My 6gal JBJ thread

[Reefer-tron]

The story of my JBJ 6

 

First off I’m going to warn you that this is my first salt water tank and the things that I have done are definitely not “by the book”. I initially wasn’t going to post a thread for this tank because I didn’t want to show my failures publically but I figured that making a thread would only help this tank excel. One important factor in this whole undertaking is that I live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, meaning that my options for a LFS are terrible.

Ok so I all started when I bought my JBJ 6 off ebay on Jan 24th (not planning on major modding). The following day I order testing kits, hydrometer, surface skimmer, heater, water purifier, ect. from an online store. The next weekend, Feb 2-3rd my buddy and I drove to Chicago (his hometown) to go to the Chicago reptile show (sold my 2 year old male veiled chameleon) and to get reefing supplies. We visited many fish stores but had some connections with one in particular which is where I bought 7lbs of live rock (3 pieces), sand, salt, 3 blue legged hermits, 5 scarlet hermits, 2 cerith snails, 4 astrea snails, 1 trochuss snail. Also while in Chicago we stopped by a friends place where I attained 5gal of water from his 150gal, a ?birdsnest coral? and another frag from one of his corals.

Now is when things start to go haywire. My tank had yet to arrive so I set up my rocks, cuc, heater, and a pump in my bucket (frags went into friends 12gal). It actually took until Feb 11th to receive my tank so my “bucket aquarium” was running from Feb 3rd to the 11th. During this time I did a couple top offs with freshwater as well as a water change. After having all my precious supplies in a bucket for a week I was worried that I would have nothing left alive. Turns out the only thing I lost was my trochuss snail. I removed ceramic rings, carbon, and bioballs as well as cut my sponge to 2/3 its starting size. I put in some filter floss and eventually plan on running purigen for chemical filtration. Later on in the week we put in an order on liveaquaria.com where I got myself 1 zebra hermit, 1 peppermint shrimp, 2 cerith snails, and 2 nassarius snails. Since that time I have done various water tests as well as a water change. It has received buffer as well.

Part of the reason why I decided to post my journey into reefing was my amazement of how my aquarium came together. I figured having all my stuff in a bucket that long would bring some negative results, and I assumed it would take my tank a few weeks to “cycle” but everything seems to be going swimmingly. My friend gave me a frag of his favia and that has been chilling in the tank for a few days now. Also I have found sea stars, bristle worms, feather dusters, scary polyp thing (will hopefully get picture up for ID), brine shrimp, and some beautiful bubble algae. Added a damsel from LFS 2/23 but then I found dead hermits and observed him picking on my peppermint shrimp causing the loss of a leg and an antennae, needless to say I tore up my rocks to get him out and promptly returned him to the store (no more damsels for me). I have 2 frags coming from sharkys that should be here today and will put my other 2 frags into my tank also. I am writing this inbetween classes but I hope that I will be able to post some pics today.

 

Results from my water test done 2/19

SG 1.025

Temp 78-80

Nitrate 15ppm

PH 7.7

Forgot my phosphate and carbonate hardness but I know phosphate was ok and hardness was a bit high

Anyways this is my story of how I got into reefing (with the assistance of my friend).

 

So my adventure continues. Plans for the future include more coral, mostly zoas, want to find some ricordea, as well as a black and white false perc and a neon goby. Also want to get some LPS (torch, frogspawn, open brain) so clown could have other possible hosts besides powerhead. I know many of the things I have done aren’t ideal but this is what has happened. I welcome any comments as well as any advice you might have and hope to update this thread and have pictures as my tank continues to evolve.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Jake