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Joevember's 65g reef tank, breaking down my setup


Joevember

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Link to my new tank!!!

This is my aqarium journal of my new 65g reef tank. Never owned a reef tank (let alone a saltwater) before and just started this one up. I'm making this thread to hear suggestions from you all because I realky need it.

My tank setup is a 65g tank with overflow, coral compulsion cc120 led, jabao wavemaker, 100w heater, and 70lbs of rock.

The sump is 29g with a reef octopus classic space saver protein skimmer, jabao dcp 6500 return, filter sock, refugium (with nothing in it), and refugium light. 

I have 2 clowns in the tank, a coral beauty, yellowtail damsel, 6 line wrasse, 1 hermit crab, probably like 4 snails, and a 6" deresa clam.

The corals are a duncan colony, mini blasto colony, leather coral, and a bounce coral. 

 

I'll try to update every week. Please tell me some suggestions on how I can make jt a better tank.

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Joevember

After 1 week I decided to redo the aquascape and I think it looks a bit better. All the fish are active now. I added 10 margarita snails, I wanted trochus but my lfs did not have them. The leather coral has expanded more from when I put it in, I removed the duncan from its plug, and I put in a purple trumpet coral. When I redid the rockwork I found a coral that I just forgot about that was in the back, don't know the name but it looks like a blasto.

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Joevember

1st is the blasto

2nd is the mini blasto and bubble

3rd is the duncan and derasa clam

4th is the finger leather

5th is the single trumpet head

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1 hour ago, Joevember said:

1st is the blasto

2nd is the mini blasto and bubble

3rd is the duncan and derasa clam

4th is the finger leather

5th is the single trumpet head

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That first photo is an anemone not a coral. Rock flower anemone.  

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Joevember
20 hours ago, 1891Bro said:

That first photo is an anemone not a coral. Rock flower anemone.  

Thanks

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  • 2 weeks later...

My derasa is in bad shape right now, so I made it a clam cage. I've been feeding the rock flower anenome and have seen great growth from it, about 1/4" in diameter. The rest of the corals are looking good except for the candy cane, which is getting bleached out after my 25% water change from a week ago. I also redid the aquascape for the last time (hopefully), I took out a huge 1'x1'x8" rock that looked terrible and played around with it till it looked alright. Tell me what you think of it.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Well my finals are pretty much over at the moment so I will have a lot more down time to do some work on my tank. I'll also be able to buy things for it because I'll finally start working again. 
With that said I am proud to say that I purchased an rodi system by aquatic life. I would have (and should have) bought it a lot earlier, but again.... money. Hopefully it's going to get rid of the silicates that I think are fueling my diatom ridden sandbed.
I will also get a CUC package from Reef Cleaners of around 100 members, plus some chaeto for my fuge (the last ball died on me somehow. 
I'm also considering purchasing 2 AI Prime HD+ to replace my light, I'm not happy with its performance and spread. Plus i have a plastic bracer right under it. LMK what you think of that idea.
Can't wait to get some more awesome corals in my tank.
Also I changed the layout to a 2 island sort of look.

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3 hours ago, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:
  • Tank looks nice. Can't wait to see it fill in :smilie:

Yeah, I'm trying to get some more euphyllia in there to fill it up. Also an elegance and tons of acans to hopefully completely cover a rock.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Haven't posted on this thread for a while, but things have changed.

I got some new additions to the tank. 2 zoanthids (don't know the names), a green purple tipped elegance coral, a pair of cleaner shrimp, and a rock packed with dark green white tipped torches. Pics below. ⬇️

Also I moved my duncan off the piece of shelf rock and more toward the front for a couple reasons. The clowns have been hosting it and it has slowly been bleaching, and shelf is ugly imo.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Another update for the weekend. My RFA has been moving 2 inches every day from one end of his rock to the other, but I really want him to just get off of the rock because it is the ugliest rock I have in my tank atm.
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My indo elegance has been closed up for the past 5 days, hoping it's temporary because it's definitely one of my favorite corals in my tank. I've been feeding it more mysis since then and it opened up a little more than it has been.
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I also got my first acan. It's red, green, and teal with only 2 heads. I really want to get a whole lot of them and have them grow into a colony on my rock in the front. Any suggestions/experience you have to help it out would be very appreciated.
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To top it off I saw some carpet halimeda growing on a rock in the DT, and when it grows in more I'll chuck it in the fuge with the grape calurpa. (This macro is much prettier than the calurpa)20180714_200759.thumb.jpg.231f9e60cfb2473393e8ce4b4b11708b.jpg

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DSFIRSTSLTWATER

Beautiful so far 🙂 My rock flower moves around his rock all the time lol. I have two others that don't move an inch.

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Elegance has been puffing up after I moved him 2 inches away from where he used to be; a little less flow did the trick.

I also added a bunch of macros to the fuge after I cleared out some grape calurpa. I now have chaeto, calurpa prolifera, a different grape calurpa (not sure if it's a different species, but it is smaller and more compact), and e uchema spinosum. Hopefully this stuff will grow in smoothly.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Found a deal on a fusion 20. Not sure what I want to do with the 65.

I could set up the 20 in my room and have 2 tanks, but I would have to spend money on a new light, other equipment, and filtration. On top of that I would need to stock it, which would be even more.

Or I could downsize the 65g and sell all the equipment I have in it. If I sold it all I could pay for everything I would need for the 20. I like the size of the 65, but the money and time I would have to put into the maintenence and equipment to go where I want to for the tank is too much.

On top of that I will be going to college next year so I would have to break down the 65 anyway, but it is possible that I could bring a 20g tank.

 

First world reefing problems... Lmk what you would do.

 

 

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FTS20180729_153214.thumb.jpg.5e84d7c808fac7860ef90fe4aa8d19cf.jpg

Also my elegance has been doing very poorly recently. I read that it may be getting too much light so I moved it. It also had small white lumps on the base so I gave it an iodine dip. I really like this coral and really don't want anything bad to happen to it. I'll leave it alone for the next 5 days and see how it does. Please lmk your experience with this coral and what I can do. I feed it mysis every 5 days.

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  • 2 weeks later...

It's been a while so I'll catch you up on what's been going on, and it's going to be a big one.

 

New additions:

Neon green trumpet coral20180811_170823.thumb.jpg.f050fb68826408449f1f1c511f42c871.jpg

Green birdnest (verry small)20180811_170837.thumb.jpg.fb9944d57150eced2edd8d87599ff99b.jpg

Brown birdnest (like a giant to the green)

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Short tentacle gold torch (never seen this before it's from the Tonga)

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I have most of the newbies in temporary places. 

 

Okay, now some other updates:

The duncan i had in the middle was swapped with the finger leather because the clowns never let it open up.

 

The elegance coral was moved up to the top, and before you call me stupid, because a LFS employee told me to put it up there. He had the best luck with them at the top of his tanks. It has developed some brown spots on it and it is probably going to die regardless of where I place it. It is the Indo variety if you wanted to know.

 

The RFA is now about 3" in diameter l from when I got the tank when it was half that. I feed mysis 4 times a week.

 

I fragged the 24K lepto and it doubled in size. Lmk how much they are worth, I've heard 40-60.

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The derasa looks like it grew an inch, it is 6" now. It was 5" when I got it, and I never got around to changing it in my original post.

 

Last thing is about my bacteria bloom. Recently I have had a stringy white bacterial bloom in my tank that happened when I was away for 5 days. The person I had take care of the tank must not have known how to read because they dosed 20ml of NOPOX instead of 10. I expected it to go away, but I had to decrease the NOPOX to only 4ml a day now.

 

That's all, please comment amd let me know your thoughts/experience.

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DSFIRSTSLTWATER

Still looks nice man. What lights do you have on that thing? I'm getting ready to turn my 75 cichlid tank into a reef and I've been looking at lighting for it. With the measurements I have I'm leaning towards the ai prime hd.

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On 8/11/2018 at 8:41 PM, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

Still looks nice man. What lights do you have on that thing? I'm getting ready to turn my 75 cichlid tank into a reef and I've been looking at lighting for it. With the measurements I have I'm leaning towards the ai prime hd.

It looks like a black box, but it was a good LED light 6 years ago. It's from the company Coral Compulsion. I'm thinking of switching to 2 AI Hydras in the near future. 

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DSFIRSTSLTWATER
19 minutes ago, Joevember said:

It looks like a black box, but it was a good LED light 6 years ago. It's from the company Coral Compulsion. I'm switching to 2 AI Hydras in the near future. AI is a good choice.

I've been tossing around the prime and Hydra 26...I can't see spending the money on them when it seems the prime has the same spread. Since my 75 has that 2 inch brace in the center I'm going to have a dead spot in the center. I'm thinking go with the primes and make two islands under the lights. I don't want sps anyways so light power doesn't have to be crazy. I love acans and rock flowers so I'm pretty sure from the research I've done primes should be perfect. We shall see lol

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1 minute ago, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

I've been tossing around the prime and Hydra 26...I can't see spending the money on them when it seems the prime has the same spread. Since my 75 has that 2 inch brace in the center I'm going to have a dead spot in the center. I'm thinking go with the primes and make two islands under the lights. I don't want sps anyways so light power doesn't have to be crazy. I love acans and rock flowers so I'm pretty sure from the research I've done primes should be perfect. We shall see lol

Yeah, but the intensity is 2x as much. Plus I can get hydras for 200 each. 

But if your just trying to grow LPS, then picking up a couple primes would do the trick.

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DSFIRSTSLTWATER

Oh nice 👍 I've been lurking on the market place for something. Saw someone selling Hydra 26 but didn't have the 500... I'm trying to get things a little at a time lol. Not ready to pull the trigger yet because i have to adult and pay some shit off first lol. The lights are the biggest expense so once I have them everything else should be cake.

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On 8/11/2018 at 9:18 PM, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

Oh nice 👍 I've been lurking on the market place for something. Saw someone selling Hydra 26 but didn't have the 500... I'm trying to get things a little at a time lol. Not ready to pull the trigger yet because i have to adult and pay some shit off first lol. The lights are the biggest expense so once I have them everything else should be cake.

Very true. The only downside about the lights I'm getting is that I have to wait a while because the seller is breaking down his whole tank and he is only half way done selling livestock (it's been 4 months...).

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