Reef nutrition

GrizFyrFyter's first reef tank

Well, after multiple suggestions to create a tank journal I'm heeding the advice and spending a few minutes to jot down my experiences so far.

To start, I've always wanted aquariums since I was a child but my parents said no. Once I was out on my own (16) I was way to busy getting through school while working full time and living/serving at a volunteer fire station. 3 days after high school I started my career as a wildland firefighter so anything other than a betta with a plant tank was out of the question. I recently left that career to raise my daughter while my wife is in nursing school. Anyhow, before taking the plunge to a saltwater tank, I had (and still have) 3 freshwater tanks totalling 100 gallons. I won't get into each tanks inhabitants but I have a pair of bettas, a couple handfuls of mollies, platies and guppies, 5 veiled angel fish, large common pleco, African Feather Fin catfish and my favorite freshwater fish, a Black ghost knife fish (now about 7" long). All tanks have live plants and are thriving.

And the reef tank adventure began. I originally looked into saltwater with an interest in having an octopus. I did my research and decided I better start somewhere easier (didn't pan out that way). I originally looked at some 10gal cubes but the overwhelming advice is go as big as you can afford, in reality I can only afford to do a 10 gal right. I found a killer deal on a 40gal breeder tank and got a 29gal tank to build a sump. Someone hooked me up with a 60gal acrylic tank that needed some tlc, freebie..... And I traded that and a few other odds and ends for my current set up.

Most everything I have is diy to save a few bucks. All of my equipment has been traded for, scavenged and or donated. I have done everything I can to pass on reef karma to others in need and will continue to do so as long and often as I can.
 
So, my tank ended up being a standard 75gal tank with corner overflow, drain and return lines drilled in the bottom. I built the stand and siliconed glass panels in the 29gal tank to build my sump. I have 3 chamber sump, very basic and I want to change it (add filter sock holders) but it works. First chamber has the drain line and skimmer - bubble trap - Refugium (1 1/2" live sand, ~20lbs live Fiji rock & chaeto) - bubble trap - 5+lbs of live rock rubble and mag 7 return pump. I have a Red Sea Berlin classic skimmer (says it's rated for 40-250 gal) and I'm not happy with it. It doesn't constantly produce skimmate so I fiddle with it too much without really knowing what effect it has until it overflows, I'm guessing it pulls gunk out until there isn't enough to hold a head on the foam. It's getting better but the price was right at the time and it's better than nothing.
I have two 250w MH pendants I got in a trade for some extra live rock (i got 300lbs for $100 plus 100lbs of dry Fiji rock for $80). My display tank has about 70lbs (dry weight) of Fiji rock, I added 2 pieces of live rock, 60lbs of dry sand and 20 lbs of live sand before the cycle. Before doing the actual setup of my tank, it had most of the curing live rock in it and I used some of that water, bio spiro and live sand/rock to jump start the cycle. Threw in a cocktail shrimp in a filter sock and let it go. I believe. All of my levels were down to 0 in about 2 weeks. I put in a blue chromis and a cuc shortly after and everything was doing well.

A little over 2 weeks ago I had an incident. My refugium light fixture (cheap screw in cf thing from Home depot) shorted out, caught fire (very small) melted the mount and fell into the refugium. It did not trip the gfi outlet. None of the fish (blue chromis, yellow tang and a pair of occelaris clowns) seem to have been affected in any way. My corals and invertebrates suffered greatly. I lost all of my snails, none of my hermits, my conch didn't move for over a week. My corals had a large problem. I almost instantly lost my Idaho grape Monti, rainbow Monti and green stylo. My purple tip hammer looked like it wasn't going to make it, my brown torch melted, xenia melted and I thought I was going to lose my green paly colony.
I ran every test I could and had my LFS test for copper, I couldn't find the culprit. I put a filter bag of carbon in my sump and things slowly improved. Whatever it was seems to be gone now.
 
Onto my tank's current state.
Up to about a week ago I had a lot of diatom algae (covered the entire back glass and 90% of the rocks) and I noticed little white dots all over the glass one morning. I had thought the fuge light incident would have killed the pods I seeded my refugium with but I was wrong. There are still thousands of them everywhere. I took a leap of faith and bought a mandarin goby and he has been eating non stop.

So, current livestock list:
2 occelaris clowns (paired up with one larger dominant)
A yellow tang
Green mandarin goby
A blue chromis
A fighting conch
Black long spine urchin
RBTA
Sexy Shrimp
2 small Nessarus snails
2 xl tiger Nessarus snails
A dozen or so hermit crabs
3 turbo snails

Corals:
Pink tip torch
Purple tip hammer
Green paly
"skittle" acan (?)
Green Duncan (survived the light incident)
Two purple/ green LPS corals I forgot the name of.

Everything seems happy and is growing and eating. My only current problems is the yellow tang chases everything out of whatever cave it decides to call home at night, though he swims with everyone during the day. And, my water is a little cloudy since the amphipod explosion. Every spec of micro algae is gone and I'm expecting some pod die off now that their food seems to be on short supply.

Just got a mag test kit, my level is 900 so I need to start dosing. I do 20 gal water changes on sunday nights with seachem reef salt and I haven't had to add any supplements to the tank yet.
 
I have a koralia 4 and wp25 for circulation.

Picture time.
 

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Pics
 

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Your handle should be "Barter Joe" with all those deals. :D

Glad to hear most inhabitants survived the fuge light episode. I would be concerned that the mandarin has enough pods to eat, does eat prepared foods ? If not, maybe supplementing addition pods might be a good idea and create some pod piles (with rubble rock).
 
The pods can reproduce in my fuge and obviously can survive the trip through the return pump since I didn't put any in the DT.

I'm am concerned about him only eating pods. He hasn't taken any mysis shrimp pieces yet but I'm not surprised considering the over abundance of pods in my tank.

This pic is just one small part of a corner of my tank. Every white dot is a pod. Pumps are off and no sand flying around.
 

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Nice! Glad you started a thread. I think you will find in a year or so that it's cool to look back at how the tank started.........see all the progress........and of coarse problems. LOL! The pic of the yellow tang from the right side of the tank.......looking left............LOVE the aquascape from that angle. Very cool.
 
My sump setup.

I want to get a media reactor to run carbon and gfo in. I need supplement lights first though.
 

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Some new life in my tank today.
 

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Mg levels are finally coming in line. I underestimated how much solution I actually needed to bring it up from 900.

I haven't had to dose anything else, my water changes have been enough. Apparently Seachem reef salt doesn't have enough magnesium.

I got a 4 bulb cf light in trade that I'm not happy with. Looking for a 2 bulb t5 fixture.

Getting closer to building a 150 to 180 gal tank for my in laws. I wish I had their budget.
 
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