Sam's 40 Breeder Reef Tank

[SamBackspins]

Hey everyone! New here and thought I'd post a few pics of my first reef tank! I had a ridiculous dinoflagellate problem a month or so ago, but have gotten it managed currently!

This is just an overall tank shot of some corals and the fish, the current stocking list (and final I believe), is a Royal Gramma, two Clowns, a Ruby Red Cardinalfish, and a Wheeler's Goby (with his shrimp).

Here's a close up of the left side of the tank, most of the sand scaping is from the pistol shrimp, there's a handful of zoa's, a trachyphilia, a colt coral, GSP, a Duncan, a neon green toadstool, and a fox coral who really doesn't like a lot of light.

Here is the right side of the tank, you can see some more zoas, each frag started as 2-4 polyps, the toadstool and wheelers goby is in better view. Most of the rubble in the bottom is Floridan aquaculture, which came in with two clams (?) that I can't identify, but is definitely alive. I've not seen the cardinalfish since I added him aside from 1-2 small glances underneath this side. The pistol shrimp is very brave, out constantly, and steal a lot of the rubble to build with.

And finally a tank shot of the general setup, it's finally something I'm somewhat happy with, and hope to update y'all as it gets better. Thanks all! If anyone wants to know about my fixing of the dinoflagellates I'm happy to give a write-up.

 

[GillMeister]

It looks like you're off to a great start! Nice job with the scape.

 

[Zach B]

Very nice tank! Following

 

[ShepherdReefer]

Looking good! like it.

 

[SamBackspins]

Well, it's been about a month and a half since I started this thread, 6 months since the tank started, and things have taken a downturn.

All of my parameters have been pretty stable aside from one alk spike, and all the coral is dying. I've lost a colt coral, a fox coral (the one I'm saddest for) and a bunch of mushrooms and zoas are receding. I've been slowly adjusting stuff to help it, but it seems like coral just doesn't grow.

The fish are great though, I added a Yellow Banded Possum Wrasse to the tank and it is the cutest guy, spends all day running in and out of rockwork and nipping at the rock. The Gramma and he get along really well, and the Wheeler's Goby is getting the most fantastic looking coloration to him.

I'm attaching pictures, but mostly to keep a record, not really proud of all that's going on. Hopefully I can turn it around soon.

 

[SamBackspins]

Hey all, here with another update on the 40 breeder.

my coral is coming back, what’s left is starting to grow again, and opening up slowly. Ive gone bare bottom actually, everything is much easier to clean and all. The fish are pretty much great, fat as hell and really personable.

I believe I figured out why all the nonsense happened, and it’s pretty silly of me. I had chaeto in a quarantine tank treated with copper, I ran cuprisorb in the tank and confirmed 0 copper after quite a while, I transferred the chaeto over and that’s about when everything started. Copper poisioning is my explanation I believe, since my parameters were good and stable.

everything is slowly growing now, so hopefully in a few months I’ll have some great growth pictures. In the meantime I did build an arduino top off.

here’s a few pictures, I’ll get a better picture update later, my phone camera is completely busted so these are pictures a friend took