My first success

[Aquanic]

To preference, I started owning saltwater tanks when I moved to college about 3.5 years ago. Before that I kept freshwater and brackish since I was about 8. Once I tried my hand at saltwater, I immediately fell in love. Being able to watch and grow a small ecosystem is very mesmerizing and baffling to me. I’ve learned a lot but still have a lot to learn, there’s always something to learn in this hobby lol.
The set up this thread is about is a 90 gallon display with a 30 gallon sump filled 2/3, so about 100-110 total gallons. It’s been set up since 1/8/2022. I had a 55 gallon tank with a few coral and some fish that got transferred to the 90 (upgraded due to 55 gallon middle brace flexing) it’s a bare bottom with about 70 lb rock and a refugium with sand. The tank has a 36 Watt jebao UV sterilizer and runs a carbon reactor.
My current livestock is: (in parentheses is their name)
Bristletooth tang (Tea)
Orchid dottyback (purple man)
Pink fairy wrasse (I think) (pink guy but sounds like pinkeye lol)
Longnose hawkfish ( tony)
Snowflake eel (dolph)
Blue regal tang (blue)
Melanarus wrasse (Mel)

The eel, fairy wrasse and dottyback have been in the tank since it started.

Parameters have been:
Calcium: 500
Magnesium: 1450
Alk: 7.8-8.5 dKh
Nitrate: 5-15ppm
Phosphate: .05-.1ppm
Temp: 79 degrees F
Salinity- 1.025

I usually try to do a 15-20 gallon water change on sundays.
I dose magnesium, kalkwasser and np bacto balance

photos are in sequential order from time it started to now.

 

[hunterallen40]

Great to see the progression!

Do you do any dosing on this system?

Love your goni! I hope mine can get big like that someday!

 

[Aquanic]

Great to see the progression!

Do you do any dosing on this system?

Love your goni! I hope mine can get big like that someday!

Thanks! I’m anxiously waiting for a yellow tang to get here, but it’s taking 3 months at this point cause the facility is in Nebraska and it’s been really cold there.
I dose kalkwasser, magnesium and np bacto balance.

 

[hunterallen40]

I’m anxiously waiting for a yellow tang to get here, but it’s taking 3 months at this point cause the facility is in Nebraska and it’s been really cold there.

Hopefully your patience pays off! I got a captive bred yellow tang from biota in my system. He's only got one ventral fin, but, other than that, he's a perfectly healthy specimen!

I dose kalkwasser, magnesium and np bacto balance.

Nice. I love kalkwasser. Super good stuff. I just started dosing it again on my system when I swapped to a calcium reactor (to help boost pH).

 

[Aquanic]

Hopefully your patience pays off! I got a captive bred yellow tang from biota in my system. He's only got one ventral fin, but, other than that, he's a perfectly healthy specimen!



Nice. I love kalkwasser. Super good stuff. I just started dosing it again on my system when I swapped to a calcium reactor (to help boost pH).

Yea, kalk has served me well. I’ll ride it out as long as I can before it outpaces my evaporation. The tang I have coming is also biota

 

[hunterallen40]

Yea, kalk has served me well. I’ll ride it out as long as I can before it outpaces my evaporation.

Nice! Yeah, it lasted me quite a while. Then I went to two part, then finally to calcium reactor (and now calcium reactor + kalkwasser). It's super cheap and super consistent. Definitely a great solution.

What kind of system do you have?

I have a 50 gallon frag system, and a waterbox reef lx 340 (320 gallons). Mixed reef, probably more SPS than LPS .

The tang I have coming is also biota

Oh nice! Yeah, I really like what they're doing. Quality fish, and lower environmental impact. I can't wait to see the next species they breed!

 

[Aquanic]

Nice! Yeah, it lasted me quite a while. Then I went to two part, then finally to calcium reactor (and now calcium reactor + kalkwasser). It's super cheap and super consistent. Definitely a great solution.



I have a 50 gallon frag system, and a waterbox reef lx 340 (320 gallons). Mixed reef, probably more SPS than LPS .



Oh nice! Yeah, I really like what they're doing. Quality fish, and lower environmental impact. I can't wait to see the next species they breed!

Nice! 320 gallons is a beast… one day lol. I love the captive bread option as well. The dottyback is also ora. I’m waiting on the algae to subside before I put many sticks in the tank. Right now the montipora and a birds nest are doing very well but acros have yet to be successful in the 90. I also have a low maintenance 10 gallon that has bits of coral that broke off or had aptasia and now grow until it’s big enough to transfer to the 90. It surprisingly has an acro in it doing well and I’m just waiting for it to grow more. (I just ordered aptasia eating nudibranch last week and have a 5 gallon aptasia tank, so that’ll be interesting to see the progression of the nudibranch)

A real frag tank 40-60gallons will be my next tank. I’m thinking about building my own tank and messing with static flow.

 

[hunterallen40]

Nice! 320 gallons is a beast… one day lol.

Yeah, it's quite a lot of work (and took SO much planning + even some home renovating), but it's definitely something amazing.

A real frag tank 40-60gallons will be my next tank. I’m thinking about building my own tank and messing with static flow.

Yeah, that's a great call. I built mine myself, and it was a really fun project! It also let me customize it to what I wanted, which is really nice as well. I would do a much better job with the plumbing now if I were to do things differently... Don't buy cheap ball valves, go for a nice gate valve. The tank is a low boy, 50 gallons. Definitely recommend it!

I’m waiting on the algae to subside before I put many sticks in the tank.

Definitely a good idea... Maybe some more power heads would be good. The bare bottom makes it so much easier to get that good flow going to kick up all the crud on the bottom. I kinda wish I had gone bare bottom on my 320, but I love wrasses and I just had an awful time doing bare bottom on my frag build... It took about a year to get to the point it could not kill acros.

 

[Fish Styx]

Nice progression shots. Following along!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Nice looking progression!!

 

[Aquanic]

Yeah, it's quite a lot of work (and took SO much planning + even some home renovating), but it's definitely something amazing.



Yeah, that's a great call. I built mine myself, and it was a really fun project! It also let me customize it to what I wanted, which is really nice as well. I would do a much better job with the plumbing now if I were to do things differently... Don't buy cheap ball valves, go for a nice gate valve. The tank is a low boy, 50 gallons. Definitely recommend it!



Definitely a good idea... Maybe some more power heads would be good. The bare bottom makes it so much easier to get that good flow going to kick up all the crud on the bottom. I kinda wish I had gone bare bottom on my 320, but I love wrasses and I just had an awful time doing bare bottom on my frag build... It took about a year to get to the point it could not kill acros.

Once I'm out of college and have my own house i plan on having a large tank, probably a few hundred gallons. Noted to get good valves. The tank looks really good, you did a good job with the build. I have a Icecap 2k gyre blowing vertically around the side of the tank and a power head blowing along the bottom of the tank. I think most of the crud is currently being caught up in the algae. I think bare bottom tanks are definitely the move long term though. Sand catches and keeps alot that we cant see and it just accumulates over time.

 

[Aquanic]

New breakthrough this week! I’ve had cyano ever since my tank finished a really long green water period. (This tank went through a few rough stages in the beginning with a big bacterial bloom immediately followed by a green water algae bloom followed by cyano and hair/turf algae) I started dosing 1ml daily of np bacto balance about 2 months ago. It appealed to me because supposedly the carbon in it is more complex so it only feeds more complex bacteria, which tends to be beneficial, and not all bacteria that could be good or bad. This week there is not a sign of cyano in the display, like it disappeared overnight. Before it would almost cover my back wall in a week and was starting to grow on algae and near my monti’s. The hair algae is still persisting but it seems to have slowed down a good bit.

 

[hunterallen40]

New breakthrough this week! I’ve had cyano ever since my tank finished a really long green water period. (This tank went through a few rough stages in the beginning with a big bacterial bloom immediately followed by a green water algae bloom followed by cyano and hair/turf algae) I started dosing 1ml daily of np bacto balance about 2 months ago. It appealed to me because supposedly the carbon in it is more complex so it only feeds more complex bacteria, which tends to be beneficial, and not all bacteria that could be good or bad. This week there is not a sign of cyano in the display, like it disappeared overnight. Before it would almost cover my back wall in a week and was starting to grow on algae and near my monti’s. The hair algae is still persisting but it seems to have slowed down a good bit.

Nice one! Have you seen any effect on your nutrients?

 

[Aquanic]

Nice one! Have you seen any effect on your nutrients?

My nitrate is sticking around 5ppm and phosphate is around .03. Before I started dosing my phosphate would fluctuate between 0 and .25 and my nitrates were around 25. Nothing was really stable but now I feel like it’s starting to find its spot, as this is the first time it’s been the same number for both nitrate and phosphate from the previous test. I highly recommend the marine box app to help keep track and show trends of parameters

 

[Aquanic]

Rearranged some of the rock on the right because pulling off the algae broke my structure. I also have added a lobo and pavona since the last time I posted. I’m still waiting on my tang from advanced aquatics but algae is slowly becoming manageable.