New to Reef aquariums :)

dbl · Mar 10, 2020

Welcome to R2R and your new reefing family and thanks for the introduction.

Homelander · Mar 10, 2020

thebenjibenji said:
Hi,
about 3 months ago I set out on a journey to start a marine tank, my GF really wanted pets and suggested that having some "nemo's" would be awesome. 8-9 years ago I had freshwater and really enjoyed it, but I moved out of my mom's place to the city, in shared houses, so I had to leave the hobby behind. Old tank, went for a natural look... yes it has algae

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After a lot of research, I came to the conclusion that it could be easier* to keep marine fish. While doing the research (which i absolutely DO NOT regret) I quickly got everything together.

Curved front, 2nd hand, took out the back and replaced it with a dark glass + re sealed the silicone

Cut my left thumb while getting old vinyl air tubing from a skimmer (skimmed my tendon approx 20%) and had to have surgery

After surgery, one handed ... didn't stop me from continuing... painted an old work cabinet for the DT+Sump

Resealed another tank (to be my sump)

View attachment 1464857 View attachment 1464858 View attachment 1464860 View attachment 1464861 Skimmer is hangon the back now..

Figured out how to drill and cut glass @.@ (if you know what you want just pay someone =.=)

Had to go to the plumbing section of Bunnings warehouse, usually total chaos, and with mixed fittings like... 25mm x 1" pvc valve socket.. pls keep it metric OR Imperial!!!!

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Final result was aprox. 110L/29Gal DT+Sump DT=57L/15Gal Sump=60L/15Gal-70L/18Gal

I realized that tap water and de-chlorination is not viable as the nitrates and nitrites vary heaps. The city gives just sample/avg in the online .pdf's.
After all that I tried to kick start the Nitrogen cycle with Dr. Tim's which after 2 bottles didn't seem to work, I do blame Australia (shipping and storage) not the product. Water changes was the only thing keeping everything in check.
I added the fish (two clownfish) but had to keep changing the water due to ammonia building up, I did have RO by then. Looking back I should of waited it out, my last resort was getting live rock, I found a shop that sold live rocks, and they didn't look good. But they had a DT with some from the great barrier reef**.
Once added the change was extremely quick.

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Ammonia dropped slowly and then Nitrates/Nitrites went to insane levels. Chaeto/refugium absolutely killed the problem before it became unmanageable, it grows extremely well! I got a DI addon for the RO system, its worth it... as long as you keep track of when you need to change your RO/ID filters! (Nearby pet/aquarium stores made it uneconomical in the long run to consider that option...buying their water.. also you never know how good they are in changing their filters). Currently ammonia/nitrate/nitrite is 0ppm (yes the cycle is continuous but atleast I can sleep knowing I did my best!

I went to Bali and saw the reef there, whether man/or natural events knocked/destroyed a lot of their reef (the one I visited anyway). The main take away was how important it should be to rehabilitate and protect what we have, as it does regrow but only when given a chance and time. Also had to get a power head as the flow in the reef was more than I imagined...

Since then I got a pearl goby, 6 stripped wrasse, 2 Zoahs (Green and a Red/Orange one), 1 green star polyp (which ejected a ball/frag and seems to be planning on ejecting more =.=), mystery mushroom but seems to be a nice/safe species (asked for suggestions on the ID in the softies section).

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Had my first death, a hermit crab, he tried to molt but seemed to have died in the process... he smelt like death. It was surprising how attached we got the him . We went out one Sunday to a river mouth and got the shells they like, (wayyyyyy above the water/tidal line [bone dry] so not to get shells that could be used by something, whether that was good or not is questionable /shrug/ )

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Finally don't get a cheap blackbox... luckily it was refundable

View attachment 1464855 all good you say?

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I have learnt so much and continue to learn from the community.

I hope to continue many years into the future with this tank, if money starts to agree with me.. student. I'd upgrade to a bigger tank!

It was a bit of a vent and skimmed/proof read, so yeahhhh, but if you made it this far thanks!

*easier but more $$$... and once you visit a store with a coral section... you will probably want to have a reef aquarium =.=
**I hope it is sustainable otherwise I would feel heaps bad

Welcome!