My first reef tank -Waterbox Cube 20

[bretl85]

This is my first saltwater tank. After watching a lot of YouTube I knew I had to setup a tank. My wife and I had been wanting one for several years. It’s been more of a learning curve than I wanted. I’m about a month in and have learned some valuable and tough lessons in that time. I’m also hoping to get some advice.

Tank: Waterbox Cube 20
Pump: Sicce Syncra 1.0
Light: AI Prime 16HD
Powerhead: Ai Nero 3
Heater: Eheim Jager 75Watt
ATO: Autoaqua Smart ATO Lite
Filter: Chemi-pure Blue
UV: Innovative Marine Aqua Shield UV Desktop
Sand: CaribSea Pink Fiji
Rock: CaribSea Liferock that is cycled wet from LFS
Testkit: Redsea


After cycling with seachem prime and stability all my levels were great. My main LFS has been great with products and help. I added a established royal grama, a bi color hammer and a zoa. Everything was going well, I should have left things alone.

My wife and I figured it would be a good time to go head and stock the tank. We added 2 black and white clowns, fire fish, green bubble tip, more coral and CUC. That’s when the trouble started and we didn’t know. We had gone to a different LFS as our other store didn’t have any clown fish we liked. The clown fish were sick with brook either or velvet. We didn’t realize till several days later. They were getting white spots on them. We called the LFS where they were purchased and told they were fine. We should have pulled them out that day. We waited a few more days and the spots got worse. We removed them and that fish store gave us a full refund for them.

Now came the finding of R2R and lots more learning. The LFS that helped us start the tank and where we buy salt water advised to closely watch the remaining fish for signs of infection. So we did and all was fine for about a week and a half. Our grama stopped eating and we setup a hospital tank to treat. The grama passed a few days later. So we decided we need to fallow the tank for 75 days to be safe.

Since the tank needed to be fallow we got the smart idea to change the aquascape and it was fishless at the time. While the rocks were removed from the tank for glueing our bubble tip managed to get into the powerhead. He was torn in half and never recovered.

We had a small tank for our fire fish and had been treating for the last 2 weeks. He looked great, no signs of infection and was eating fine. We planned to keep him in QT until the main tank was ready. Went to feed him this morning and could not fine him. He must have must have jumped and we didn’t know, now he is gone.

Sorry for the long story, this last month have been a hard learning curve. Looks like we now have an outbreak of diatoms to deal with now. I think it is starting to bother our hammer as well. It is open but not like it was originally. Also trying to keep tank temperature in check in SWFL in summer is fun. I’m seeing 78-79 degrees during the day. I’m currently looking into fans to maybe help.

 

[Clowns-corals-cats]

Anenome need to be in an established stable tank with power heads covered they move till there Happy. And best thing is to quarantine all new fish. I'd turn your green down alot add a little white and crank up blues. Add livestock slowly how are the other corals doing sinse the bta got shredded

 

[commanderwho]

looks like you did some research on how to start a tank but not enough on adding fish/maintenance.

when it comes to saltwater fish you must add livestock slow.
4 fish is maxed for the tank. Since you are newer I’d say 2 to 3 fish.
2 clowns and a gramma or firefish.
If 4 fish gramma last fish that needs to be added.
you will learn that saltwater reef aquarium is a lot of learning…from parasites to unwanted pests and various stages of algae.
make sure you coral dip. If not you might already have certain pests in your tank without knowing. Good luck and don’t give up!
Research and research!

 

[Gedxin]

Sorry to hear about your losses, that's a brutal first month.

I'm only 2+ months in and have learned a number of things too. I'd recommend to not sweat the diatoms. They're just part of the ugly stage all us dry rockers go through. You can dry and siphon some of it, but a CUC is really the best strategy to mitigate.

What're your next steps? Continuing the fallow?

 

[TriggersAmuck]

78-79° F is a perfect range. Even if you had to let it slip up to 80 or so everything would be fine, but the important thing is consistency. I live in FL as well, and we have gone through a few AC outages where I couldn't keep the tank below 85/86 (even with ice), but everything pulled through.

I'm sorry to hear of your losses, not the way you want to start what should be an enjoyable hobby! Everyone goes through something at some point. For me, the tipping point was having a one foot Queen Angel jump out of my display tank after having reared it from a 2" juvenile. This hobby is like marathon racing.....you are guaranteed that "stuff will happen", and it is seldom that everything is 100% perfect. One can add fish to the DT without quarantine and get lucky 90% of the time, then bam. (I don't keep a QT). Or everything might be going smoothly and then you forget to turn the power back on after maintenance. (Lost half my livestock....it was winter).