First Reef

Reefing_Engineer · Apr 11, 2020

I’m starting a reef tank soon in my college apartment, it’s an old tank I had set up as a kid but now I’m coming at it with much more experience, here’s the old tank
Salinity - 0
Alk - 0
Cal - 0
PO4 - 0

Neoalchemist · Apr 11, 2020

Cool tank. Welcome to r2r!

Reefing_Engineer · Jul 21, 2020

Update on the tank! I moved into my new apartment and have finally set it up!! I’ve been curing the rock for over a month and will put it in the tank hopefully tomorrow

I just finished building the PVC overflow and also putting a new divider in my homemade sump! Everything seems to be going well! Any tips for someone in this stage?

Reefing_Engineer · Aug 12, 2020

It’s been a month since I put water in the tank and cycling is going well! Ammonia, Nitite, and Phosphates are all 0 and nitrate is increasing steadily! Added a scarlet hermit crab and a nassarius snail recently and still haven’t seen any algae yet, which kind of concerns me.. in freshwater I heard if there’s algae then that means your tank can support life but I’m not seeing any in my saltwater and I don’t think it’s a bad thing!

I’ll try out my new filters for a full tank shot tonight!

Reefing_Engineer · Aug 18, 2020

Here’s the full tank and sump! Just realized that my heater wasn’t plugged in so the tank was running a little lower on temperature but the critters seemed to bounce back and are way more active now! I need to get my controller up and running so I can prevent that kind of thing!

Reefing_Engineer · Aug 30, 2020

First corals have been added! Got a deal on a large GSP rock and that’s most of the purple in the tank and sump! Contacted my LFS and they said they would take the extras since I don’t really want a GSP only tank also the mushroom came from Wet Pets by Steve in Norman, and has gone from half green to full green! I’m loving it and planning on getting my fish in there next!

gabrieltackitt · Aug 30, 2020

Looking good! Nice to see another reefer from Oklahoma on here.

vetteguy53081 · Aug 30, 2020

Always liked cylinder tanks !

Reefing_Engineer · Sep 12, 2020

Fish troubles have stricken my tank... it was a rough last week as I lost two baby black oscilaris. I made another thread and found the most likely culprit was SG difference, but still sad to lose two fish. (and the money I spent on them!) On the upside I have one baby oscilaris that survives named pumpkin, and I’ll have to get a better pic sometime, the orange is stunning on this clown! I also got two polyps of ricordia and they look awesome and I love the new color variety to my tank. Very excited for what’s is to come!

Reefing_Engineer · Oct 10, 2020

There is now some new inhabits to the tank, I added a cleaner shrimp maple and some random zoas I got for cheap and a kryptonite candy cane I got for $5! My first mushroom and gsp have been really mad lately, and I accidentally had an alk spike to 24 luckily I got it down pretty quickly but who knows how badly that messed with them! Also I just received a fan controller I hope to use to dim my power head, I know it’s uncommon for gsp to have too much flow, but only the side of the rock facing away from the power head is opening so I think I need to cut it back just a little!! Other than that things are going well as we hit about the fifth month of my reefing! Lately I’ve been learning the importance of leave it alone it will be okay and controlling my knee jerk reactions such as freaking out when my new shrimp molts and thinking they are dead when I really just needed to give it some time to heal up to come back out.. Other than that I’m excited for what us to come!

Reefing_Engineer · Nov 28, 2020

We are almost to 6 months with my tank! Some sad things recently, my clownfish autumn went carpet surfing and my Florida ricordia mushrooms floated away then died because there wasn’t enough flow in the container I put them in to reattach to! it was really sad to see two things die because of my lack of knowledge or care or willingness to spend some extra money. But these things will never happen again because now I know better!
On the bright side my zoas have finally started to open and stay open, my mushroom on the brink of extinction is slowly opening as I slowly acclimate it to the lights, and my frgspawn is growing babies! The tank has some gha but nothing too crazy, just maintaining and saving up to start my zoa garden!! Very excited for that to happen!

Reefing_Engineer · Apr 16, 2021

We are at 9 months of the first reef and it is looking better than ever! Still battling GHA but I feel like it’s getting better everything is stable and one of my mystery corals I got (some type of SPS) it’s encrusting super fast! I can’t wait to see my growth from that one! Hannah is doing a giveaway so here are my parameters from last weeks test