Winterfell Reef - A 100 Gallon Journey

[mikellini]

I see snails. What did you go with for a CUC?

[dtum]

I see snails. What did you go with for a CUC?

 

Well, technically these few are empty shells, I figured there was some beneficial bacteria on them and got them in early on. But there are couple of hitchhiker crabs (zebra and electric blue) and a couple of cerith snails there.

You can see an up-to-date list of all the inhabitants here: http://www.aquaticlog.com/showcase/stock?aquariumId=901

[dtum]

Chapter 7. First Inhabitants

 

While it was fairly easy to wait 6 weeks while the tank was being built, the waiting game had become agonizing once the salt was mixed and the cycle had started.

 

Originally I was toying with an idea of simply moving all small aquarium's contents in the new tank and hope for the best. It still makes some sense to me: the amount of established live rock and sand plus the bio load is not changing, only the total water volume and new media is added, neither should affect the cycle in theory. But after giving it some more thought I dismissed this approach as being too aggressive.

 

On the other hand I knew that to do things properly I'd have to run the tank for a couple of months with no fish/corals, seed it with some live rock, add a copepod colony and get a solid soup of all saltwater goodness before adding anyone. Though somewhat determined to do this earlier in the process, I decided not to proceed with this as well since it would take too long.

 

Finally I picked a semi-aggressive approach. I did everything I could to speed the cycle up:

• took a few pieces of new rock and put them in my old tank for a few days so that they'll get colonized by bacteria
  
• added about 10 lbs of live rock into the sump
  
• put some used media basket filters from the smaller tank into the sump as well
  
• added some Seachem Stability
  
• dozed sparingly with ZeoBak
  
• every day scooped up about 1/4 of a cup of live sand from the old tank and dispersed it over the new sandbed
  
• stared intensely at the tank in search of other possible ways to speed up the cycle
  

 

I started taking ammonia and nitrite measurements every other day starting day 3. Both were at solid zero and remained zero during all of my testing. So I figured that all the steps I took must've done the trick and decided to move some fish over.

 

My first choice was the bicolour blenny. Right after I've put the net into the water both blenny and six-line wrasse went for the rocks and found shelter deep in the crevices. There was no way I was going to catch them.

 

I hesitated about picking my clownfish pair, but they seemed so oblivious to the whole process and were swimming next to the net so I decided to use them instead. To my surprise, the moment I started targeting them they realized this and changed their behaviour immediately. I've never seen a fish behave so frantically, they were literally freak out. That is probably one of the biggest differences between saltwater and freshwater fish that I've observed. The fish clearly knew what was about to happen and did not want it.

 

I was about to give up on catching the female when suddenly it leaped from the water and ended up in a plant pot that stood nearby. Now I was about to freak out. I grabbed the fish, it was covered with black soil and quickly dropped it in the new tank. The fish was clearly in mild shock. After a minute I caught the male and put him in the big tank as well.

 

For the next hour I observed how patches of soil were slowly coming off of the fish. An hour later the fish was fine and I decided to call it a night.

 

Here's a video I took of the tank and its first inhabitants.

 

[Veng]

that's hysterical.

 

Don't tell anyone else this, but I am a firm believer of being able to move established bioload rocks between tanks w/o creating a cycle. All the other stuff you did, no idea.

[saltwatercoral]

Allitle soil wont hurt anything, lol. Tank is looking good my friend!

[hooligan_78]

Dtum, tantastic! Don't sweat it, clownfish are crazy! Don't worry about a hard cycle, you might see a small, or soft, cycle due to dead rock being colonized by bacteria, but I doubt will be too crazy! Tagging along!

[dtum]

It is time for an update and a few pictures.

 

Here's what my tank look like today:

 

 

All of the corals and fish have been moved from my old tank to the new one. Surprisingly there's not too much room left for future expansion - I was certainly expecting a bit more.

 

I have been measuring ammonia daily and all of my parameters seems to be in check. So I've added a few new inhabitants:

 

A strawberry conch, yellow watchman goby, 2 purple fire fish and few snails.

 

Emerald crab hitchhiking.

 

Green Star Polyps

 

Purple Fire Fish

 

Green Leather Coral

 

Strawberry Conch

 

 

 

 

[Leatherneck3755]

So glad I'm subscribed! Your tank and sump are amazing. Thanks for sharing and keep up with the pics

[Veng]

those GSP are going to take over your tank, lol. Well, you'll be ok if you keep them on the sand like that, but they really can take over rocks pretty quickly if you aren't careful.

[saltwatercoral]

Looking good!

[JamesHL88]

Beautifull progress. I love the scape. Everything is so clean and well planned.

[dtum]

Here's another video update:

 

 

Thank you all for your comments!

[Asureef]

Tank is coming along nicely! I'm still drooling over that BK. And, that Sony camera of yours is a fantastic. One of my friend's has one and the image quality is quite impressive, nearly matches or better most DSLR. This shows in your photos as well. If I had not looked into your image data, I would have guessed you used a DSLR.

[dtum]

Tank is coming along nicely! I'm still drooling over that BK. And, that Sony camera of yours is a fantastic. One of my friend's has one and the image quality is quite impressive, nearly matches or better most DSLR. This shows in your photos as well. If I had not looked into your image data, I would have guessed you used a DSLR.

 

Thanks, well technically it is pretty much a DSLR - since it has the same sensor size as a Nikon D300s or other similar cameras. Unfortunately it is not as fast when focusing, but it is so much smaller. I hope to upgrade my lens sometime in the future so I will be able to take better pictures.

[rO.oster]

What is the brand of sand you are using?

[saltwatercoral]

Here's another video update:

 

 

Thank you all for your comments!

Nice video, I see you goby and pistol shrimp have made a new home!

[urbaneks]

D, do you have a top on this tank? I've heard the fire fish love to jump. Tank is looking great.

[dtum]

D, do you have a top on this tank? I've heard the fire fish love to jump. Tank is looking great.

 

Brad, there is no top. And while I had a firefish jump in my nano cube, it seems to be less of a problem in a larger tank - they never seem to be around the surface and when they want to hide they dart for the rocks. I guess I'll know in a few months though

[dtum]

The tank is now 1 month and 18 days old. Enjoy the new video.

 

[dtum]

Another video update at 2.5 months.

 

[dtum]

Winterfell Reef is now 2.5 months old.

There's not a lot that has changed over the past month. The tank seems to be quite stable, water parameters are solid and don't deviate from the norm.

There was a Boxing Day sale here in Canada and I've got a whole bunch of new corals and a few fish.

I like the photo below, you might notice that there's a hitchhiker snail on top of the large snail.

I got this neon goby last night, unfortunately his tail is not in top shape. Hopefully he will recover.

[Leatherneck3755]

Tank is looking beautiful. It has been cool seeing the growth. Thanks for sharing.

[Rain24]

Subscribing to this thread. This is a gorgeous tank. Plus, how can I resist when you call it Winterfell?

[Leatherneck3755]

Any Updates? Im dying to see

[SeahawkReefer]

Great write up/ tank journal! Coming along beautifully!