Rastareefing
New Member
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2020
- Messages
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Hi ;Doctor, My name is Michael, from the UK and I’ve been in the hobby now for about 8 months. This is my first tank (and entry into fishkeeping in general besides helping with water changes as a kid ) and I’ve not killed anything major yet so thought I’d put a post on here.
Attached is a sequential (ish, I think) series of shots of the tank as I’ve added to it over the months in various states of health, the initial shots I was taking with my iPhone and later on got some D+D coral lenses so there’s a disparity in blues, but it gives an idea of growth. The final dozen or so are just some I’ve taken more recently that are there for eye-candy.
Equipment-wise:
Tank: Fluval evo 13.5
Lighting: AI prime 16HD
Skimmer: Fluval PS2
Return pump: Sicce Syncra 1.0
Wavemaker: aqamai KPS
Tank was set up with Caribsea aragonite live sand (most of a bag, I put too much in and unknowingly gave myself a DSB but no real issues as yet) and live rock from my local LFS. Started cycling in early November using some shrimp then monitored levels and cycle was complete about 2 weeks later, continued ghost-feeding for another week to sustain the bacteria and allow levels to stabilise before adding first my two clowns and then some corals.
Testing:
I test regularly (every couple of days for KH/Calc(Red Sea)/Mag(Red Sea)/Phosphates(JBL)) and have done since quite early on. I’ve expanded my testing more recently to the above as well as strontium (salifert), iodine/iodates (salifert), potassium (salifert) and iron (salifert) since I’ve started dosing Red Sea trace elements.
In my experience regular testing is just an inevitable cost of running a nano reef, particularly relevant in my case as I now have 54 separate corals at last count, in a system which (adjusting for displacement) realistically contains about 40ish litres of water.
I was buying pre-mixed saltwater from my LFS up until about a month ago, I’m now mixing my own and decided on tropic Marin bio actif salt. The excellent trace elements in the composition of the salt really helps my tank and the corals have seemed to enjoy the switch. I’d definitely recommend it if it’s within budget, as it can be pricey with a larger system.
Feeding and dosing:
I feed my fish a mix of frozen PE mysis along with frozen “reef feast” which contains a mix of brine, copepods, mysis and some other stuff, I also occasionally feed them Hikari marine S pellets (they absolutely love these) but not often as they’re the devil for phosphates.
The corals get:
Coral essentials amino acids (every other day, effectively half-dose)
Red Sea Reef Energy AB+ (daily, half recommended dose)
Live phytoplankton (recommended dose daily)
Coral feast (small dose twice a week, previously used reef roids but was too heavy on the phosphates and that’s noticeably declined since switching, corals seem to love it)
I do usually toss a bag of live tigger pods in the tank at least once every couple of months to keep their population replenished. The clowns and blenny love to hunt them in the evenings and they keep the substrate clean for me.
I have a load of stomatella snails and colonista snails that are reproducing in my tank on a monthly basis so I haven’t had to replace any of my hermits/snails that have died which is handy, along with using vibrant for a few months (and going back to it every now and then to deal with specific problems ie: GHA or bubble algae) my tank has remained mostly algae-free thanks to my free CUC. I also have a shedload of bristleworms, some small fan-worms on the rock work, a bunch of spirobid snails and a few vermetids here and there. The vermetids haven’t really spread since I think theres a lot of competition for resources in my tank due to my prioritisation of biodiversity and establishing a healthy ecosystem. If they become a nuisance I’ll scrape em off though, but so far no issues bar some minor irritation.
Like most I’ve had a running battle with aiptasia pretty much since the start, I’ve been in a position where I’ve been aiptasia-free for a month or two and then it comes in on the underside of a monti frag or something similar and before I know it I’ve got the syringe out with the aiptasia-x. It does do the job, they’re just incredibly hard to find when they’re young. 
My main adversary so far has been, by far, dinoflagellates. About 3 months in (when I’d stopped being scared to do anything in case I crashed my tank) I decided to use GFO to bring my phosphates down, they were quite high at about 0.2 but I went overboard with the amount of GFO and ended up bottoming-out my phosphates, then in came dinos.
I tried physical removal combined with peroxide dosing first and while the peroxide would control the spread and seemingly be effective, as soon as dosing stopped the dinos would return, it also had the negative effect of wiping out my pod population which I believe was a huge mistake on my part.
I tried a 3-day blackout which seemed to be effective but again, a few days later that hell-snot starts snaking up from my zoas and I feel like bludgeoning myself with my light unit. So I decided to try vibrant, along with dinos I was also seeing a resurgence of my red turf algae and green hair algae, as well as noticing some bubble algae on a frag id recently added, and figured it’d be worth a shot.
I’ll say this now: vibrant is the best tool I’ve found in dealing with nuisance algae. Hands-down, nothing else comes close. It got rid of my red turf algae completely, eradicated my GHA and bubble algae as well as being at least partly responsible for dealing with my dinos, though I think adding live copepods had a role too.
Uhhh what else? My favourite corals so far are my gold hammer, my green frammer, UV pink monti, UV yellow deep-water acro, sonic flare zoas, jack’o’lantern lepto and my orange Yuma. Most of my corals have been sourced from a local coral farm in the Midlands, the rest were from online retailers (can give names in PM but not sure on the rules for advertising retailers and can’t be bothered to check ) and I bought every piece other than that inadvisable murderous green mushroom in the early pictures as the smallest frag I could find (1-2 polyps for zoas etc) which was an intentional choice both due to budget and a desire to watch them grow in the system.
Any questions feel free to ask, I’ll continue to add new pictures and updates here over time.
Attached is a sequential (ish, I think) series of shots of the tank as I’ve added to it over the months in various states of health, the initial shots I was taking with my iPhone and later on got some D+D coral lenses so there’s a disparity in blues, but it gives an idea of growth. The final dozen or so are just some I’ve taken more recently that are there for eye-candy.
Equipment-wise:
Tank: Fluval evo 13.5
Lighting: AI prime 16HD
Skimmer: Fluval PS2
Return pump: Sicce Syncra 1.0
Wavemaker: aqamai KPS
Tank was set up with Caribsea aragonite live sand (most of a bag, I put too much in and unknowingly gave myself a DSB but no real issues as yet) and live rock from my local LFS. Started cycling in early November using some shrimp then monitored levels and cycle was complete about 2 weeks later, continued ghost-feeding for another week to sustain the bacteria and allow levels to stabilise before adding first my two clowns and then some corals.
Testing:
I test regularly (every couple of days for KH/Calc(Red Sea)/Mag(Red Sea)/Phosphates(JBL)) and have done since quite early on. I’ve expanded my testing more recently to the above as well as strontium (salifert), iodine/iodates (salifert), potassium (salifert) and iron (salifert) since I’ve started dosing Red Sea trace elements.
In my experience regular testing is just an inevitable cost of running a nano reef, particularly relevant in my case as I now have 54 separate corals at last count, in a system which (adjusting for displacement) realistically contains about 40ish litres of water.
I was buying pre-mixed saltwater from my LFS up until about a month ago, I’m now mixing my own and decided on tropic Marin bio actif salt. The excellent trace elements in the composition of the salt really helps my tank and the corals have seemed to enjoy the switch. I’d definitely recommend it if it’s within budget, as it can be pricey with a larger system.
Feeding and dosing:
I feed my fish a mix of frozen PE mysis along with frozen “reef feast” which contains a mix of brine, copepods, mysis and some other stuff, I also occasionally feed them Hikari marine S pellets (they absolutely love these) but not often as they’re the devil for phosphates.
The corals get:
Coral essentials amino acids (every other day, effectively half-dose)
Red Sea Reef Energy AB+ (daily, half recommended dose)
Live phytoplankton (recommended dose daily)
Coral feast (small dose twice a week, previously used reef roids but was too heavy on the phosphates and that’s noticeably declined since switching, corals seem to love it)
I do usually toss a bag of live tigger pods in the tank at least once every couple of months to keep their population replenished. The clowns and blenny love to hunt them in the evenings and they keep the substrate clean for me.
I have a load of stomatella snails and colonista snails that are reproducing in my tank on a monthly basis so I haven’t had to replace any of my hermits/snails that have died which is handy, along with using vibrant for a few months (and going back to it every now and then to deal with specific problems ie: GHA or bubble algae) my tank has remained mostly algae-free thanks to my free CUC. I also have a shedload of bristleworms, some small fan-worms on the rock work, a bunch of spirobid snails and a few vermetids here and there. The vermetids haven’t really spread since I think theres a lot of competition for resources in my tank due to my prioritisation of biodiversity and establishing a healthy ecosystem. If they become a nuisance I’ll scrape em off though, but so far no issues bar some minor irritation.
Like most I’ve had a running battle with aiptasia pretty much since the start, I’ve been in a position where I’ve been aiptasia-free for a month or two and then it comes in on the underside of a monti frag or something similar and before I know it I’ve got the syringe out with the aiptasia-x. It does do the job, they’re just incredibly hard to find when they’re young.
My main adversary so far has been, by far, dinoflagellates. About 3 months in (when I’d stopped being scared to do anything in case I crashed my tank) I decided to use GFO to bring my phosphates down, they were quite high at about 0.2 but I went overboard with the amount of GFO and ended up bottoming-out my phosphates, then in came dinos.
I tried physical removal combined with peroxide dosing first and while the peroxide would control the spread and seemingly be effective, as soon as dosing stopped the dinos would return, it also had the negative effect of wiping out my pod population which I believe was a huge mistake on my part.
I tried a 3-day blackout which seemed to be effective but again, a few days later that hell-snot starts snaking up from my zoas and I feel like bludgeoning myself with my light unit. So I decided to try vibrant, along with dinos I was also seeing a resurgence of my red turf algae and green hair algae, as well as noticing some bubble algae on a frag id recently added, and figured it’d be worth a shot.
I’ll say this now: vibrant is the best tool I’ve found in dealing with nuisance algae. Hands-down, nothing else comes close. It got rid of my red turf algae completely, eradicated my GHA and bubble algae as well as being at least partly responsible for dealing with my dinos, though I think adding live copepods had a role too.
Uhhh what else? My favourite corals so far are my gold hammer, my green frammer, UV pink monti, UV yellow deep-water acro, sonic flare zoas, jack’o’lantern lepto and my orange Yuma. Most of my corals have been sourced from a local coral farm in the Midlands, the rest were from online retailers (can give names in PM but not sure on the rules for advertising retailers and can’t be bothered to check
) and I bought every piece other than that inadvisable murderous green mushroom in the early pictures as the smallest frag I could find (1-2 polyps for zoas etc) which was an intentional choice both due to budget and a desire to watch them grow in the system. Any questions feel free to ask, I’ll continue to add new pictures and updates here over time.
