Klems
Supporting Member
It's been over a year and a half now....so it's about time I get my journal started....
Initial tank was started back on Dec 6th of 2014. Purchased the tank from Petco during their black Friday deal for $159 and also got 3 jugs of Nutri sea water with free shipping
I initially started with chemipure blue and purigen in back chamber. Have since moved to BRS ROX .8 carbon and their GFO in a mesh bag.
I also have a small bag of Seachem Matrix rocks in a media bag for additional bio filtration.
Upgrades so far:
Sicce 1.0 return pump
Intank media basket
Current USA TruLumen pro LED strip lights (2 marine fusion and 1 actinic)
Reefkeeper lite from BRS with PH probe
Jabeo PP-4
Started with 2 clownfish that are still ruling the tank. As well a cleaner shrimp that tries to steal food from everyone, which makes target feeding the corals difficult. Had a tailspot blenny, firefish and royal gramma...at different times over the last 15 months which did not make it.
Cleanup crew consists of a few scarlet hermit crabs, 4 nassarius snails, 3 banded trochus and 1 Astrea snails.
We have had multiple frogspawn which have always popped off their heads. (Think I know why now...) Also have a few rock flower Anemone, one if which we got from the group buy last year...and 3 others from ASD. (The wife loves them). I have also added a BTA from a BAR member earlier this year that has found a spot it is happy with.....but the clowns have yet to fully accept it as a safe haven to hang out in
I have been testing water multiple times a week and do water changes about every 2 weeks and add MG, CA and ALK as needed.
About 3 weeks ago during one of my tests I questioned why my nitrates were always zero....was it that I had too much live rock...was I doing a great job with water changes...or was I feeding my fish the perfect amount of food? When I searched on Google I realized that I had not been shaking the #2 bottle of nitrate solution before adding it to the vial....and when I did, I got a nitrate reading of over 100!
Over the course of the next few days I did four 20% water changes and got the levels back to ~10ppm.
Since that time, I can see that my zoas are opening more and even added a few polyps, the head on the frogspawn are growing over their branches and the rock flower anemones are showing more color! Lesson learned and the reef and its inhabitants are thankful.
I have added some recent pictures below and will try to post updates to this thread every week of two going forward.
Ken
Initial tank was started back on Dec 6th of 2014. Purchased the tank from Petco during their black Friday deal for $159 and also got 3 jugs of Nutri sea water with free shipping
I initially started with chemipure blue and purigen in back chamber. Have since moved to BRS ROX .8 carbon and their GFO in a mesh bag.
I also have a small bag of Seachem Matrix rocks in a media bag for additional bio filtration.
Upgrades so far:
Sicce 1.0 return pump
Intank media basket
Current USA TruLumen pro LED strip lights (2 marine fusion and 1 actinic)
Reefkeeper lite from BRS with PH probe
Jabeo PP-4
Started with 2 clownfish that are still ruling the tank. As well a cleaner shrimp that tries to steal food from everyone, which makes target feeding the corals difficult. Had a tailspot blenny, firefish and royal gramma...at different times over the last 15 months which did not make it.
Cleanup crew consists of a few scarlet hermit crabs, 4 nassarius snails, 3 banded trochus and 1 Astrea snails.
We have had multiple frogspawn which have always popped off their heads. (Think I know why now...) Also have a few rock flower Anemone, one if which we got from the group buy last year...and 3 others from ASD. (The wife loves them). I have also added a BTA from a BAR member earlier this year that has found a spot it is happy with.....but the clowns have yet to fully accept it as a safe haven to hang out in
I have been testing water multiple times a week and do water changes about every 2 weeks and add MG, CA and ALK as needed.
About 3 weeks ago during one of my tests I questioned why my nitrates were always zero....was it that I had too much live rock...was I doing a great job with water changes...or was I feeding my fish the perfect amount of food? When I searched on Google I realized that I had not been shaking the #2 bottle of nitrate solution before adding it to the vial....and when I did, I got a nitrate reading of over 100!
Over the course of the next few days I did four 20% water changes and got the levels back to ~10ppm.
Since that time, I can see that my zoas are opening more and even added a few polyps, the head on the frogspawn are growing over their branches and the rock flower anemones are showing more color! Lesson learned and the reef and its inhabitants are thankful.
I have added some recent pictures below and will try to post updates to this thread every week of two going forward.
Ken
