High Tide Aquatics

Gerbil's First Tank: 15g Indo-Pacific Reef

gerbilbox

gerbilbox

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Hello everyone! I'm new to reef keeping even though I've been familiar with a lot of the marine invertebrates and their biology for many years, but only occurred to me recently to start my first reef tank. I understand that the husbandry side is a completely different beast but I've been having a lot of fun learning so far. The tank has been running since November 2010 and I added the first three corals at the start of this year. I'm dealing with some cloudiness issues, but I think several more large water changes should do the trick.

Corals
Fortunately for me, the corals I'm most interested in right now also happen to be the easier ones to care for.

Zoanthus:
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Branching hammer coral (Euphyllia parancora). Not the prettiest head but it's sprouted many tentacles since I got it:
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Plate coral (Fungia):
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Other Invertebrates
I've added many motile invertebrates, mostly from Indo-Pacific Sea Farms:
Trochus
Stomatella varia snail
Dwarf zebra hermit crabs (Calcinus laevimanus)
Periwinkle snails (Littoraria)
Amphipods (Grammarus)
Bristle worms
Spaghetti worm
Sandbed clams (Tapes)
Copepods

There are also numerous hitchhikers, mostly tiny brittle stars, tiny serpulids worms, and a handful small corallimorphs that looks like tiny Pseudocorynactis polyps, but I'm not sure. A number of cool hitchhikers have died or are MIA, including some small featherdusters and Asterina stars.

Fish
There will be a single fish in the tank, a regular ocellaris clownfish. I'll get it as soon as Aquatic Central gets a new shipment of captive-bred clowns. I actually fell in love with clowns because of a reef tank in the lobby of a UCD undergrad building over 10 years ago.

Goals & Themes
1. Indo-Pacific back reef, as described in John Tullock's books.
2. As much captive-bred and fragged animals as possible, or otherwise low environmental impact.
3. Invertebrate (coral) focused and modest bioload. I don't get excited about fish like most people do, but I do like a few.
4. Vacation and failure resistant. I know that it's impossible to make it completely full proof, but I can take reasonable precautions.

These goals have made planning and setup really challenging, but I enjoy having a cohesive set of ideas to work towards. I used to work on invasive species, so it was important that my first tank is at least symbolic of what a native reef system might look like. I'm limited by what's available in the trade and the fact that I've never visited an actual coral reef, so I am keeping my goals flexible. The hardest part now is that not everything can be captive-bred and I can't frag a shrimp.

Equipment
For you equipment nerds, here's what I'm using:
15g AGA tank
AquaticLife 2x24" T5HO lights
15 lbs. Marco Rocks and small fragments of live rock
15 lbs Caribsea Fiji "Pink" sand
AquaClear 70 HOB power filter (for Chaetomorpha under reverse lighting, activated carbon)
Two heaters: 50w Eheim Jager and 50w Finnex Titanium
ReefKeeper Lite
Penn-Plax B11 emergency air pump
Autotopoff.com top off system using Aqua Lifter pumps
Grounding probe
Cheap eBay blue LED moonlight

The ATO system is not in the photo because I painted it black to blend into the background, and I'm giving it a week to completely dry before I install it back in the tank.
 
patchin said:
Welcome. Your tank sounds well thought out.
Both my son and I graduated from Davis.
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Was there a reef tank on campus when you or your son was on campus?

Thanks everyone for the comments. I feel somewhat awkward now that I've done with a lot of major tweaking and I'm just waiting until I add something new. It just seems odd that most of what I'm doing for the past several days has just been looking at and enjoying the tank.
 
gerbilbox said:
It just seems odd that most of what I'm doing for the past several days has just been looking at and enjoying the tank.
Click to expand...

That's the best part! :)

Nice setup, it looks like a nice little tank.
 
Looks good Alex, just don't get bit too hard by the bug because that tank will fill up faster than you think!

That said one critique comes to mind, what are you using for water movement? I don't see any pumps in the tank, only thing I can possibly imagine from your equipment is the Aquaclear power filter, which won't really give you much in the way of water movement, and to be honest any movement you will get will be trickled along the surface at most.
 
FWIW I disagree, for a softy/LPS nano a HOB filter can often be just fine. IME they throw a lot of current down, though if it's off center you may end up with a dead spot in the opposite corner.
 
Yup, there's flow all over the tank, not just the surface. The hammer and plate tentacles wave around a good amount. Granted, I'm new to the hobby so I don't have prior experience informing me what adequate flow looks like, but it seems sufficient. The inherent design of the HOB filter limits my flow direction but its plenty. I actually had to downgrade the AquaClear impeller from 300 gph to 200 gph. I can post a video to show the movement.
 
Here are the goodies I got from the frag swap, resting in my quarantine bucket!
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I ended up with three frogspawns somehow. It was my first swap and I was taken off-guard how quickly 2 or 3 minutes can fly by, so I think I was just grabbing something before I got booted out of the room. I am excited about my first Acanthastrea. I also picked up two zoanthid colonies, and I didn't even know what they looked like at the time 'cause they were closed up.

GDawson gave me my first DBTC frag during the swap, the hairy mushroom on the left.

Don't worry about the frogspawn touching/stinging the zoanthids on the right. I temporarily moved the frags around just for this picture, and I didn't realize that they were touching. They're separated now.
 
anathema said:
But it lacks the redundancy which seems to be a theme. :)
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Redundancy? Problem solved:


I picked up a CPR Aquafuge at BAYMAC, which is way more spacious than the AquaClear and the closest I can get to a sump (except it's elevated). This meant reconfiguring my tank, but I finally installed a Koralia for most of the movement while the Aquafuge's pump supplies the rest.

I also got a hammer and mini anemone through DBTC and bought a bright green candy cane from the club frag tank at BAYMAC, but those are in quarantine. I have since had these corals added in the past few months, including some from DBTC:











Everything appears to be healthy and growing. DBTC is the best thing in the world. I can't wait for my frags to grow out so I can contribute back.
 
gerbilbox said:
patchin said:
Welcome. Your tank sounds well thought out.
Both my son and I graduated from Davis.
Click to expand...

Was there a reef tank on campus when you or your son was on campus?
Click to expand...
I was not aware of any reef tanks on campus when I was there. I think reef tanks were invented way back then, but I'm not sure :bigsmile:
 
patchin said:
I was not aware of any reef tanks on campus when I was there. I think reef tanks were invented way back then, but I'm not sure :bigsmile:
Click to expand...

When I started school there nearly 12 years ago there was a reef tank in my department at Storer Hall. I particularly remember a carpet anemone with a pair of clownfish in a corner of the tank. Even then it never occurred to me to keep reefs.
 
Ya, I don't know if it was there when I started 37 years ago. Don't know if I had classes In Storer or not.
Your blue/green hammer is cool looking. Don't remember seeing that combo together.
 
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