mrshall1027 Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 I was in the hobby several years ago and had always regretted getting out. After a long wait, we are finally able to get a new tank up and running and I couldn't be any happier! My amazing husband has agreed to partake in this venture with me and I'm glad to report that he is really starting to like it. My two stepdaughters are even showing more interest in it all then I thought they would. They walk by the tank and just stare at it waiting to see the emerald crab or the coral banded shrimp pop out from their hiding places. They get super excited when we add anything new and love helping out with feedings and adding in new fish. It makes it even more rewarding. We officially started the tank on November 3 of this year, the day after we got back from our honeymoon in Grand Cayman. I think our trip kicked it into high gear since we were able to see a lot of the things that would be going into our tank. It was after our snorkeling trip that my husband really started to get excited about it. Then walking along the beach, we saw all sorts of snails, crabs, sponges, calcified coral pieces, and so much more life that he had never really seen up close. It lit the fire, so to speak. I had already purchased a used tank, sump/refugium, and stand off the forum from Bio and Grim. We woke up that Saturday morning, painted the back of the tank black, and while that was drying, we headed over to RCA. We were able to pick up about 20lbs of live rock, sand, a power head, return pump, some plumbing items, and a Coralife 150 Cone Protein skimmer. Oh and water. Lots of water. By Sunday night, we had the tank plumbed and filled with water and the 20lbs of rock with another 50lbs ordered from ReefCleaners. The above picture was taken about a week after we filled it up. I had ordered a light from BML and although we liked the coloring, we just decided it wasn't really what we were looking for. We really wanted lighting that had more features then the basic on and off. After a lot of research, we decided to invest in two AI Sol Blues with a controller. The price tag was a bit shocking, but we are very happy with our decision. We will eventually add one more to eliminate the shadowing in the middle, but for now two will be sufficient for getting some starter corals going. Over the last three weeks, we've added another 50lbs of rock, got some cheato, red mangrove, and calupra for the refugium, and started adding in some fish and coral. So far, we have: 2 ocellaris clowns blue hippo tang flame angel engineer goby mandarin dragonnett coral banded shrimp peppermint shrimp emerald crab 5 turbo snails a basic clean up crew of hermits and mixed snails As for coral, we've been buying up pieces left and right but it still feels like our tank is empty. Our first additions were a red sherman anemone, a few different types of mushrooms, candy canes, and some green palys that we got from fishcraze1. After that, we picked up a favia, some hammerhead, purple death palys and a crocea clam from the RCA sale. This past weekend, we got some free GSP from Juiceman and stopped by Austin Aqua Farms and left with a really pretty red and light blue acan, a pink eyed chalice, and a two head dendro. Yesterday, I was happy to meet JeeperTy and scored a great frag of LA Lakers/Dragonfly zoas and a piece of green monticap. And hopefully this Thursday, I'll be getting my order from Reefs2Go where I bought 8 more zoa frags (thanks to brian.srock for setting up a quick group buy). We redid all of our aquascaping this past weekend and I think we are pretty set on leaving it be now. Everything seems to like it's spot in the tank, except our nem. He keeps moving around and hiding behind the rock. I'm going to give it some time to see if he comes back out. We also turned our lights around so that they are going parallel with the length of the tank. It helped get rid of the shadowing in the middle and there's less shadowing on the sides. We still plan on getting another light in the future to eliminate all shadowing. Unfortunately, I don't have a current full tank shot, but I'll try to get one up in the next day or two. If you've read through all of this, thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+brian.srock Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 Best of luck. My only advise is to now breath and enjoy the tank for a bit after you get your reefs2go order. That's a lot of stuff going into your tank in such a short amount of time. I also don't see a heater on your list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrshall1027 Posted December 18, 2012 Author Share Posted December 18, 2012 Totally agree with you on waiting! And yes, forgot to list the heater. That was purchased with the first bit of equipment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 Looking good! Glad you got your build thread up and running! Keep an eye on ammonia, nitrate, and phosphate levels... that was a quick jump from an empty tank to a fully functioning one. I'm sure you dosed some quick-start bacteria when first starting the system. Also keep an eye on the mandarin goby's weight. They are usually recommended on mature tanks with lots of live rock for a large pod population to feed them. Keep us updated on the status! Looking forward to the full tank shot! -Ty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrshall1027 Posted December 18, 2012 Author Share Posted December 18, 2012 Thanks Ty! I kinda lucked out by marrying a chemist - he keeps an eye on all the levels for us We didn't dose at all actually. About two and a half weeks after it was filled, our levels were good so we started adding in the fish and it seems to have been pretty steady ever since. We are definitely done adding anything else for a while though! The live rock that we added was already cycled and the rest was dry live rock, so that may have helped move it along a little quicker. We are actually going to start cultivating pods for the mandarin because I'm worried he's already gotten to all the ones we added in last week and buying bottles of trigerpods will get expensive very quick! I'll for sure keep an eye on him in the mean time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Capt. Obvious Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 where are the tang police? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrshall1027 Posted December 18, 2012 Author Share Posted December 18, 2012 where are the tang police? Our tang is still smaller then our clown fish. Once it gets too big for our tank, we will either re-home him or get a bigger tank Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 Sounds like you got it covered! Where's my full tank shot! Haha -Ty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 you rang? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+brian.srock Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 ^^^ Bwahahahaha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Capt. Obvious Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 I'll get preachy here for a bit... Buying any fish that you know will grow to be to big for your tank and then having to catch and re-home is unnecessarily stressful to the fish. Tang warning citation issued. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishcraze_1 Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 You would get better light coverage if lights were mounted a bit higher, depending on light settings you're likely to cook something if too close to the top. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrshall1027 Posted December 18, 2012 Author Share Posted December 18, 2012 I'll get preachy here for a bit... Buying any fish that you know will grow to be to big for your tank and then having to catch and re-home is unnecessarily stressful to the fish. Tang warning citation issued. Well, maybe we'll just have to get that 200 gallon going sooner than later. You would get better light coverage if lights were mounted a bit higher, depending on light settings you're likely to cook something if too close to the top. On the list of many things to do. So far everything has been maintaining it's color really well. We haven't really put much on the higher pieces of rock just yet though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Capt. Obvious Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 the lights do look a bit low, what intensity do you have them at Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrshall1027 Posted December 18, 2012 Author Share Posted December 18, 2012 I'm using that lighting schedule that you sent me: Timer|Time|Ramp up/down|White|Blue|Royal BlueT1 7am 5m W000 B000 R010T2 8am 30m W000 B070 R075T3 11am 60m W080 B080 R080T4 1pm 90m W040 B080 R080T5 4:30pm 120m W025 B080 R080T6 8pm 20m W000 B050 R080T7 9pm 30m W000 B010 R050T8 10pm 4m W000 B000 R002 (lunar cycle) Everything seems to be opening up well and not bleaching out. Although most coral pieces have only been in there a week. The rock stops about 6"-7" below the water line and the lights are probably a little less than 2" above the waterline. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Capt. Obvious Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 raise them up a bit...you will get better coverage...and my schedule might be a bit much to start with...you may want to take it down 10-20% and ramp it up 5% a week Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrshall1027 Posted January 11, 2013 Author Share Posted January 11, 2013 A few updates - some good, some bad. Bad: We recently lost one of our clown fish and our blue tang. The tang got attacked with ich and just couldn't make it. I had a feeling the clown wasn't going to make it when we first got him; he just always seemed to have a hard time swimming and just never looked healthy. We were pretty bummed out about the two losses. We tried pretty hard to keep them healthy and our efforts weren't good enough. Our angel seems to be going strong, but now our last clown doesn't look very healthy. Last night he was breathing pretty hard and had some more spots on him. He's still eating and hosting the nem but I don't think he'll make it past the weekend. If the clown ends up dying, I may try to rehome or trade in the other fish that we have and just start over with a quarantine tank in place. How long do you think it takes to clear your tank of ich when there's no host? Now for the good: We've been seeing a lot of growth in our corals! Everything looks happy and healthy. Our nem has stayed put for about two weeks now after moving from one side of the tank to the other a few times (unfortunately he stung my fungia plate in the process and killed it). We added a smaller power head for a little more flow and everything seems to appreciate that. We've been seeing some coralline algae popping up on a lot of the rock so that's pretty cool. We got some tank maintenance tools from marine depot - a jbj cleaning kit (scraper, polisher, and shovel), some aquatongs, a magfloat, and a a feeding prong). Our hands and arms have been staying nice and dry lately Things on the agenda - building a new sump/refugium. The one that we have is just way too big and we can't fit anything else under our tank. Plus the "refugium" area is just not working well for us. Our skimmer and the refugium are in the same compartment and we have it separated with rocks stacked up. We can't put a sand bed because the intake will just push it all around. It's just not what we want. So, we'll be picking up a 20 gallon long and some acrylic very soon. We also still want to hang our lights over the tank, we just haven't figured out how yet. We don't really want to do brackets hanging from the wall, so we'll have to build some type of arm to attach to the tank stand. I've turned down the light intensity a bit and I'll probably bring it up a bit in the next week. All in all, it's been a good learning experience so far and we are, of course, learning a lot as we go. Still need to get a full tank shot, but my camera kinda sucks. I'll try to get one up soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted January 11, 2013 Share Posted January 11, 2013 A few updates - some good, some bad. Bad: We recently lost one of our clown fish and our blue tang. The tang got attacked with ich and just couldn't make it. I had a feeling the clown wasn't going to make it when we first got him; he just always seemed to have a hard time swimming and just never looked healthy. We were pretty bummed out about the two losses. We tried pretty hard to keep them healthy and our efforts weren't good enough. Our angel seems to be going strong, but now our last clown doesn't look very healthy. Last night he was breathing pretty hard and had some more spots on him. He's still eating and hosting the nem but I don't think he'll make it past the weekend. If the clown ends up dying, I may try to rehome or trade in the other fish that we have and just start over with a quarantine tank in place. How long do you think it takes to clear your tank of ich when there's no host? Now for the good: We've been seeing a lot of growth in our corals! Everything looks happy and healthy. Our nem has stayed put for about two weeks now after moving from one side of the tank to the other a few times (unfortunately he stung my fungia plate in the process and killed it). We added a smaller power head for a little more flow and everything seems to appreciate that. We've been seeing some coralline algae popping up on a lot of the rock so that's pretty cool. We got some tank maintenance tools from marine depot - a jbj cleaning kit (scraper, polisher, and shovel), some aquatongs, a magfloat, and a a feeding prong). Our hands and arms have been staying nice and dry lately Things on the agenda - building a new sump/refugium. The one that we have is just way too big and we can't fit anything else under our tank. Plus the "refugium" area is just not working well for us. Our skimmer and the refugium are in the same compartment and we have it separated with rocks stacked up. We can't put a sand bed because the intake will just push it all around. It's just not what we want. So, we'll be picking up a 20 gallon long and some acrylic very soon. We also still want to hang our lights over the tank, we just haven't figured out how yet. We don't really want to do brackets hanging from the wall, so we'll have to build some type of arm to attach to the tank stand. I've turned down the light intensity a bit and I'll probably bring it up a bit in the next week. All in all, it's been a good learning experience so far and we are, of course, learning a lot as we go. Still need to get a full tank shot, but my camera kinda sucks. I'll try to get one up soon. 60 Days is the maximum, IIRC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(Bio)³ Posted January 11, 2013 Share Posted January 11, 2013 What's the measurements on your sump? I have an acrylic under my qt tank and have room for a larger sump. Perhaps a trade to make both our setups more to the owners likings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrshall1027 Posted January 11, 2013 Author Share Posted January 11, 2013 I wish we could do a trade, but unfortunately the only way to get it out of there is to take my tank down or break it apart. I really don't want to take my tank down! Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(Bio)³ Posted January 11, 2013 Share Posted January 11, 2013 I'd gladly rebuild it if your throwing away just let me know if its going to be trashed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ct67stang Posted January 11, 2013 Share Posted January 11, 2013 i was told 6 weeks is the time needed for ich Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrshall1027 Posted January 12, 2013 Author Share Posted January 12, 2013 Bio, I'll definitely let you know if any of it's salvageable. Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(Bio)³ Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 Awesome thanks! I love scrap acrylic works great when people need just a scrap I can hold it and share instead of members going to buy new Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juiceman Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 Were you feeding the Hippo Nori? I've found that is the key with tangs. If they're eating Nori on the regular, they're more likely to do better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.