Grins' 55g Reef

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Grins

Girl Reefer...we do exist
May 1, 2007
10,449
0
0
58
Charlotte, NC
Thought I'd go back and try to document some of what I've done.

Back in March 07 I decided to finally get my very own fish tank. I really wanted a marine tank but was too scared so was talked into a freshwater tank and a 10g at that. I was lucky enough to learn about cycling before setting up so by the end of the month I added my beautiful blue and zebra danios.

Nice, but not the saltwater tank I had always wanted.

My son tried to convince me it was still a great tank and added a gorgeous Queen Arabesque Pleco to the tank. Pfft, it hides all the time and still it isn't a reef tank.

So I started reading. Without fully understaning the patience needed I jumped onto CraigsList as well and bought a used 55g tank. A "complete set-up" and being the idiot I was I believed it. Here is the photo she took the day I went out to get it.



Luckily she had scraped most of the film algae off before she took the photo but an earlier photo she shared showed you could barely see in the tank. But what did I know? We loaded the tank, stand and all up in my vehicle and thankfully had thought to bring buckets which we transported the rock and stock in.

So upon getting hom we proceed to set it up and to unpack the treasure trove of goodies she had told us we'd need and that she was sure to have shown us all the price tags on.

Our "complete set-up" came with the tank, a stand that was sturdy but short and narrow, a typical cheapie flourscent hood and bulbs that were probably 9 months old. I'm guessing the rock was about 20#s but only because it was dense. The sand came with lots of bristleworms and a few hermits she didn't even know she had. There was no heater, the SG read only 1.019 on the hydrometer that we found in the "box o' crap", we hooked up the Tetra 60 HOB filter (yeah, you heard me right), and tried to figure out the super deluxe Prizm Skimmer she had paid $129 for.

I immediately hated that filter and skimmer. Obnoxiously loud and useless. Did I mention I hated them?

Oh and in this tank the whole time? Two 3 stripe damsels that seemed terrified for their lives (and with good reason).

So the next stop was to our LFS to pick up some equipment and get some advice.
 

Grins

Girl Reefer...we do exist
May 1, 2007
10,449
0
0
58
Charlotte, NC
Off to the big box pet store we went. We got a heater, I did some reading first and decided upon a 300 watt. Had I read a bit more I'd have gotten 2 150 watts instead.

I go online and read again, I find out about damsels and decide I want Satan and Lucifer out of my tank. I donate them to another LFS I find out. While there I walk up to the LFS employee and tell him I hate my filter and skimmer. Tell him we are new and we want to do this right but we want something quiet and that will filter our FOWLER and future reef.

No where does he mention live rock (must not have had any in). Instead I get walked over to the multi-stage cannister filters. I bought the biggest one they had. I do like it, it IS uber quiet, but I've emptied out the chambers and now only run carbon in it. Lesson learned.

So off I go to read a bit more while my tank finishes it's mini cycle.

And then read some more. And um, some more...

I find out about Aquria Central (thankfully), and learn about live rock and bunches of newbie stuff I was missing. I go out and get the prettiest piece of live rock I can find at a fantastically beautiful LFS I learn about, a few snails and I post my updated tank photo online to ask for some help.



Thankfully Niko, JoJo and a bunch of others came to my rescue and started to point me in the right direction including the stickies and articles. I then discovered my local club as well and joined that.

I then am told I'm ready for fish, to stop holding back so I go out and get my first one...a personality packed packed Banded Goby also known as a Dragon Goby. This fish hooks us. We stop using the television and instead watch the tank and that little goby doesn't even mind the dogs licking the glass at him.

I get pressed, why aren't you getting any other fish? So I go out and and my LFS (same one that didn't tell me about live rock) says sure I can get a yellow tang, a 55 is great for a tang. I get the small tang.

Everyone kept telling me to read. So I did. They'd say go read some more, so I did. I still am.

Everything I learned told me that I needed to make some upgrades, some that I knew about such as my lights and some that I didn't know about such as return pumps and sumps, etc. But I began to learn.

One of the things I learn is that my tang really should have had a bigger tank. Whoops, but I decide he is small and I'll keep him and decide what to do later. I still continue to get mixed advice about him.

A month has gone by since w had first gotten the tang, my son convinces me he wants a clown that I had promised him. This son is 18, not 8. He buys the clown and in it goes into the tank.

3 days later...ich is noticed on the tang.
 

Grins

Girl Reefer...we do exist
May 1, 2007
10,449
0
0
58
Charlotte, NC
Ack! Ick! My tang has spots on his pectoral fins that must be that dreaded Ich everyone is panicked about.

So off I go to read. I learn that the tang does indeed have ick. I learn what ways are most suggested to cure the tang and I make the decision to go with a hospital tank with Coppersafe and to let the tank go fallow for several weeks.

Trouble is, I don't have a QT tank. Why? Because I'm stupid. Stupid because by this time and all that reading I had indeed heard about QT tanks, read the advice to use them for prevention, and yet I chose to believe it wouldn't happen to me if I made sure the fish were eating OK and acting OK in the LFS. Like I said, I'm stupid.

Next morning I went out and picked up a deal on a used 20g, set-it up and began treatment. It has now been 30 days since the fish have been in fish prison. Unfortunately the clown didn't make it. The tang got worse before he got better but he is doing marvelously well the past 2 weeks. Goby misses his sand and pouts but he and the tang are the best of friends in their forced fish prison:



I suspect the tang thinks he is a hamster



Since the fish had to go to fishy prison it seemed like a good time to build a custom stand...
 

Grins

Girl Reefer...we do exist
May 1, 2007
10,449
0
0
58
Charlotte, NC
Luckily for me my son's father is a cabinetmaker and general contractor and he works part time with his dad. So off to Lowes we went with a shopping list.

I wish I had taken photos of all the work we did but I didn't. We aren't finished though and I'll post photos of any new work we do.

We now have the skeleton for the stand up and the tank is on top. On that we have the canopy we build.

We got an awesome deal on lights and installed (2) 250 watt MHs. Bulbs are 10,000K and new but when I do replace them I'll change to 14,000K. With this much light on a shallow 55 I could probably get away with 20,000K if I wanted.

Same local reefer gave me 2 single strip T5 units that I need to get actinic bulbs for. After seeing the difference on someone else's tank with the same lights and bulbs my urgency to get this done has been recently sped up.

We did go out and get a berlin sump. Gorgeous, expensive little acryclic sump made for our narrow and short stand. We didn't yet have an overflow so it wasn't hooked up.

Then we got an overflow box, but whoops didn't have a pump. Off to decide on one of those. Decided on the Eheim 1260. LOVE this pump, it is uber quiet and can be mounted internally or externally.

The Urchin skimmer I was trying to get fell through. Drats, but then the same guy I bought the lights from offered to sell me his Tunze DOC. I go to his house, see it working, get to look at his tank and talk fish and then go home to clean the skimmer.

Next day my son informs me the thing won't fit in the sump. :help2:

That was 2 days ago. Made the decision we'd trade the one we had back to the store for credit (they gave me full credit thankfully) and make our own custom sump and bonus time...add a fuge area.

So the next time I update about the stand you'll see updates with us finishing the stand, canopy, building the sump and more. Oh yeah, I have a HUGE list of other things to upgrade such as

upgrade the MJ1200s I bought to Koralia #3s or #4s
get the AirWaterIce RO/DI unit so I don't have to keep lugging water
upgrade to a refractometer
etc.

I think I need to win the lottery at this point.
 

Grins

Girl Reefer...we do exist
May 1, 2007
10,449
0
0
58
Charlotte, NC
In the past 2 days I've used my store credit and bought a coral elsewhere, although I posted them in another thread I'll add them here to keep the tank log all together:

a branching hammer:



zoas:



feather duster:



and a porcelain crab:

 

Grins

Girl Reefer...we do exist
May 1, 2007
10,449
0
0
58
Charlotte, NC
Fragging Demo

Went to a fragging demo at my club. I fragged a bali green slimer and found it far easier than I thought. I bought a large frag, although it is so big it looks like a colony not a typical frag. It is browned up a bit now but has some bright green branches and I hope to get it's color back in my tank with the MHs. This one had been under POs in a frag tank for a bit.:



One of the club members was nice enough to share some goodies with me too:

A montipora cap. The parent colony is green with blue polyps:



A bubble coral frag:



A small zoa frag (the 3rd one over, immediately to the left of the large zoa colony:



and he also packed up some macro algae and reef bugs for me.

Lucky me, although I do have superglue all over my fingers now and I learned why they call a Bali Green Slimer a slimer.

Oh and the last shot, a full tank shot to show the tank, although fallow now looks like I did a bit of homework since the shot taken in May.

 

jojo22

Salt-aholic Xtreme
Sep 21, 2006
2,304
0
0
42
Good (and trying) start!!!
 

Grins

Girl Reefer...we do exist
May 1, 2007
10,449
0
0
58
Charlotte, NC
Yes, I owe you a few of the thank yous for pointing me in the right direction. I remember finding my first peanut worm and freaking out about the beast living within my tank. I was so worried it was going to reach out and nab my goby or something equally silly. Fast forward to today, that purple rock on the left side is named "Mount Peanut" in our tank because we've since learned it houses no less than 30 peanut worms. Love watching them under a red LED.
 

jojo22

Salt-aholic Xtreme
Sep 21, 2006
2,304
0
0
42
I would name them all snoppy jr.!!!!!
 
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