Steve and his Animals
Well-Known Member
Been a long time since I set up this tank, so here's a history. I bought this tank second hand for $100. It's an Oceanic 90 gallon, 60"x18"x18".
First fill on August 22, 2018
(December-2018) First set up with sand and rock, CSD100DX Overflow w/ Aqualifter (no idea what brand), a Current USA 6006 wavemaker, Jebao DCT-6000 return pump inside a 29-gallon-tank-turned-sump with a Reef Octopus Classic 150SSS protein skimmer. Lit by a single Kessil AP700.
I quickly moved in the first corals I had in my 29 gallon, a leather and mini birds nest colony
My plan was to keep a single coral catshark and a few fish in the tank, potentially upgrading as the shark grew (egg in refugium).
(May 2019) After that fell through (I lost the shark a while after hatching), I decided on a reef set up. It was hard for me to let go of my predator fish though. First inhabitants were a princess parrot (Scarus taeniopterus) I rescued from the chain pet store I worked at and an Indian black trigger (Melicthys indica). There was also a Halichoeres melanurus to round off the "big 3" that I had the longest, and some other smaller fish over time, but I was lazy/uneducated and lost a lot of fish (I never really stopped losing fish, but for other reasons...)
(August 2019) I spent a while messing with the types of fish I liked (butterflies and wrasses mostly), and as time went on I experimented with a lot and lost a lot, especially corals.
(October 2019) I had good success with Heniochus varius, and I began having no success with Paracentropyge multifasciata (still haven't). I was also experimenting with mixing coral with decorative macroalgae, the best was Caulerpa prolifera.
(February 2020) I eventually lost the trigger to what I assume was internal parasites, the melanurus quickly followed. That wasn't my wake up call to start quarantining fish for some reason, but everything else was going seemingly well. That is, until marine ich whiped out all of my fish save a Coris pictoides, a ternate damsel (Amblyglyphidodon ternatensis), and one other fish which I don't remember well (I think it was a hybrid indigo dottyback).
(November 2020) After that wipe-out (which was finally my wake up to quarantine my fish), I lost a lot of interest and drive, and let the tank go. Lost a lot of corals and other flora and fauna. I eventually splurged for my dream fish, some Chaetodon semilarvatus, which I eventually introduced to the tank. I'll never understand why, but I lost them quickly after that; they lost equilibrium over the course of a day and both died in the same day. This made me invest in a large Turbo Twist UV sterilizer, as this was what I considered to be the last step to being able to prolong water changes. I try to cover my bases for the benefits water changes provide: organic removal in a refugium and skimmer, reef elements in dosing, and water-borne bacterial count in a UV sterilizer. I guess that would put me somewhere closer to the pro-no-water-changes side of things (I think I'm still just lazy).
(September 2021) After losing my semis, I entered what I now consider my lazy patience phase. I take my time with a lot now, and let things do what they do. I stopped frantically adding fish to my display for quite a while until I was more comfortable with how the tank itself was going, still quarantining everything I deal with. This lead to its ups and downs, like a really fun bout with bryopsis that flucanazole saved me from. This is also when I started to notice, the less I messed with things the better the corals and other invertebrates did (well, most of them at least).
(March/April 2022) This basically bring me up to present.
As of right now, the current fish inhabitants are:
1 Longnose Butterfly (Forcipiger flavissimus)
1 Radiant Wrasse (Halichoeres iridis)
1 Ternate Damsel (yes, the same one)
1 Indigo Dottyback (also the same one)
1 Marine Betta (Calloplesiops altivelis)
Hope you enjoyed the long read, I'll update this thread once in a while with pics of fish, coral, and odd invert developments.
,
First fill on August 22, 2018
(December-2018) First set up with sand and rock, CSD100DX Overflow w/ Aqualifter (no idea what brand), a Current USA 6006 wavemaker, Jebao DCT-6000 return pump inside a 29-gallon-tank-turned-sump with a Reef Octopus Classic 150SSS protein skimmer. Lit by a single Kessil AP700.
I quickly moved in the first corals I had in my 29 gallon, a leather and mini birds nest colony
My plan was to keep a single coral catshark and a few fish in the tank, potentially upgrading as the shark grew (egg in refugium).
(May 2019) After that fell through (I lost the shark a while after hatching), I decided on a reef set up. It was hard for me to let go of my predator fish though. First inhabitants were a princess parrot (Scarus taeniopterus) I rescued from the chain pet store I worked at and an Indian black trigger (Melicthys indica). There was also a Halichoeres melanurus to round off the "big 3" that I had the longest, and some other smaller fish over time, but I was lazy/uneducated and lost a lot of fish (I never really stopped losing fish, but for other reasons...)
(August 2019) I spent a while messing with the types of fish I liked (butterflies and wrasses mostly), and as time went on I experimented with a lot and lost a lot, especially corals.
(October 2019) I had good success with Heniochus varius, and I began having no success with Paracentropyge multifasciata (still haven't). I was also experimenting with mixing coral with decorative macroalgae, the best was Caulerpa prolifera.
(February 2020) I eventually lost the trigger to what I assume was internal parasites, the melanurus quickly followed. That wasn't my wake up call to start quarantining fish for some reason, but everything else was going seemingly well. That is, until marine ich whiped out all of my fish save a Coris pictoides, a ternate damsel (Amblyglyphidodon ternatensis), and one other fish which I don't remember well (I think it was a hybrid indigo dottyback).
(November 2020) After that wipe-out (which was finally my wake up to quarantine my fish), I lost a lot of interest and drive, and let the tank go. Lost a lot of corals and other flora and fauna. I eventually splurged for my dream fish, some Chaetodon semilarvatus, which I eventually introduced to the tank. I'll never understand why, but I lost them quickly after that; they lost equilibrium over the course of a day and both died in the same day. This made me invest in a large Turbo Twist UV sterilizer, as this was what I considered to be the last step to being able to prolong water changes. I try to cover my bases for the benefits water changes provide: organic removal in a refugium and skimmer, reef elements in dosing, and water-borne bacterial count in a UV sterilizer. I guess that would put me somewhere closer to the pro-no-water-changes side of things (I think I'm still just lazy).
(September 2021) After losing my semis, I entered what I now consider my lazy patience phase. I take my time with a lot now, and let things do what they do. I stopped frantically adding fish to my display for quite a while until I was more comfortable with how the tank itself was going, still quarantining everything I deal with. This lead to its ups and downs, like a really fun bout with bryopsis that flucanazole saved me from. This is also when I started to notice, the less I messed with things the better the corals and other invertebrates did (well, most of them at least).
(March/April 2022) This basically bring me up to present.
As of right now, the current fish inhabitants are:
1 Longnose Butterfly (Forcipiger flavissimus)
1 Radiant Wrasse (Halichoeres iridis)
1 Ternate Damsel (yes, the same one)
1 Indigo Dottyback (also the same one)
1 Marine Betta (Calloplesiops altivelis)
Hope you enjoyed the long read, I'll update this thread once in a while with pics of fish, coral, and odd invert developments.
,
