Starting My Reef Tank - April to Date

Eric Lance · Sep 7, 2016

I started construction of this tank in April. In wall below my basement stairwell. It's a 75 gallon with a 20 gallon sump. I have a Bubble Magnus protein skimmer in the sump that I run overnight only. I attached a Ehim canister to the sump that only houses charcoal. I recently added an RO/DI in my utility room and piped it to the sump and connected it to an on-demand pump. I currently have about 50 lbs. of rock and will be adding 20-30 more. I have one Blue and one Green Chromis which I used to start the tank and will be passing them on to another aquarist shortly. I also have a pair of Clowns and a Yellow Tang. I have two small Carpet Anenomes and multiple snails and hermit crabs. Top of my water daily and change 10-20% weekly. I am consistently reading 0 for Nitrate, Nitrite, and Ammonia and pH is steadily at 8.2. Salinity has been steady at 1.023 and I am running the tank and RO/DI resevoir at 78 degrees. I'm in a waiting period now where I will add the rest of my rock next month and let the tank sit for another month and then I may begin to introduce corals. Any feedback, advice, criticisms would be appreciated. It's a work in progress and I am making mistakes as I go.