CourtNjoeZreef
Active Member
Hello everyone! My Wife (Courtney) and myself (Joe) are just getting into the beautiful world of reef tanks! I can say with absolute confidence that we both LOVE this hobby.
In the beginning we started out with a hand me down 10g fresh water tank. needless to say that was a disaster at first. A few months of research and trial and error we learned the Nitrogen cycle and maintenance procedures. We grew into a house full of tanks! 12 to be exact. Most with plants and snails and fish ect. Within 2 years we grew to a 125g planted discus/angel tank. Geophagus tank African cichlids. Breeding fish and a fish room even.
My wife and I are head first into all of this together and together we decided we are ready to get into salt. we purchased a 13g fluval evo and before we even had the tank cycled we went into that memory bank of small tank disasters! So In previous trades I ended up with a older 55g Tall almost a cube shape that needed a seal and thus my new salt tank.
My current setup is the 55g tall with a 20g long sump. the sump is a Fiji cube kit with 2 filter socks. current still using the screen type that is provided with the kit. The tank had a tempered glass tag on it so I decided to not even attempt to drill it as I don't know if it is all the panes that are tempered or not. To jump this hurdle i have a eshoppes 1000 siphon style overflow rated at 1000gph with 2 1" returns. The sump has a marine pure bio brick a filter bag of GFO and a Filter bag of charcoal. I also added 2 sponges from the fiji kit along with bio balls (the plastic ones) at the end for good measure. I have a protein skimmer by reef octopus the 110 classic. so far its not overflowing and its getting dirty guess that means its working eh? For a return i am using a sicche 880gph which is probably more like 600gph after the lift of almost 5 feet and a 1" pipe with a 3/4 locline dual output. There is a Tunze Osmolator for the ATO out of a 5g bucket behind the tank. The light is a redsea 50. i have it a65% white and 55% blue so its not as harsh on our eyes.
As for scape I went with the BRS recommended Real reef rock 55lbs used around 45 Lbs. and the Caribsea special live sand. The salt i am currently using is Instant ocean reef crystals. after watching many more videos about salt i will be switching to the Tropic Marin Pro reef salt mix. Not that I am having issues that I know of with my mix I just prefer to start with the best when its within my budget. this seems like a highly rated salt mix backed by science and experiment.
We started the tank with approximately 75 gallons of water (more like 70g due to the sump not being full to the brim) and a clown fish and some live bacteria from microbacter. The Cycle went through in about 2 weeks I checked water every day HOWEVER i had the salinity all of the place. Come to find out it was likely my mixing method of not letting it mix over night. I am currently getting ready for my first water change which admittedly I am afraid to do!
Since that start we have added a Algae Blenny, Scopas tang(yellows are SO expensive), Sixline Wrasse, clown, and a Coral beauty. These were not all at once 3 waves as to not overwhelm the tank. This passed weekend we added an Anenome ( we found out this tank is likely WAY too young for it but that's shame on us for not researching before and just listening to the store) after that we noticed 1 of the two clowns not using his left fin, next day It passed. three days later the original clown from day one slowed down and passed as well. This is a complete mystery to me Since all the other fish are as active as ever and the two clowns were around the tank like crazy till they just died. I know fish don't just die for no reason, but I don't see anything wrong in parameters other then a MAYBE 5ppm on my api kit (the color kits are tough and leave some accuracy to be desired). Thus comes the kick in the butt to get this water change done. So far I am mixing in 5g buckets with plans to get a larger holding tank for Mixed salt water. ill probably Get another Brute trash can in the near future. I would love to get some input on the cause of their deaths since we didn't notice any aggression from the other fish and the parameters being well within what I believe to be reasonable levels. The only other thing I can figure is we were only feeding 1x a day maybe 2 once in a while and they just starved to death since they seemed to be far more active then my fresh water fish who are thriving on 1x a day.
In closing I guess what I am trying to spit out here is we are well versed in the basics and would love to join your community to not only help ourselves but share our trials and tribulations with the community to grow from our mistakes into flourishing reef owners! We are looking forward to your responses
Best Reguards
Courtney & Joe
PS. the attached photo was a few moments after putting water in it day 1. will get some more updated photos soon
In the beginning we started out with a hand me down 10g fresh water tank. needless to say that was a disaster at first. A few months of research and trial and error we learned the Nitrogen cycle and maintenance procedures. We grew into a house full of tanks! 12 to be exact. Most with plants and snails and fish ect. Within 2 years we grew to a 125g planted discus/angel tank. Geophagus tank African cichlids. Breeding fish and a fish room even.
My wife and I are head first into all of this together and together we decided we are ready to get into salt. we purchased a 13g fluval evo and before we even had the tank cycled we went into that memory bank of small tank disasters! So In previous trades I ended up with a older 55g Tall almost a cube shape that needed a seal and thus my new salt tank.
My current setup is the 55g tall with a 20g long sump. the sump is a Fiji cube kit with 2 filter socks. current still using the screen type that is provided with the kit. The tank had a tempered glass tag on it so I decided to not even attempt to drill it as I don't know if it is all the panes that are tempered or not. To jump this hurdle i have a eshoppes 1000 siphon style overflow rated at 1000gph with 2 1" returns. The sump has a marine pure bio brick a filter bag of GFO and a Filter bag of charcoal. I also added 2 sponges from the fiji kit along with bio balls (the plastic ones) at the end for good measure. I have a protein skimmer by reef octopus the 110 classic. so far its not overflowing and its getting dirty guess that means its working eh? For a return i am using a sicche 880gph which is probably more like 600gph after the lift of almost 5 feet and a 1" pipe with a 3/4 locline dual output. There is a Tunze Osmolator for the ATO out of a 5g bucket behind the tank. The light is a redsea 50. i have it a65% white and 55% blue so its not as harsh on our eyes.
As for scape I went with the BRS recommended Real reef rock 55lbs used around 45 Lbs. and the Caribsea special live sand. The salt i am currently using is Instant ocean reef crystals. after watching many more videos about salt i will be switching to the Tropic Marin Pro reef salt mix. Not that I am having issues that I know of with my mix I just prefer to start with the best when its within my budget. this seems like a highly rated salt mix backed by science and experiment.
We started the tank with approximately 75 gallons of water (more like 70g due to the sump not being full to the brim) and a clown fish and some live bacteria from microbacter. The Cycle went through in about 2 weeks I checked water every day HOWEVER i had the salinity all of the place. Come to find out it was likely my mixing method of not letting it mix over night. I am currently getting ready for my first water change which admittedly I am afraid to do!
Since that start we have added a Algae Blenny, Scopas tang(yellows are SO expensive), Sixline Wrasse, clown, and a Coral beauty. These were not all at once 3 waves as to not overwhelm the tank. This passed weekend we added an Anenome ( we found out this tank is likely WAY too young for it but that's shame on us for not researching before and just listening to the store) after that we noticed 1 of the two clowns not using his left fin, next day It passed. three days later the original clown from day one slowed down and passed as well. This is a complete mystery to me Since all the other fish are as active as ever and the two clowns were around the tank like crazy till they just died. I know fish don't just die for no reason, but I don't see anything wrong in parameters other then a MAYBE 5ppm on my api kit (the color kits are tough and leave some accuracy to be desired). Thus comes the kick in the butt to get this water change done. So far I am mixing in 5g buckets with plans to get a larger holding tank for Mixed salt water. ill probably Get another Brute trash can in the near future. I would love to get some input on the cause of their deaths since we didn't notice any aggression from the other fish and the parameters being well within what I believe to be reasonable levels. The only other thing I can figure is we were only feeding 1x a day maybe 2 once in a while and they just starved to death since they seemed to be far more active then my fresh water fish who are thriving on 1x a day.
In closing I guess what I am trying to spit out here is we are well versed in the basics and would love to join your community to not only help ourselves but share our trials and tribulations with the community to grow from our mistakes into flourishing reef owners! We are looking forward to your responses
Best Reguards
Courtney & Joe
PS. the attached photo was a few moments after putting water in it day 1. will get some more updated photos soon
