My first reef tank

G

gloo

New Member
Kept only FOWLR up till now, this was my first real attempt at a reef tank setup. 15 gallon with ~ 20lbs of LR, probably needs more. Got a remora skimmer and HOB fuge ( modded aquaclear filter) with cheato and agra sand. Have 96w 50/50 coralife PC for lighting.

Ammo/Nitra/Nitri. = 0
Calcium ~ 420
Alk ~ 11
pH ~ 8.3-8.4
Temp 78-81 F ( I use a fan for the hot days... Living in Seattle, that's normally like 10 days out of the year).

I do weekly waterchanges of 15-20% using Instant Ocean salt at 1.025

Feed frozen Mysis ( I will start soaking in garlic) that I rinse very very well using RO/DI water
Mix DT's Oyster eggs and Marine Plankton squeeze dealy that contains Cyclopeeze, that I target feed the SPS once to thrice a week with all the PH and skimmer off.


Puchased Inhabitants;

- Mobile animals -
Yellow Crown Goby
2 blue leg hermits ( reason for the mess of shells on bottom... they changed shells like 10 times during the first 2 months).
cleaner shrimp
black cowrie ( cyprea caputserpentis, he can eat the softies for all I care)


- softies -
GSP (seems to grow faster if I tear a piece off every so often)
2 red shrooms
3 purple striped shrooms
Silver tipped Xenias ( always trying to get rid of them... just traded in 5 frags for $18 credit at LFS)
Pom Pom Xenias ( they arrived melted... looked like someone sneezed on a rock... now are growing very well)
unknown paly
colony of zoas ( brown with purple around mouth)

- sps -
purple encrusting monti (grows ok)
brown monti digi (grows fast)
pink pocillopora (dunno yet, just got it)

- Hitch hikers -
3 ball tipped anemone ( mushroom )
scypha sponges
bristle worms
many many little snails
neomerta macro algae
glaciarius (sp?) red macro
lots of fan worms, spinoid (sp?) worms, spinculoid (sp?) worms
hella pods ( amphi, and copepods, no more isopods for some reason)

It went from looking like this on 06/22;



And, taken a week ago;

 
J

Jennie

New Member
You're tank is looking great Gloo! The only thing I can advise right now is to be careful with the caulpra in the maintank, try to contain it to the fuge. Once the caulpra gets a foothold on the LR in your maintank it can be very hard to get it back out.

;) Keep the pictures coming!
 
G

gloo

New Member
This is my current favorite inhabitant;



Forgot to add I have 2 astreas that have almost doubled in size.

The Problems Encountered Thus Far;

-Originally had 5 blue legs... didn't know they fight lots by way of Shell-Jacking ( GIMME YO SHOES!). Only the 2 large ones survived.
-Heat wave hit Seattle in July (record highs). Used $8 Fan to blow air across top of water, placed frozen 16 oz bottles in fuge. Also placed top off water in fridge.
-Got sea spiders on the monti digi frag. Killed using Lugol's Iodine ( 15 drops in 1 gallon, for 45 minutes... tough mofos).
-Got 2nd goby to hopefully mate with the first goby ( read reefkeeping article, there were conflicting statements about keeping same species in one tank). Didn't check closely at store, was emaciated, would not eat mysis or cyclopeeze. Got harrassed by OG ( original goby as opposed to New Goby, aka. NG). He passed away.
-Got Red bugs on the Pink Pocillo. Killed using Lugol's Iodine ( 8 drops in 1/2 gallon, for 20 minutes).
 
G

gloo

New Member
Yeah, I was worried about it going sexual as well. I would get rid of it, but cant fit it all into the AC 300 fuge. I was going for the planted reef tank look... I will probably move them out tho, once my string of pearls algae from Marineflora comes in.
 
J

Jennie

New Member
You'll love your order from MarineFlora :cool1:

Having it go sexual is an issue as well, but more worried about it invading your display rock. They will send off runners that attach in the crevices of the rock and it is very hard to get it all out for a clean look later on.
 
G

gloo

New Member
Ah Ok. I do have some of the serrated leaf macro that is doing just that, although I read they are slow growers. I'll move the grape caulerpa out of the tank this weekend and jam it into the fuge, or just trim the runners. I will make sure to do any trimming outside the tank, I hear the fluid in the algae is toxic ( not certain).
 
J

Jennie

New Member
I wouldn't say that it is toxic, more like when you cut them or burst them in certain cases spores are released that can travel through the water column and settle down anywhere.
 
R

reefman23

New Member
Cool tank. We dont see many BB tanks on nanotank.com. Be careful with that xenia too... try to keep it confined to the one rock. Once it spreads, it can get pretty crazy! I have two different varieties in my tank and have managed to keep it in check.

Jesse
 
G

gloo

New Member
Yeah, this is what my tank looked like in July;



They kept attaching to anything the white stalks touched, and would detach itself if it found a higher spot. I made use of this and snipped and peeled em off to make smaller frags. I gave one to a friend for his pico and traded some into the LFS and got some store credit for them ( $5 for large, $3 for small). I did dose Iodine for a while but figured its not really necessary since I do weekly waterchanges. My xenia grow just fine, and cleaner shrimp molts once every 3 wks or so.

Some are already growing back from spots that I couldn't make a clean peel.
 
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