CoralNewb
Active Member
Reefing has it's highs and lows. Initially, it was frustrating, but seeing my first Zoa frag cover the plug, and seeing a new head on my hammer has been magical...though a clown fish beating my trachy to death has not been....poor trachy....
Suffering from a severe bout of tank-sickness at work, I decided to start an office tank, which has been a great joy and piece of discussion at work.
I started with a solid foundation: A petsmart Aqueon 3G Rimless that I picked up on its 50% off sale.
This has been supplemented by a spare Seachem Tidal 55 I had lying around. This seems like overkill for a 3 gallon pico, but I had my reasons - 1. The wide outflow woud provide a gyre like flow to the entire tank that would be relatively gentle. 2. The surface skimming action would be great. 3. Being that this tank would be unattended for weekends, long weekend, and even vacations, I needed a filter that would auto restart in case of power failure.
The light was another happy coincidence - Amazon was running a $37 sale on the Fluval Nano 23Watt Marine Light last October - not the best color, but it works a treat, and is easy to setup without having to rely on wifi.
Here is a picture of the tank about 3 days after fill with it's first corals - a micromusa colony, a lobo, and some clove polyps:
I used some Caribsea life rock that had become live rock in my 20gallon tank. To this, I added some aged seachem matrix that I had threw in the rear chamber of my AIO 20 Gallon and added a bit of leftover pink fiji sand.
Initially, I was pretty religious with the water changes. I changed 1.5 gallons per week. After about 2 weeks, I added my first clean up crew, which consisted of 2 Ceriths, 2 Trochus, and 2 Nessarius snails - these were a bit overkill imo...and the nessarius and trochus snails died about two months later, much to my chagrin....
The Aquarium also has had a few surprise clean-up crews - a small snail that looks like an Astraea snail has taken hold in my aquarium, and its population seems to ebb and flow with the little available algae. In addition, I also got a black and a white Stomatella. These were all hitchiker from the corals, which I didn't dip.
What's been surprising has been the resilience of the tanks. There were at least 3 times when i forgot to turn on the ATO before a weekend (one time, it was a 4 day weekend), only to find the tank about 1/5 empty due to evap - I was horrified, and accidentally turned on the ATO, which re balance the tank rapidly. I was afraid of the salinity swings, but all the corals have survived, and continue to thrive.
Tank in December, the Torch coral was only 2 heads then
In addition, I reduced my water changes to once every 3 weeks, and I only do a 1 gallon change. This has been no issue. Also, no testing, besides salinity of course. I figure the reef crystals replenish anything that has been spent. I have found that corals are more resilient than we give them credit for, though, oddly enough, my clove polyps have been the only suffering coral, though that looks to be caused by a weird algae like growth that seems to be trying to smother it...it still lives though, and I am hoping they bounce back...but maybe not too hard.
Here is the most recent tank shot, along with some close-ups, sorry for the blue, I don't have an orange filter, and the Iphone tends to oversaturate:
Four heads now!
Suffering from a severe bout of tank-sickness at work, I decided to start an office tank, which has been a great joy and piece of discussion at work.
I started with a solid foundation: A petsmart Aqueon 3G Rimless that I picked up on its 50% off sale.
This has been supplemented by a spare Seachem Tidal 55 I had lying around. This seems like overkill for a 3 gallon pico, but I had my reasons - 1. The wide outflow woud provide a gyre like flow to the entire tank that would be relatively gentle. 2. The surface skimming action would be great. 3. Being that this tank would be unattended for weekends, long weekend, and even vacations, I needed a filter that would auto restart in case of power failure.
The light was another happy coincidence - Amazon was running a $37 sale on the Fluval Nano 23Watt Marine Light last October - not the best color, but it works a treat, and is easy to setup without having to rely on wifi.
Here is a picture of the tank about 3 days after fill with it's first corals - a micromusa colony, a lobo, and some clove polyps:
I used some Caribsea life rock that had become live rock in my 20gallon tank. To this, I added some aged seachem matrix that I had threw in the rear chamber of my AIO 20 Gallon and added a bit of leftover pink fiji sand.
Initially, I was pretty religious with the water changes. I changed 1.5 gallons per week. After about 2 weeks, I added my first clean up crew, which consisted of 2 Ceriths, 2 Trochus, and 2 Nessarius snails - these were a bit overkill imo...and the nessarius and trochus snails died about two months later, much to my chagrin....
The Aquarium also has had a few surprise clean-up crews - a small snail that looks like an Astraea snail has taken hold in my aquarium, and its population seems to ebb and flow with the little available algae. In addition, I also got a black and a white Stomatella. These were all hitchiker from the corals, which I didn't dip.
What's been surprising has been the resilience of the tanks. There were at least 3 times when i forgot to turn on the ATO before a weekend (one time, it was a 4 day weekend), only to find the tank about 1/5 empty due to evap - I was horrified, and accidentally turned on the ATO, which re balance the tank rapidly. I was afraid of the salinity swings, but all the corals have survived, and continue to thrive.
Tank in December, the Torch coral was only 2 heads then
In addition, I reduced my water changes to once every 3 weeks, and I only do a 1 gallon change. This has been no issue. Also, no testing, besides salinity of course. I figure the reef crystals replenish anything that has been spent. I have found that corals are more resilient than we give them credit for, though, oddly enough, my clove polyps have been the only suffering coral, though that looks to be caused by a weird algae like growth that seems to be trying to smother it...it still lives though, and I am hoping they bounce back...but maybe not too hard.
Here is the most recent tank shot, along with some close-ups, sorry for the blue, I don't have an orange filter, and the Iphone tends to oversaturate:
Four heads now!
jk the rough California roads would empty it out real quick 
