My first tank: Red Sea Reefer 170!

[Lowlandreef]

I went to my LFS yesterday for the first time in 5 months. I was very busy with college lately and also didn't have much money to spent tbh. But I finally got some new additions for the tank!

My CUC was a little thin lately so I got a few new hermit crabs, some nassarius snails and a small cleaner shrimp. I also finally got my dream fish: a mandarin dragonet! I've been planning to get one for three years now. My refugium is up and running for 2 years with some chaeto, mangroves and marine pure bio balls. I spot a lot of pods in my tank when the light is off and my sump is crawling of them. My filter floss is also full of them when I change it out. So I figured out it was time to finally buy the fish that (partially) got me in the hobby.
He is in the tank for only a day, but already pretty active. I see him swimming and pecking around the rocks in the back of the tank. He doesn't come out to much yet, but I guess that's just a matter of time.

 

[Lowlandreef]

Been a while, but here is a new FTS!

 

[jk_s124]

Congrats on the mandarin! Are you doing anything to supplement the copepod population?

 

[Lowlandreef]

Congrats on the mandarin! Are you doing anything to supplement the copepod population?

I bought a few bags of copepods when I bought the mandarin. I added some to the tank at night and some to the refugium in my sump. This way I tried to boost the population. Besides that I also restarted my baby brine shrimp hatchery. I add baby brine shrimp to the tank daily, so my mandarin can eat these as well.
I still see pods crawling to the tank at night, so the population seems stabile. Tomorrow I'm going back to my LFS to buy more copepods because I want to make sure the population stays good.
So far the mandarin is looking active and healthy!

 

[Lowlandreef]

Update on the mandarin:
I trained him to eat frozen mysis! For a while now I was hatching baby brine shrimp and supplementing the tank with copepods to ensure the mandarin had enough food. But I still wanted to train him to eat frozen food to increase his long term health. I don't know if I succeeded because of my method or that I'm just being lucky.
But here's what I did:
1. I took a bit of tank water and did it in a cup. Then I added frozen mysis and some live baby brine shrimp to it.
2. Took a pipet and squirted the mix close to the mandarin (pumps off!).
3. He then ate the baby brine shrimp and after a while he got interested in the frozen mysis.
4. Since the mysis are dead, he didn't ate them yet. I started feeding with pumps on, so they looked alive.
5. He then ate some mysis when they were close to him.
6. Now he has a taste for them and kinda hunts for the frozen mysis!

In this video you can see him eating frozen mysis

Here a picture of my pretty boy!

 

[jk_s124]

Best wishes to the Dutch World Cup team…but hope the USA can pull off a miracle.

 

[Lowlandreef]

Best wishes to the Dutch World Cup team…but hope the USA can pull off a miracle.

Thanks! The USA played a good match, they have a lot of young talents so great potential for the future. I really enjoyed watching them this world cup. Personally I'm not a big fan of how the Netherlands is playing, but as long as we win it's fine I guess haha. Against Argentina will be a tough match though, I hope we can get our revenge for the 2014 WC...

 

[Lowlandreef]

I keep forgetting that I have a build thread on here, so it's time for an update again. In the past time I've lost a few fish and corals unfortunately. That's the frustrating part of the hobby for me and is also very demotivating. You try very hard, but sometimes it just doesn't work. I've had corals where the frag died but the mother-colony thrived in the same conditions...
In order to keep keep having fun in the hobby, I decided to change my tank. I did a huge rescape (took my a whole day) to make it perfect for my taste. I never really liked my huge rock looking scape. So I moved some rocks to my sump and made two separate structures. It adds more depth to the tank and looks more natural in my opinion. It also adds swimming space for the fish and more space to place corals.

This is the tank right now:

Here I also have a few pics of some of the corals:

And some more pics of the fish and cleanershrimp:

 

[Lowlandreef]

I forgot to add some more changes in the post above, so I’ll list them now. I never liked my oversized skimmer, since it was impossible to tune. So I took it out and made my refugium bigger. Recently I added a smaller skimmer (Tunze doc 9001 dc), since I still think it benefits the filtration of the tank. It’s a little undersized for my tank, but since my refugium is way larger now and works better for me, I think it’s fine.
I also added an extra wavemaker in the tank and finally installed my dosing pump. I think this all benefits the overall health and stability of the tank. I hope I can finally find my luck and expertise in keeping corals now.

 

[nickng]

Hello reefers!
I joined R2R yesterday, and I'm very excited about the warm welcome I got!
People told me already about the tank threads, so let's give it a shot. This might become a little bit of a long story, but we'll see how it goes.

As long as I can remember, I've been passionated about animals. When I was little I was watching National Geographic and Animal Planet all the time. Why watch disney movies, when you can get educated about animals am I right?
So when I was 6 years old I got my first pet: a rabbit. It was very exciting at the time, but it wasn't really for me. They just don't do very much... I took care of him the best I could, but he sadly passed away due to cancer at 8 years of age. In the meanwhile I always wanted a dog really bad. I could imagine all the adventures we could have together. My parents never allowed me another pet since we already had a rabbit. Since the bunny passed away, I saw some opportunities for a dog. 1,5 year after my rabbit passed away (in 2015), I got a dog! Very exciting and still the best thing that happened to me. The only thing I was missing, was a pet on my room. I spend a lot of time in my room due to studying. So I looked further for some awesome pets I could get on my room. I researched every possibility from parrots to chameleons. There was just one awesome idea that got stuck in my head: a reef tank! I know it took a little while, but we're finally on subject!

At first I was a little intimidated to be honest. There's a lot of info you need to know, and it costs a lot of money. The first thing meant it would cost a lot of time. That would be fine but the second was a bit harder since being in college doesn't really mean you have a whole lot to spend. I figured the best thing to do was to save some money first and get my knowledge up. During this time, the idea of having mandarin dragonet really kept me going. After about 3 years it was finally time and I started my tank. This was in march 2019.

Tank setup & equipment when I started:
- Red Sea Reefer 170
- AI Hydra 26 HD light
- Deltec 600IX skimmer
- Jecod DCS3000 return pump
- Jebao SOW4 wavemaker
- Real Reef Rock 17 kg (I think that's about 37.5 lbs)
- 3mm nautic marine coral sand 9 kg (I think that's about 20 lbs)
- Nautic Marine Osmose Reverse 190
- Red Sea coral pro salt
- Red Sea DIY tank screen

This is what it looked like:

After about 2 months of cycling I got my first livestock. I was very excited about this and I carefully planned it. All parameters were stable and I got my CUC: cleaner shrimp, scarlet reef hermit crab and a couple of trochus snails. A few weeks later I was ready for my first fish. I had thought this pretty well through in my head and got a firefish. I know they can be a little shy, so I thought if would add him first, he would get established better in the tank. At the beginning he did very well. He was a little shy but ate very well. After 2 weeks he just disappeared. I looked everywhere but couldn't find him.

At least I learned my first lessen: nothing goes as plan in this hobby.
In the few weeks after that I got 2 more fish. A yellow wrasse and a royal gramma. I was really stoked about both, since they are way more active than the firefish. Unfortunately I discovered my royal gramma had ich... Since I didn't have a QT, I saw him die and I couldn't really do anything about it. Since 2 out of 3 fish died, I wasn't very excited about the store I got my fish from.
Second lesson learned: buy your fish from a reliable store.

From now on I only went to the store I got all my equipment from. It's an hour drive to get there, but it's worth it.
The next fish I got there were my 2 black ice clown fish. As you can see in the picture below, I started buying more corals as well.

My tank was very stabile but I did have a lot of hair algae. I turned my lights down and got a LMB. I figured this would solve my problem. My LMB was a beast! He cleaned the tank very well and I got rid of al the algae. The only problem was he just wouldn't eat prepared foods. I tried every single food you could think of, but nothing worked. After 2 months he died, which was pretty upsetting to watch. RIP little fellow!

A few months after that my yellow wrasse died as well. He suddenly stopped eating, and again I tried everything but nothing worked. He died very soon after, and I felt really bad about it. He was the star of my tank and we won all the battles in the aquarium together. He survived ich, cyano, dinoflagellates, hair algae and the somewhat unstable parameters a new tank has (I know some of those aren't life threatening to fish ). He even helped keeping my trochus snail population in check. I didn't knew I could get this attached to a fish. For a few months a didn't put much effort in the tank. I just fed my fish and that was it.

After all this it was time to move on, so I decided to get some new fish to get myself excited again. I got a blue/green chromis and a bicolor blenny. I also did a huge rescape and got some more corals. A few big waterchanges later, this is how the tank looked like:

We are getting pretty close to the present time now. I wanted to boost my filtration by setting up a refugium. This had a few reasons. I love mandarin dragonets (like I mentioned before), and I've heard that having an established aquarium and a refugium really boosts your chances of keeping one. Besides that, I hoped to get away with fewer waterchanges if got a refugium. So I bought the horizon zetlight E200s and got some chaeto.
I also really wanted a wrasse again, since I really enjoyed my yellow wrasse. So about a month ago, I got an Ornate Leopard Wrasse. Some of you might be worried now, since it's considered an expert only fish according to some people. I know what i'm doing and I also hatch baby brine shrimp for a more enriched diet. The OLW hid for the first 6 days, but got out a little after that. He still would be gone for some days after being out for a bit. I'm happy to say that he's doing very well, and I also got him to eat flake food. He only hides at night now, and is very comfortable around me
This is the tank now (did another rescape) with the refugium setup in the picture next to it.

I hope you all enjoyed reading my reefing journey to this point, and will keep following it from now on!
~Adriaen

Hi, just found your build thread, what is the skimmer you are using in your tank setup? and is it quiet?

 

[Lowlandreef]

Hi, just found your build thread, what is the skimmer you are using in your tank setup? and is it quiet?

Hey there, nice to see you here on my build thread! Sorry for the late reply, I'm not active on here very often anymore.

I bought the tank with a Deltec 600IX skimmer. It is very quiet and worked okay for me. The problem I had, was that it was a bit oversized for my tank. That made it very hard to tune.
Later on I added a refugium and I placed the skimmer on the side of my sump (as seen in the bottom picture of my first post). I enjoyed the refugium more and it worked better in my situation. I removed the skimmer for a while and my tank did very well all that time.
I added a Tunze DOC9001 skimmer later on, because I do like the added benefits from a skimmer (removing waste before it breaks down and the added aeration). I chose this one because of its small size and I was able to put it in an empty corner of my sump (see picture). It's a little undersized for my tank but since I have a large refugium and also use filterfloss for removing waste before it breaks down, it works good for me. The new skimmer is also very quiet!

If you want to know anything else, just let me know

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I keep forgetting that I have a build thread on here, so it's time for an update again. In the past time I've lost a few fish and corals unfortunately. That's the frustrating part of the hobby for me and is also very demotivating. You try very hard, but sometimes it just doesn't work. I've had corals where the frag died but the mother-colony thrived in the same conditions...
In order to keep keep having fun in the hobby, I decided to change my tank. I did a huge rescape (took my a whole day) to make it perfect for my taste. I never really liked my huge rock looking scape. So I moved some rocks to my sump and made two separate structures. It adds more depth to the tank and looks more natural in my opinion. It also adds swimming space for the fish and more space to place corals.

This is the tank right now:

Here I also have a few pics of some of the corals:

And some more pics of the fish and cleanershrimp:

Just now saw your tank, it looks great!

 

[Lowlandreef]

Time for an update!

Everything is still stable and going well.
I don't really buy any new corals anymore. I enjoy growing my current corals more. Sometimes I break off a frag and then place it somewhere else in the tank. This looks more natural IMO, since you normally also don't see 50 different kind of corals in one reef. I still really enjoy the rescape I did a while back. It gives me more space for corals to place and also for the fish to swim. I have created an arch from my branching montipora in the middle. The new scape adds more depth to the tank and it also looks cool seeing the fish swim through it.
This is a FTS from today.

I got a two new corals from a friend. One LOTR zoa and also a frag of anacropora. I really like the zoa, but I don't buy them anymore since I don't have much succes with them. Let's hope this one does better!
I'm also very happy with the anacropora. It's pretty much impossible to get them here in the Netherlands, I don't know if that's the same in the US. I got quite a nice frag and accidentally broke off a small piece. I placed that small piece on a different rock and it grew quite big already!

 

[Lowlandreef]

Maintenance update
Since I'm posting now anyway, I also wanna post about my maintenance and filtration. I used to have an oversized skimmer that didn't function very well. Because of that I decided a while back to switch to a refugium. The idea was to eventually get a self sustaining reef tank (for so far that's possible). Through time my refugium became more and more effective. I added a lot of rock from my DT to the refugium when I did the rescape and I think this is very beneficial. It's a safe place for pods and bacteria and it provides a place for algae to grow on. I have chaeto in my sump and the light is turned on for 20 hours. I do feel like that different kind of algae is also beneficial for a tank since it will take up nitrate and phosphate in different ratios. That's why I like that some natural algae can grow on the rocks. I remove it from time to time manually and I also remove some chaeto once it grows to big. I have two palaemon serratus and a lot of baby snails in my refugium to help keep it clean. This makes maintenance easier for me as well!

As you can see I have a small skimmer in there because I do like the additional benefits. It adds oxygen in the water and it removes some larger waste before it can break down. I dose All For Reef daily to keep all other parameters good. The only things I have to do is feed the fish daily, changing the filter floss 2 times a week and clean the skimmer once a week.

I only do waterchanges when I feel they are necessary. This is usually just before I go on vacation since I won't be home to check the tank. I do a big waterchange to make sure everything is perfect before I leave. Sometimes I do a waterchange when I come back just to make sure everything is good again (sometimes the person watching my tank overfeeds quite a bit). So usually I do a waterchange 1 or 2 times a year.
Recently I did a waterchange because I had quite a bit of nuisance algae growing in the chaeto and all over the sump. I did a large waterchange and removed a lot of the algae and now everything is doing well again. The nuisance algae probably fed on a underlying issue and thus was helpful keeping it in check. When I see such an indicator I like to act on it.

I have to give an honorable mention to my tomini tang for keeping the DT clean of algae for almost 3 years already. I know some people have different opinions about keeping tangs in certain tank sizes, but when I got her I made a deal with a friend to give it to him when the tomini would get to big. My LFS also takes back tangs so you can swap them for a small one again, but I'd rather don't. When I got my tomini she was maybe 4-5 cm (< 2 inches) and now she is about 7 cm (just below 3 inches). She eats like a pig and is very fat, but I don't feel like she is too big for the tank yet. I really adore the fish and I also got her because it's one of my favorite fish. I don't know the sex, but I find "her" majestic and named her Cleopatra. She's the queen of the tank
She is the most dominant fish together with my yellow wrasse and together they keep the tank peaceful. If one fish tries to be dominant, one of them breaks up the aggression. It's really interesting to watch!

The only thing I still have is that my sand gets dirty from time to time. I just got a diamond watchman goby to take care of that. He is in QT for now, so I hope to add it to my tank in a few weeks!

 

[Lowlandreef]

Quarantine tank update
I don't think I ever did so many updates on one day, but let's keep it up!
My quarantine setup is basically the same as it was. I only do observational QT. The reason for this is that my LFS quarantines all their fish, so chances of getting a sick fish a very small. I do however like to keep new fish in a separate tank to get them eating and it's less stressful than straight into the main tank. The QT also gives me the option to move fish out of the display tank when they have an injury for example.

I added a small bit of chaeto to the QT to help with nutrient control. I usually don't do waterchanges during quarantine, so that makes it easier to maintain the tank. Since I have a diamond watchman goby in qt right now, I added a box with sand for him.
He likes to hide behind it instead of being in it, so it's not a great succes. But it gives him a comfortable spot for now, so I'm fine with it.

I got the fish from a different store than I usually go to. I used to avoid it since I saw a few sick fish in there before, but now they changed from supplier to Tropical Marine Centre. I read good stories about TMC and the fish looked healthy in the store, so I bought it. It's a little skittish, but it eats very good. Since I don't think it's quarantined, I will keep him in here for quite some time until I'm sure he's healthy.
I'm not that scared for diseases in the main tank, since I'm quite sure ich is already/still present in there from one of the first fish I got. I do still sometimes see a white spot on my tang, but it always goes away in a day or two. I think the most important part is that fish have a good environment that they feel comfortable in to eliminate stress. Besides that it's also important that they eat good quality food to keep them healthy. In this situation fish should be able to fight off diseases.