My First Reef - build

[Reef Breeders]

Put the mandarin in your tank, the refugium is just that, a safe place for pods. Looks good so far, I would get a name brand skimmer, reef octopus or bubble magus usually work immediately. I definitely wish that I went with a benanimal when I started out, I still don't have one :) good progress, everyone likes a poc heavy thread

 

[Molli]

Well, the skimmer is a Red Sea Berlin x2, not sure what you mean by brand name, since that is the brand name. Unless you mean a popular model? Anywho, it's working great now, I've emptied the cup twice, neither time was it full though. Still trying to get the skimmate thicker by adjustment.

 

[VB68]

enjoying the build,,,,, i'm getting ready to do mine,,,,while reading about yours

 

[Molli]

enjoying the build,,,,, i'm getting ready to do mine,,,,while reading about yours

Hi VB68, Arkansas is my home state :) Enjoy your build, and take your time with it. It's so hard to go back and fix things >.<

 

[VB68]

Hi VB68, Arkansas is my home state :) Enjoy your build, and take your time with it. It's so hard to go back and fix things >.<

where in Arkansas, Van Buren here

 

[Mike&Terry]

We are enjoying your build and your freshwater tank is awesome! Looking forward to seeing your progress! :bigsmile:

 

[Molli]

where in Arkansas, Van Buren here

Glenwood near Hot Springs. My family still lives out there. Beautiful area.

 

[Molli]

We are enjoying your build and your freshwater tank is awesome! Looking forward to seeing your progress! :bigsmile:

Thanks! If my tank even turns out to look 10% like yours in a year, I'll be ecstatic :D

 

[Molli]

Got the rest of my sand washed today and in the tank. I was going to take pictures of it in the tank (silly me) but of course none of you want to see a tank full of milk. Anywho, here's some stuff I found in my sand. One of these things doesn't belong in it, can you find it?

We'll come back to that.

I redid my rockwork, mostly on the left side. The tower was bothering me, too tall and I'm not going to be able to use it like I thought I would, so I tipped it on it's side. I like it a lot better now. Here is a pic of it before:

And this is now:

Here's the show refugium rocks. Not very pretty, but I get to scape it later with macro algae's, so it doesn't matter so much. I need a light first though :(

So did you find the thing that didn't belong? Here it is.

Wonder how long it was in the sand? lol

I also found some shells. Yay, more hermit houses. I think it's funny when they switch shells.

Yup, that's right just rocks, shells, and a rusty screw for today. That's all you get.
Firefish has a week and a half left in quarantine!

 

[Reef Breeders]

Do yo have any other fish? if not QT is not needed yet, but a great habit to get into for sure. Great build!

 

[Molli]

Qt is needed, in case the fish has Ich or parasites but is not showing signs. I have treated him with prazipro in case of flukes or other parasites, but I don't think I'll do copper, as he has showed no signs of Ich. Thanks for the input :D

 

[Reef Breeders]

If no fish are present, the risk of spread is just not there, but you do have a point, ich would delay new additions fish wise for 8 weeks

 

[Mike&Terry]

Your 'scape is looking good. :bigsmile:

 

[Molli]

Your 'scape is looking good. :bigsmile:

At least better than the first incarnation right? I like it better. I'm pretty sure I'll poke it again as there are two rocks that are a little precarious. Maybe I'll move them to the refugium when I get a light. Thank you :D

 

[VB68]

looking good

 

[Paul_N]

Very nice 1st build! I must say I loved the way you mounted the doors to slide open.....1smile1

 

[Molli]

Very nice 1st build! I must say I loved the way you mounted the doors to slide open.....1smile1

Thanks! It works in theory, but unfortunately my left door bowed slightly, and the primer that I used on the inside is slightly tacky for things that get set on it (mabye cause I didn't coat over it with anything?) so the door sticks to the frame.. I have to pull out on it slightly to unstick it before it will slide open. lol It's not terrible, because all that is in there now is my reservoir.

 

[revhtree]

Yea the scape looks good! How exciting are new builds? VERY!

 

[Molli]

Yea the scape looks good! How exciting are new builds? VERY!

Thanks Rev :D

 

[Molli]

An update, first hard corals!

Does anybody actually read the text, or do people just look at pictures and then post what they think I'm asking? Sometimes I get weird answering posts on other forums... Maybe I should do less pictures.

So far my track record isn't looking good with coral survival. I really should have waited longer I guess. The little hitchhiker coral is doing well, and growing at least lol. My zoas are growing, but I lost two of them. One of them was a fire and ice from my lfs and the other was a frag from the pack I won from Sexy Coral.

Recently though I bought three more coral. Before I get into what they are/were let me say that the purchase was less than ideal circumstances and was done as a favor to me. And also let me say that in now way do I blame the person I bought them from, and I would probably do it again.
I chose my coral from cell phone pics of a large frag tank. They were good pictures but they were somewhat far away. I chose what I thought was a millepora, a duncan, and an acro. When I got them home out of the little dark bags filled with crumpled up plastic bags and murky water and into the acclimation bucket I realized that it was not a millepora and most certainly not a duncan. Happily, the acro at least still looked like an acro.

Here is what they looked like acclimating (the point of realization, "Oh, that isn't a duncan... it looks like a... omg, an elegance!")

So I panicked a little when I saw that it was an elegance. Kicked myself a little for buying something I thought would perish. Then I noticed the 'millepora' was turning white halfway up. Oh great, I killed it already. Maybe they shouldn't all be in the same bucket...

So I dipped them (except the elegance) and added them to the tank. The elegance looked very happy within an hour.

Or at least happy to me, what do I know though?

A week later however, everything but the elegance is dead. The skin came off them. Obviously I did something wrong. I tested my water, everything is where it should be. I don't have anything I shouldn't have, and the other parameters are within the recommended ranges on the test kits. My temp is stable at 79. The elegance looks fine. In fact, it's only gotten bigger, which I guess means it is expanding more now. It grabs food I try to give it, but so far it just drops it. I don't think it wants what I'm trying to give it yet. Any advice here is apprieciated.

I'd put up a pic but I think we all know what dead white sticks look like :(

Happier news, my firefish is out of quarantine, and he currently owns the reef!