My first reef tank - 40cm cube Nano

[Dipi]

Hello everyone!

I'm from Brazil and this is my first reef tank. In fact, it's my first ever aquarium. I have had this tank for a week, but it once was a showroom tank in my LFS, so it was already cicled. For now, I stocked it with some coral and two commom clownfish (yet to pair, but they seem closer each day).

This is the tank setup:

40cm Cube with a sump on the back (44L DT)
Mini Skimmer Macro Aqua NS12
Return Pump: 530L/h
Powerhead: 2000L/h
Lighting: PepperLed Delta 45W (Brazilian brand)
55W heater and a cooling fan conected to a controler (heater and fan working, controler to arrive next week)

How it started:

How it is (Updated Aug 19, 2024):

Current Fauna

Fish:
2x Clownfish
Yellow Watchman Goby
Gramma brasiliensis

Inverts:
Peppermint Shrimp (destroyed the aiptasia, never eaten coral, devours small stomatellas)
Hermits

Mixed nano reef with Softs, LPS and SPS

 

[CasperOe]

That's a lovely looking tank, looks like you're off to a great start! Well done and thanks for sharing!

Have you played around with close up photography of those prime corals you have in there?

 

[Dipi]

That's a lovely looking tank, looks like you're off to a great start! Well done and thanks for sharing!

Have you played around with close up photography of those prime corals you have in there?

Thanks for the compliment! I tried some photographys but couldn't get the light right. I'll try again once I get ahold of some orange lens. But for now, I'm enjoying watching all the microlife bursting with a magnifying glass

 

[Dipi]

First Month Update

My corals are doing good, most of them are showing good growth. My fish are active and eating well. Although my clownfish are very aggressive towards me when I put my hand in the tank, they are really peacefull with my recently added YWG and they are getting along pretty fine.

I changed the placement of my bigger cloves coral because it was growing and spreading fast on the main rock, taking all the space and covering the view of my sps. Now it is on the sandbed and doing completely fine.

What went right:

Huge increase of microlife from when I started. I can see lots of copepods on the glass, there amphipods molts floating around every now and then (some really huge). I have baby stomatellas and other baby snails.

My glass is getting dirty much less now. At the beggining of the month I had to scrape the glass everyday and it would not stay clean. Now I am scraping it twice a week and it does not get even close to how dirt it would get before.

What went wrong:

My plate coral seemed fine for the first 3 weeks it was added, but at the begining of this week it showed some tissue regression on the edges. I moved it to a lower light and lower flow area and I did an iodine dip. It seems to be recovering a little or at least stopped the regression.



There are some aiptasia all over one of my zoa colonies that already came with de coral. I brougth a peppermint shrimp to deal with it, but it did not eat it and end up dying of unknown causes (I tested the water the same day and nothing was off). I bougth another peppermint and it didn't eat the aiptasia also and just went hiding for the past few days somewhere I could not find (hoping it's molting/just molted and will show up soon)

What I'm planning:

At the center of the rock I'll create an euphyllia coral. I'm planning to remove the little cloves polyps that remained on the rock. I also want to get a BTA to host my clownfish (hopefully)

 

[Not_Erick]

Looking great! Can’t wait to see the progress

 

[Dipi]

Looking great! Can’t wait to see the progress

Thanks!!

 

[I never finish anythi]

Looks amazing love it .

 

[kevgib67]

Wow, you got an instant beautiful tank, well done.

 

[Dipi]

UPDATE

Most of my corals continue to thrive and are growing nicely. This month I added a captive bred Gramma brasiliensis (Brazilian royal gramma) as the last fish and, so far, I have not seem any aggresion from any fish and everyone is doing fine.

As I planned, I was able to remove most of the remaining polyps of my cloves attached to the main rock. Every now and them I see some new polyps coming up and I pluck them right away. I also moved my firework cloves to the bottom close to my lemon cloves to open space for the red planet acropora and to prevent it from spreading in the rock like the other one.

I also added another rock towards the back of the tank and place an acanthastrea, which I hope will cover it

What went right:

My RFA found a place it liked and now opens beatifully right in the center of the tank, but the greatest win was my peppermint shrimp that got rid of all the visible aiptasia, including the ones intertwined with my zoas.

What went wrong:

Unfortunately, I lost the plate coral I mentioned in the last post. I kept it in the tank and hopefully it will sprout, who knows. My peppermint shrimp tha was missing never showed up and is presumed dead, but the replacement I got concluded the job and looks completely fine. Cany cane is the only coral that doesn't seem to be growing, not even a little, so I'm puzzled.

What I'm planning:

I still have a lot of rock to cover on the center, so the main plan right now is to move my setosa behind the candy cane and place an acropora or other SPS in its place (waiting to see my acropora do before getting another one). I also want to get some other Gonis, but with longer tentacles this time

 

[Dipi]

Update

Right after I posted the last update, I noticed some tissue necrosis on one of my acropora. I was low on PO4 and relativelly high Alk, so my LFS suggested lowering Alk and increasing Phos. I stopped dosing Alk and increased feeding until I got 7.5 Alk and 0.03 Phos, but I could not save my acropora. However, these changes made a good difference in the colors of my digitata and polyp extension on my other acropora and torch, so not everything is bad news.

I'm still trying to get my acropora (the one still alive) to the colors it was when I got it, but I think it is starting to improve and it is even growing a little

I also added another mush, which arrived smaller and different color than expected, but it is doing fine.

And the last thing, I was away for three days this past weekend and returned to find my tank completely fine, which was very relieving

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Some great looking coral in your tank! Best of luck with improving your acro!

 

[Dipi]

Some great looking coral in your tank! Best of luck with improving your acro!

Thanks!!

 

[Dipi]

Today I also moved my candy cane to the sandbed after noticing a bit of tissue recession. It has two barnacles living in it, but I'm not sure if this has relation with the recession. Right now, it is sitting in a lower flow area. Hopefully it will recover.

 

[Dipi]

Today, I got three more corals: two gonis and an acro (algo got a GMK zoa polyp as freebie). I haven't decided where to place them yet but here are some pics of them

 

[Dipi]

Hello everyone!

It's been a while since my last post in this thread. During this period, my tank went through some bad shape. I had some kind of disbalance when I had to go away for a few days, things went sideways and I also neglected some tank care, resulting in the loss of some corals. Two months ago, I did a major water change and clean-up of the tank and it started recovering. Since them, I was able to do the regular maintenance and testing, and things seems to be doing ok.
However, I still think something may be off with my tank my zoas are melting (the only coral dying at this time) and one of the gonis looks upset. For this reason, I did ICP and N-DOC tests and I'm waiting for the results.

I also assembled my dosing pump using the joyreef project, which is available in this thread: joyreef project , and it is working really well. I'm dosing 0.1ml three times a day of triton core 7.

 

[Flameback Pair]

@Dipi subscribed.

 

[Dipi]

My ICP results from Triton just arrived. The results that are off are:

Iodine (I) a little low - 22ug/l (0.022ppm)
Barium (Ba) high - 118ug/l (0.12ppm)
Silicon (Si) high - 1012ug/l (1ppm)
Phosphates (PO4) - a little low, but I was expecting - 0.015ppm

Manganese (6ug/l) and Iron (4ug/l) are also a bit high per Triton, but I'm pretty confident that this is because of overdosing a coral supplement which contains these elements, so this is a quick fix. There is also a little bit of aluminum (10ug/l), but still in the green zone.

I don't think any of these should cause serious harm to my reef but I will pay a visit to my LFS so they can give a second opinion. Furthermore, I realised my lighting mount was in the water and had lost all its coating, exposing the aluminum. So my guess is this has something to do with at Al and possibly Ba a little high. To fix this I put it a little higher, so it won't touch the water.

I'm still waiting for the n-doc results and will post here once they arrive

 

[Flameback Pair]

My ICP results from Triton just arrived. The results that are off are:

Iodine (I) a little low - 22ug/l (0.022ppm)
Barium (Ba) high - 118ug/l (0.12ppm)
Silicon (Si) high - 1012ug/l (1ppm)
Phosphates (PO4) - a little low, but I was expecting - 0.015ppm

Manganese (6ug/l) and Iron (4ug/l) are also a bit high per Triton, but I'm pretty confident that this is because of overdosing a coral supplement which contains these elements, so this is a quick fix. There is also a little bit of aluminum (10ug/l), but still in the green zone.

I don't think any of these should cause serious harm to my reef but I will pay a visit to my LFS so they can give a second opinion. Furthermore, I realised my lighting mount was in the water and had lost all its coating, exposing the aluminum. So my guess is this has something to do with at Al and possibly Ba a little high. To fix this I put it a little higher, so it won't touch the water.

I'm still waiting for the n-doc results and will post here once they arrive

@Dipi I would think if you’re in the green zone you should be okay for awhile.

 

[Dipi]

@Dipi I would think if you’re in the green zone you should be okay for awhile.

Yeah, I think so. The only thing very high is Si, but from what I read in multiple threads it could only cause diatoms which I don't have.

 

[Dipi]

Today, I'll start the plan of action to correct my water parameters. I'll change the LFS I source the RODI and saltwater from and I will do 15% weekly water changes for 6 weeks