Hello everybody,
I’ve been on R2R for a few years now, and joined when I finally made the plunge into saltwater about a year ago. My father owned FOWLR tanks growing up but I always found reef tanks to be so fascinating. My current tank is a Redsea E-Max 170, and it is FULL. My small Biota yellow tang has grown signicantly and I had to give him a bigger home.
So here we are, the new tank. Here’s the equipment list:
2 MP40s
3 Radion XR30 G6
Syncra SDC 6.0 Return pump
Redsea RSK600 skimmer
Sicce 3.0 pump for my UV
AquaUV 25 watt UV sterilizer
600W Titanium heater with Helio controller
Redsea ATO+
Caribsea special grade sand ~90lbs
Aqua forest dry rock ~80lbs
Tropic Marin Syn-biotic Salt
Have about 30-40lbs of established, dark cured live rock in my sump, along with some filter media from a friend’s established tank.
Used Microbacter XLM with ammonia chloride to cycle the tank. Took ~5 days to cycle completely. I attribute this to the live rock in my sump as well as the effectiveness of the salt mix, and brightwell’s products. I continued to dark cycle the tank for about 1 month.
After about 3 weeks I put my clownfish after ensuring my ammonia and nitrite were 0. I have some big stocking plans for this tank! Including a small black longnose tang that will be introduced at the same time as my other zebrasoma tang to minimize aggression, a small powder blue and a small whitetail bristletooth tang. They’ll be joining my longnose hawkfish, foxface rabbitfish, and melanarus wrasse. Very exciting things happening, including a small diatom bloom, as expected.
After going through diatoms, Dino’s, Cyano, and eventually bryopsis/GHA in my previous tank, I welcome the uglies and the challenges to come.
Next month I’ll be establishing my doser and potentially a reefmat later this year to keep my nutrients at decent levels to continuing growing my acros with the large bio-load I anticipate with these larger fish.
Thanks for reading and looking forward to sharing my journey!
I’ve been on R2R for a few years now, and joined when I finally made the plunge into saltwater about a year ago. My father owned FOWLR tanks growing up but I always found reef tanks to be so fascinating. My current tank is a Redsea E-Max 170, and it is FULL. My small Biota yellow tang has grown signicantly and I had to give him a bigger home.
So here we are, the new tank. Here’s the equipment list:
2 MP40s
3 Radion XR30 G6
Syncra SDC 6.0 Return pump
Redsea RSK600 skimmer
Sicce 3.0 pump for my UV
AquaUV 25 watt UV sterilizer
600W Titanium heater with Helio controller
Redsea ATO+
Caribsea special grade sand ~90lbs
Aqua forest dry rock ~80lbs
Tropic Marin Syn-biotic Salt
Have about 30-40lbs of established, dark cured live rock in my sump, along with some filter media from a friend’s established tank.
Used Microbacter XLM with ammonia chloride to cycle the tank. Took ~5 days to cycle completely. I attribute this to the live rock in my sump as well as the effectiveness of the salt mix, and brightwell’s products. I continued to dark cycle the tank for about 1 month.
After about 3 weeks I put my clownfish after ensuring my ammonia and nitrite were 0. I have some big stocking plans for this tank! Including a small black longnose tang that will be introduced at the same time as my other zebrasoma tang to minimize aggression, a small powder blue and a small whitetail bristletooth tang. They’ll be joining my longnose hawkfish, foxface rabbitfish, and melanarus wrasse. Very exciting things happening, including a small diatom bloom, as expected.
After going through diatoms, Dino’s, Cyano, and eventually bryopsis/GHA in my previous tank, I welcome the uglies and the challenges to come.
Next month I’ll be establishing my doser and potentially a reefmat later this year to keep my nutrients at decent levels to continuing growing my acros with the large bio-load I anticipate with these larger fish.
Thanks for reading and looking forward to sharing my journey!
