My first reef tank 678ltrs (171gal)

[Raphael Dalmeida]

Hi All, this is my first attempt at a reef tank.

I live in Sunshine Coast, QLD Australia.

I've been on the freshwater hobby for a long time, and did keep quite a lot of freshwater fish, though was always dazzled by saltwater aquariums, though stayed away because of apparent difficulty, higher maintenance and costs.


Finally this year i bought my first house and decided to take the leap into the saltwater hobby. Finding a great and cheap setup on Facebook Marketplace did help a lot.

01/11
I got the the tank and all equipment around November 1st for $500 aud, i managed to get most of the live rock and coral rubble (50+ kg) on a bucket with some saltwater to keep it going.
I guess this really helped me with a faster cycle.

The Tank is a 120x90x60 drilled on the bottom with an overflow to a 75x75x50 sump tank.

The Equipment included with the tank was:
1 Maxspect Recurve R6-120 4ft LED Light
1 Kessil A160 Tuna Blue
2 Jebao Wave Makers with controllers
1 Pump which i'm not sure of the brand (with controller)
1 Skimmer (SkimZ brand)
Heaps of live rock and coral rubble
1 Nitrate Reactor (with a closed bag of bio pellets media)
1 Tunze Osmolator 3152
1 Refractometer
1 Hailea Chiller
+ a few other bits and pieces

It was a pretty good deal for me. Except that my driveway has an inclination of approximately 40+ degrees and there is a row of steps to get into my house, so it was tough getting the tank in place.

Overall setting everything up was quite a steep learning curve for me. I did ask a few questions here in the forum and read over the existing topics with all the besics. Although i am still learning lots.

Luckily i have a friend who is now a fellow reefer leaving just one street beside me who helped me setting everything up, the plumbing and often give me a few tips and gifts me a few of his own livestock as i get the tank running.

Got 40kg of Aragonite Sand (2-3mm) and dumped into the tank.

Here is a photo of the sump, which i was told is a Berlin Style sump (i'm stil a newbie on this).


As I was wanting to get things going and keep the live rock "alive", Got some saltwater delivered straight from the ocean and proceeded to flood the tank with not much worry towards the initial Aquascape.

So I kept doing a few light feeds with some of my freshwater aquarium food to keep the bacteria eating and the tank cycles. I did get a bit of ammonia (around 0.5 ammonia) which went away pretty quick.


20/11
My tank seemed to be fully cycled (0 ammonia readings for a few days and a bit of nitrate). I guess i had a mini cycle due to the moving of the live rock (though i kept it alive with an airstone and saltwater).

I went out to the beach with my feyonce and collected a few hermit crabs, a cowrie snail, 2 clams, 1 small black sea cucumber and a little goby that we named "Derp" - below is us sharing our first beer. He is a cute bugger and as soon as got into the tank he was out and about and eating. (these rock pool fishes are pretty tough honestly).

Was little happy to see some live in the tank.

27/11
Went back to the rock pools at the beach and collected 1 juvenile Sergeant major (damsel fish) and 1 Australian Stripey. I did QT them for 1 week and fed them some food with de-wormer.

05/12
Went on a trip to Brisbane and bought a Snowflake Juvenile clownfish, a Juvenile Percula and my first corals , a green Hammer coral, a (pinkish) hammer coral and 2 Duncan's.

Considering that most of my livestock were caught on rock pools on the wild I didn't QT the Clown fishes as they were looking great and on their own tank at the store (and that was the reason why i chose them).

From this point onwards, any new fish would have to be QT'ed. Although i'm happy with current stock.


06/12
My friend brought me some presents:

Some Rock pool shrimp (Palaemon elegans)
A Gray Sea cucumber
1 Frag of his Montipora
A clam with a few Anthelia (Waving Hand coral) attached to it
1 Montipora Frag
1 Acan Frag
Some rockflower anemone
1 Coral frag which he is not sure on the species
2 Acropora Frag

On the same day i decided to completely re-do my aquascape finally, and started drilling into some of the rocks to build a structure using Acrylic Rods, the remaining of the rocks i sent to the sump.

I've read a bit about it, and decided to use gloves and a full face snorkel mask to protect me from any bad stuff coming out of the rocks when drilling.

Used a masonry electric drill, though only had a 10mm drill bit, which made my life harder.
This was really tough stuff, some of the rocks (as the flat shell you see in the photo) were harder than my reinforced concrete walls in my house, and took me quite the effort to drill.

Current Stock:
Fish: 1 Juvenile Snowflake, 1 Juvenile Percula, 1 Goby (generic honestly), 1 Juvenile Australian Stripey, 1 Juvenile Seargent Major Damsel
Inverts: 8 Yellow Legged Hermit Crabs, 1 Gold Banded Cowrie Snail, 1 Black Sea Cucumber, 1 Gray Sea Cucumber, 4 small rock flower anemones, 10 Palaemon elegans (rock pool shrimp), 3 Clams.
Coral: 2 Acropora frags, 1 Green Hammer Coral, 1 Pinkish hammer coral, 2 Duncan Corals, A few Anthelia (Waving Hand) - not doing well at the moment, 1 Montipora Frag, 1 Acan Frag, and 2 unknown coral frags (my friend gave me but not sure what they were).

Current scape done - a few corals very upset as i did a major overhaul on the tank and they were still adapting

One of the hammer corals

Australian Stripey (difficult to take pic, very quick fella)

If you made it through all this way on the post, thanks for reading.
Feel free to post any suggestions, critiques or commentaries... I do welcome them as I am keen to learn more...

For now i will take a while with current livestock, keeping parameters stable, measuring dKH, CA, MG, NO3 and Salinity and hope my corals improve along the line.

I do plan on getting another power head (wave maker) to improve the flow on the tank and create more areas with flow.

So far im loving the experience, although feyonce keeps me at my toes as i have been spending way too much time (and money) with the tank, though i just can't help it, its a very soothing activity to both maintain and observe the tank.

Also we named our fishes haha for good humor:

Percula Clownfish = George Clowney
Snowflake Clownfish = Snow Clowney
Goby = Derp
Stripey = Penn
Sgt Major = Teller




Cheers,

 

[SPR1968]

That looks great so far, and keep the pictures coming!

 

[Raphael Dalmeida]

Thanks mate!

I will try to get a pic of the inverts next time, funny enough for me they are the ones with the most curious behavior...

 

[Raphael Dalmeida]

08/12

Everything is still new, the aquarium chores don't really feel like a chore.
Got myself a longer RO/DI tubing to make it easier for me to fill my ATO Reservoir.

Excuse the mess, a bit of a mix of aquarium items there incl. some of my freshwater gear.
Plus a whole heap of cables (i need some better cable management =S).

My two little clowns, love to hang on their little corner... except when it's food time. They sure are some lazy but beautiful fish.

This little stripey is a true athlete, always going around the tank, nibbling on everything it sees. For now my favorite guy in terms of personality, very fun to watch. For now, hope when he grows up he stays cool.

Little Seargent Major Damsel, this one is a little pest first one when it comes to food, though he is quite pretty and the photo doesn't capture the slight hue of blue and yellow he has.

This is Derp, the first in the tank, still the boss of his area, not the shiniest colours but really quirky fella

This one was tricky to capture, one of my lil rock pool shrimp between the rock crevices. Most of the time they are nowhere to be seen unless it's feeding time. Although i believe they do a good job at cleaning up around.

Lil' rock flower anemones (as per forum ID). They do look pretty, though i keep an eye on them. My friend told me they can multiply and go around the tank.

Duncan Coral, swaying around. My favorite coral so far.

Side picture of the tank, cause Aquascape is not only front of the tank but all vieweable sides... i'm not yet sold on my aquascape, though i guess i will just give it a chance for now, happy that there are heaps of spaces

That's it, no major changes today... just a bit of love for my tank on a rainy day after work.
The calcium and magnesium kit that i had from when i bought the tank ran out, so i ordered a new one.

Current Alkalinity at around 7.0, it's still a bit tricky to manage it (as it's a new concept for me). So i want to get CA and MG reads, to try and adjust parameters to suit best my corals.


Hope you guys liked the photos, and as always please let me know if there's anything i could be doing better or should watch for.

 

[Sgchick]

Following along! Nice pics and your Duncan is beautiful!

 

[Raphael Dalmeida]

19/12

It's been a while since my last update.

Today went to the beach near my house with my small siblings, we got to see a baby cleaner wrasse on the rock pools and a whole heap of crabs and australian stripeys. The cleaner wrasse was so pretty.

Since my las update, i got my Rikka KH MG and CA test kit, a bit on a budget and took me a while to understand how to test it.
dkh = 7
CA = 420
MG = 1428
NO3 = 5 to 10

Currently struggling a bit with diatoms and green algae, did a 15% water change and reduced feeding a bit.
Was feeding 3-4 times a day the small clownfishes, though im doing 1 - 2 times a day now.
Added a few Nerite Snails and Cerith (hope they are hungry).

Had to use a razor blade to help get algae off the glass, cause the magnetic scraper wasn't doing its job.

I'm particularly curious about a few inhabitants below which i am not yet entirely sure, plus the acropora becoming fluorescent when very close to light and high flow.

Here's a few photos of the inhabitants:

Green Hammer Coral

Montipora

Acropora on the top shelf, becoming fluorescent green

Acropora at the bottom

The babies

The gangsters of the tank

Duncan 1

Duncan 2

Colt coral (lobate brown soft) Cladiella sp

Rock flower anemone or Zooanthids? not sure anymore...

Maybe Paly? not sure

Gold banded cowrie snail

Gray sea cucumber

Hope you enjoyed, if you have any pointes i do appreciate it.
Till next time

 

[Raphael Dalmeida]

11/02/2022

Hi guys it's been a while since i last posted an update here. A lot has happened so this is gonna be a really packed update.

December last year i my PO4 and NO3 dropped to 0 or near 0 and i got a Dinoflagellates infestation in the tank. It was quite nerve wrecking and i did a post in the forum to get some directions and help.

Photo of dinos nightmare on my rocks, it had covered the whole tank!

All in all, i reduced the light (no blackout) and did a lot of manual cleaning and siphoning... also used a tooth brush to remove excess from rocks, put an UV i had at home on. Things improved a lot and i went on a trip to Cairns, QLD (on the great barrier reef) while my friend kindly looked after my tank for me (for top ups, daily feeding and manage the dinos issue).

Very happily i came back in start of january to a very clean tank, and the dinos were almost gone, while some green hair algae took place (much preferred over the dinos).

Below are some photos from my GoPro video footage when snorkeling in the reef in Cairns.

I've seen gigantic corals, giant clams (beautiful colored), dogface puffer in one of the photos below, so many angelfishes, parrotfishes, triggerfishes, cleaner wrasses working all day cleaning other fish parasite. It was a truly unique experience that got me real pumped when i came back to my reef tank! (also got a whole heap of jellyfishes stings even with stinger suit haha, but was worth it )

Now for the tank update.

Around when i got the dinos sadly my beautiful Duncan Coral and my hammers perished, only one head of the duncan is left. They got some brown slime on it and just disintegrated very quickly, doing some research i've found it could be a bacterial disease (as it spreaded the other heads that were doing great started to die the same way).

Bought myself an iodine coral dip and will think about fragging if this happens again (to prevent spread).


Took some photos of the tank today, got a bit of indirect light hitting it so the photos are not the best - they look better at night.

The fishes are doing great, so far i haven't increased the stock on them.

My friend gave me a few pieces of coral in between, i got a few new frags and was lucky to find someone shutting down their tank and got a whole heap for a bargain

Big sinularia and toadstool corals i got from the guy shutting down his tank. Also on the bottom corner i have a devils hand leather too (its been adapting). - They look much better at night though.

Heliofungia i got from a store, its been doing great and loves to eat! (placed on the sand with heaps of space due to huge tentacles)

Trachyphillya got on sale for 20 bucks, and just below it is my gray sea cucumber

A few zoanthids and morphs i got with the guy shutting down the tank, and my palythoas mutuki which are doing great.

Side photo of the toadstool, green sinularia, devils hand (green polyps though still not doing well) and a bubble tip anemone in the bottom that was also given to me by the dude shutting down his tank.

The BTA and the photo bomber

Chalice coral i got from store, its been growing and encrusting around the plug

New montipora

Strombus snail, my new best friend! This guy is a beast at eating algae from sand... he cleared up 1/3 of my sand algae in 2 days!

Current stock:

Fish:
2 clownfish
1 Indo pacific damsel (Sgt major)
1 Australian Stripey

SPS:
3 Montipora frags
3 Millepora frags (my friend gave me yesterday) - still adapting
3 Acropora Frags (standard brownish)

LPS:
1 Blastomussa (red)
1 Acan island (green)
1 Duncan (one polyp left sadly)
1 Elegance (recovering, came with the guy shutting down tank)
1 Lobo (a bit dark - came with the guy shutting down tank)
1 Heliofungia
1 Trachyphillya
1 Purple/green hammer - came with guy shutting down tank

Softies:
2 Sinularias Green (1 small frag and 1 big one) - came with the guy shutting down tank
1 Big Toadstool leather - came with the guy shutting down tank
1 Devils Hand Leather (green small polyps) - still acclimating to tank
Zoanthids island - came with guy shutting down tank
Morphs - guy shutting down tank
Palythoa Mutuki (12 heads now - been growing)
Brown Colt leather coral (cladiella sp)

Invertebrates:
1 Gray Sea Cucumber (small)
2 Black Sea Cucumber (small)
6x Gold banded cowries
5x Yellow legged Hermit Crabs (been getting rid of them - they are pests)
20+ Rock pool shrimps Palaemon elegans (tiny shrimps)
A whole heap of amphipods in sump (my friend gave me)
Occasional bristle worms
1x Bubble Tip Anemone
3x Green rock flower anemone
1x Strombus snail
4x Sppoted pearl oysters (have been in the tank since the start - doing well)
Variety of snails (Zebra top shell, Nerites, Ceriths etc)

MacroAlgae:
Chaetomorpha (Added to refugium in sump)
Dragons Breath (Added to display tank) - current a bit small as i gave a cutting to my friend

Other Algae:
Started seeing good growth of coralline on rocks, and a bit of a hard spiky coralline looking algae (with a hard skeleton).

Pests:
Green Hair Algae (not too bad - Strombus snail is helping out a lot) - plus i've been feeding the corals a bit more than usual
Cyanobacteria - A bit of cyano on the sand



Below is my little test sheet i keep on my phone to register my parameters, i still need to get better at it and still learning about managing the parameters and dosing KH and CA/MG to keep stability in the system.

Things are doing better recently that i've managed to keep my KH stable around 8.
Im thinking of doing a triton test just to get a good baseline and also check on the accuracy of my tests.

If you got this far on the post, thank you very much for your attention.

I plan on getting some more photos of the whole tank at night later, and some additional photos of some corals i left out. All are doing pretty good (except the devils hand that not sure if is shedding).

I also plan on adding a species of Tang or Blenny some time soon to the livestock, need to fix my Tunze ATO sensor and a few other bits and pieces.

If you have any advice please feel free to tell me, and please be kind as i am still learning.
Time to enjoy a cold beer.

Have a good one guys!

 

[Raphael Dalmeida]

12/02/2022

Happy saturday!

KH 8.6
CA 400

A few more photos below, i know... the cyano is a bit unsightly at the moment. It's crazy how different it looks when sand is clean white vs algae. Hoping my strombus and my chaeto can help with that (+ water changes).

Trachyphillia looking very happy and puff this morning (have im at back side of tank - low flow and low light)

Blastomussa at front, Palythoa Mutuki at the back

Somewhat full tank pic - Corals doing well, cyano is bothering me a bit.

Blasto, Acan and Palythoas (daylight)

Sinularia Green, Toadstool leather and BTA (bta started moving again - it worries me).

Side photo of tank at night (devils hand leather only one not doing too well - moved him recently)

Heliofungia - Love this guy (at back - my last duncan head and chalice on the right, and sad cyano)

Tank front daylight picture - difficult to take cause of glare - some of the acros and milleporas ledged over the top of the rockwork, on the right side i have temporarily some putty on top of an aiptasia that hitchhiked when i got the sinularia (h2o2 and putty - hoping to choke the *******)

Thats it for today, those photos i took from my phone, so they are lower quality.
My light is a bit more towards fuller spectrum and i do get some indirect sunlight in the tank too.

Im going to try to adjust my light schedule a bit and put some more blues into it (need to do some study to know whats the best for coral health). Im currently using the Softies/LPS preset of the maxspect r6 recurve (though i find that with a bit more blue light the greens and reds pop very nicely).

So next steps for me is trying to manage this cyano (e.g.: manual clean, strombus, adjust lighting spectrum, chaeto refugium). I want to keep my feeding schedule the same as the fish and the coral are doing great with it. (coral 1 or 2 weekly, and fish 1 small feed everyday).

What beautiful herbivore fish i could add (im thinking of tangs), would love to get a yellowish or blue fish to give some more color to the tank.

That's it for today!

 

[laezur]

Beautiful tank! I dream of owning one so large, I’ve gone with a Red Sea 170 for my first reef aquarium and seemed like a good middle ground, but dang I hope I can convince the girlfriend to let me get one haha

 

[Raphael Dalmeida]

Beautiful tank! I dream of owning one so large, I’ve gone with a Red Sea 170 for my first reef aquarium and seemed like a good middle ground, but dang I hope I can convince the girlfriend to let me get one haha

Thanks mate its still far from a lot of glowing immaculate tanks i see here in the forum.

To convince your girlfriend you just need to slowly get her into it...

haha i started with freshwater when i was living at an apartment with my feyonce, once we got our own house made it easier and let's say we try to understand and accept each other hobbies, keeps us healthy in our own way for me is beer, bbq and fishkeeping.

Just gotta watch out for the money pit and addiction that it can be.

 

[Raphael Dalmeida]

17/02

Happy Thursday!

Bought an used Maxspect Gyre and did a bit of organising the rockwork today. Will post photos later of the whole tank.

My traxyphillya was so puff today, I'm loving this guy! Looking better by the day.

My tank gets a bit of afternoon light coming from a large window, the corals seem to love it. My blasto looks so fluffy when he gets this light.

The BTA has been doing rounds and seems to have settled in the crevice between the 2 leather corals.

Got some livestock in quarantine, will post photos later.
1x McCulocchi Dotty back, 1x Blue Assessor and 1x Laboutei Fairy Wrasse.

Also ordered some live pods to add to my refugium microfauna.

Cheers

 

[Raphael Dalmeida]

So

Happy Saturday,

Overall tank update one of the millepora frags my friend gave me started to bleach, i guess it didnt acclimate well, the other one is doing well.

The elegance that came in bad shape a few weeks ago also gone, couldn't get him to recover.

Still working things with the red cyano on the sand, though strombus is doing a good job and the chaeto on refugium is also growing well.



Now for the good things:

Added some Harpacticoid copepods to my refugium.

Added an used Maxspect gyre 150 to increase overall flow of tank, and bumped up light intensity a bit to hopefully get more coverage to other corals.

I've added the blue assessor on an improvised isolation box in the tank and hope he does well.

For the isolation box I've got a 2 litre clear plastic container with lids i had seating around and drilled a whole heap of holes with a power drill. Then used 2 magnets to stick it to the glass.


Below is my improvised 50 litre quarantine container on top of my aquarium tool cart, with the Laboutei Fairy Wrasse and McCulochhi Dotty back. Both are doing great and eating flakes and mysis.

I do put an acrylic sheet on top to prevent the fish from jumping, and used a spare Aquaclear 110 with some seeded media from my main tank.

Also added some PVC elbows for hiding places.


Great news, found a place where my devil's hand leather likes, looking much better now.

Once again, look at how fluffy this trachyphyllia is now.

So now the plan is, keep the wrasse and Dotty back on qt for a while and the blue assessor on isolation box in main tank while im waiting on some nets for the top of my tank.

Eventually will release the blue assessor and let him establish his territory prior to adding the wrasse and Dotty back.

I'm hoping despite him being more mellow i can get all the fish to coexist peacefully. The tank has plenty of rock work and crevices for them to hide and ample space at the back of rock work as well.


That's all for today!
cheers!

 

[Raphael Dalmeida]

Hi guys quick update,

Cuando problem had gotten a bit out of hand so I reduced feeding a bit, did a deep vaccum on sand and reduced lights a bit. Looks like it's improving now.

Laboutei wrasse recently introduced is doing well.

Cool surprise today, one of my cowrie put some eggs on the glass and is taking care. Hope it hatches, i love them.

Had to arrest this little criminal (Indo pacific damsel) As i introduced him early on the tank he was good only with with the clowns and stripey.
His last crime was pecking at my Duncan to steal his food. Will give him away.

I've got the blue assessor going out and less shy now that the biggest bully is on lockdown.

The oblique lined dottyback is beautiful but difficult to take a photo, always in the rock caves and only leaves once in a while for food.

All in all i think I'm getting the tank back on track after the major cyano bloom. (Still going but being managed).

Will post more photos later.

Also good news, have a friend doing research at the University here and he can order from Cairns Marine one of the biggest wholesalers of fish/coral.

So i might get a Lineatus Wrasse and a few corals on an order with him.