Started reefing a couple years ago. Have gotten so much great input from forums and posts and am happy to finally "join" R2R.
Transformed my 120 gallon discus tank into a bare bottom salt water reef tank when I moved those discus to a new 300 gallon planted setup. didn't know what to do with the old 120 so my buddy at the LFS suggested trying salt water (he new I'd get addicted). So I cleaned it and filled it with straight conditioned tap water and threw some basic marine salt in and cycled it with one 7 pound live rock and a clown fish. after a month I put in a frog spawn and watched. added some Coraline from the LFS tank. added more rock and a few more soft corals. Ran it with two fluvial 406 canister filters, two aqueon powerheads on timers, in line heaters, a 25 watt UV and 4 T5HO 54 watt fluorescents. Also had the advantage of having an apex already. Over time, I added more and more and more and more....of course I got addicted. Every further top off and water change was with RODI. I checked parameters incessantly and loved understanding the chemistry. I added a HOB skimmer eventually. More fish. more coral. both soft and LPS. Added sand to the system eventually. Then after a year got into SPS. Added several radions. Added more wave makers. added a bubble magus doser. added a refugium. I had to add a chiller cause I live in the San Fernando valley in California - hot summers. Things got good. Tons of good growth and lovely color...until things changed. and the change happened because I started messing with the tank. I got some tainted corals and never had a good dipping or quarantine regimen so I introduced both Monti eating nudibranchs and AEFW!!! dang. while trying to figure out how to deal with that, I started feeding the corals aminos and that worked great for growth and color but of course didn't help my diseases. but I ran out of aminos one day, and I stopped dosing for a few days. at the same time, I took a suggestion and stopped feeding my fish. The idea was the wrasses were supposed to eat flatworms and nudis so if I didn't feed them, they were supposed to take care of the infestation. stopping aminos and not feeding the fish for maybe 5-6 days. That of course was a problem...started to have some recession and some RTN. thought it was the AEFW but couldn't really tell. I had a sea cucumber get caught in my power head and die - thought it would contaminate the tank so after two years of never having carbon in the system, I ran carbon...oh boy. The PAR must have increased overnight on me without ever realizing. That accelerated things and I started losing corals. Burning tips. Trying to research and figure out what was going on with this really stable system I had for about two years. Since, I have been on a crazy road to recovery. lost some of my favorite and fastest growing corals. Ended up clipping and dipping all SPS in Bayer and putting them on frag racks on the side of my tank. I have been able to save a lot of them but I also lost quite a bit.
I learned many lessons including the need for dipping and quarantining, both fish and corals. I understand stability and leaving things as much alone as possible. Things have stabilized now and SPS are starting to encrust again. I certainly had many times where I wondered if this is something I wanted to continue...the answer of course is YES!!
I am now in the middle of building a new system in my wall. a 240g DT with a 100g display fuge above it and this time, with a nice sump. I have a fish room plumbed with water and a drain behind the system and plan on transferring corals to the new tank once it is cycled and ready. I an NOT in a rush. My goals now are to have a stable, sterile system with attention to not introducing any pests into the system. I did not mention that over the couple years, I had everything from aiptasia to bristle worms to vermitid snails to asternina stars to green death palys which have completely overgrown some of the LPS and SPS. I have BTA which have multiplied to 10 (have 5 left after trading some back in) but have killed their share of corals. I have tried bhergia, peppermint shrimps, aitpasia eating types of fish, apitasia X and my bare hands but have lost the battles. I have tried to rip out the palys many times, only to likely have introduced paly toxin into the tank seeing tissue recession of some corals over the ensuing couple of days (don't really know it caused anything but I was really suspicious). I have lost several rounds of acanthrus tangs to ich and infected the whole tank leaving it fishless for several months while treating them in a hospital tank. Oh yeah, I have added my share of fish which were questionable reef safe and turned out to eat LPS including a Vlamingi tang, a pyramid butterfly, a silver scat (to eat aiptasia). Had to trap them all and take them out. The worst offender was a Red Sea CLEANER WRASSE!!! that sucker just went around the entire tank and just stuffed his face full of my SPS polyps and seemed to laugh at me while I tried to catch him. my buddy and I had to tear down the entire tank just to catch it!! It was a horrible mistake.
I know it is a pipe dream to have a tank that is sterile and pest free but believe me, I will do anything and everything I can to try. I have a quarantine tank going now which I will put my clipped SPS tips (will clip them again off their current plugs) in and watch them for probably 2-3 months before ever going into the new tank. NOTHING from the 120 otherwise will go into or come close to the quarantine tank or the DT. No equipment. No water or rocks. None of the fish will go into the tank. I'll start with real reef rock and cycle it in the tank. I will quarantine all fish and corals. Ill buy only clean Coraline and cheato and place it in my quarantine tank to make sure it is truly sterile. I want to quarantine clean up crew and inverts - still have to figure that out - Maybe there are sources of clean and quarantined inverts on line which I can then watch myself. I have a nice UV system on the tank. still have so many more questions and will check out posts and likely post some questions in the future.
sorry for the long post but I needed to vent ;-)
Oren
Transformed my 120 gallon discus tank into a bare bottom salt water reef tank when I moved those discus to a new 300 gallon planted setup. didn't know what to do with the old 120 so my buddy at the LFS suggested trying salt water (he new I'd get addicted). So I cleaned it and filled it with straight conditioned tap water and threw some basic marine salt in and cycled it with one 7 pound live rock and a clown fish. after a month I put in a frog spawn and watched. added some Coraline from the LFS tank. added more rock and a few more soft corals. Ran it with two fluvial 406 canister filters, two aqueon powerheads on timers, in line heaters, a 25 watt UV and 4 T5HO 54 watt fluorescents. Also had the advantage of having an apex already. Over time, I added more and more and more and more....of course I got addicted. Every further top off and water change was with RODI. I checked parameters incessantly and loved understanding the chemistry. I added a HOB skimmer eventually. More fish. more coral. both soft and LPS. Added sand to the system eventually. Then after a year got into SPS. Added several radions. Added more wave makers. added a bubble magus doser. added a refugium. I had to add a chiller cause I live in the San Fernando valley in California - hot summers. Things got good. Tons of good growth and lovely color...until things changed. and the change happened because I started messing with the tank. I got some tainted corals and never had a good dipping or quarantine regimen so I introduced both Monti eating nudibranchs and AEFW!!! dang. while trying to figure out how to deal with that, I started feeding the corals aminos and that worked great for growth and color but of course didn't help my diseases. but I ran out of aminos one day, and I stopped dosing for a few days. at the same time, I took a suggestion and stopped feeding my fish. The idea was the wrasses were supposed to eat flatworms and nudis so if I didn't feed them, they were supposed to take care of the infestation. stopping aminos and not feeding the fish for maybe 5-6 days. That of course was a problem...started to have some recession and some RTN. thought it was the AEFW but couldn't really tell. I had a sea cucumber get caught in my power head and die - thought it would contaminate the tank so after two years of never having carbon in the system, I ran carbon...oh boy. The PAR must have increased overnight on me without ever realizing. That accelerated things and I started losing corals. Burning tips. Trying to research and figure out what was going on with this really stable system I had for about two years. Since, I have been on a crazy road to recovery. lost some of my favorite and fastest growing corals. Ended up clipping and dipping all SPS in Bayer and putting them on frag racks on the side of my tank. I have been able to save a lot of them but I also lost quite a bit.
I learned many lessons including the need for dipping and quarantining, both fish and corals. I understand stability and leaving things as much alone as possible. Things have stabilized now and SPS are starting to encrust again. I certainly had many times where I wondered if this is something I wanted to continue...the answer of course is YES!!
I am now in the middle of building a new system in my wall. a 240g DT with a 100g display fuge above it and this time, with a nice sump. I have a fish room plumbed with water and a drain behind the system and plan on transferring corals to the new tank once it is cycled and ready. I an NOT in a rush. My goals now are to have a stable, sterile system with attention to not introducing any pests into the system. I did not mention that over the couple years, I had everything from aiptasia to bristle worms to vermitid snails to asternina stars to green death palys which have completely overgrown some of the LPS and SPS. I have BTA which have multiplied to 10 (have 5 left after trading some back in) but have killed their share of corals. I have tried bhergia, peppermint shrimps, aitpasia eating types of fish, apitasia X and my bare hands but have lost the battles. I have tried to rip out the palys many times, only to likely have introduced paly toxin into the tank seeing tissue recession of some corals over the ensuing couple of days (don't really know it caused anything but I was really suspicious). I have lost several rounds of acanthrus tangs to ich and infected the whole tank leaving it fishless for several months while treating them in a hospital tank. Oh yeah, I have added my share of fish which were questionable reef safe and turned out to eat LPS including a Vlamingi tang, a pyramid butterfly, a silver scat (to eat aiptasia). Had to trap them all and take them out. The worst offender was a Red Sea CLEANER WRASSE!!! that sucker just went around the entire tank and just stuffed his face full of my SPS polyps and seemed to laugh at me while I tried to catch him. my buddy and I had to tear down the entire tank just to catch it!! It was a horrible mistake.
I know it is a pipe dream to have a tank that is sterile and pest free but believe me, I will do anything and everything I can to try. I have a quarantine tank going now which I will put my clipped SPS tips (will clip them again off their current plugs) in and watch them for probably 2-3 months before ever going into the new tank. NOTHING from the 120 otherwise will go into or come close to the quarantine tank or the DT. No equipment. No water or rocks. None of the fish will go into the tank. I'll start with real reef rock and cycle it in the tank. I will quarantine all fish and corals. Ill buy only clean Coraline and cheato and place it in my quarantine tank to make sure it is truly sterile. I want to quarantine clean up crew and inverts - still have to figure that out - Maybe there are sources of clean and quarantined inverts on line which I can then watch myself. I have a nice UV system on the tank. still have so many more questions and will check out posts and likely post some questions in the future.
sorry for the long post but I needed to vent ;-)
Oren
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