The End of an 8 Year Reefing Hiatus - New Waterbox 220.6 Build

[sanzz18]

Added some corals from around May through September 2021. They all pretty much didn't make it besides the GSP obviously . With a newborn, I let maintenance slip, parameters were all over the place. I couldn't keep my alk stable by any means, nitrates and phosphates were 0.5/over 50 at their worse. So I pretty much just took a hiatus from adding corals. I really didn't start putting my all into maintaining and stabilizing this tank until the beginning of this year.

Still alive and growing like a weed.

This is my first Monti - dead and now part of the aquascape lol.

Beautiful torch from TCK - dead.

Some corals sitting on the sandbed in the front also from TCK- dead.

I will update more of my journey later on tonight/tomorrow. Haven't really posted pictures or info on livestock yet because a lot has changed this year. I have lost a ton of fish to jumping (bought a Clearview lid finally), lost some tangs, wrasses, blenny. I will post more about this later and update my first post soon.

 

[sanzz18]

Another one of my challenges in this tank (but a normal one) was cyano. I had it take over the sand and base of rocks twice now. I bought chemiclean and never used it. All I did was continue regular maintenance, increase water changes (because I was battling high nutrients anyways), and give it time. I was also vinegar dosing just before I got cyano to help lower nitrates. I stopped vinegar dosing and just did many large water changes. Eventually it cleared up both times naturally without any chemicals. Thread I posted in search of help below:

To Chemiclean or Not? Cyano - Vinegar Dosing

So I have cyano taking over my 1 year old Waterbox 220.6's sandbed. I believe I had very small amounts of it that I was not concerned about when I started dosing vinegar to lower my nitrates cause I haven't had the time to do a series of large waterchanges (they were around 40). I do not know if...

www.reef2reef.com

Cyano just about gone in this pic.

 

[Jeffcb]

Looking Good! Following.

 

[sanzz18]

Looking Good! Following.

Thank you! I am playing catchup now to get my thread current since I left everyone in the dust. That way people can learn from mistakes, challenges, follow along. I will actually be able to converse with everyone in real time as things are changed/added to the tank.

 

[sanzz18]

Added a refugium somewhere between dinos and cyano. Started with tennis ball size of chaeto and quickly filled refugium chamber in just over a month. I pull out basketball chunks of it every month. I use the Neptune GRO light and run it opposite of the display lights for 12 hrs.

 

[sanzz18]

Here was my temporary lid help on by potato chip clips while waiting for my Clearview Lid to come in . I couldn't loose another fish to something as preventable as jumping.

You can kind of see the Clearview lid in the pic below. I only have this pic at the moment.

 

[sanzz18]

Just recently built a little workbench over my mixing station. My basement is relatively small around 500 sqft, so I got to make proper use of all my space down here. I built it so that way I can lift a good portion of it on hinges to have a decent amount of access to the mixing bins when adding salt, filling, checking levels, etc.

Should only be a couple more posts now to be caught up. I will do a couple videos and show the handful of corals that are in the tank now that my parameters are much more stable.

 

[sanzz18]

Here are some of the new corals I have (well really some of the first SPS). Sorry for some of the crappy photos. I lost my orange sense a couple of times. I am really considering investing in a DLSR for photos/videos soon.

Basic monti cap before and after 2-3 months of growth.


Oregon Blue Tort doing very well and starting to encrust a lot of the plug.

Tyree pinky the Bear that is not doing too well. I mounted it, then the next day noticed it was a little wobbly in the glue. Made a mess of it trying to add more glue to keep it from wobbling (didn't seem to work to well). One of my fish also must have bumped into it broke a couple of the tips off. Not sure if this will one will make it.

Purple plasma doing very well and has encrusted over half the plug since this pic a few weeks ago. Has pretty good polyp extension as well.

RMF Tiger's Blood doing very well with decent polyp extension. When I was mounting it I had to reglue it because it broke off the plug, so haven't seen much encrustation yet.

Got a tiny piece of purple plasma that broke off before mounting. I didn't know what the heck I was doing when I reglued. I feel as though it was too small of a piece to mount in this much glue/epoxy. Seems to be fading away/losing color/losing a bit of poly extension since this picture.

Buddy of mine gave me this forest fire digi and a basic purple stylo. I dropped the frag and broke it. It was a pretty clean break so I glued them on two plugs and will be giving one of them away to a family member who has a reef tank.

 

[sanzz18]

Random updates: I recently added a 3rd MP40 with plans for a 4th. Also have been doing 2 part manually. I have a second Neptune DOS ready to go so I don't have to manually dose anymore, just trying to figure out what I want for containers. My DOS for AWC does about 3 gallons per day.

I think for the most part, this thread is updated as best as I can. Going forward, I will do my best to keep it updated. I am definitely still a beginner, especially with coral, but feel free to ask me anything about my build or reefing.

 

[sanzz18]

Here is a little update for everyone. Been battling turf algae for a few months. It is driving me crazy but I will figure it out. I added more CUC including more turbos, x2 tuxedo urchins, some emerald crabs. Trying a natural approach before I use something like fluconazole.

 

[sanzz18]

So here is my next back of frags. I hope all of most of them make it. They have been in my system for 10 days so far.

The only acros that made it out of the last batch was the purple plasma, and the oregon tort (sort of), which is still recovering from burnt tips but has good polyp extension again.

New SPS - green slimer, some sort of tort, another oregon tort, hawkins echinata, fox flame, tigers blood, purple sanjay, pc rainbow, grafted monticap (not doing so great give. The fact my red monti cap I had for awhile is growing strong), pink floyd, digi, and pink caddy.

 

[Soilworker]

Tank looks great!

I saw one of your other posts about getting a 1inch barbed fitting on the Neptune COR 20 pump. Did you ever figure out how to do that? What parts did you buy to get it working?

 

[sanzz18]

Tank looks great!

I saw one of your other posts about getting a 1inch barbed fitting on the Neptune COR 20 pump. Did you ever figure out how to do that? What parts did you buy to get it working?

Thanks! Still having some challenges but I am not giving up and will beat them.

So thank god I had a conversation with my buddy who has the same tank and pump in my messages regarding the fittings. I figured it out and then sent him what he needed in a text lol

You need a 1 1/4” to 1” spigot reducing bushing and a 1” spigot to 1” barb. I believe I got them off BRS. If I can find the links I will post them.