Holst
Active Member
Hi R2R.
I have never introduced myself to this forum, so here goes.
I'm a handsome guy from Denmark at age 36. I have for many years had a wish for a beautiful reef aquarium, this startet around 2008. So I started saving and signed up at a Danish reef forum to suck all the needed knowledge. And 12 years later, yes- not kidding you, 12 years later I got my first reef aquarium. During these 12 years I bought a lot of used equipment. Powerheads, return pump, skimmers, ATO etc. I had an old Akvastabil 275Liters that I rebuild for Saltwater. Sold all my high end freshwater plants, CO² equipment and my amazing lookind discus fish.
I had this aquarium around 1 year before I bought a one year old Red Sea Reefer 425XL. And I must say, there is a connection between price and quality. An amazing aquarium compared to the old Akvastabil MarkII.
I emptied the old aquarium, cleaned the gravel a little, stored all corals in a little 100L aquarium, rocks in a large tub and the fish in another big tub. Setup the aquarium and technique, produced saltwater, created a new hardscape and filled it with water. I let it settle for around 4 days and added one coral after another. After that one fish after another. And here we are
The new setup has now been running from February 2021.
The system:
Aquarium: Red Sea Reefer 425XL.
Light: 2x Red Sea Reefer ReefLED 160s
Power heads: 2x Ecotech Vortech MP40
Return: Jebao DCP-5000
Skimmer: Royal Exclusive Bubble King 200 mini
UV: 35W with vortex build.
ATO: Tunze 5017
Dosing pumps: ATI DP-6
Additives:
I am using Red Sea Coral PRO salt.
To maintain the 3xholy I use Fauna Marin Balling Light.
For other additives I use Triton reagents and dose this after my Triton ICP Tests. I make a new ICP test every 2 month.
Values / Readings:
NO³ - 5 ppm
PO4 - 0,03 ppm
CA - 430 ppm
ALK - 9,5 dkH
MG - 1450
pH - 8,3-8,5
Aquarium as today
(Sorry for the light from the windows)
Corals:
GSP
Hammer's
Yellow green
Green with purple tips.
Torch
Dark Green with yellow tips.
Acropora
Blueberry Fields Acropora
Rainbow Blueberry SC Acropora
(Hard to see, but blue polyps).
Crazzy SSC Acropora
Rainbow Tanoides
Pikachu acropora base.
(Got RTN, but I saved a frag and this is whats left).
Unknown Neon green acropora
Unknown acropora.
Unknown Blue Green acropora
Acropora Millepora Pink
Styloporas
Gonipora
Pink gonipora (One of my clowns has hosted this beauty)
Unknown ID
(I call it Hairy **** )
Unknown ID
Rainbow something.
Unknown ID
Neon Green
BTA
Red BTA that forgot to bubble
Unknown sponge
Top down pictures
Fish and Inverts
Lessons learned on the way.
Patience:
When I started up the reef aquarium, I have seen lots of threads with people not having the patience that it takes to get a good start. So that was a big thing for me to let things settle and giving time to the organisms to start doing their things. But I kinda forgot that along the way, or thought that now the bacterias has settled. I learned that it is not only at start, but it is like that ALL the time. And that bacterias takes time to dominate. I was doing changes too quick, using GFO, changing the light, changing the flow and stressing the system. This resultet in a big cyano outbreak. I was a little lost at this point, also because I had read how big of a struggle Cyano can be. I just toog a step back and put my hands in my pocket, Only vacuuming the cyano away. I found out that it can take alot of time to get the Cyano, and it also takes a good amount of time to beat it again. It took around 4 month to get rid of the Cyano, but I felt like I was on top of this **** ! But also knew that I have screwed it up and it was my own fault that it got to that point. So now i am only changing or doing one thing at a time, and then see the result of this over time.
Lights:
When I started the Akvastabil aquarium I bought a pre-used Orphek Atlantic V4 Gen2 lamp. Amazing lights and opportunities. I know that people like POP on their corals, but for me, that was not natural looking. I sold the fixture and bought 2x Red Sea ReefLED 160S instead. I think that now it looks alot more natural, not like Plastic toys. I know that i'm kinda alone with this opinion, but it's my tank you know
Noise:
When having all the equipment in the cabinet underneath the aquarium, you can hear everything that happens when technique is spinning, vibrating etc.
And I kinda learned that noise or NO noise I would say also comes with the price. High price equipment = No noise, no vibrations.
Cheep equipment = Noise and vibrations.
But also what decade the equipment is produced
I had an old Deltec APF600 skimmer. It's robust, Im sure that it does it's job, but holy **** this is loud ! Instead I bought a Nyos Quantum 160. Much better regarding noise, but I was not over excited. I got a good offer and I couldn't resist, so I bought the Royal Exclusive BB King 200 mini. This is state of the art equipment. Near silent, easy to operate and robust built !
The only thing that I hear now is the fans from the Lamps on hot days. I think I now got a good setup, good quality equipment and a healthy tank.
Now it's only time, stable values that and hopefully my corals will grow big and strong
Hope you enjoyd my tank. I am doing that everyday and love to see the progress on corals, fish behaving or misbehave, see the crabs fighting and trying to find another house and beating a snail to get it. Nature is brutal but fascinating!
Please leave a comment if you feel like
Have a great day out there where ever you'r from !
I have never introduced myself to this forum, so here goes.
I'm a handsome guy from Denmark at age 36. I have for many years had a wish for a beautiful reef aquarium, this startet around 2008. So I started saving and signed up at a Danish reef forum to suck all the needed knowledge. And 12 years later, yes- not kidding you, 12 years later I got my first reef aquarium. During these 12 years I bought a lot of used equipment. Powerheads, return pump, skimmers, ATO etc. I had an old Akvastabil 275Liters that I rebuild for Saltwater. Sold all my high end freshwater plants, CO² equipment and my amazing lookind discus fish.
I had this aquarium around 1 year before I bought a one year old Red Sea Reefer 425XL. And I must say, there is a connection between price and quality. An amazing aquarium compared to the old Akvastabil MarkII.
I emptied the old aquarium, cleaned the gravel a little, stored all corals in a little 100L aquarium, rocks in a large tub and the fish in another big tub. Setup the aquarium and technique, produced saltwater, created a new hardscape and filled it with water. I let it settle for around 4 days and added one coral after another. After that one fish after another. And here we are
The new setup has now been running from February 2021.
The system:
Aquarium: Red Sea Reefer 425XL.
Light: 2x Red Sea Reefer ReefLED 160s
Power heads: 2x Ecotech Vortech MP40
Return: Jebao DCP-5000
Skimmer: Royal Exclusive Bubble King 200 mini
UV: 35W with vortex build.
ATO: Tunze 5017
Dosing pumps: ATI DP-6
Additives:
I am using Red Sea Coral PRO salt.
To maintain the 3xholy I use Fauna Marin Balling Light.
For other additives I use Triton reagents and dose this after my Triton ICP Tests. I make a new ICP test every 2 month.
Values / Readings:
NO³ - 5 ppm
PO4 - 0,03 ppm
CA - 430 ppm
ALK - 9,5 dkH
MG - 1450
pH - 8,3-8,5
Aquarium as today
(Sorry for the light from the windows)
Corals:
GSP
Hammer's
Yellow green
Green with purple tips.
Torch
Dark Green with yellow tips.
Acropora
Blueberry Fields Acropora
Rainbow Blueberry SC Acropora
(Hard to see, but blue polyps).
Crazzy SSC Acropora
Rainbow Tanoides
Pikachu acropora base.
(Got RTN, but I saved a frag and this is whats left).
Unknown Neon green acropora
Unknown acropora.
Unknown Blue Green acropora
Acropora Millepora Pink
Styloporas
Gonipora
Pink gonipora (One of my clowns has hosted this beauty)
Unknown ID
(I call it Hairy ****
)
Unknown ID
Rainbow something.
Unknown ID
Neon Green
BTA
Red BTA that forgot to bubble
Unknown sponge
Top down pictures
Fish and Inverts
Lessons learned on the way.
Patience:
When I started up the reef aquarium, I have seen lots of threads with people not having the patience that it takes to get a good start. So that was a big thing for me to let things settle and giving time to the organisms to start doing their things. But I kinda forgot that along the way, or thought that now the bacterias has settled. I learned that it is not only at start, but it is like that ALL the time. And that bacterias takes time to dominate. I was doing changes too quick, using GFO, changing the light, changing the flow and stressing the system. This resultet in a big cyano outbreak. I was a little lost at this point, also because I had read how big of a struggle Cyano can be. I just toog a step back and put my hands in my pocket, Only vacuuming the cyano away. I found out that it can take alot of time to get the Cyano, and it also takes a good amount of time to beat it again. It took around 4 month to get rid of the Cyano, but I felt like I was on top of this **** ! But also knew that I have screwed it up and it was my own fault that it got to that point. So now i am only changing or doing one thing at a time, and then see the result of this over time.
Lights:
When I started the Akvastabil aquarium I bought a pre-used Orphek Atlantic V4 Gen2 lamp. Amazing lights and opportunities. I know that people like POP on their corals, but for me, that was not natural looking. I sold the fixture and bought 2x Red Sea ReefLED 160S instead. I think that now it looks alot more natural, not like Plastic toys. I know that i'm kinda alone with this opinion, but it's my tank you know
Noise:
When having all the equipment in the cabinet underneath the aquarium, you can hear everything that happens when technique is spinning, vibrating etc.
And I kinda learned that noise or NO noise I would say also comes with the price. High price equipment = No noise, no vibrations.
Cheep equipment = Noise and vibrations.
But also what decade the equipment is produced
I had an old Deltec APF600 skimmer. It's robust, Im sure that it does it's job, but holy **** this is loud ! Instead I bought a Nyos Quantum 160. Much better regarding noise, but I was not over excited. I got a good offer and I couldn't resist, so I bought the Royal Exclusive BB King 200 mini. This is state of the art equipment. Near silent, easy to operate and robust built !
The only thing that I hear now is the fans from the Lamps on hot days. I think I now got a good setup, good quality equipment and a healthy tank.
Now it's only time, stable values that and hopefully my corals will grow big and strong
Hope you enjoyd my tank. I am doing that everyday and love to see the progress on corals, fish behaving or misbehave, see the crabs fighting and trying to find another house and beating a snail to get it. Nature is brutal but fascinating!
Please leave a comment if you feel like
Have a great day out there where ever you'r from !
Last edited:
