My first Marine 94L / 24G tank

[Simsung]

Hello all

Thought I would create my own thread to show my tank and keep myself motivated to document its progress.
Only now that I have viewed the photos I had saved, I realised how much some of the stuff I've got has grown!

The tank was set up in July 2020, with no previous experience in reefing. I did have a tropical tank many years ago and I am learning the ropes as I go!

Please note -
Not all fish/inverts visible on the photos are in the tank at the moment. Two have unfortunately gone carpet surfing and others were returned to LFS.

Livestock atm:
2x Purple Firefish
3x Banggai Cardinal
1x Yellow Watchman Goby
1x Pictus Blenny
1x Algae Blenny

2x Peppermint Shrimp
1x Pistol Shrimp
3x Nassarius Snail
1x Electric Blue Hermit

I understand the tank is heavy on fish, I am religiously watching my parameters and doing water changes, If I start seeing problems I will return some fish to the fish store.

It started with some rock

And different ideas

Cycling the rock

When that was done, adding live sand

And testing... so much testing

Even cats couldn't wait!

Here's where the addiction starts

Daily zoa inspection

Two worlds, one cat to oversee it all

Going through diatoms and acclimatisation

Calaustrea in August

At this point I realised I've got malawi rock, which is not suitable for a reef tank...

New live rock from the LFS and a lot of stress if stuff is going to make it...

Brave Chromis helped me cycle the tank again

Freebie I got with the live rock... Any idea what it is?

Adding Coral

Moooore coral

Pictus Blenny

More of Pictus Blenny

First sighting... I did not realise how big those really are!

This guy poses for pictures, I swear

Impulse buy. I returned him 3 weeks later when I learned more about them. He's well and alive at LFS

I absolutely love this guy, but also returned him. He covered all my coral with sand.
Had to take everything out of the tank to catch him

This guy had the worst luck imaginable. He managed to jump out through the feeding hole in the lid and I think cats got to him... I had him for 20 hours

Pictus loves watching me

These zoas had 2-4 heads when I got them!

My girlfriends favorite

Corynactis - came on live rock

More Zoas!

Preeettyyy

Middle October...
I found my crab DEAD!

Well, nope. Just molted. It was scary though!

This. Guy. Poses. For. Pictures.

Some more coral

Recently I got an algae blenny. At first he refused to it but now he's grazing on all rock and surfaces, still ignores any other kind of food though, however his belly seems to be full and he's active.

Night Time!

Day Time!

Every move you make, every breath you take, I'll be watchin' you

Recent full tank shot

Another crab

Purple Firefish

Caulastrea 2.5 months growth

Aaaand just managed to catch this picture!

 

[reefingBeAmazin22]

Nice tank

 

[SaltyT]

Looking good! Thanks for sharing

 

[Chrisfish]

Tank looks really nice and the pictures are great!!

 

[Simsung]

Thank you!
I've got a filter lens for my phone recently, the photos are becoming a lot better.
Still learning how to take them, the slightly curved front glass is making it a lot more difficult.

Plans for the nearest future:

New light
Sump with a refugium

 

[Twoddler]

Nice tank, from fellow Brit

 

[Simsung]

Light upgrade!

I have placed an order for a new Maxspect MJ-L165 Light
Its double the W power and has a lot broader spectrum than what I've got currently.
Can't wait to make the switch, my corals I'm sure, too.

Problems!

I have a built-in filtration system in the back. I packed one of the back chambers too tightly with filter media. As water evaporated, the pump was pushing it out from the back chambers into the display section and I did not notice a serious evaporation. Because of this, my salinity jumped to 1.032

Before I realised what's happened my goniopora closed up and one of the zoas did too.
I am slowly dropping the salinity back to 1.025 and I think I can see the zoas opening up already, I hope it will also be the case with the goniopora


24 days growth:

04.11.2020

28.11.2020

How does it compare to your people eaters?

Sad Goniopora:

Love this duo

 

[Simsung]

New inhabitants!

 

[Simsung]

Hello!

My goniopora is not opening up

I have a couple of ideas on why
a) Temperature spike - Accident with central heating... temp in the tank risen up to 28.5c
b) Pictus blenny was irritating it a lot, it became his favourite perching spot
c) my KH is low, around 6.5 Tomorrow I will be getting something to raise it
d) I starved it?

I moved it to a higher flow / lower light area and it did not make any difference

Full tank shot

 

[Simsung]

I have bought a second set of CA, MG and KH tests and seems like all was in check after all.
It's probably the temperature to blame

Here it is today, peeking!

 

[Simsung]

Goniopora slowly coming back to life

I am now an advocate of dosing iodine. I can see an explosion in growth and zoas appear healthier!

(It could be the new light too)

 

[Chrisfish]

Corals look awesome!!

 

[Simsung]

My Algae blenny would not let the yellow goby get out of his burrow, the decision was made to return him to lfs
My scape suffered a bit I think, but well...

IT was worth it! Goby already peeking

Goniopora nearly back to full strength!

I was given this cutie for the blenny!

 

[Simsung]

With the Blenny gone, Goby is getting out a lot more!

Full shot, some changes again.
Some zoas went up onto the wall, scape got disturbed when I was catching the blenny

 

[Simsung]

Got some nasty brown hair algae growth on areas of rock that had been recently exposed to light.
I didn't like the look of it and the fact it was disturbing the nearby corals so scraped it all off with a toothbrush and did a thorough clean of the tank.
I hope it won't spread

I also started looking for the cause of it, all the water parameters that I have tests for were in check.

I grabbed a turkey baster and blasted the wavemakers.
Oh my, there was so much detritus.

I did a 20% water change and reduced the white photoperiod by 15%

Hopefully it'll do the trick!


Forgive me the poor picture quality

Goniopora growing new polyps!

Sunny D's doubled in size

I've not killed the SPS! I want moar now!

I hope I will not regret this, put some macroalgae in the display
I like the look of it

This "frag" used to be ONE polyp. I accidentally snapped it off the larger colony when I got it and glued it to a snail shell. I did not expect this much growth so quickly

DOSE IODINE. Zoas gotten their colours back and are growing like crazy

 

[Simsung]

I did not feed for 2 days
Fish started coming out more
Blenny got back to munching algae CHOMP CHOMP
and most importantly... brown algae is receding

Some pics

Lights were already in "night mode" which I set up recently some corals are closed up.

I like how they pop for such a basic coral.

Blastomussa nearly healed. I hope it will start expanding soon!

Fluff

This view made me realise how much empty space I've still got ]:>

 

[Simsung]

Oh completely forgot!

I am keeping an eye out for a larger, used cube tank. I do not like the rounded edges and curved front of the existing tank.
It will be 60x60 approx so possibly soon I will be moving all

 

[Simsung]

This is great

 

[Simsung]

Did a water change today and put my phone underwater for a bit

Soon to be a Zoa Garden. I need to figure out how to keep the populations in control and not let them overgrow each other!

Those next to the rastas were one of my least favorite ones. Since I started dosing and the colors pop they became one of my favorites .

Someone is hungry!

Fast growers

PLS EXPAND

Utter chaos growth explosion

Head count doubled in a month

When I got the organ pipe coral, I accidentally snapped off one of the polyps and glued it to a snail shell.
It went through hell, was buried under the sand, knocked over thousands of times aaaand nature finds a way!

 

[Simsung]

I need your help, please

It seems like I need to start dosing my tank. Water changes are not nearly enough to keep the KH stable, It's dropped to 5 over the last week.

I will begin slowly raising it over the course of next few days, but I need to figure out a permanent solution to keep it stable.

What is the ultimate low maintenance KH dosing solution? Also, the harder it is to overdose the better.

A while ago I bought a KH buffer but decided to work on my water change regime instead. That's not feasible. I would need to do a water change every 3 days and mess with my water params, I already had some Dinos popping up here and there and had to deal with that. I do not want to starve the tank again.

Please let me know how would you start dosing this tank and what products to use

Thanks!