New 65 gallon tank Build

[McCarrick]

So, my 29 gallon got taken down while I was at Basic Training and a 65 gallon JBJ AIO tank got put up. I am now home and able to enjoy the tank!
Set up in June
Current habitants
Fish
Oscellaris clown
Carmel clown
Fire goby
Royal Gramma
Inverts
Tiger hermit
Blue leg hermit
Fighting conch
Corals
3 leather toadstools
1 galaxea (?)
1 Mushroom of sorts
Kenya tree
Xenia
Mystery paly
Cabbage coral (currently unhappy- now moved to lower light)

 

[Peace River]

Congratulations on the new tank and thank you for your service!

 

[McCarrick]

Congratulations on the new tank and thank you for your service!

Thank you! I'm excited for the new tank and the potential for it to be awesome!
I'm looking for more stocking suggestions as well so any input is greatly appreciated

 

[dantheartilleryman]

Congratulations! And like the other commenter, thank you for your service )

 

[McCarrick]

More coral!
Recent additions from murrmans in Denver.
Acans (x2)
Duncan
Blasto
Palys (not pictured)
Candy Cane coral
Frammer (Frogspawn/Hammer Hybrid)
Green Hairy Mushroom
Some sort of clove? Coral (not pictured)
Key lime chalace (Came with the urchins as a freebie!)
Galaxea, Hammer and torch came from petco- I know- for shame. I'm hoping the hammer will color back up soon.

My goby has disappeared- not really sure what happened there.
I have added two new red tuxedo urchins- courtesy of @dantheartilleryman- that are doing great.
I am currently dealing with high phosphates- suspected problem to be the bucket I was mixing the water in. I have a few more experiments to run before I draw any conclusions, as a result of trying to fix phosphates I had an outbreak of cyano that I'm getting back under control. I recently added GFO to the tank to try to help draw out the phosphates as well as weekly water changes.
Next equipment to update will be the lights- Currently running some random black box lights that only have whites. I'm looking into upgrading to a full spectrum light that will bring out the colors in the corals better. I hate only blues but anything that brings out more color would be great. Open to suggestions.

Recent parameters

pH- Averaging around 7.8 which I know is low- looking to add chaeto into the back of the tank to help not only with drawing out CO2 but also absorb the extra phosphate. Does anyone have thoughts on a CO2 scrubber in an AIO tank?​

KH- Averaging 10-11 dkh.
Ammonia- 0 ppm-.25 (Using an API test- looking into a new kit for ammonia)
Nitrate-0 ppm
Nitrite - 0 ppm
Phosphate- .2 (Using Nyos kit)
Calcium has been around 400-440 ppm.
Salinity- 1.026
Temperature- 78°F

 

[McCarrick]

Found an awesome stomatella Snail today.

 

[McCarrick]

Also found what might be baby margarita snails

 

[McCarrick]

Rhodactis mushroom? Still finding new things every day.

 

[McCarrick]

Baby snails I believe to be collonista snails. I've found maybe 16 of them so far. Today I added 2 Turbo Snails and an emerald crab.

 

[McCarrick]

I'm loving how happy my candy cane is. Pretty sure it's splitting again and it's just huge and puffy. Before and now

 

[McCarrick]

Tank update, I was gone for 4 weeks and the tank did pretty well all things considered. My galaxea did fall on my Duncan, killing it unfortunately. I need to glue my corals down but I wasn't set on where they were going to go permanently. One of my large leather toadstools decided to detach itself from its stalk for some reason so now I'm waiting for it to decide what it's going to do. It's doing just fine sitting on the sand currently. I scrubbed all the rocks down and removed 90% of the algae as well as a large water change. I got phosphates down to .08 for the first time as they've been hovering at .25 forever. I also added a uv sterilizer today. I bought it from Amazon and since it was not a self contained unit, I tested it in another tank with no inhabitants for a few days to ensure it wasn't going to do anything weird like explode or leak water. I did notice a decrease in algae in the tank (I had it in the display of the test tank- again, the tank didn't have anything in it) so I concluded it must work okay. It is an 11w so I'm hoping it'll be enough for the tank. I placed it in the 3rd chamber and it's running on the same cycle as my lights are. Currently I'm going to have it running during the day. I may eventually switch it to run at night. Other than that, algae growth is starting to slow with the reduction of phosphates. Everyone in the tank is doing very well. My corals are fat and happy and some are even growing. I have a new head forming on my candy cane and my frammer which is awesome!
Additionally, I added an ATO about a month and a half ago and it's worked great. Hasn't flooded my floors yet and it's super quiet. I have it in the same chamber as my return pumps.
For anyone curious, from right to left, my chambers contain: 1st- filter sock. 2nd- Skimmer and heater. 3rd- ceramic media, gfo and chemi pure. 4th (middle) is my return pump and ATO. 5th- uv sterilizer, 6th- chemipure, 7th- Additional filter sock. I'm changing the filter socks out once a week in an attempt to continue keep the phosphates down.

Recent additions (pictures to come) include some zoas, a new leather toadstool as well as a psychedelic mushroom which im super excited about. Also added is a conch, which I adore.

 

[McCarrick]

I noticed 4 new baby heads on my frammer. Happy corals!

 

[McCarrick]

Okay. So a LOT has happened. I moved and had my fish shipped to me. They just got here and have been in a 16 gallon. One fish got stuck in a rock this morning and unfortunately didn't make it. Also had an Ammonia spike despite having the 16 gallon up and running for a month before the fish got here. Killed my sea urchin (I put the water into the tank that the fish shipped in.... pretty sure that was my big mistake). The 65 is finally full of water and I've added NEW LIVE SAND since I wasn't a big fan of the sand I had before. I've also had my rocks brewing in a bin this whole time and added quick start and Ammonia is 0. Not my favorite way to start up a tank but I'm wanting to get my corals out of the 16 asap. Hopefully it finishes clearing up in a few hours