Just past the six month mark on the new tank. Ups and downs for sure and don’t remember a lot of the issues I’ve gone through on previous tanks.
All smooth sailing for months 1-3 but then hit a rash of Dinos. Nutrients were bottomed out so pretty sure that was the cause. Fought those for the good portion of month 4-5 and they started to taper off. Still small traces here and there but nothing like it was at the onset. Lost a few corals during this period and nutrients were really hard to get to a stable level. Took tons of dosing of NO3 and PO4 to get levels detectable and UV, phyto and pods really helped I think kick the Dinos in the nuts a bit.
After the Dino’s came GHA. Been fighting that back and the tank has started to stabilize a bit without huge issues. Added some additional power heads to the tank to address dead spots and that’s helped a lot to prevent detritus from settling in certain locations where the GHA algae seemed to want to go crazy.
Also lost a few fish which really sucked… In the past I’ve never run into issues with my tanks and having to QT but going through this new tank I really regret not going through a QT process on all new additions. Debated pulling the rest of the fish to go fallow but honestly just didn’t think I’d be successful pulling the remaining fish and not stressing and killing them in that process. Going to go the management route instead and so far all remaining fish are seem super happy and healthy.
In the past I always used live rock and had a sand bed and thinking it’s really the use of dry rock and going bare bottom has caused a lot of the issues on these beginning stages. The bare bottom I love so far though and took a while to get used to but really happy I went that route.
Super happy with the tank and progression this past month or so and it’s starting to really become more stable and can’t wait to see where it’s at in another six months.
Just wanted to share the ups and downs of the new tank. If anyone new is reading and setting up a tank my recommendations from this past six months would be slow down, make sure you pay attention to nutrients and QT all additions to the tank. I feel like I’ve rushed things and the more I’ve slowed down and focused on not changing things so rapidly it’s really I think helped.
Happy Reefing!
