WB REEF 220.6 mixed reef build in tattoo studio.

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Alexoss

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Happy to say that the tank is officially cycled !

Did a last dosing of liquid ammonia to put it to the test and tests were good less than 48 hours later.
Gonna make a 25% WC today and a 10% WC tomorrow to lower the nitrates a little, around 10ppm now, before adding the first fishes tomorrow.
Fishes comes from a fellow reefer in my area who close his tank due to lack of time lately.
2 ocelaris clowns
1 flasher wrasse
3 green chromis
1 purple firefish

Plan is to drip acclimate them and to add Seachem Stability if needed.
Went from more than 2 ppm ammonia to 0 in less than 48 hours so I'm quite confident in my cycle potential to deal with the new bioload.
In the worst case scenario I'm off work for the next two days so I'll be ready to dose Stability and do WC if needed.

This is getting really exciting !


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Tattoo chair is just a few feet from the tank, used to have a 5 feet long ciclhid tank before this one, and customers absolutly loved it.
Watching an aquarium reduce naturally the anxiety, so it s a win/win, customers are happy, tattooist is happy too !
I hope they are ready to see some ugly phases for awhile!!!! Especially with a reef!
 
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I hope they are ready to see some ugly phases for awhile!!!! Especially with a reef!
Yeah, the thing is that fish tanks make perfect conversations subjects during the tattoo process, guess I'll have a lot to talk about !

Enjoy the process!
Ask questions
READ alot
Congratulations and hug your wife!
Sure, she s the best !
 
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Did my first "complete" water test this morning to check how it goes and here are the numbers :
- PH : 8.2
- NH3 : 0 ppm (0.25-ish due to API's known over reaction)
- No2 : 0 ppm
- NO3 : 5 ppm
- KH : 8.4 dkH
- Cal : 460 ppm
- Mag : 1400 ppm

Cal and Mag seems a little high but i guess it'll go down once corals will be in the tank.
Was mi first time using the Red Sea test kit too, might be a little off due to the lack of habit with this one.
Overall i think the numbers are pretty good to start from here.
 
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Two weeks in, cycle has been tested each day during the last 3 days as i was adding the first fish and everything is fine (0 Nh3, about 5 No3).
Switched to Salifert tests for more readability as the API ammonia is just a pain to read.
A few diatoms begun to appear on the rocks so i'm glad the first members of the CUC might be home tomorow, i have all sort of pods (copepods, amphipods from what i can see) which is good because i plan on getting a dragonet goby in a few weeks.
Found a red mushroom coral on one of the refugium rock, so i had to relocate it in the DT, saw a few yellow sponge too, i couldn't be happier for now, thing are going smoothly.
DT light is on for 8 hours at 25% and refugium light is on for 6 hours during the night, so far the chaeto i added a few days back is still crispy and green, skimmer is off for now.
I'll let the tank settle for at least two weeks before adding anything new (except the CUC), while testing every two days to monitor everything.

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Water test day today before receiving members of the CUC tomorrow just to confirm that everything goes smoothly.
So far the actual inhabitants are fine, clowns and chromis swimming happily and eating like ogrishs, snails and hermits minding their business.
Except for the Po4 still high because of the tank being very young, every parameter looks fine.
Temperature : between 77 and 78 stable.
Salinity : 1.024
PH : 8.2
NH3 : 0
No2 : 0
No3 : 7-ish
Kh : 8.4
Cal : 480
Mag : 1400
Po4 : 0.20

Tomorrow the tank will receive a few shrimps, an urchin, and its first frags !

And yeah...first aptaisia spotted in the sandbed, and you know...if there's one...guess i'm in the game now, so 2 peppermints coming too.
test day.jpg
 
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the first corals are infor 24h now, ordered from Candy Coral (A1 experience, had to say it).
Just three little frags for now to put the tank to the test, more might come in a few days.

Pinwheel zoanthid :
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Australian Branching Duncan :
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Tyree toadstool :
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All three seems very fine, took those three to test the high/med/low places and flows in the tank.

And hey, M Crab says hi.
IMG_9468.jpg
 

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the first corals are infor 24h now, ordered from Candy Coral (A1 experience, had to say it).
Just three little frags for now to put the tank to the test, more might come in a few days.

Pinwheel zoanthid :
IMG_9471.jpg


Australian Branching Duncan :
IMG_9472.jpg


Tyree toadstool :
IMG_9474.jpg


All three seems very fine, took those three to test the high/med/low places and flows in the tank.

And hey, M Crab says hi.
IMG_9468.jpg
Nice job on the pics!
 
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A few more coral additions from a fellow reefer closing its tank in my area, got a whole package of softies at a great price.
They are settled for a few days now and everyone is doing great.
On the bad news side, Mr Urchin died two night ago, found the skeleton, empty, two options, attacked by another resident, or too much Po4 (still around 0.15, stable), anyway i should have waited longer for the urchin, i'll try again in a few months once the tank as matured a little..
Water parameters are still good, with No3 decreasing slightly on its own now.

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Looks good!
 
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Tank is running for 6 weeks now.
Added the last batch (of three) of livestock from the reefer closing its tank, possibly in mine too soon, like the nems, but had no choice to take the whole package.
Nems, sps, dragonet, diamondback goby, wrasse, etc are in for a week now, everything seems ok so far.
Water parameters have changed a little along time :
Sal : 1.024
PH : 8.2
Nh3 : 0
No2 : 0
No3 : 0
KH : 8.4
Cal : 500
Mag : 1520
Po4 : 0.03
Nitrates have bottomed, so in response, i cut the skimmer time by 2/3, and downed the chaeto light to 2 hours a night.
Might reduce the water changes too to help maintaining a few Nitrates.
Rocks are pretty much all brown now, with a little greenish teint on some places, a few hair algae but nothing out of control, i might order a batch of turbo snails to help a little.


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Little update on this tank that is apparently doing great :
- ugly phase is behind now, i even see little spots of purple coraline here and there, and they seems to spread
- added a royal gramma, a yellow watchman goby, a few more snails, starfish and everyone s doing great, corals are growing nicely and looking good.
- refugium is working great, now with only 2 hours of light to keep No3 in the tank
- started dosing homemade phyto every 2 days, corals seems to love it

Now the tricky bit, gone to a few weeks with lower KH (went down from 8.4 to 7.3 for nearly a month), didn t do anything has the corals were still fine, and finally today, back to 8.4.
No3 is beginning to stabilize (between 2 to 10), Mag and Cal still in the upper range but acceptable.

The tricky part is, water parameters are better since i skipped water changes for three weeks now...
at first i skipped the first one as a try, saw parameters were better one week after, decided to wait more, it's been three weeks now without any WC, so, should i do one still, stick to what i m doing now, how long can i keep skipping WC in a tank that new ? (three months in)

Complete parameters this morning :
Sal : 1.024
PH : 7.8
NH3 : 0
No2 : 0
No3 : 3
Po4 : 0 / 0.03
Mag : 1480
Cal : 520
Kh : 8.4
 

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Little update on this tank that is apparently doing great :
- ugly phase is behind now, i even see little spots of purple coraline here and there, and they seems to spread
- added a royal gramma, a yellow watchman goby, a few more snails, starfish and everyone s doing great, corals are growing nicely and looking good.
- refugium is working great, now with only 2 hours of light to keep No3 in the tank
- started dosing homemade phyto every 2 days, corals seems to love it

Now the tricky bit, gone to a few weeks with lower KH (went down from 8.4 to 7.3 for nearly a month), didn t do anything has the corals were still fine, and finally today, back to 8.4.
No3 is beginning to stabilize (between 2 to 10), Mag and Cal still in the upper range but acceptable.

The tricky part is, water parameters are better since i skipped water changes for three weeks now...
at first i skipped the first one as a try, saw parameters were better one week after, decided to wait more, it's been three weeks now without any WC, so, should i do one still, stick to what i m doing now, how long can i keep skipping WC in a tank that new ? (three months in)

Complete parameters this morning :
Sal : 1.024
PH : 7.8
NH3 : 0
No2 : 0
No3 : 3
Po4 : 0 / 0.03
Mag : 1480
Cal : 520
Kh : 8.4
Good job! Things are looking awesome. As far as the WC I couldn't say. I'm only 4 months in with my tank and I don't have nearly as much livestock as you do.
2 Clowns
Sandsifting Star
Snails and Hermits
I'm doing 10% changes every 2 weeks and have only had a small diatom outbreak which I feel is part of getting a new tank going.
Sal: 1.024
pH: 8.0
NH3: 0
No3: 2
Not testing for anything more until I add corals.........which I hope to be soon. Just need time to be able to do it.
 
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Good job! Things are looking awesome. As far as the WC I couldn't say. I'm only 4 months in with my tank and I don't have nearly as much livestock as you do.
2 Clowns
Sandsifting Star
Snails and Hermits
I'm doing 10% changes every 2 weeks and have only had a small diatom outbreak which I feel is part of getting a new tank going.
Sal: 1.024
pH: 8.0
NH3: 0
No3: 2
Not testing for anything more until I add corals.........which I hope to be soon. Just need time to be able to do it.
Got lucky to start with a lot of live rocks from established tanks, that really kicked started it !
 

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