WB 25 Gal Pennisula Mixed Reef

[Kradoc]

Hi all,

Figured I've procrastinated my tank thread long enough.

Tank Specs:
Waterbox 25 gal Pennisula

Stand:
WB stand, but I think it was for a slightly larger tank

I got both, used, from another reefer in southwest houston for a song when he upgraded last year.

I waited about 3 months before getting started, as we were going on a long winter vacation and the potential for power outages here in houston.

Equipment (from prior owner):
Sicce silent pump
Random 100w heater

Equipment (new):
Jebao ow-25
Mini q nano skimmer
Tunze care scraper

Light:
Noopsyche K7 Pro

Sand:
Caribsea Special grade, 20lbs

Rock:
15 lbs dry (glued together)
8 lbs Live rock from a local store

I got all my equipment before I kicked off the build... naturally because I was procrastinating.

Here's my initial aquascape

Finally got it up and running on Jan 12th. More updates to follow.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Off to a good start! Regarding livestock, what do you want to put in your tank first?

 

[Kradoc]

Off to a good start! Regarding livestock, what do you want to put in your tank first?

That's a great question! I'm slightly behind my posting, lol.

My idea is to start from least aggressive to most aggressive.

Stocking probably 4-6 fish.

My initial list:
Purple firefish (love the color, got him about 6 weeks ago)
A flasher wrasse (i got a mccoskers, got him about 2 weeks ago):


The rest:
Probably something that perches, like a starry blenny. I'd love a pygmy hawkish or something, but not sure i have the space.

Finally, probably a clown or two. It's a bit cliche, but I do love their derpyness.

 

[Anna K]

Looking forward to following your journey! Those power outages were no joke. I'm about 2.5 hours away from Houston

 

[Kradoc]

My parameters are pretty good, but I went through a patch of dinos:


Boosting feeding, and blocking light for a week (didn't have coral at that time) worked wonders.

It did throw my phosphate out of wack. I'm at .25 now. All other parameters look good though.

I'm also intending to do a mixed reef, and I've got a couple rescue coral and a hammer in there.

Hammer is happy as can be, as is one of the rescues, but probably lost the rescue goni.

Current pic:

 

[Kradoc]

Looking forward to following your journey! Those power outages were no joke. I'm about 2.5 hours away from Houston

Oh yeah, greatest fear. I've probably got until July to figure out a way to keep at least the pumps going for 4 days.

That's how long we usually lose power for. Last year we lost power 3 times.

We are up in the heights.

 

[Anna K]

Oh yeah, greatest fear. I've probably got until July to figure out a way to keep at least the pumps going for 4 days.

That's how long we usually lose power for. Last year we lost power 3 times.

We are up in the heights.

I'd look at a UPS system. I don't know if you're in a house or an apartment, but a dual gas/propane generator is also very handy to have

 

[Gumbies R Us]

My parameters are pretty good, but I went through a patch of dinos:


Boosting feeding, and blocking light for a week (didn't have coral at that time) worked wonders.

It did throw my phosphate out of wack. I'm at .25 now. All other parameters look good though.

I'm also intending to do a mixed reef, and I've got a couple rescue coral and a hammer in there.

Hammer is happy as can be, as is one of the rescues, but probably lost the rescue goni.

Current pic:

Glad you were able to get rid of dinos quickly!

 

[Kradoc]

Glad you were able to get rid of dinos quickly!

So paranoid they're going to come back now I've got corals and the lights are on.

But keeping nutrients high, dosing beneficial bacteria, and manually spot cleaning where necessary.

 

[Kradoc]

April 20th Update: A month later

Hey all!

Guess whos now just hanging out, chilling with the McCosker. My purple firefish! I don't know what changed, but he's fully chill now, hanging out all day.

You'll notice the rock is much cleaner, got rid of alot of the algae and dinos since last month. In addition, I've picked up a few sale corals the past few weeks.

I was super frustrated at FedEx. Apparently the priority shipping fedEx guy just decided not to deliver my package, and I had to drive down and pick it up the next day. He marked my address as 'Incorrect Address' even though I was home all day, and both the call center and the actual person at the warehouse agreed it was fine. UPS worked well though.
---
Two major issues in the intervening month.

1) My hydnophora started receding. I think this times up with me dosing phospates (probably overdosing), and i think it swung too far. In addition, my issue #2 probably wasn't helping.

2) I noticed some receding lines on my dragon soul favia more recently, and I borrowed my LFS's PAR meter. I dun goofed, in my over abundance to keep lighting low against the dinos, my par was waaaay low for the tank (and for the hydno).
---

For lighting, I've now bumped it up slightly to 25% for 8 hours, and I'll be bumping it up 5% each week until we hit 40%. That seems to be the right range for my corals, and i've shifted them around to get ideal PAR at 40% where they are now.

Current Fish Stock:
McCosker's Flasher Wrasse (Red Fish)
Purple Firefish (Pikaboo)

Current CUC:
2 Peppermint Shrimp
Emerald Crab
2 Turbo Snails
2 hermit crabs
Countless Stomatellas

Current coral stock list:
Hammer coral
Rescue Goniastrea (Maybe?)
Green Spot Mushroom

1st batch
TSA Gamma Knife Hydnophora
Hulk Leptoseris
Galactic Burst Zoa
WWC Pandoras Zoa
Mystery LPS (No freaking clue what it is)

2nd batch
UC Lava Edge Chalice
UC Stardom Stylo
UC Blue Raven Blasto
JF Jungle Juice Zoa
Rasta Zoa
Rainbow Hornet Zoa

Next post will show my lighting outline (I hope)

 

[sidpost]

Oh yeah, greatest fear. I've probably got until July to figure out a way to keep at least the pumps going for 4 days.

That's how long we usually lose power for. Last year we lost power 3 times.

We are up in the heights.

East Texas here ... for my Freshwater stuff, the D-cell Frabill aerators work well. For other stuff, one of the battery backed "powerstations" or a classic computer UPS will work well assuming it is sized properly for the load which shouldn't be a problem for most systems with more than a cheap UPS commonly found for ~$50.

 

[Kradoc]

Well, it happened. Lost power while we were on a weekend trip. I had setup a pecron battery to a pump, and it should have kept everything moving, but I guess it tripped a circuit breaker.

Fish are fine, zoas look ok, but I had an algae bloom somehow, probably wasn't circulating through the back. Lost a bunch.

Restocking now!

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Well, it happened. Lost power while we were on a weekend trip. I had setup a pecron battery to a pump, and it should have kept everything moving, but I guess it tripped a circuit breaker.

Fish are fine, zoas look ok, but I had an algae bloom somehow, probably wasn't circulating through the back. Lost a bunch.

Restocking now!

Oh so sorry for the losses!

 

[Kradoc]

Appreciate it, but gotta roll with the punches. Happy to have my zoas still

 

[Kradoc]

Alright, restocking with some stuff, and looks like I'm winning the GHA war.

It was cool to look at, but a pain. Ive done about an hour daily of manual removal, and I've now added some macro algae from mosaic to counter the GHA.

I've also blocked off light to half the tank. Will report back once two weeks have gone by.

 

[Kradoc]

Okay, GHA is good. Stocked back up with some softies, some macro to fight the GHA, and a bunch of random stuff coming next week (thanks to the aqua sd sale).

I also will be picking up a new fish, my lfs is getting an aquaculture tessalated blenny from biota next week for me. I think after that, two clowns and I'm capped.

Still thinking about whether I should do just one.

Also, dosing all for reef, since I think my alk and calc have been too low.

 

[dvgyfresh]

excited to see the revival! I also had a mini Dino’s bloom due to low nutrient, glad to see you overcame that quickly.

 

[Indiana Reefin]

Nice setup!