they had a big tank and it was centred around a yellow tang the yellow tang died and they just gave up on the hobby (i was sad to hear that) but i bought the foxface put it in the tank and let him go wild on bubble algea (which he didnt)

So a few weeks later we come to the most controversial fish in the tank (tang police im sorry)
My sailfin tang

So i bought this guy because i wanted a fish to use the other 100 liters around the tank not just the bottom 1/4. Turns out he likes bubble algea more then the foxface but because the tang is eati g it now the foxface is like wait thats my supply and has started eating it more frequently in retaliation, the foxface and tang will swim together, wherever 1 goes the other goes all the time

Now to explain myself the tang is in this 150L temporarily untill November when i will be setting up a larger tank for the fellow and all the other fish/coralso yes it may currently be in whats deemed to small of a tank but it will only be for a few months

Yes there is alot of green algea on the rocks, my phosphate has been concurently 0.1-0.25 the LFS has said that it will pass over time as the tank is only 6 moths old ive got plenty of CUC like hermits and snails, might try renting a urchin from the LFS to clean the rocks

 

[OrionN]

Any update?
Bubble algae should be manage with nutrient management. Both the Foxface and the Sailfin will outgrow your tank quickly, and add to the nutrient and worsen the bubble problem.
By doing frequent water changes, the bubble algae will go away. It is a little slow but it will be cover with coraline algae and died over months.

 

[Onixom]

Any update?
Bubble algae should be manage with nutrient management. Both the Foxface and the Sailfin will outgrow your tank quickly, and add to the nutrient and worsen the bubble problem.
By doing frequent water changes, the bubble algae will go away. It is a little slow but it will be cover with coraline algae and died over months.

Forgot to update the thread for a while.
The foxface and sailfin absolutely destroyed the bubble algae however i had to catch the sailfin and take to the LFS as he refused to allow any other fish or corals to enter the tank.

So i ended up returning the sailfin and getting a kole tang?

And hes more passive to other tank mates and corals.


Once they settled in i went a fair few months without adding anything to the tank the only thing that happened is that my file fish died randomly and everyone i added (3 in total) only lasted 3 weeks before dying randomly (everything has been fine other fish and corals all are happy) so im unsure of what tha cause was


I also added a possum wrasse which has been a interesting personality and looks like he wants to fight everything but just slowly drifts into them that runs away and hides


And within the last month i have added my first clam into the tank and have just been trying to find the best place for it (which i believe i have found now as he looked upset where he was then i moved him and he's perked up)




All in all (probably not what everyone else would say) i think its a happy tank except for the aptaisia, the file fish died and then obviously the other filefish died and the LFS has said not to add them now with the clam and they'll nip it, the solution? Get some peppermint shrimp well it would just so happen i have 5 in the tank. The problem? They are just free loaders they sit in the cave and wait till feeding time and take whatever scraps they find and avoid the aptaisia.
So im possibly going to get some aptaisia x and kill them off manually till the peppermints get the taste,

 

[Onixom]

So it's been a hot minute since my last tank update.
Not a lot has happened since the last update except that a majority of the corals and livestock died, mainly the hardy creatures survive.

However it's had the bare minimum treatment for the last 2 years. the main culprit aside for personal issues is I added a pistol shrimp and underestimated how much it burrows, this in turn ended up burying the derasa clam and caused it to up and die.

But after all this time I've recently looked at my tank which looks like this now

I decided that I want to get back into reef keeping and trying to get it looking better, not massively and expensive corals or anything like that but to look like a actual reef tank with a few movement corals and snails and get my water back under control to add another derasa as the old one was happy and growing until it kept being buried alive

One of the next tasks along with water changes is to clean the glass.... it didn't look this bad in person but after taking this photo and then looking at the tank its horrendous

 

[Onixom]

Side note I did add a few nudi's about a year ago and as you can see the aptasia has long since vacated

 

[Gumbies R Us]

So it's been a hot minute since my last tank update.
Not a lot has happened since the last update except that a majority of the corals and livestock died, mainly the hardy creatures survive.

However it's had the bare minimum treatment for the last 2 years. the main culprit aside for personal issues is I added a pistol shrimp and underestimated how much it burrows, this in turn ended up burying the derasa clam and caused it to up and die.

But after all this time I've recently looked at my tank which looks like this now

I decided that I want to get back into reef keeping and trying to get it looking better, not massively and expensive corals or anything like that but to look like a actual reef tank with a few movement corals and snails and get my water back under control to add another derasa as the old one was happy and growing until it kept being buried alive

One of the next tasks along with water changes is to clean the glass.... it didn't look this bad in person but after taking this photo and then looking at the tank its horrendous

Glad to see the tank is still up and running!

 

[Onixom]

So it's been a hot minute since my last tank update.
Not a lot has happened since the last update except that a majority of the corals and livestock died, mainly the hardy creatures survive.

However it's had the bare minimum treatment for the last 2 years. the main culprit aside for personal issues is I added a pistol shrimp and underestimated how much it burrows, this in turn ended up burying the derasa clam and caused it to up and die.

But after all this time I've recently looked at my tank which looks like this now

I decided that I want to get back into reef keeping and trying to get it looking better, not massively and expensive corals or anything like that but to look like a actual reef tank with a few movement corals and snails and get my water back under control to add another derasa as the old one was happy and growing until it kept being buried alive

One of the next tasks along with water changes is to clean the glass.... it didn't look this bad in person but after taking this photo and then looking at the tank its horrendous

It is amazing how different it looks with no salt residue on the glass.

 

[Onixom]

So i've been trying to keep ontop of the tank. Intermittent water changes. Found that the main cause of the procrastination is the trek to the LFS to get the salt water. I know it sounds trivial but its a 15 minute drive there and if its busy its anywhere from 5 minutes to 45 minutes waiting in the shop for some water then 15 minute drive back.
Now it sounds like im making a mountain out of a mole hill but after a week of work wasting a few hours at the LFS for some water it got tedious. So I have bought and installed my own RO filter and salt to make my own water.

Now hoping i'll be more consistant with the water changes... Standby

 

[Onixom]

I know it seems like a small thing but for a tank I'm trying to fall in love with again (The spark is here just trying to ignite it most likely with a clam but more work is required)
But this weekend I have added 5 new Turbo snails.
Thursday this Biosphere was green compleatly, Friday my snails were delivered and Friday night after work they were introduced to the tank, by Saturday at 3pm this is how I found the sphere alot of the algea munched away.

Now to the expirienced reefer this isnt that big but considering my tank hasnt had a proper clean up crew (Albiet nautilus snails) for around 10 months give or take a month. So the algea has become abit of a problem, I have been trying to manually remove the algea thats growing around the filters after what happened to my last tank but I'm now getting paranoid so I thought I'll bite the bullet and try Internet ordering of some snails and so far im impressed.

Water changes are happening more regular and the corals look happier. Think next weekend or sometime this month im going to rebuy some test kits as mine are out of date and i'll update the readings I have on here, see how bad they are.
All things considering having a new derasa clam is my goal to get back into the hobby but I wont be adding it untill the tank is ready... Also another (Starry?) blenny would be nice.


Also just noticing the vermentid snails in the picture... need to deal with them soon