New to saltwater

[Kiwi reefer]

Welcome to Reef2Reef, Looking forward to seeing your tank!

 

[Peace River]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!!!

 

[slickcdb2000]

Welcome to the madness!

 

[ReefNutsThailand]

Welcome

 

[jsmkmavity]

 

[BryanM]

Hello all,

This is my first saltwater tank. I’ve always loved snorkeling and watching the life on a reef. I wanted a slice of reef for my own after moving to the great white north of Michigan. I finally convinced my wife so I immediately started tank shopping.

I found a biocube 32 on Facebook market place for a great deal. It was sorely neglected and the previous owner couldn’t keep up with the maintenance. The tank was ‘fully’ running with livestock. It had 2 storm clowns, a pom Pom crab, and a handful of Zoas, a bright orange ‘something’, and a toadstool leather.

It was covered in all kinds of algae and cyano.

I got it moved, and gave it a good clean. ‘Fully running’ also meant that there was so much bubble algae it had jammed up the return pump. The skimmer was the only thing running. Any wonder it was a mess!! I left the rock work as a pile to let the tank stabilize for a few weeks. In that time I had a mini cycle from the move, sloshing everything around. After I got that under control, I had a short battle with dinos. Nothing was working until I did a 3 day blackout while waiting for uv lights to come in. I think the combination of uv and the blackout finally tipped the scales in my favor.

After everything calmed down, I redid the rock scape. I really like the negative space concept, but didn’t want a full bonsai like design. I think what I landed on is a good happy medium. It consists of 4 removable chunks. The large base, the tower, the over hang, and the cave. The tower and over hang are secured with acrylic rod.

Seeing my vision coming to life, I got live-stock fever. I am at max capacity for fish; a Melanarus wrasse, 2 OG clowns, a firefish, a royal gramma, a tail spot blenny, a yellow watchman goby, and a kopang damsel. They all play very well except the damsel who gets a little grumpy with the firefish when he comes too close to his burrow. And I’m struggling to keep nutrients up! There are 2 emerald crabs, a peppermint shrimp, and a candy cane pistol shrimp. The Pom Pom crab got into it with an emerald crab and didn’t make it.
Every coral I’ve put in here has done well! The previously mentioned orange ‘something’ turned out to be a Deadpool mushroom! That, the toadstool, and the Zoas could thrive in a salty mud pit for what they went through. There are even some acros in there!

Mods to the system are fairly simple, intank back boxes, and 2x 21led actinic lights. I can’t grow chaeto in the intank box so my last ditch effort is a small reactor on the side. Otherwise weekly water changes and some occasional mag dosing, upkeep is going well.

Let me know what you think!

Welcome to the forums!

 

[tothpl]

I appreciate everyone’s warm welcome! I have learned so much already!

Some things I’ve been trying to figure out;

my phosphates like to be high - ( .15 - .2). I have tried numerous things like controlled feeding, skimming more, chaeto reactor, dosing PNS, chemo-pure blue. phosphate-e seems to be the only thing that has any actual impact. Everything else just drives my nitrates to zero.

I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole of critters after dark. I noticed a pretty regular swarm of some type of pod/shrimp larvae about an hour after lights out. Happens most nights too.

They’re about the size of a tigger pod but clearly shrimp shaped. Also they don’t move the same as tiggers. These guys glide, jig, and barrel roll. (Saw them barrel roll while trying to guide the swarm to a hungry favia with my light!)
I don’t think they’re mysids, as they’re very small. I have 1 peppermint shrimp, 2emeralds, and a handful of asst hermits and snails.
I am hoping the reefing brain trust can help me figure this out! (Also, let me know if this needs to be moved to a different forum?!)

 

[CoralB]

Welcome !!

 

[Ocean_Queenie]

Hello & welcome!

 

[asap]

Wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwelcome

 

[steveschuerger]

 

[BryanM]

Hello all,

This is my first saltwater tank. I’ve always loved snorkeling and watching the life on a reef. I wanted a slice of reef for my own after moving to the great white north of Michigan. I finally convinced my wife so I immediately started tank shopping.

I found a biocube 32 on Facebook market place for a great deal. It was sorely neglected and the previous owner couldn’t keep up with the maintenance. The tank was ‘fully’ running with livestock. It had 2 storm clowns, a pom Pom crab, and a handful of Zoas, a bright orange ‘something’, and a toadstool leather.

It was covered in all kinds of algae and cyano.

I got it moved, and gave it a good clean. ‘Fully running’ also meant that there was so much bubble algae it had jammed up the return pump. The skimmer was the only thing running. Any wonder it was a mess!! I left the rock work as a pile to let the tank stabilize for a few weeks. In that time I had a mini cycle from the move, sloshing everything around. After I got that under control, I had a short battle with dinos. Nothing was working until I did a 3 day blackout while waiting for uv lights to come in. I think the combination of uv and the blackout finally tipped the scales in my favor.

After everything calmed down, I redid the rock scape. I really like the negative space concept, but didn’t want a full bonsai like design. I think what I landed on is a good happy medium. It consists of 4 removable chunks. The large base, the tower, the over hang, and the cave. The tower and over hang are secured with acrylic rod.

Seeing my vision coming to life, I got live-stock fever. I am at max capacity for fish; a Melanarus wrasse, 2 OG clowns, a firefish, a royal gramma, a tail spot blenny, a yellow watchman goby, and a kopang damsel. They all play very well except the damsel who gets a little grumpy with the firefish when he comes too close to his burrow. And I’m struggling to keep nutrients up! There are 2 emerald crabs, a peppermint shrimp, and a candy cane pistol shrimp. The Pom Pom crab got into it with an emerald crab and didn’t make it.
Every coral I’ve put in here has done well! The previously mentioned orange ‘something’ turned out to be a Deadpool mushroom! That, the toadstool, and the Zoas could thrive in a salty mud pit for what they went through. There are even some acros in there!

Mods to the system are fairly simple, intank back boxes, and 2x 21led actinic lights. I can’t grow chaeto in the intank box so my last ditch effort is a small reactor on the side. Otherwise weekly water changes and some occasional mag dosing, upkeep is going well.

Let me know what you think!

Welcome to R2R!

 

[Buckster]

Hello and Welcome to R2R! Great turnaround as you can tell that you really have taken control..

 

[tothpl]

Couple updates- I figured out what the critters were. Right at lights out I noticed them back swarming again. It looked like a dense cloud of them had just been released. I followed the trail down to a hermit crab squirting them out! They’re hermit babies!
Got a second peppermint shrimp. They’ve since spawned a few times too!
My 24k torch just decided to choose violence and started stinging everything around it. Almost killed my Duncan, melted half an acro frag and had a go at a favia. I pulled him and put him on the sand. Everyone is recovering nicely.
This leads me to a new problem. All the coral skeletons that torch burned, have quickly grown a dense green algae. I added a sm/med sized rock to soak for my tank upgrade, and noticed this dense green algae growing a lot more. On everything. I’m pretty sure it’s green cyano. My nitrates are 3-5, phos is .15. Phos has always been higher for my tank. I feed heavy but can seem to get nitrates up. I run a chaeto and ulva, but my numbers are stable. Yet still the green cyano is growing.

Any suggestions?