Petcrazyson
5000 Club Member
Hello everyone. My name is Ethan, and welcome to my build thread. I’m super excited as the time has finally come where I can set up my soon to be full blown Sps Reef. I have been looking forward to this for YEARS, and I now finally have the privilege to set it up. Let me tell you a little bit about my self and the previous tanks I had:
Since I was little I’ve always wanted to keep fish. I’ve always loved animals, and I feel like aquaria is my main focal point for my passion. I’ve always had freshwater tanks, with 6 being the total I can remember. I have had great success in keeping freshwater plants as well, and my last tank was dedicated to aquatic plants, or as my mother would call it: a forest in her living room. The following is a picture on the last tank that I had, while I was beginning to take it down: (sorry about the blurriness)
If you are wondering about where the : “True Aquascape” is, it is only in tiny bits in the pictures I have of my fish, and I wish I had the correct photo. That’s what I get for not taking enough pictures. But anyways, there is one fish that doesn’t come up in this picture that was the focal point of my tank, and my favorite fish that was in there: The Kribensis Cichlids. Here’s a photo of my female:
As soon as I got her I went out looking for a male. I’ve always loved the idea of breeding fish, unless they are guppies, that’s a nightmare. Female Kribensis Cichlids don’t show their true colors unless they are mated and are raising their own. After a few weeks I finally found a male at the correct size. I put him in with her, and after a few days of squabbling, as all married couples do, the finally settled. Here is a picture that shows her majesty with her prince over their castle:
Now when I said castle, I meant it. Queen Elizabeth, is what I used to call her, was very demanding, and an absolute idiot. Hey I thought a Queen was supposed to be smart, well anyways when I first got her along with another female she decided to make my power head her home! What! Yea I got that shock one morning, lucky for her I decided to check up on her “sister” before I turned on the power head, which she wouldnt have survived the incident, she would probably had gotten SHREDDED. So I coaxed her out of there in the morning, and sealed the power head with a mesh, thinking that would end that problem, only to find her in there again in the night, idk how she managed but she ripped a whole in the mesh. I needed a solution to this as I wouldn’t think to look in the power head frequently and I’m not the kind of guy who is all that patient, and I didn‘t want to end up with a sushi bar in my tank. So I had to take down some of my rock work, much to my rainbow shark’s inconvenience. I ended up just plopping 2 rocks on the ground thinking she would eventually find the little nook between the 2 rocks, and yes the power head was off for this time. I woke up the next morning and found her poking her little head out the rocks. Problem solved. Little did I know that this would be the start to an underground kingdom. Yea when I took down the tank, (I’m getting to that) I found out just how big her home was, and why I never saw her and her partner when I would look down the hole in the rocks. When I removed the roof of her home, she had dug a system where she could travel to any part of the right side of the tank she wanted to. There were so many little paths, including 2 chambers where Im guessing she would hang out in. It was so big it was like I had ants tunneling in my sand bed. I’m amazed on how the plants and rocks I had on the right side of the tank never fell through the ground. Now back on topic, (yes I my mom says I get sidetracked a lot) . I had been watching a few YouTube videos where they would build some absolute stunning aquascapes with live plants, wood, and rock, and I thought I could be able to recreate it. So I somehow convinced my parents to let me keep a “forest” in their living room, and we went out to a store where I could get all the supplies I would like. Now on my way I had a little talk with my Dad and he asked me that now that I’ve had some time in the freshwater side of the hobby, why wouldnt I try the saltwater side. He told me to not get any of the things I planned on getting that day, and just go home and do some research on the saltwater side before I started and finished my “forest”. I agreed, but I never actually planned on making the conversion. Even though I loved saltwater, it was a dream of mine to own a Reef tank, and I loved to watch the show ”Tanked“ a lot, I always viewed it as something hard and something that was out of reach. So I got home and did some research, did some planning, and I lost all my wishes to keep growing in freshwater, although I still wish I could’ve tried it. I went to my LFS: Top Shelf Aquatics, and I lost my mind there. I couldn’t stop looking at everything. My mom had to literally drag me out and into the car. A few weeks later I said my farewells to my freshwater tank, took it down, and sold it. A few months later I already knew everything I wanted for my soon to be saltwater tank. I planned on getting a tank that was about 50 to 60 gallons to start out with, but little did I know my plans would come to a halt. My family and I ended up moving and this scrambled my plans. Months went by and I still couldn‘t get my tank. My parents both said that it would be better if I just waited until the new house, yea we were moving again, but after a year of waiting I just couldn’t wait anymore. I ended up singing to my dad one of his songs with a picture of a reef tank on my iPad, and I finally convinced him into letting me get it. Or so I thought, a few more weeks went by and things got complicated with the house situation, so I convinced myself that time would surely pass and I would get my dream soon enough. Well as a way to quench my thirst for a tank I would go to my LFS and take in what I soon could get. But one day that I was visiting, I found a tank there that was on a special sale for a reasonable amount of money. I went home but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. After a lot pleading and a warning that I would need to take it down to get it into the new house, my Dad helped me buy it. Although little did he know that the tank was bigger than he expected, much! He thought it was about some 40 gallons or so, but no he ended up buying a much bigger...yep. Well after a talk about why it was so big, and why it was better for it to be that size for my first reef, although I knew that the tank was small compared to many saltwater reefs. I finally set it up. I had almost everything I needed to set it up. Almost. A few weeks later we found it that my uncle died. He was actually a reefer himself. He had a SPS Reef Tank. Some people might recognize him as his name was Hernan Chaves, creator and founder of Coral Typhoon, which is a pro coral dipping system. He also had a big role in growing the saltwater side of the hobby, and I was very blessed to be family of his. You can find a little bit about him here and look on YouTube on how his tank looked like: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa3lrdVptTU9QQTVLd1E5SWI4eU9GdUFrbkRWZ3xBQ3Jtc0ttMjhoVTRvLVBCSHAxcUtpNkhQaXBBUktlRFpUeDh1VFdaOXJ5anZvVGR4bW1ESHVhUUR1cXR5ejZWZWRmOEJFX3pHQlFScVNhREEtVzNGek44WkRHMDRaRmk5dGVySlAwMTRUSU5GaTlKaTJNYWtoTQ&q=http://reefloungeusa.com/&v=44jBtSWN2z4
He had a lot of brand new new supplies that I was able to get my hands on that helped me set up my tank. And after going to the store for rocks and sand and water, I finally got the tank up and running. Then came the very exciting part, waiting for the tank to cycle, but this gave me time to figure out a fish list and coral list for my tank. After waiting for about a month and a bit, and after constant water testing as I was paranoid that something would be wrong, I finally bought my first cuc and my first Clownfish. Here’s a photo of them:
My first clowns were already a mated pair, which I was really happy about. The female, the larger white one, is a Mocha Bullet Hole Clown, and the male, the little black one with the spots, is a two spot mocha. I remember that they were tiny, both being about an inch and a bit. My sister found them adorable, and named the female Marshmallow and the male Brownie. A few weeks later I went shopping at my LFS for some shrimp, and I am so happy I did. As I always do before I go looking for what I came for I browse around to see what’s there. Of course I went to the fish section, and I remember looking in one of the tanks, and finding a small angel. I didn’t know what kind of angelfish it was, so I asked a guy who worked there, and I was blown away on what I had found. The angel was a Black Velvet Angel, or as it was listed: a Gray Poma Angel. But this wasn’t a regular poma, this fish was one of a kind. This fish was caught off the coast of the Philippines I believe, and had different markings a regular Poma Angel would have. His face had much more and way more bluer striping than usual, and his tail fin had weird mix of more yellow than black, which now oddly enough has a lot more black than yellow. It ended up being that this fish was the result of one of the rarest fish in the world, and the rarest angelfish in the World. It was a baby of a Black Phantom Angel, and a Black Velvet Angel. This was one of the only wild caught babies in the world, and knowing what kind of fish this was, I just couldn’t say no. I put it on hold, and a few days later, it was mine. Along with the goby and a female anthias my great grandma threw in there. I was so happy and I am so blessed that I am one of the only people in the world who has this fish. Although the fish came with a price, he cost more than I would like, and he has until now decimated my cuc. But I didn’t care as I found it a price I would happily pay for the fish. A month went by and my grandfather got my sister a powder brown tang for the tank. I was a little skeptical, as I knew what this fish implements, but I accepted. This is how the tank looked like before I took it down:
The day my dad told me would come finally came, and I needed to take down my tank. I took everything out, put the fish in a 20 gallon long for the time being. I brought the tank over to the new house, and set up my qt tank that all my fish would be in for a bit. Unfortunately, all my fish didn’t make it. My goby didn’t survive the trip, and the PBT got sick, and I just didn’t have the time to stress about her being sick, so I donated her to my LFS as well as returning the Anthias, sorry Grandma. But now that we have have gotten unpacked, I finally was able to set the tank back up. I filled it up with RO water, which took FOREVER. I didn’t think 91 gallons of water would take long. After I got the tank full and running, I added RedSea Red Sea salt blue bucket. I added 5 power heads to mix the salt in the tank for me, and after 2 days I got the salinity at my desired liking of 1.024. Of course I don’t have corals yet so I don’t worry about the salinity being a little low and I didn’t bother to check the other parameters other than the basics. This gave me the green light to make a new rock scape, as I wasn’t satisfied with my former scape. This is the scape I gave myself the green light on, (again sorry about the blur):
I passed the rocks to my tank and I couldn’t be happier with my scape:
Yea I know it looks a little different then on the table as I positioned the rocks differently, but I love it. This is the only scape I’ve ever been truly happy with for my previous one I didn’t rlly enjoy and I spent countless hours on others before. I love the openness and with corals on the way I’m sure this will be a good scape for the corals. I am currently debating wether I should add sand, as I kinda like the no sand look, but I might just add some because it’s more natural, and it gives me more fish options.
I woke up this morning to find the tank looking clearer than ever:
I got the power head placements where I want them, except I have 3 that are slanted. As of right now I only had 1 little AI Prime lighting the tank, but Im soon to get 2 Radion Xr15 hopefully Gen 6. I also added 2 heaters in the DT momentarily as my water was a little cold for my liking.
My sump is looking good. I have the light fixture on top of where my refugium will be. The light will be replaced by the AI Prime once I get the Radions. I’ll still be using the purple light but only to light my sump. It has a rlly big fan that turns on whenever the light is and that helps with the humidity in the sump. The rest of of the supplies are all set in the sump. I have a few things I still need to hook up that I have right now. I still have yet to buy a few components ie the protein skimmer and the Roller Mat (as I hate filter socks). I’ll be dosing as well and I’ll hook that up in the dry part of my cabinets. Which also reminds me to hang the controllers for the rest of my pumps which I haven’t done.
I’ve tested everything again and everything is looking perfect. Got some things I’ll be thinking about, and things I still need to get. I hope I’ve been a little bit of an interest. I’ll be updating you guys on the tank shortly, but until then, “Happy Reefing” everyone!
Since I was little I’ve always wanted to keep fish. I’ve always loved animals, and I feel like aquaria is my main focal point for my passion. I’ve always had freshwater tanks, with 6 being the total I can remember. I have had great success in keeping freshwater plants as well, and my last tank was dedicated to aquatic plants, or as my mother would call it: a forest in her living room. The following is a picture on the last tank that I had, while I was beginning to take it down: (sorry about the blurriness)
If you are wondering about where the : “True Aquascape” is, it is only in tiny bits in the pictures I have of my fish, and I wish I had the correct photo. That’s what I get for not taking enough pictures. But anyways, there is one fish that doesn’t come up in this picture that was the focal point of my tank, and my favorite fish that was in there: The Kribensis Cichlids. Here’s a photo of my female:
As soon as I got her I went out looking for a male. I’ve always loved the idea of breeding fish, unless they are guppies, that’s a nightmare. Female Kribensis Cichlids don’t show their true colors unless they are mated and are raising their own. After a few weeks I finally found a male at the correct size. I put him in with her, and after a few days of squabbling, as all married couples do, the finally settled. Here is a picture that shows her majesty with her prince over their castle:
Now when I said castle, I meant it. Queen Elizabeth, is what I used to call her, was very demanding, and an absolute idiot. Hey I thought a Queen was supposed to be smart, well anyways when I first got her along with another female she decided to make my power head her home! What! Yea I got that shock one morning, lucky for her I decided to check up on her “sister” before I turned on the power head, which she wouldnt have survived the incident, she would probably had gotten SHREDDED. So I coaxed her out of there in the morning, and sealed the power head with a mesh, thinking that would end that problem, only to find her in there again in the night, idk how she managed but she ripped a whole in the mesh. I needed a solution to this as I wouldn’t think to look in the power head frequently and I’m not the kind of guy who is all that patient, and I didn‘t want to end up with a sushi bar in my tank. So I had to take down some of my rock work, much to my rainbow shark’s inconvenience. I ended up just plopping 2 rocks on the ground thinking she would eventually find the little nook between the 2 rocks, and yes the power head was off for this time. I woke up the next morning and found her poking her little head out the rocks. Problem solved. Little did I know that this would be the start to an underground kingdom. Yea when I took down the tank, (I’m getting to that) I found out just how big her home was, and why I never saw her and her partner when I would look down the hole in the rocks. When I removed the roof of her home, she had dug a system where she could travel to any part of the right side of the tank she wanted to. There were so many little paths, including 2 chambers where Im guessing she would hang out in. It was so big it was like I had ants tunneling in my sand bed. I’m amazed on how the plants and rocks I had on the right side of the tank never fell through the ground. Now back on topic, (yes I my mom says I get sidetracked a lot) . I had been watching a few YouTube videos where they would build some absolute stunning aquascapes with live plants, wood, and rock, and I thought I could be able to recreate it. So I somehow convinced my parents to let me keep a “forest” in their living room, and we went out to a store where I could get all the supplies I would like. Now on my way I had a little talk with my Dad and he asked me that now that I’ve had some time in the freshwater side of the hobby, why wouldnt I try the saltwater side. He told me to not get any of the things I planned on getting that day, and just go home and do some research on the saltwater side before I started and finished my “forest”. I agreed, but I never actually planned on making the conversion. Even though I loved saltwater, it was a dream of mine to own a Reef tank, and I loved to watch the show ”Tanked“ a lot, I always viewed it as something hard and something that was out of reach. So I got home and did some research, did some planning, and I lost all my wishes to keep growing in freshwater, although I still wish I could’ve tried it. I went to my LFS: Top Shelf Aquatics, and I lost my mind there. I couldn’t stop looking at everything. My mom had to literally drag me out and into the car. A few weeks later I said my farewells to my freshwater tank, took it down, and sold it. A few months later I already knew everything I wanted for my soon to be saltwater tank. I planned on getting a tank that was about 50 to 60 gallons to start out with, but little did I know my plans would come to a halt. My family and I ended up moving and this scrambled my plans. Months went by and I still couldn‘t get my tank. My parents both said that it would be better if I just waited until the new house, yea we were moving again, but after a year of waiting I just couldn’t wait anymore. I ended up singing to my dad one of his songs with a picture of a reef tank on my iPad, and I finally convinced him into letting me get it. Or so I thought, a few more weeks went by and things got complicated with the house situation, so I convinced myself that time would surely pass and I would get my dream soon enough. Well as a way to quench my thirst for a tank I would go to my LFS and take in what I soon could get. But one day that I was visiting, I found a tank there that was on a special sale for a reasonable amount of money. I went home but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. After a lot pleading and a warning that I would need to take it down to get it into the new house, my Dad helped me buy it. Although little did he know that the tank was bigger than he expected, much! He thought it was about some 40 gallons or so, but no he ended up buying a much bigger...yep. Well after a talk about why it was so big, and why it was better for it to be that size for my first reef, although I knew that the tank was small compared to many saltwater reefs. I finally set it up. I had almost everything I needed to set it up. Almost. A few weeks later we found it that my uncle died. He was actually a reefer himself. He had a SPS Reef Tank. Some people might recognize him as his name was Hernan Chaves, creator and founder of Coral Typhoon, which is a pro coral dipping system. He also had a big role in growing the saltwater side of the hobby, and I was very blessed to be family of his. You can find a little bit about him here and look on YouTube on how his tank looked like: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa3lrdVptTU9QQTVLd1E5SWI4eU9GdUFrbkRWZ3xBQ3Jtc0ttMjhoVTRvLVBCSHAxcUtpNkhQaXBBUktlRFpUeDh1VFdaOXJ5anZvVGR4bW1ESHVhUUR1cXR5ejZWZWRmOEJFX3pHQlFScVNhREEtVzNGek44WkRHMDRaRmk5dGVySlAwMTRUSU5GaTlKaTJNYWtoTQ&q=http://reefloungeusa.com/&v=44jBtSWN2z4
He had a lot of brand new new supplies that I was able to get my hands on that helped me set up my tank. And after going to the store for rocks and sand and water, I finally got the tank up and running. Then came the very exciting part, waiting for the tank to cycle, but this gave me time to figure out a fish list and coral list for my tank. After waiting for about a month and a bit, and after constant water testing as I was paranoid that something would be wrong, I finally bought my first cuc and my first Clownfish. Here’s a photo of them:
My first clowns were already a mated pair, which I was really happy about. The female, the larger white one, is a Mocha Bullet Hole Clown, and the male, the little black one with the spots, is a two spot mocha. I remember that they were tiny, both being about an inch and a bit. My sister found them adorable, and named the female Marshmallow and the male Brownie. A few weeks later I went shopping at my LFS for some shrimp, and I am so happy I did. As I always do before I go looking for what I came for I browse around to see what’s there. Of course I went to the fish section, and I remember looking in one of the tanks, and finding a small angel. I didn’t know what kind of angelfish it was, so I asked a guy who worked there, and I was blown away on what I had found. The angel was a Black Velvet Angel, or as it was listed: a Gray Poma Angel. But this wasn’t a regular poma, this fish was one of a kind. This fish was caught off the coast of the Philippines I believe, and had different markings a regular Poma Angel would have. His face had much more and way more bluer striping than usual, and his tail fin had weird mix of more yellow than black, which now oddly enough has a lot more black than yellow. It ended up being that this fish was the result of one of the rarest fish in the world, and the rarest angelfish in the World. It was a baby of a Black Phantom Angel, and a Black Velvet Angel. This was one of the only wild caught babies in the world, and knowing what kind of fish this was, I just couldn’t say no. I put it on hold, and a few days later, it was mine. Along with the goby and a female anthias my great grandma threw in there. I was so happy and I am so blessed that I am one of the only people in the world who has this fish. Although the fish came with a price, he cost more than I would like, and he has until now decimated my cuc. But I didn’t care as I found it a price I would happily pay for the fish. A month went by and my grandfather got my sister a powder brown tang for the tank. I was a little skeptical, as I knew what this fish implements, but I accepted. This is how the tank looked like before I took it down:
The day my dad told me would come finally came, and I needed to take down my tank. I took everything out, put the fish in a 20 gallon long for the time being. I brought the tank over to the new house, and set up my qt tank that all my fish would be in for a bit. Unfortunately, all my fish didn’t make it. My goby didn’t survive the trip, and the PBT got sick, and I just didn’t have the time to stress about her being sick, so I donated her to my LFS as well as returning the Anthias, sorry Grandma. But now that we have have gotten unpacked, I finally was able to set the tank back up. I filled it up with RO water, which took FOREVER. I didn’t think 91 gallons of water would take long. After I got the tank full and running, I added RedSea Red Sea salt blue bucket. I added 5 power heads to mix the salt in the tank for me, and after 2 days I got the salinity at my desired liking of 1.024. Of course I don’t have corals yet so I don’t worry about the salinity being a little low and I didn’t bother to check the other parameters other than the basics. This gave me the green light to make a new rock scape, as I wasn’t satisfied with my former scape. This is the scape I gave myself the green light on, (again sorry about the blur):
I passed the rocks to my tank and I couldn’t be happier with my scape:
Yea I know it looks a little different then on the table as I positioned the rocks differently, but I love it. This is the only scape I’ve ever been truly happy with for my previous one I didn’t rlly enjoy and I spent countless hours on others before. I love the openness and with corals on the way I’m sure this will be a good scape for the corals. I am currently debating wether I should add sand, as I kinda like the no sand look, but I might just add some because it’s more natural, and it gives me more fish options.
I woke up this morning to find the tank looking clearer than ever:
I got the power head placements where I want them, except I have 3 that are slanted. As of right now I only had 1 little AI Prime lighting the tank, but Im soon to get 2 Radion Xr15 hopefully Gen 6. I also added 2 heaters in the DT momentarily as my water was a little cold for my liking.
My sump is looking good. I have the light fixture on top of where my refugium will be. The light will be replaced by the AI Prime once I get the Radions. I’ll still be using the purple light but only to light my sump. It has a rlly big fan that turns on whenever the light is and that helps with the humidity in the sump. The rest of of the supplies are all set in the sump. I have a few things I still need to hook up that I have right now. I still have yet to buy a few components ie the protein skimmer and the Roller Mat (as I hate filter socks). I’ll be dosing as well and I’ll hook that up in the dry part of my cabinets. Which also reminds me to hang the controllers for the rest of my pumps which I haven’t done.
I’ve tested everything again and everything is looking perfect. Got some things I’ll be thinking about, and things I still need to get. I hope I’ve been a little bit of an interest. I’ll be updating you guys on the tank shortly, but until then, “Happy Reefing” everyone!
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