Gpettit721
Active Member
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2016
- Messages
- 237
- Reaction score
- 171
Good morning/afternoon,
So I have been toying around with the idea of doing a tank diary. The reason for this is because the tank is currently bouncing back from a mini tank crash. About three months ago my sps started to die one at a time and it was probably one of the hardest times in my 10 years of reefing (minus building my dream tank and getting a call to relocate two days later.... and not being able to move the tank). So, as it stands right now I am out of room to add much more sps to the tank so i wanted to do something to keep me connected to my tank on a daily basis. I will be adding some sps and other lps corals as time goes on but for now i'm pretty much out of room in the higher areas of the tank for anymore sps.
I'll give a quick run down of what my equipment list is and what i keep my parameters at.
Equipment:
Tank: 60 cube
Stand: Custom built by Custom Reef Creations in Williamsburg Va
Sump: Custom built for stand by same company (highly recommend)
Lighting: Giesseman Spectra 400w metal halide with 4 T-5
Bulbs- Radium 20k. 2x Giesseman Super Blue and 2x ATI pure Actinic
Flow-2 vortech MP10 (thinking of adding some more flow to the tank)
Skimmer- Skimz sm201. Upgrading to deltec as soon as a decide what my upgrade will be.
Return-Lifeguard.... horrible pump but i was in a jam when my last went out on me
Calcium Reactor- Geo 6x12... Love it
Now to my routine....
I try to keep it pretty simple and set goals for myself every months to knock out the bigger chores as the become needed. Every week I do a 10-20% water change.... sometimes I will skip a week if my nutrients are low. I clean my pumps once a quarter and every six months i drain the sump remove everything and give it a good cleaning.
THE CRASH....
The crash was something completely unexpected. Things were going great and looking healthy. Until I went out of town for two weeks and left the tank to my wife to care for. I came home after week one for the weekend and noticed that I had some RTN on a coral or two.... Started to freak out checked everything and the water parameters checked out find for my old school thinking.... 0's across the board... this went on for a while. I would wake up and loose one then that night another would start to show signs then the next day it would be gone. LOTS OF MONEY OUT THE DOOR EVERYDAY.... Out of ideas I decided to jack my nutrients up a lot by feeding and feeding.... Low and behold things stopped dying and started looking better and better.... Funny how every tank is different. So now I feed all the time... If I go in the room i feed my fish.
So with all of that said I hope that this reaches someone that his having a hard time and to give encouragement for them to keep going.... Hopefully it doesn't turn into another crash but I will stay optimistic. My corals do not look great right now but they are doing much better than they where 3 months ago.... I will post pictures as often as i can to do a time lapse of the tank. thanks for reading.
So I have been toying around with the idea of doing a tank diary. The reason for this is because the tank is currently bouncing back from a mini tank crash. About three months ago my sps started to die one at a time and it was probably one of the hardest times in my 10 years of reefing (minus building my dream tank and getting a call to relocate two days later.... and not being able to move the tank). So, as it stands right now I am out of room to add much more sps to the tank so i wanted to do something to keep me connected to my tank on a daily basis. I will be adding some sps and other lps corals as time goes on but for now i'm pretty much out of room in the higher areas of the tank for anymore sps.
I'll give a quick run down of what my equipment list is and what i keep my parameters at.
Equipment:
Tank: 60 cube
Stand: Custom built by Custom Reef Creations in Williamsburg Va
Sump: Custom built for stand by same company (highly recommend)
Lighting: Giesseman Spectra 400w metal halide with 4 T-5
Bulbs- Radium 20k. 2x Giesseman Super Blue and 2x ATI pure Actinic
Flow-2 vortech MP10 (thinking of adding some more flow to the tank)
Skimmer- Skimz sm201. Upgrading to deltec as soon as a decide what my upgrade will be.
Return-Lifeguard.... horrible pump but i was in a jam when my last went out on me
Calcium Reactor- Geo 6x12... Love it
Now to my routine....
I try to keep it pretty simple and set goals for myself every months to knock out the bigger chores as the become needed. Every week I do a 10-20% water change.... sometimes I will skip a week if my nutrients are low. I clean my pumps once a quarter and every six months i drain the sump remove everything and give it a good cleaning.
THE CRASH....
The crash was something completely unexpected. Things were going great and looking healthy. Until I went out of town for two weeks and left the tank to my wife to care for. I came home after week one for the weekend and noticed that I had some RTN on a coral or two.... Started to freak out checked everything and the water parameters checked out find for my old school thinking.... 0's across the board... this went on for a while. I would wake up and loose one then that night another would start to show signs then the next day it would be gone. LOTS OF MONEY OUT THE DOOR EVERYDAY.... Out of ideas I decided to jack my nutrients up a lot by feeding and feeding.... Low and behold things stopped dying and started looking better and better.... Funny how every tank is different. So now I feed all the time... If I go in the room i feed my fish.
So with all of that said I hope that this reaches someone that his having a hard time and to give encouragement for them to keep going.... Hopefully it doesn't turn into another crash but I will stay optimistic. My corals do not look great right now but they are doing much better than they where 3 months ago.... I will post pictures as often as i can to do a time lapse of the tank. thanks for reading.
