Ok, so I’m starting my build thread, albeit a few months later than I would have liked but here we are! Im also including a brief snippet on my introduction to the hobby because I’m always so curious how everyone got here so if anyone reads this and has the same curiosity then I did my part. 
A friend of mine heads up a coral research facility and took me on a tour last September (2022) and as I left she gave me a vial of some tiny little Cassiopeia jelly fish, that were going to be disposed of, so I could see them up close. When I left I decided to find a LFS where I could get a tiny little aquarium to keep them for a few days just to have some fun.
During that LFS visit I met an employee who showed me around their saltwater fish/coral/tank section and then sort of playfully offered to install a beautiful system in my house. I paused, smirked, and called his bluff - telling him to put together a proposal. And so, on a whim, it began…
As an avid scuba diver this hobby is a natural progression of my love for all things saltwater. So I was incredibly excited when the tank was installed in November of 2022 and what an exquisite ride it’s been ever since! I’ve spent countless hours researching all aspects of the hobby and trying to get myself somewhere respectable with my level of knowledge of the husbandry of the beautiful creatures I’ve taken into my care. I owe it to them to know what the heck I’m doing. So now I’ll document this journey, and although I started nearly 10 months ago, I’ll backtrack for the sake of tracking progress and milestones. If anyone happens to come across this thread and can offer any wisdom or advice it would be appreciated more than you know.
Unfortunately all of the pictures are current, aside from the first shot showing the bare aquascape with anemone and clowns. I so wish I had taken pictures of all the coral I’ve had for months, when I first placed them in the tank. It would have been nice to document their growth, but I’m adding pictures now to document future growth (fingers crossed).
So here goes…
TANK
FISH
INVERTS
CORAL
DOSING
I read a thread that included missteps. I thought that was brilliant and real so I’m including (just a few) of mine. Also I’m adding things that just didn’t work.
THE NOT SO GOOD (as another poster put it)
And there it is! As I said in another post, this hobby is the perfect intersection of beauty, hard work, research, discovery and reward. I’m heading all the way down the rabbit hole!
A friend of mine heads up a coral research facility and took me on a tour last September (2022) and as I left she gave me a vial of some tiny little Cassiopeia jelly fish, that were going to be disposed of, so I could see them up close. When I left I decided to find a LFS where I could get a tiny little aquarium to keep them for a few days just to have some fun.
During that LFS visit I met an employee who showed me around their saltwater fish/coral/tank section and then sort of playfully offered to install a beautiful system in my house. I paused, smirked, and called his bluff - telling him to put together a proposal. And so, on a whim, it began…
As an avid scuba diver this hobby is a natural progression of my love for all things saltwater. So I was incredibly excited when the tank was installed in November of 2022 and what an exquisite ride it’s been ever since! I’ve spent countless hours researching all aspects of the hobby and trying to get myself somewhere respectable with my level of knowledge of the husbandry of the beautiful creatures I’ve taken into my care. I owe it to them to know what the heck I’m doing. So now I’ll document this journey, and although I started nearly 10 months ago, I’ll backtrack for the sake of tracking progress and milestones. If anyone happens to come across this thread and can offer any wisdom or advice it would be appreciated more than you know.
Unfortunately all of the pictures are current, aside from the first shot showing the bare aquascape with anemone and clowns. I so wish I had taken pictures of all the coral I’ve had for months, when I first placed them in the tank. It would have been nice to document their growth, but I’m adding pictures now to document future growth (fingers crossed).
So here goes…
TANK
- Red Sea 425 XL Gen 2 w stand
- 24 gallon sump
- 2x Radion XR30 LED lights
- Red Sea reefmat 500
- Red Sea 300 Protein skimmer
- Neptune Cor20 return pump
- 2x Red Sea Reef Wave
- A3 Apex Pro
- Apex Trident water analyzer
- Apex supplement doser
- RODI water filter system
- Carbon & GFO reactor
- Apex leak detection
- Apex auto feeder (never gets used)
- Neptune Gro refugium light
- 300w Eheim Jager heater
- CoribSea Arag alive Fiji pink
- 100+lbs CaribSea Life Rock
FISH
- 2x storm clown
- 1 mandarin dragonet, female
- 1 tiny juvenile Biota mandarin dragonet, female (was in acclimation box destined for other tank but escaped - so far she is alive and well)
- 1 ruby red dragonet
- 1 yelllow watchmen goby (he has 2 pistols)
- 1 blue damsel
- 1 coral beauty angelfish
- 1 tail spot blenny
INVERTS
- 2x scarlet skunk shrimp
- 2x fire shrimp
- 8x sexy shrimp
- 1 banded coral shrimp
- 4x peppermint shrimp
- 1 Purple short spine pincushion urchin
- 4x tuxedo urchin
- Massive CUC including various snails, hermits, emeralds, pithos, etc
CORAL
- 5x Palarsky rainbow bubble tip anemone
- Green polyp toadstool leather
- Blue mushroom coral
- Zoanthids (several different colonies)
- Pipe organ coral (wish I never added these!)
- Orange Florida Ricordea mushroom Coral
- Green Yuma Ricordea mushroom Coral
- Moon polyps palythoa
- 3 x various Hammer coral
- Frogspawn
- red people eater palythoa
- Red disco mushroom
- Twizzler zoanthid
- Green Sinularía leather
- 3x Acan lord
- Orange Yuma Ricordea
- Long tentacle green goniopora
- Pink Goniopora
- Red Goniopora
- Short tentacle green Goniopora
- Yellow Birds nest coral
- Trumpet coral
- Blastomusso
- Utter chaos palythoa
- Purple Stylophora Coral
- Tyree Rainbow Stylophora Coral
- Flamethrower Yuma Mushroom Coral
- Rainbow Pocillopora
- ORA Birds of Paradise Birdsnest Coral
- 3x Green star polyps
- Purple acropora
- Neon Orange mushrooms
- Teal grey Oulophyllia
- Pink flamingo birds nest (Jason Fox)
- Fox flame acropora (Jason Fox)
- Red Planet acropora
- Ron Burgundy favia
- Scorpion King Favia
- Raptors Peace Favia
- Rainbow Pectinia
- Orange & blue Bounce mushroom
- Neon green montipora digitata
- Poletti jawbreaker
DOSING
- Alkalinity (via Apex)
- Magnesium (via Apex)
- Calcium (via Apex)
- Red Sea Trace Colors ABC&D (manual dose)
- Red Sea Reef Energy Plus (manual dose)
I read a thread that included missteps. I thought that was brilliant and real so I’m including (just a few) of mine. Also I’m adding things that just didn’t work.
THE NOT SO GOOD (as another poster put it)
- Red rock flower anemone, removed beautiful specimen because I began reading it can kill fish. Now I’m reading a lot of people disagree. Mistake? …IDK. Would love to have one again if I can reach a comfort level.
- Removed 3 emerald crabs because they were eating coral and harassing fish and anemone only to add several back in months later in hopes of helping with bubble algae
- Removed 3 Blue damselfish for relentlessly attacking newly added clownfish. Placed them in sump until LFS opened but could only find 2 when time came to remove. We looked in every nook, cranny and LR crevice but nothing. 5 weeks later there he was in the sump!! So we added him back to DT and call him Sméagol since he lived in the dark for so long (before we added fuge light)! Ha! He is much nicer without his posse.
- Various clownfish - was told originally that we could have one large female with several small males. For anyone that’s had clownfish for more than a couple of months this is the exception not the rule. They are vicious little creatures! Sold all but 2 back to LFS. They live peacefully
- Long tentacle plate Coral, looked amazing for 3 months then died nearly overnight
- Colt Leather coral, this thing was so healthy and grew so fast it ended up taking over about 1/4 of the tank. We sold it back to LFS. Great beginner coral but it can grow sooo quickly
- CTE Orange sunset anemone, became massive and loved to move around and wreak havoc on the tank. Sold back to LFS
- Clove Coral, grew like wildfire and began eating up valuable real estate. Difficult to remove. Wish I had been warned against this coral from the beginning. Sold back to LFS but it still pops up!
- Daisy polyps, not enough juice for the squeeze on this - got rid of them and gave that part of the tank to a beautiful Blasto
- Yellow anacropora (died, my first SPS before I was dosing some of the nutrients)
- Red Montipora Digitata (died, before I was dosing some of the nutrient)
- To date I’ve had very quick spurts of hair algae and aiptasia but was easily eradicated, however I’m currently dealing with a weeks long battle of bubble algae that is getting the better of me. I’ve added pitho & emeralds to help but they are lazy and Im losing. Plan to spend some serious time next week on removal. If anyone happens to read this I’ll literally take nearly any coaching/guidance!
And there it is! As I said in another post, this hobby is the perfect intersection of beauty, hard work, research, discovery and reward. I’m heading all the way down the rabbit hole!
