Badluckmans ~190G

badluckman · Mar 8, 2020

Hello everyone!

Ever since I had to take down my first saltwater tank about 12 years ago I've been wanting to start again, and now that I had a house I had the chance.

I'll try to use this thread as a logbook for the new reef.

Now

Before

Current setup, subject to change. Extra MH is for sure, but 1 or 2?
1x 150w 10k halide
2x Deep Blue 55w T5
2x Reef-Spec Pink 55w T5

The overflow system. 1 main siphon, 1 that takes whatever the siphon does not and an emergy pipe in the middle. Hoping I can get some magrocks to stick to the inside part of the overflow and let it get encrusted by coral. The inner glassbox wasn't supposed to be so big though.

Sump is running 3x filter socks, 2 with floss and 1 with carbon, a skimmer and a main 200W heater in the first chamber. Second chamber is the refugium with a 300W secondary heater and spinning chaeto on for about 10hours/night and it has kept nit and phos at unreadable levels since it was added but it keeps growing so I think nutrients are fine even though they read so low. Third chamber is the return and ATO, going to add a second pump when the budget allows. Lots of stuff to add once the budget allows if I'm to be honest.

**Backstory without pictures**
Before I had this 190g I had an unfortunate situation, hence my username.
I started by pulling out my old 140g tank, hauled it up the stairs and built a stand for it, inspecting for cracks in the seals and bad scrapes etc. I knew I wanted a sump but I didn't dare to drill in the old glass and I chose to go the route of using a HOB overflow to drain the water into a 50g tank in the stand. After being happy with the condition I cleaned my old liverock and ordered some new sand and salt and began the cycling process, added some microbe lift bacterial supplement as well by recommendation of the LFS. Now I noticed pretty much all my old gear was broken in one way or three others. Streamer pumps cavitating to the point of producing microbubbles everywhere and ballasts smelling of smoke to name a few.. Well, no matter. I was ready for broken equipment so I replaced the broken pumps with 2x Tunze 6065, one of my MH ballasts with 4x 55w T5, replaced heaters and bought a new pump for my old Deltec skimmer as well as a new return pump for the sump and got a new RO/DI system. The tank cycled, I added a few chromis and a cleaner shrimp and the ugly phase came and went.

This was now month 4 of the tank and I was beginning to add a few corals and fish to see how they did. Just as everything was going great (rapid growth of the zoas, decent water params, pod population was high and everyone seemed happy) I noticed a small crack in my front glass, and when I looked at the tank from the side the entire front was budging outwards because the brace had rusted loose! I quickly emptied 70% of the water, moved all the coral down on the sandbed and started planning the new tank because I'll be danged if I give up this easy..

Ordered a new 190g euro-braced glass tank with OptiWhite glass on the front and left side, started thinking about different overflow solutions and finally settled on a herbie system on the side of the tank instead of a bottom drilled standard version. I wanted the shadow synergy reef overflow box for the sleek look but it was crazy expensive to get it ordered to Sweden so I figured I'd make one out of glass instead and just let corals encrust over to cover it later on.

The new tank came and the old cracked one was moved out of the way, stand was constructed, overflow boxes siliconed into place and PVC piping done. After a leaktest I moved all of the rocks, sand and living things over to their new home and then just added saltwater gradually until the new tank was full. Somehow that actually worked and all the coral and fish were happy. That was in january 2020 and I've tried to let the tank "settle" during that time without adding any livestock to see if something negative was going to happen because of the move. All I got was a giant diatom/cyano bloom until just a few days ago but now it's clear and the pictures start!

Thanks for reading about my reef in the making and please do say if you see something that's a disaster in the making!

badluckman · Mar 9, 2020

My old liverock lives again! 12 years in the attic dry didn't stop these tubeworms. Awesome!

badluckman · Mar 9, 2020

I've been having some problems with my zoas. It started when the ugly phase after the move came, brown algae was covering most of the tank and I figured the zoas didn't like it all that much when they got covered. I used a turkey baster once or twice every day to remove any algae and give them an easier time to open up but it was rare that they even opened a tiny tiny bit.

Now my algae issues are almost completely gone, but my zoas still haven't opened, except for a few polyps have opened a little bit as you can see above. I read about Coral RX dip and the antibacterial part sounded like it could help, so I tried dipping them twice with a day between while also scrubbing the plugs and polyps with a brush to see if there were any pests, but I couldn't see any come off.

Three polyps actually came loose from this, so I figured I'd try fragging for the first time and went the superglue gel way. I made a terrible shake when attaching it to the rock and glued 2 polyps completely closed. I know I'm a murderer... The survivor is doing better than all other polyps though, so that's a plus.

Hope they come back strong now, not really sure what else I can do. I do 10% weekly waterchanges, maybe I should up that to 20%?

YankeeTankee · Mar 9, 2020

Vackert!

badluckman · Mar 10, 2020

YankeeTankee said:
Vackert!

Tack!

badluckman · Mar 10, 2020

This guys builds. I mean, every day he's carrying pieces of marble that he finds in the sand over to cover this rock more and more.

It was supposed to be a zoa garden, not a sandhill! ;Facepalm

vetteguy53081 · Mar 10, 2020

Glad to see you back and welcome to the R2R community !!

badluckman · Mar 10, 2020

vetteguy53081 said:
Glad to see you back and welcome to the R2R community !!

Thank you! You guys are really good at making newcomers feel welcome here.

badluckman · Mar 10, 2020

More polyps open today, 12 drops Coral RX pro to 1L(0.25g) twice seems to have done the trick.

badluckman · Mar 11, 2020

Today almost all of them are open!
Hoping the other colony makes progress soon too.

badluckman · Mar 12, 2020

Finished building the canopy for the tank today, so now it's only the detailing left.

I'm debating whether to use brown, black or white edges on the wood around the tank as I don't want the edges exposed.
Also left an opening behind the tank as well as below and above to let the airflow and gas exchange do its thing. If our summer temperatures reach the high 30's(88fahrenheit) and I have to think about cooling the tank I have spaces for fans is my thinking.

Zoa colony is also doing much better today, the other one still haven't opened but I can see it's acting like this one did 3 days ago. I'll hold off on doing anything to it for a week to see if it manages to open up.

badluckman · Mar 14, 2020

Today I saw a new polyp, but it has become detached along with another polyp for some reason.
Not really sure what I should do here as I prefer not to stress the colony further by removing it and fragging the loose polyps. Out of carbon at the moment as well so I don't dare to pull them in the tank.

Anyone got any ideas?

badluckman · Mar 17, 2020

I removed the loose zoa polyps and moved them to a rock. They seemed to be doing alright but this morning they were gone. Only the glue was left on the rock so I guess I didn't fasten them good enough. Weird, but I did do the glue part underwater this time so I won't do that in the future.

A good note is that I finally managed to read some nitrate! Only 0.1 but it's something. Still have unreadable phos so I'll keep feeding frozen twice a day on top of pellets and phyto. The Chaeto is growing, albeit very slowly, and the hair algae in the sump is also growing. Haven't been able to see many pods lately and my wrasse has begun swimming by the front glass a lot, almost like he's asking me for something.

Guess I'll have to seed the tank with some more pods to be sure.

badluckman · Mar 18, 2020

I found the polyps! The shrimp molted, maybe to give me a hint to where they were..

Them seem to be doing alright, open and all. Maybe I should just leave them be?
Disregard the green stuff on the back, everything is so clean I feel bad for the CUC if I scrape it off!

badluckman · Mar 22, 2020

Taxreturn is coming!

I've decided to add a controller that can measure the kh/calc/mag in order to save the tank from myself, and during the summers when I'm away working as a fishing guide I want to be able to check up on the tank and take action if needed as it can be a few days between visits. Currently debating what controller to choose.

Apex systems will cost me 23k Swedish. (ApexEL, Trident, DOS, VDM module)
GHL will cost me 23k Swedish. (ProfiLux 4e, KH Director, ION Director)
Focustronic will also be about the same amount when prices are released. (Alkatronic, Mastertronic, Dosetronic)

Leaning towards GHL right now, not gonna lie. German engineering has a reputation after all ;Woot

The zoas are doing good now. I moved the loose polyps to the original rock, and they've opened up nicely. I think it's time to add some more corals to liven up the place, only LPS and softies for now. Never ordered online before, but now with the QT(Human one) set up I'll try my luck

badluckman · Apr 6, 2020

An old colleague from the hospital gave me a nice present yesterday - an old Zeiss microscope from West Germany! It still has some nasty bloodstains and is missing 2 lenses but everything else is working perfect.

Anyone know what kind of lenses one needs to look at all the algae etc?
There's a 10/0.22 and 100/1.25 OeL on a 80x binocular at the moment.

badluckman · Apr 10, 2020

Yesterday I went to pick up some corals from a reefer who had to take down his tank due to a move. There were more than I expected from the initial pictures, and some are really gorgeous. Shame I don't have a proper camera to capture it with. I hope he contacts me when his new tank is up and running so I can give some frags back so he won't lose them. There was some aiptasia and mojano anemones on some pieces but I went over every bit of rock and plug, scrubbed the anemones off and glued the area and I can't see any more of them. If they return I'll get a filefish to handle them I think.

Anyways, time to look at the corals! You're very welcome to help me ID them properly.

I thought this was a mushroom at first, but then it started to puff up as the lights were coming on. Now that I write this it's even more puffed than in the picture.

Duncan, a small head is growing behind the other 2 as well.

Ricordea(?) I think

Ricordea(?) and some pallys

Another Ricordea

Some ricordea and mushrooms. Beautiful rock. My original plan was to frag everything, change all plugs and remove all rock but when I saw how good everything looked as it was I just couldn't do it and scrubbed and glued instead. Wish I had a better camera!

Kenya Tree, a bit darker in color than the other one in the tank.

A bubble coral of some sort, it has a couple of heads and is looking very fancy. There's some GSP growing on the same rock though, and I'm not sure if the bubblecoral wins vs the GSP. I don't want to destroy the rock to get rid of the GSP either so unsure what to do here.

Chalice, there's some growth on the other side of the piece as well. Hasn't colored up much yet but patience is the name of the game right?

Some zoas and a gorgonian, if I remember correct it was some ultra bam bam's, rastas and one more ultra of some kind. They haven't opened up yet though, so we'll have to wait and see what's revealed.

I think this is a Pally as well.

GSP covered rock. Fragging this one and putting the pieces on the overflow box and hiding that big thing. It might look a little unnatural, but still better than clear glass I think.

Going to keep a close eye on them now and see how they thrive while figuring out where in the aquascape they should go. When I bought them he was in the midst of packing already and we were quite quick, so I haven't seen them with fully extended polyps yet and it's amazing to see them waking up now.

badluckman · May 1, 2020

Installed a Tunze Stream 3, and it does a remarkable job of moving water. It's set on tiny tiny pulses of 0-40% causing chaotic flow more or less everywhere in the tank.

I've also added another halide fixture to get less shading and more power. Those sticks are looking more and more inticing.

I've had to step up the dosing as well, by about 400%. ;Woot
The nit/phos being almost undetectable has been annoying though and feeding more just didn't do the trick to raise nit at all. Some of the zoas still haven't really opened up and I blame that on the "clean" water. I've added a Halichoeres Cosmetus and Zebrasoma Scopas to get some more poo. Pic of the wrasse, scopas is camera shy.

I've turned off the skimmer for a few weeks too. It didn't collect anything, and even during cleaning there was hardly anything inside it no matter how I tuned it. Guessing the filter socks did too good a job on the small bioload I had.

New pictures of the coral, now that it's settled in.

The minihead on the duncan didn't make it sadly, the other 2 heads are looking bigger each day though.

The chalice. Unkown which one but the color is starting to emerge.

Fox Coral is the name! Took a ton of searching but I think that's correct?

Hoping this fuzzy tree will grow towards the light and not the left.

Still unknown.

A little bit of warfare here I think?

I banished my kenya trees to the sump as I was unsure which tree is the crazy invasive one - they're still extending polyps and being happy down there under the T5 so I'm in no hurry to get rid of them either. Thinking of swapping the palys with the LFS too as I'm not too keen on palythoa in the tank with my carelessness.