Our first reef tank. 65g

[Rennurdoar]

I think it is beautiful! I've not seen this one before.

Thanks! It's a yellow finger gorgonian! I love how it looks when all it's polyps are out!

 

[Rennurdoar]

Not a coral, but had to go get some more fish food, phytoplankton, and some copepods. While there, my LFS had the really pretty mandarin dragonet! He's already swimming around eating other pods I've already had established. Hopefully he does well, been wanting one for a while! Just had been prepping the tank beforehand.

 

[Rennurdoar]

Our new Blue Mandrian Dragonet


We picked this little guy up on Monday. He had been staying mainly in a cave since he was put in the tank. I could see him eating pods inside the cave and doing well. Today I looked over and he decided to come out for a little while and get some pods! Just a very pretty fish in my opinion. My FIL picked him up for me as an early gift, he jokingly said we should name him Christmas Joy. I said, ok, we'll call him C.J for short, and that's his name haha.

 

[KQuillan]

Your tank is beautiful! Inspiration for my next one

 

[Rennurdoar]

Your tank is beautiful! Inspiration for my next one

Hey, thanks so much for that! That helps me talk the Fiancé into a bigger tank ! (Eyeing a 180 currently!)

We put a lot of thought into how we'd like the aquascape to look. And with each new coral, and all the colors it's really starting to come to life. I have some new corals I just got on @SBB Corals live sale. I can't wait until they get here!

Pictures added: 12/13

 

[Rennurdoar]

Upgraded our lights on the tank to a Aquaticlife 24" T5HO Hybrid assembly. Got a great deal on it. Have to fix one of the mountings on the one 16HD, but other than that it's great! Moved the HOB Skimmer to the back of the tank instead of the side, and dropped off one of the return filter units. Used the fixed prime HD mounts to mount the Aquaticlife fixture. Works great! I can raise it from 6" above the water to about 13" I think. I have it about 7-8" from the top of the water to the T5's.

Definitely brighter, and we do like the look of it a lot better! Can't wait to start seeing some better growth! Hoping it's enough light for my acros now. I thought they were doing well since I would always see PE and more PE in the evenings. But they all always were a reddish-brown color. I didn't realize until reading/researching more that it meant they most likely weren't getting enough light. We'll see if I have some color on them in a few days to a week.

Water parameters today were:

PH - 8.5
Calc - 440
Sal - 1.026
Mag - 1420
Alk -13 DKH - Higher than I'd like so hopefully it comes down some after next WC.
Nitrates - 10ppm
Phos - 0.1-0.1?

I need to get another Phos test instead of the API. API shows briefly maybe a color for .25 as it's first shaken, then is clear after it settles a couple seconds. Just started using benepets so I'm just assuming my Phos is good until I notice something. I'll get a better Phos test this week though.

All the fish and corals other than the acros with the above issue, are doing great! Our new Mandarin Dragonet is doing great also. He's been swimming from side to side of the tank, and still eating pods around the tank. I also picked up a brine shrimp hatchery and put about 12" droppers worth 2 or 3 times a day into the tank of the baby brine shrimp that's hatched. Right now I feed 3/4's of a cube of frozen omega enriched brine shrimp twice a day. Then I'll put in maybe a 1/4 teaspoon of reef nutrition artic pods at the same time (twice a day).

Water stays very clear so I'm happy about that. Starting to see a little GHA, but then one of my 3 emerald crabs find it and it's gone lol.

 

[Rennurdoar]

I noticed aiptasia anemone on our green and purple tip hammer/frammer. It was just starting to grow out of the bottom of the skeleton where it was glued to the frag plug. I read not to try and kill it in the display, so I mixed up some Revive dip that I use. Then took my bone cutters and cut the frag right above where the aiptasia was, mainly glue. Then cut the skeleton a little on the edges and bottom to clean it up. Then glued it in place in the DT. Hopefully that was enough to catch it before it spread any. We haven't seen any others, so I think it came in on the frag. It was before I started dipping, but not sure if a dip would have killed it either way.

Just a quick update, tank is still doing well. Hoping the new lights help with growth and health of the sps corals!

 

[Rennurdoar]

Got our corals in from @SBB Corals today! Here's a quick shot of them in the tank! Can't wait to see them grow!

 

[ShepherdReefer]

Love'n it; great job.

 

[Rennurdoar]

Love'n it; great job.

Thanks! I'm monitoring all my parameters every morning. Glad to have some time off of work during the holidays. Really helps maintaining everything. Every few weeks I add in more copepods, dose daily with oceanmagik photo from algeabarn. Using PNS Yellow SNO and PNS ProBio, dosing those in the evening on alternating schedules. Dosing benepets twice a week in the evenings also.

Got an Apex A3 Pro during black Friday, so enjoy watching everything on it currently. Don't have the Trident yet, but hoping to get it soon! Mainly for monitoring consistency, I've read their numbers can be off sometimes.

 

[Rennurdoar]

Well, unfortunately this is a sad update! Everything was going fine, checked on the tank yesterday morning before leaving to take my Mother in law to her Oncologist appointment. When we got back 4 hours later, the tank had crashed.

I'm assuming it was a faulty wavemaker. When I reached in the tank I got a very unpleasant jolt. I'm putting this down as stray voltage. Unfortunately, all the great SPS I just received in, and the ones in the tank all RTN'd over that 4-hour period. It also caused all my LPS to retract and stress slime.

I did an immediate 50% water change (maybe too much but was worried and hadn't found the wave maker issue until after the change)

This morning my LPS are extending some, at least not all shrunken into the skeleton like yesterday. My gorrilla punch and bubble bee coral, may make it as they still have their tissue. fingers crossed. Here's a couple quick pictures from yesterday when I got home

And here's the parameters I had before doing a 50% WC

Sal - 1.0267 (TM Hydrometer)
Am - 0 (Salifert test)
Phos - 0.0 (api.... Waiting on Hannah checker to get in)
Nitrate - 5 (red sea)
Temp - 77.5 (apex)
Ph - 8.12 (apex)
Cal - 400
Alk - 9
Mag - 1420
Orp - 195

 

[XtraKargo]

Well, unfortunately this is a sad update! Everything was going fine, checked on the tank yesterday morning before leaving to take my Mother in law to her Oncologist appointment. When we got back 4 hours later, the tank had crashed.

I'm assuming it was a faulty wavemaker. When I reached in the tank I got a very unpleasant jolt. I'm putting this down as stray voltage. Unfortunately, all the great SPS I just received in, and the ones in the tank all RTN'd over that 4-hour period. It also caused all my LPS to retract and stress slime.

I did an immediate 50% water change (maybe too much but was worried and hadn't found the wave maker issue until after the change)

This morning my LPS are extending some, at least not all shrunken into the skeleton like yesterday. My gorrilla punch and bubble bee coral, may make it as they still have their tissue. fingers crossed. Here's a couple quick pictures from yesterday when I got home

And here's the parameters I had before doing a 50% WC

Sal - 1.0267 (TM Hydrometer)
Am - 0 (Salifert test)
Phos - 0.0 (api.... Waiting on Hannah checker to get in)
Nitrate - 5 (red sea)
Temp - 77.5 (apex)
Ph - 8.12 (apex)
Cal - 400
Alk - 9
Mag - 1420
Orp - 195

My uncle had a crash recently too with his 90 gal. All his SPS were gone as well. Good luck with everything.

 

[nuxx Verified Sponsor]

Awww that's too bad

 

[Rennurdoar]

So just an update... Most of everything is still staying closed up for the most part. Some extension, but not a lot. One stylo is the only sps so far that is still holding on. It'll PE a little, then close up, then PE then close up again. I figure they're all still stressed. All torches are all still closed up for the most part. not completely retracted, but look about like they just came in from shipping...

All fish are still fine, haven't seen anything that has me alarmed there. None of my trochus snails are moving yet. Still debating if they're alive or stunned. I did another WC this morning, just because I over think things... Just another 5g.
All the parameters are still looking good. I broke my TM Hydrometer on top of it all... So that's nice. I also cleaned out and emptied the water from my canister filter. Regret that a little, but that was part of the 5g in the water change. Only regret it a little because all the copepods I saw twitching around on the bottom after I poured all the water out...

I didn't rinse the container, just the media with RODI quickly and put it back under and got tank water in it. I hopefully didn't annihilate the pods that had made it their home... Will only take out the media trays from now on like I had been on a monthly basis. Maybe 2 months as they still haven't been very dirty.

The main reason for the update is I was curious if I had any stray voltage still in the tank. I got out my Fluke multimeter and checked the tank water to ground, 1.12 volts. So that's good. Then I got even more curious and filled my 5-gallon bucket up, put the bad wave maker in the bottom and checked to see how much stray voltage it was giving off, since we know it was bad now. Yup, it sure was giving off some stray voltage, to the amount of 29.32 volts to ground...

So now I'm convinced that's what caused all my issues within those few hours of being gone. I'm surprised everything in the tank didn't die. I'm grateful for the fact the fish are fine, crabs seem fine, cleaner shrimp. Just holding out hope now for all the rest of the corals. Oh, and a gorilla punch I got from SBB is still holding on, so I guess 2 SPS have held on so far.

 

[Struansmochkins]

Hey, good job nailing down the root cause there. I hope things get back on track fast with your tank.

 

[Rennurdoar]

Put this in my emergency thread but thought I should add it here also.

Here's the painful list of what was lost with the stray voltage so far:

SBB "Creature" Milli Huge 3+ Chunky Branch XXL
SBB " Cherry Unicorn" Large
SBB " After Burner" XXL Chunky
SBB " Bumble Bee" XL Multi branch
SBB " King Kong" No Colored Huge multi
SBB " Sour Patch Kids" New Release XXL 5+ branches
WWC Green Duncan
WWC Striptease Acropora
WWC Blue Stylophora
WWC Paletta Tricolor Acropora
WWC Juicy Fruit Pipe Organ
WWC Fireworks Clove Polyps
Jason Fox Fairy Tales Zoanthids
Princess Favia
TSA Northern Lights Lepto
WWC Jingle Bells Cyphastrea
Watermelon Psammy
No name Milli from my local LFS

Edit 12/23:
5 Trochus Snails
3 Emerald crabs
Yellow finger gorgonian
SBB Gorilla Punch
WWC Kenya Tree
End of Edit

That's it so far, hopefully everything else makes it. I have the Northern Lights Lepto still in, seeing if it comes back. No polyps visible so far, but it's not skeleton white so we'll see. Also worth noting, that all those were also on the side of the faulty wave maker mostly...

Hopefully in the next couple of days everything starts recovering better.

 

[Rennurdoar]

Well, we're adding in the 5 Trochus snails now as being lost also. I pulled them out of the tank this morning after they still hadn't moved. Sniff test was pretty potent. Doesn't look like any have started to decompose yet, ammonia still showing 0 as well.

Just in case I have them in a small 1-gallon tank with tank water. All but one is exposed with their foot? mouth? out of their shells. Only one is still retracted into the shell. But I think they're all done for unfortunately. They all had a good 1/4" of new shell growth since they had been in the tank also. Going to give the tank another few days, then I'll get some more Trochus snails to replace those.

 

[Rennurdoar]

Had some great PE on our trumpet coral this morning. Small promises make big impacts on my hopefulness lol

 

[anthonygf]

Well, unfortunately this is a sad update! Everything was going fine, checked on the tank yesterday morning before leaving to take my Mother in law to her Oncologist appointment. When we got back 4 hours later, the tank had crashed.

I'm assuming it was a faulty wavemaker. When I reached in the tank I got a very unpleasant jolt. I'm putting this down as stray voltage. Unfortunately, all the great SPS I just received in, and the ones in the tank all RTN'd over that 4-hour period. It also caused all my LPS to retract and stress slime.

I did an immediate 50% water change (maybe too much but was worried and hadn't found the wave maker issue until after the change)

This morning my LPS are extending some, at least not all shrunken into the skeleton like yesterday. My gorrilla punch and bubble bee coral, may make it as they still have their tissue. fingers crossed. Here's a couple quick pictures from yesterday when I got home

And here's the parameters I had before doing a 50% WC

Sal - 1.0267 (TM Hydrometer)
Am - 0 (Salifert test)
Phos - 0.0 (api.... Waiting on Hannah checker to get in)
Nitrate - 5 (red sea)
Temp - 77.5 (apex)
Ph - 8.12 (apex)
Cal - 400
Alk - 9
Mag - 1420
Orp - 195

So sorry for your loss! I know how it feels, like loosing a loved pet. I hope some corals make it for you and glad you didn't get electrocuted. If you were standing on a wet floor could have been very bad. Hope you have your tank and water grounded now for your safety.

 

[Rennurdoar]

Just a quick update. Everything is getting back to normal, except our ultra indo branching hammer and our Incredible hulk torch. Both of those are staying receded still during the day, the torch more today than other days. The hammer has stayed receded since it happened, although when the lights are out it seems to expand some. The other torches and hammers are expanding well. The big bird hammers have been fully out the last two days. Our green and purple tip frammer no name we got from the LFS, one of our first is also expanding more and more daily.

The Ultra Nicks and Ultra Gold are both having good expansion. The no name torch, purple with green tips, has been expanding more and more each day. Still pretty receded compared to before, but better than into the skeleton! My trumpet coral, acans, candy can, zoa, gonis are all doing great also. Fish are still all doing amazing. Also, couldn't help myself this afternoon. The boy and I went to the LFS to get copepods and photoplankton while I wait for my next order from algaebarn. Well, they of course had sales going and had a 1 1/4" Bristletooth Tomini Tang on sale.

I had been wanting to get one but knew our 65-gallon would be too small in the long run. So hadn't picked one up. But today our 13yr old saw him and wanted him also. So, I gave in, I mean I was able to get him for $40! Also picked up 3 more emerald crabs and 5 trochus snails to replace the ones that died during the stray voltage event.

But I mainly gave in on the tang because I also got the go ahead to upgrade the tank size. So, we'll be getting a 90-150-gallon tank in the near future! Will probably settle on a 125-gallon as I've found a couple decent deals on some already.

Here's some pictures of the tank from today. Sorry on the bad pictures, been pretty busy also with company lol