OP
OP
DvgyCpT
New Member
Good Day All.
Thanks for the comments appreciate it!
Its been a while, bit has happened. Tank is wet & cycled. Went through diatoms, switched on UV & in couple days diatoms receded. Tank stood empty for another month, keeping up with maintenance. Also watching parameters.
I was on look out for brand to stick to with regards additives & coral care.
Came across local brand PowerLab. He offers full turnkey LFS & all round aquarium servicing.
Here pic of his shops main DT...
He uses a simple approach, utilizing 8 additives manually dosed. As well as KW reactor for smaller systems such as mine. I will go through the additives & system at later date, still getting into the initial phase of his tank 'program'.
Reef Channel S, being his starter pack..
Tank was filled with sand then water for leak test thankfully only had pin hole leak on the return plumbing. Was stoked with my efforts haha
Everything was going well until I noticed my evaporation was very high (ato was emptying fast) & salinity wet from 1.025 to 1.023 within a day. Which didn't make sense, so my plumbing of the UV into overflow was the fault. It was breaking syphon and dumpling water into sump at varied rates. The return level in sump was fluctuating 3-5cm which is a lot considering size of my sump. Decided to plumb UV as part of return, i also joined the 2 overflows into one. Was happy with turnout, water levels stable & was able to up the flow from sump to DT.
I tried doing the easiest cheapest fix with it being neat.
I was also concerned about the slow rate of my cycle, I went with Microbe-lift's Special blend to add lil kick.
Happy with the product, will be part of my maintenance routine.
It was at this stage I realized I would have to a hybrid system of the PowerLab & what I want lol
With me being new I found there thousands of opinions & way to much information to stick to one single route. I still want to keep it simple, bt manual dosing is bit to old school lol as example.
Meantime i got some goodies..
My water parameters had gotten better since adding in the Microbe-Lift.
Decided to be brave & add my first fish, for some bizarre reason i started with Diamond sand sifting goby haha Beautiful little fish, thankfully i had decent pod population & was feeding frozen mysis every 2-3 days.
With the nutrient spike in the tank the uglies started to pop up, in the form of brown hair algae.
CuC was added, 2 Mexican turbos & 2 nasarias snails. Hermit crab was ordered.
Waiting for month end shipment to add bit more crew.
First odd fish occurrence…
Goby had been in tank for bout 3.5wks & the wife got me 2 x Black Perc Clowns. They where tank bred by local LFS. They where added but seemed very hesitant to swim around the tank during certain times of the day. Only swimming around when goby was in his den.
Second oddity...
With uglies it was time to add a herbivore to assist with algae. I went with small Fuscus Blenny (Dusky blenny). It was acclimated correctly, did both bag in DT & drip acclimation. Once in tank the goby immediately 'rushed' the blenny driving it into a corner. I thought there would be minimal aggression as it was different species & the compete for diff food sources. Unfortunately this where I hit my first fish mortality. Was not happy at all, 2 days passed & the blenny had not eaten even though I added some algae strapped to pvc pipe & placed close to him. And on day 3 blenny had departed. Same day made decision to get rid of the goby was made, within couple hour the clowns started swimming around way more.
Still sad about the blenny was really cool looking fish. The goby was donated to larger aquarium.
Will be more cautious going forward with fish choices.
The Corner Boiz..Peanut & Brittle
Will get better pics of these 2, they've been in tank about 2weeks now & are healthy & eating.
Last week tank being on week 8 of start up first coral was added. All my parameters were decent.
King Midas Zoas was first purchase, a +20 head frag / colony popped up for decent price & thought why not as my tester coral. Revive Coral dip by TLF was used as dip after acclimation process.
Within an hour 25% of the heads had opened, by next day all had opened.
Super happy with them in tank so far, healthy & coloring up slightly as it settles in tank.
Light is set to 35% blue & 10% for other 3 channels for acclimation, only one light running currently.
Time for clip on color filter
That's it for now, will be doing 25-30% water change this weekend to help with nutrient reduction. Algae will be manually removed where possible. Only some extra CuC & hermit crab will be added for while until tank is more stable & uglies are gone.
Thanks for reading, i know it was long one haha appreciate a comment.
Thanks for the comments appreciate it!
Its been a while, bit has happened. Tank is wet & cycled. Went through diatoms, switched on UV & in couple days diatoms receded. Tank stood empty for another month, keeping up with maintenance. Also watching parameters.
I was on look out for brand to stick to with regards additives & coral care.
Came across local brand PowerLab. He offers full turnkey LFS & all round aquarium servicing.
Here pic of his shops main DT...
He uses a simple approach, utilizing 8 additives manually dosed. As well as KW reactor for smaller systems such as mine. I will go through the additives & system at later date, still getting into the initial phase of his tank 'program'.
Reef Channel S, being his starter pack..
Tank was filled with sand then water for leak test thankfully only had pin hole leak on the return plumbing. Was stoked with my efforts haha
Everything was going well until I noticed my evaporation was very high (ato was emptying fast) & salinity wet from 1.025 to 1.023 within a day. Which didn't make sense, so my plumbing of the UV into overflow was the fault. It was breaking syphon and dumpling water into sump at varied rates. The return level in sump was fluctuating 3-5cm which is a lot considering size of my sump. Decided to plumb UV as part of return, i also joined the 2 overflows into one. Was happy with turnout, water levels stable & was able to up the flow from sump to DT.
I tried doing the easiest cheapest fix with it being neat.
I was also concerned about the slow rate of my cycle, I went with Microbe-lift's Special blend to add lil kick.
Happy with the product, will be part of my maintenance routine.
It was at this stage I realized I would have to a hybrid system of the PowerLab & what I want lol
With me being new I found there thousands of opinions & way to much information to stick to one single route. I still want to keep it simple, bt manual dosing is bit to old school lol as example.
Meantime i got some goodies..
My water parameters had gotten better since adding in the Microbe-Lift.
Decided to be brave & add my first fish, for some bizarre reason i started with Diamond sand sifting goby haha Beautiful little fish, thankfully i had decent pod population & was feeding frozen mysis every 2-3 days.
With the nutrient spike in the tank the uglies started to pop up, in the form of brown hair algae.
CuC was added, 2 Mexican turbos & 2 nasarias snails. Hermit crab was ordered.
Waiting for month end shipment to add bit more crew.
First odd fish occurrence…
Goby had been in tank for bout 3.5wks & the wife got me 2 x Black Perc Clowns. They where tank bred by local LFS. They where added but seemed very hesitant to swim around the tank during certain times of the day. Only swimming around when goby was in his den.
Second oddity...
With uglies it was time to add a herbivore to assist with algae. I went with small Fuscus Blenny (Dusky blenny). It was acclimated correctly, did both bag in DT & drip acclimation. Once in tank the goby immediately 'rushed' the blenny driving it into a corner. I thought there would be minimal aggression as it was different species & the compete for diff food sources. Unfortunately this where I hit my first fish mortality. Was not happy at all, 2 days passed & the blenny had not eaten even though I added some algae strapped to pvc pipe & placed close to him. And on day 3 blenny had departed. Same day made decision to get rid of the goby was made, within couple hour the clowns started swimming around way more.
Still sad about the blenny was really cool looking fish. The goby was donated to larger aquarium.
Will be more cautious going forward with fish choices.
The Corner Boiz..Peanut & Brittle
Will get better pics of these 2, they've been in tank about 2weeks now & are healthy & eating.
Last week tank being on week 8 of start up first coral was added. All my parameters were decent.
King Midas Zoas was first purchase, a +20 head frag / colony popped up for decent price & thought why not as my tester coral. Revive Coral dip by TLF was used as dip after acclimation process.
Within an hour 25% of the heads had opened, by next day all had opened.
Super happy with them in tank so far, healthy & coloring up slightly as it settles in tank.
Light is set to 35% blue & 10% for other 3 channels for acclimation, only one light running currently.
Time for clip on color filter
That's it for now, will be doing 25-30% water change this weekend to help with nutrient reduction. Algae will be manually removed where possible. Only some extra CuC & hermit crab will be added for while until tank is more stable & uglies are gone.
Thanks for reading, i know it was long one haha appreciate a comment.
