My very first saltwater tank - 200 gallons

[vetteguy53081]

Beautiful size and start.

 

[Marsh980]

Thanks everyone for their kind words and encouragement. This is a dream of mine for the past 30 years after helping my late father with his in the 1980s when I was just a young boy.

I have a 3yr old son of my own and he loves helping me and feeding the fish. I hope to pass the love and passion of fishkeeping down to him like my dad did to me.

 

[Marsh980]

So a quick update. I’ve added a further conch, this time an orange lipped conch, 2 large Mexican turbo snails and one sand sifting starfish.

My wife was getting a little concerned with the smell each morning so have also bought a carbon mat that has been cut to size and placed on top of the skimmer and 2 charcoal bamboo air purifying bags placed inside the cabinet. Both seems to have worked. Oh I’m also cleaning the skimmer each morning.

 

[Marsh980]

So, I had another successful but expensive trip to my LFS.

It’s been 2 weeks since I last bought fish and have just grabbed the below plus some more equipment:

2x purple firefish
1x flame hawkfish
1x foxface
1x Royal gramma

2x smaller wave maker pumps to agitate the water surface. I noticed my current 2 MP40s don’t do it and was finding a film and particles floating on top. These new pumps should push it all to the middle drain.

I also bought 8 bags of baby brine shrimp and some Ocean Grazer pellets.

 

[Marsh980]

Some pics

 

[vetteguy53081]

Very nice additions.
It is my hope that you are at this point holding off from any additional specimens added for the next few weeks? That is a lot of stocking in a short span of time, and with many potential chemistry chances in marine aquaria, could become an issue.
what is age of tank and filtration being used ?

 

[Marsh980]

Very nice additions.
It is my hope that you are at this point holding off from any additional specimens added for the next few weeks? That is a lot of stocking in a short span of time, and with many potential chemistry chances in marine aquaria, could become an issue.
what is age of tank and filtration being used ?

Cheers, yes they’ll be no further additions for the next 2-3 weeks or until the nitrifying bacteria has built up to handle the new bioload and the algae bloom has subsided.

I do water checks every 3 days and the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate has remained at 0ppm. I can’t seem to increase the nitrates at the moment which is strange. Hopefully these new additions will increase them slightly as it’ll be better for my 2 GSPs.

My filtration is

Bubblemagus G9 skimmer
Bubblemagus Filter Roller
UV steriliser
Carbon reactor

The tank is 2 months old

I do 10-15% weekly water changes too

 

[dreamcatcherr9]

Cheers, yes they’ll be no further additions for the next 2-3 weeks or until the nitrifying bacteria has built up to handle the new bioload and the algae bloom has subsided.

I do water checks every 3 days and the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate has remained at 0ppm. I can’t seem to increase the nitrates at the moment which is strange. Hopefully these new additions will increase them slightly as it’ll be better for my 2 GSPs.

My filtration is

Bubblemagus G9 skimmer
Bubblemagus Filter Roller
UV steriliser
Carbon reactor

The tank is 2 months old

I do 10-15% weekly water changes too

Being your first saltwater setup; did you do all the plumbing to sump and electrical yourself?

Beautiful set up (what’s the dimensions)?

Enjoy!

 

[Marsh980]

Being your first saltwater setup; did you do all the plumbing to sump and electrical yourself?

Beautiful set up (what’s the dimensions)?

Enjoy!

Thank you, no I can’t take all the credit for the build. The tank and cabinet with metal frame was made by D&D reef.

All the equipment was installed by me and my LFS owner and son. They truly are heroes for helping me as I would’ve been lost without their help (see pic)

The tank dimensions are 2100x620x620mm

 

[Marsh980]

Just a quick update.

Ive added a further 2 MP40s so to get some better water surface movement. Four MP40s may be overkill but I’m happy. The wallet isn’t.

I’ve also started to instal my auto doser for coral food, alk and calcium. I need to instal a new back panel on the left hand side of the cabinet, I can then fix the doser and connect it all.

I’ve also bought:

2x Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
4x Peppermint Shrimp
1x Blue Throat Trigger (M)
1x Marine Betta
1x Large Elegance Coral
1x Kenya Tree
1x Conch
1x Mexican Turbo Snail
22x Bags of live Copepods
1x Frozen Krill
1x Large piece of TMC rock to fill a gap and leave a great shelf for SPS

 

[Marsh980]

Final update this week and no more livestock for 2-3 weeks.

I popped over to my other LFS who opened the shop for me as he was there feeding his livestock. I’m very fortunate to have 2 LFS who I contact via WhatsApp and get advice and tips. I’ve just picked up the below corals:

Duncan
Heliofungia
Alvepora
Tubipora

I’ll get pics up once they’ve settled in and my main lights are on. They’re currently on blue mode.

 

[Marsh980]

Some pics

 

[Ziggy10]

Beautiful setup! Happy Reefing!

 

[Marsh980]

The elegance is a big boy haha

 

[Sebastiancrab]

Welcome!! You will love this blog!

 

[Marsh980]

Here’s my son inspecting the tank with his magnifying glass. I can’t believe my son is quality controlling my maintenance haha

 

[Marsh980]

So I’ve had a good and bad day today. It’s been a great lesson for me and I hope anyone who reads this will learn from this experience.

So the large plate coral I bought from the other LFS (not the one I’ve been using who helped me build the system plus where I’ve got all my fish and previous corals from), is way too large for the sand bed space I have, plus it has flat worm. I didn’t have the experience or knowledge on what to look for and the LFS said or asked nothing. Red flags should have been waving in my mind at that point!

My usual LFS son came over to finish installing my coral food, alk and calcium auto doser (see pic) and took one look at the plate coral and said it will die if not moved to a larger sand bed and then said I’ve introduced flat worm into my system which will need treating.

My lesson is that stick to a LFS you can trust as the other one either knew they sold me a coral that was too large for my sand bed and had flat worm or didn’t know themselves which is just as concerning.

My usual LFS have taken the plate coral to QT it and treat it for the flat worm. If it survives they will then find the right home/tank for it.

 

[Marsh980]

So I’ve finished tidying the MP40 wires and added the lid protection to hopefully prevent future jumpers.

My last 6 peppermint shrimp arrived this morning. Should be a total of 10 now. Hopefully some of them will eat any Aiptasia they find plus not get eaten by my marine betta and trigger haha.

 

[Marlon_Holland]

Nice tank. We all make mistakes in this hobby. Keep up the good work.

 

[Marsh980]

Nice tank. We all make mistakes in this hobby. Keep up the good work.

Thank you for the kind words. My next big order is 20 Nassarius snails, 20 spiny star snails and 3 conchs.

Oh and the Flatwork exit and 40% water change, equating to 80 gallons!!

A fun job still remains, mapping out what corals to buy and where to put them in the tank. Least then I hope not to misplace them causing warfare or reducing the swimming space too much for my future tangs.