15-30 gal macro reef tanks

[Engrene4]

will it work?

 

[Engrene4]

update i have added the first quarter of my cleanup crew and i got a toadstool because i saw my clownfish try to host some cyano on a rock

also because i had my phone at an angle with flash on i got this really cool pic that looks like i have a filter on

 

[Engrene4]

it also has only been in the tank for 2 hours and it already likes its environment i also think its because i have the same lights the dealer had but they were more powerful so i moved it down a bit but so far im happy wish me luck!

 

[Engrene4]

alright get ready this is going to be a long post so first of all let me get this straight i am a struggling student as in it is very hard for me to focus on tasks and i have low funds so i cant get the nicest of stuff and so one day i was already into aquariums and i was keeping freshwater for a couple years now and i was always fascinated with corals so i was like alright im going to start a saltwater tank and i made a whole list of the items i need and i slowly got them one by one once i have enough money and that itself took like half a year and then it was the day and initially i was very sick and tired of not having anything set up and i obliviously was a noob and (still am) i just rushed into it and i set it up before i had the rest of my equipment and i just had a circulation pump and a hob filter with 40 lbs of dry rock in a tank with live sand and i just ran that for a loong time and i eventually got everything i needed and that was like 3 months later and so i was like huh i need some cleanup crew and keep in mind this tank is prob only 15 gallons and it was a hexagon tank and i made a lot of mistakes when setting it up like the circulation pump not placed right the rock work was just thrown in there and i had really fine sand and it was bad sooo anyways i hit the three month mark and i already stated that i need cleanup crew so i go to petco and not a lfs and i get a couple hermit crabs and turbo snails and then the impulse buying kicks in i also had no testing kit whatsoever and i see in one of their tanks they had a really mad and closed up pic of a dragon eye zoanthid and i had only a atinic "coral lighting" which was a 18 not powerful at all and i get it with everything else and when i put the coral and the cleanup crew in i acclimated but once again im pretty sure i was too quick to acclimate and i noticed the turbo snails are not moving at all and the zoanthids for a whole week were closed and guess what they all died but the hermit crabs were fine idk how bu then stupid mistake 2 i got a starfish and more cleanup crew thinking that i just got "bad ones" and they died as well but again the hermit crabs were fine at that point i was saying to myself its prob something im doing and Christmas rolls around and i get a testing kit and a salinity meter and a better light that is 80 $ and my levels were fine i just had to up the salinity and then it just ran like that for a whole year because i was afraid of doing anything to it and then one day it was just such a clear tank and levels were perfect so i was like maybe i should try again and so this time i go to a lfs and i was looking for some fish preferably my first clown pair and so while i am there i see the anemones and guess what impulse buy and then i come home put it in my tank and immediately there was something wrong with the anemone clownfish perfectly fine and so i see the anemone rolling around and its completely deflated and i was really worried because it was a nice looking one too and so i start touching it alot and i just settle on placing it underneath a rock because i figure it was stressed because of the light had i known the dealer was running a pair of kessils and here i am with this really weak light and so i leave it there overnight on the sand bed i wake up to an anemone which is face first in the sand and really deflated and i touch it again and i make a container with holes in it and put it in there at the top of my tank with a bit of sand and rock in it and it gets its color back and reinflates and actually attaches to the rock and it goes back and what do you know i touch it again and it then does it it starts ejecting brown goo out of its mouth and as a final attempt to stop it from polluting my water i suck the nasty goo water with a pipette and then it just starts melting and sticking to anything like really warm gum and i just have given up hope at that point and chucked it out of my tank to stop the bombing and then it happened i had a cyano explosion in my tank and then i find a good deal on a 25 gal tank with a stand and a 10 gal tank and then i came up with a plan that will make my 10 gal a sump refugium and ill have two canister filters as the intake and return pump for the sump and then i just got it set up and running like 4 months ago and then i got sand put it in and i took a canister filter from one of my freshwater setups and i clean it out and i put it on my 25 gallon and i still dont have my 10 gallon sump up yet and then i take some rocks in the 15 gal and i put it in the 25 gal and then i wait three months and then i add the rest of the rocks and then my fish and 4 hermit crabs and it ran for a tiny bit also before i moved everything i got a gsp colony of around a hundred polyps and now cyano has grown over them but some polyps are still opening everyday and then once i have everything in there cyano came back and i am just having a hard time exporting nutrients keep in mind i dont do water changes not because i dont believe in them just because i dont like doing it and so my nitrites or nitrates whatever one that is nutrients for algae in my tank and i have around 40ppm i think but i have no skimmer either and then recently like 2 days ago i got a bunch of cleanup crew to hopefully take care of my algae problem and a toadstool coral and today i found four snails out of the seven i have dead possibly even more and my toadstool is dying nothing else has been affected like the hermit crabs or clown fish or gsp and i just about have given up in this hobby i want to keep going but i just dont have enough money to fund it because i have no rodi unit i have no salt i have no proper quality lights and i have no sump and if i have all of those things even some of the especially if i had the reef testing kit because i can only test for ph ammonia nitrites and nitrates nothing else and i dont have chemicals to alter the chemistry of the water or what not and now that im writing this i realize why i have maybe been having so many problems and that because i dont do water changes maybe but idk its just sad to discontinue but i feel greedy saying this but i really have learned alot from this hobby and i am glad i got to experience it but here are my fail pics

 

[Engrene4]

idk ill just go at an even slower pace

 

[Engrene4]

i just want to "reset" my tank but other people say dont give up just because something does not go your way and i agree with that but so far the time and energy i have put in this is not worth it and i just need an more efficient way i can i know that this is just a hobby but its the 2nd most expensive hobby i know and in first place is computer building but i want to upgrade my tank sounds like i would not after i said that but i do i am still interested in the hobby im just dissatisfied when i have spent more than a year in this hobby now and i just dont know how to put it i just feel like upgrading because i think then my tank will take off for some reason and its nearing the holidays so i have an excuse to drop around 1000$ on my tank a risky investment but i need help and i would like to take the risk feel free to criticize my choice for i have been feeling this way for around a month now

 

[Engrene4]

haha quarantine amiright well its been a bit and its been a god bit for me i have learned a whole lot of things and then i did not know what to do but now i finally have a plan for what i want to do yes the cyano still exists and all of my snails except for the nassarius died and my leather coral that happened oh well but i guess i have not lost hope for that tank its been a weird month for me it has in November and i realized alot of things but i finally have a clear picture of where i want my tank to go so yeah im going to start turning my tank around starting this weekend where i get some supplies so i can set up a sump and get chemiclean yes i know you dont usually use that as a last resort but i dont care as much anymore and ill scrub cyano off my rocks if i have too i just was too lazy in the past to do it and i have seen some really powerful results for people who have used this but combined with that i will add some beneficial bacteria or that one fritz stuff as that can have really good bacteria in it that can out-compete some nuisances as people say as i am afraid i dont have very good biodiversity but i have a mature tank now well not quite but i have cope pods and micro fauna on the glass and stuff like that so ill update how it is going in a bit

 

[Engrene4]

update: forget everything as my tank has started anew, turns out my salinity was at 1.040. ;Dead but got that fixed and everything is finally going normal, i am finally seeing normal signs in a maturing tank, and i can confidently say i have beat my yearlong battle with cyano. i nuked my tank with chemiclean scrubbed everything did a hard reset and got cleanup crew finally and they survived just turbo snails and a lawnmower blenny. on a side not i got another fish and it is a yellow tailed damsel fish it id still very ski-dish but they are getting better. Also i got a coral other than my gsp i got a clove polyp i need help with id but its not much of an issue i think it is somewhat related to a firework clove polyp,aside from that everything is starting to look up and here is some pics.

 

[Engrene4]

also i almost forgot about parameters
salinity: right between 1.025-26
PH: 8 (will be getting buffer to raise it)
Ammo: 0.25 ppm (performing water change tomorrow)
Nitrite:0
Nitrate:40 ppm (performing water change)
Calc: 360 (getting supplements next time i go to my LFS)
KH: 9 (what should this be at?)
Phos: 0