reefer7891
Community Member
Hello I’ve introduced myself before and posted by build but I’m finally in the right forum.
Before 2010 aquariums were my life. I spent every penny I had to keep my reef, planted, and African cichlids tanks thriving. Then I got a job and spent the next 10 years on the road and shut my tanks down. Now I have a cushy desk job and decided to dive back in since I now work from home.
I have all my old equipment from 2010 and plan on building a reef like I did back then. My plan is to start with a retro build and then upgrade as necessary based on fish and coral health and growth. As I change equipment or use an additive I will document the results. I want to see how far I can take the tank with the retro gear and actively see how technology has changed the hobby. Besides it brings me back to the days where I had to use my ingenuity to save money and make use of all the equipment I have on hand.
EQUIPMENT:
55 gallon long - me and my dad bought this when I was 5. Please excuse the scratches this thing is over 25 years old.
Fluval 405 canister - filled with prefilter, biomax, seachem matrix stones, GFO, and chem blue. It runs couldn’t believe it. 12 years old.
300W - top fin heater - lol it didn’t break after all these years.
300W - Ehiem heater
Octopus 80 hang on
2 - fluval 265gph power head
Coralife Seascape 48” - very low cost light I got for 50% off. Hits about 50 par on average. Not the greatest but will keep coral alive during the cycle process.
This tank also gets about 3 hours of sunlight in half the tank. I’m doing this to see the suns effects on coral and algae.
Livestock
60 pounds of live rock. These came from a local Petco that was closing down. Bought all their rocks for a huge discount.
50 pounds of dry rock. Seems like a Florida reef variety.
2 - Ocellaris clowns
1 - jawfish
1 - longfin ruby fairy wrasse
1 - royal gramma basslet
1 - shark face goby
1 - Bengai cardinal
1 - lawnmower blenny
1 - ruby mithrax
2 - Scarlett hermits
4 - blue legged hermits
1- Pom Pom crabs
1 - Mexican turbo
3 - other turbos
2 - margarita
1 - trochus snail
Overview: I started this tank on 12/16/2020 after 2 weeks of live rock cycling:
the clowns, the algae blenny, 2 scarlets, 1 blue legged, the snails, Pom Pom, and mithrax crabs were added.
I went through 2 phases of algae. The first was brown and green film algae which quickly died off...
I was like sweet no ugly stage for me. These rocks, rock! But by week 6...
It was back with a vengeance with more complex form of algae. Every form of algae in existence burst forth from every pore. At this stage my tests were all NSW level except for phosphate which was .125-.25ppm. I tried carbon dosing but that made the cyano and diatom explode. (At least they were a pretty purple so I didn’t mind too much)
eventually it grew thick.
For about 2 weeks it looked like this. I did some research and saw that the slime was winning because I had ultra low nutrients except for phosphate. I used some ancient techniques (laziness) to raise nitrates to 5ppm and it actually worked. Phosphate dropped to zero and nitrate stabilized at 5ppm. The algae started to die off...
At 2 months I’m starting to see the green coralline precursor on the glass and rocks. They start off green but turn white then pink.
I also noted random bare patches of algae on the rocks. At first I though it was snails but soon I discovered colonies of amphipods had hitchhiked on the corals.
Thinking pods and phytoplankton were the missing ingredients I order some Ecopods and magic ocean from Algaebarn. I wrote a post reviewing their product if anyone is interested:
I added it on 3/4/2021 I added the pods and phyto. After 24 hours there is a noticeable increase in algae reduction. In an earlier picture with the RGB, you can see the thick algae dying off revealblack sponges underneath.
I’m pretty happy as it is right now. So here are some of my favorite pictures. Now it’s time to sit back and enjoy. Ladies and gentleman the Retro Reef circa 2010.
Thanks for reading and any advice would be great because I am still a novice. Cheer!
Before 2010 aquariums were my life. I spent every penny I had to keep my reef, planted, and African cichlids tanks thriving. Then I got a job and spent the next 10 years on the road and shut my tanks down. Now I have a cushy desk job and decided to dive back in since I now work from home.
I have all my old equipment from 2010 and plan on building a reef like I did back then. My plan is to start with a retro build and then upgrade as necessary based on fish and coral health and growth. As I change equipment or use an additive I will document the results. I want to see how far I can take the tank with the retro gear and actively see how technology has changed the hobby. Besides it brings me back to the days where I had to use my ingenuity to save money and make use of all the equipment I have on hand.
EQUIPMENT:
55 gallon long - me and my dad bought this when I was 5. Please excuse the scratches this thing is over 25 years old.
Fluval 405 canister - filled with prefilter, biomax, seachem matrix stones, GFO, and chem blue. It runs couldn’t believe it. 12 years old.
300W - top fin heater - lol it didn’t break after all these years.
300W - Ehiem heater
Octopus 80 hang on
2 - fluval 265gph power head
Coralife Seascape 48” - very low cost light I got for 50% off. Hits about 50 par on average. Not the greatest but will keep coral alive during the cycle process.
This tank also gets about 3 hours of sunlight in half the tank. I’m doing this to see the suns effects on coral and algae.
Livestock
60 pounds of live rock. These came from a local Petco that was closing down. Bought all their rocks for a huge discount.
50 pounds of dry rock. Seems like a Florida reef variety.
2 - Ocellaris clowns
1 - jawfish
1 - longfin ruby fairy wrasse
1 - royal gramma basslet
1 - shark face goby
1 - Bengai cardinal
1 - lawnmower blenny
1 - ruby mithrax
2 - Scarlett hermits
4 - blue legged hermits
1- Pom Pom crabs
1 - Mexican turbo
3 - other turbos
2 - margarita
1 - trochus snail
Overview: I started this tank on 12/16/2020 after 2 weeks of live rock cycling:
the clowns, the algae blenny, 2 scarlets, 1 blue legged, the snails, Pom Pom, and mithrax crabs were added.
I went through 2 phases of algae. The first was brown and green film algae which quickly died off...
I was like sweet no ugly stage for me. These rocks, rock! But by week 6...
It was back with a vengeance with more complex form of algae. Every form of algae in existence burst forth from every pore. At this stage my tests were all NSW level except for phosphate which was .125-.25ppm. I tried carbon dosing but that made the cyano and diatom explode. (At least they were a pretty purple so I didn’t mind too much)
eventually it grew thick.
For about 2 weeks it looked like this. I did some research and saw that the slime was winning because I had ultra low nutrients except for phosphate. I used some ancient techniques (laziness) to raise nitrates to 5ppm and it actually worked. Phosphate dropped to zero and nitrate stabilized at 5ppm. The algae started to die off...
I also noted random bare patches of algae on the rocks. At first I though it was snails but soon I discovered colonies of amphipods had hitchhiked on the corals.
Thinking pods and phytoplankton were the missing ingredients I order some Ecopods and magic ocean from Algaebarn. I wrote a post reviewing their product if anyone is interested:
I added it on 3/4/2021 I added the pods and phyto. After 24 hours there is a noticeable increase in algae reduction. In an earlier picture with the RGB, you can see the thick algae dying off revealblack sponges underneath.
I’m pretty happy as it is right now. So here are some of my favorite pictures. Now it’s time to sit back and enjoy. Ladies and gentleman the Retro Reef circa 2010.
Thanks for reading and any advice would be great because I am still a novice. Cheer!
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