Whats with the title Alfie? Well, I work as a self employed K9 handler (contractor) and as such it involves me working away from home living in my van with the dogs. In fact for the last 3 years the most time off I have had off is 3 days in any one spell, virtually every week it is usually one or two days at home and there have been several months where I havent had a day off at all. As anyone who is reading this in the hobby can appreciate how difficult it can be maintaining a reef with a schedule like this.
Reefing Background I started my first reef tank in 2005 using fresh a water aquarium on tap water with a seriously tight budget, lots of poor quality used equipment that usually failed after a few months. As time went on, we got a bit more money and saved and sold a few frags here and there and kept saving. We eventually got a nice 120g sumped aquarium, the area we lived had lots of fellow reefers and back then the reefer code was strong, corals were either traded for free or for the cost of a coffee. After a few years I had what I thought was a nice mixed reef.
The Break In 2015 after coming home to a mass of dead or dying corals of what had become a very nice reef my resolve was broken and I stripped everything down leaving the hobby for good... or so I thought.
The Move Due to a new contract in 2018 me and thr missus decided to move to the other side of the country so I could get home a bit more often. AFter we had been in the new house a few weeks, the missus one sunday afternoon made the mistake of saying how nice a reef tank would look in there. Within 5 hours we had visited a few fish stores, and dropped a few grand on a brand new 120g, lights and equipment and after 20 months it was look ok to me
Another Move At the end of 2019 another move was on the cards. This time I planned it a bit better and bought a 5ft x 2 x2 (150g) and set it up in the new house before we moved in, so on the 2 days of moving out I could just transfer the stock. Easy right? Thats what I thought and initially everything went well. Sadly lost a couple of anthias and a goby which was my fault. took a bit to long and no airline in the holding container for those fish.
Work work work Then 2020 came, apart from everything else work went crazy, suddenly working away, covid etc etc and the tank took a back seat again. A new strip light I added to my radions (bumped my par to 800 without realising) cooked a lot of coral in a few weeks i was away, alk lines blocking up, heater failure, coral losses over 2020 and a crazy aiptasia outbreak again tested my resolve. To be fair the missus kept helping but with her work schedule I ofen felt guilty asking her to look after what is essentially my hobby but she did her best. But we kept on with it, it was surviving but not thriving, this went on unti the beginning of 2022. Oh and an Asterina outbreak lol
Automation So 2022 came, work is still frantic. I feel I am just hanging on with the tank and I am saying to the missus that I think it would be less trouble stress and heartbreak just to move it on.Atleast the copperband had sorted the aitptasia out. To the missue credit she said the amount of money and time I had invested I would be mad to shut it down, but we needed to try and make things easier or atleast monitor what was going on while I am away. So.. GHL or Neptune? I really like GHL but my wifi is terrible and I could connect the apex with a Lan cable. So an order went in Jan and feb, apex, couple of Dos, ddr , trident and 3 skys and some wavs. Connected all up and 3 weeks later the brain malfunctioned and had to be sent back. I was devasted to be honest. But got the new one and touch wood has been fine since, although the trident and a wav has had to be replaced under warranty in the last year.
Going forward So this brings us basically up to date. Getting stability and monitoring the tank with the apex has not only been a life saver for me but also the tank. Growth exploded, in face I had to strip out corals from the right side and planted some acros over the last year. Things that side have been slow going as the tank has been stabilising and catching up, I have been dosing coral essentials CVE+ for about 6 months and started on Fauna marin Amin (aminos) in February which I have seen dramatic changes on the frags I put in early 2022.
Here are a few pieces as of now, I have been doing weekly comparison shots if anyone is interested in seeing them. Life is changing again for me from this month, my current contract has changed and I will be getting 4 days a week off for the next month or 2 so I can atleast spend some time cleaning the tank up and maybe do a bit of fragging . I just realised I never said but the tank didnt have a water change for 3 years.
Anyway, I hope you enoyed this little write up.
Cheers from England
Alfie
Reefing Background I started my first reef tank in 2005 using fresh a water aquarium on tap water with a seriously tight budget, lots of poor quality used equipment that usually failed after a few months. As time went on, we got a bit more money and saved and sold a few frags here and there and kept saving. We eventually got a nice 120g sumped aquarium, the area we lived had lots of fellow reefers and back then the reefer code was strong, corals were either traded for free or for the cost of a coffee. After a few years I had what I thought was a nice mixed reef.
The Break In 2015 after coming home to a mass of dead or dying corals of what had become a very nice reef my resolve was broken and I stripped everything down leaving the hobby for good... or so I thought.
The Move Due to a new contract in 2018 me and thr missus decided to move to the other side of the country so I could get home a bit more often. AFter we had been in the new house a few weeks, the missus one sunday afternoon made the mistake of saying how nice a reef tank would look in there. Within 5 hours we had visited a few fish stores, and dropped a few grand on a brand new 120g, lights and equipment and after 20 months it was look ok to me
Another Move At the end of 2019 another move was on the cards. This time I planned it a bit better and bought a 5ft x 2 x2 (150g) and set it up in the new house before we moved in, so on the 2 days of moving out I could just transfer the stock. Easy right? Thats what I thought and initially everything went well. Sadly lost a couple of anthias and a goby which was my fault. took a bit to long and no airline in the holding container for those fish.
Work work work Then 2020 came, apart from everything else work went crazy, suddenly working away, covid etc etc and the tank took a back seat again. A new strip light I added to my radions (bumped my par to 800 without realising) cooked a lot of coral in a few weeks i was away, alk lines blocking up, heater failure, coral losses over 2020 and a crazy aiptasia outbreak again tested my resolve. To be fair the missus kept helping but with her work schedule I ofen felt guilty asking her to look after what is essentially my hobby but she did her best. But we kept on with it, it was surviving but not thriving, this went on unti the beginning of 2022. Oh and an Asterina outbreak lol
Automation So 2022 came, work is still frantic. I feel I am just hanging on with the tank and I am saying to the missus that I think it would be less trouble stress and heartbreak just to move it on.Atleast the copperband had sorted the aitptasia out. To the missue credit she said the amount of money and time I had invested I would be mad to shut it down, but we needed to try and make things easier or atleast monitor what was going on while I am away. So.. GHL or Neptune? I really like GHL but my wifi is terrible and I could connect the apex with a Lan cable. So an order went in Jan and feb, apex, couple of Dos, ddr , trident and 3 skys and some wavs. Connected all up and 3 weeks later the brain malfunctioned and had to be sent back. I was devasted to be honest. But got the new one and touch wood has been fine since, although the trident and a wav has had to be replaced under warranty in the last year.
Going forward So this brings us basically up to date. Getting stability and monitoring the tank with the apex has not only been a life saver for me but also the tank. Growth exploded, in face I had to strip out corals from the right side and planted some acros over the last year. Things that side have been slow going as the tank has been stabilising and catching up, I have been dosing coral essentials CVE+ for about 6 months and started on Fauna marin Amin (aminos) in February which I have seen dramatic changes on the frags I put in early 2022.
Here are a few pieces as of now, I have been doing weekly comparison shots if anyone is interested in seeing them. Life is changing again for me from this month, my current contract has changed and I will be getting 4 days a week off for the next month or 2 so I can atleast spend some time cleaning the tank up and maybe do a bit of fragging . I just realised I never said but the tank didnt have a water change for 3 years.
Anyway, I hope you enoyed this little write up.
Cheers from England
Alfie
