MsSandyE Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 When I was younger I wanted to be a marine biologist. My father used to take me snorkeling when we lived in the Caribbean and I remember seeing all these coral fans and fish and just loved it all. I felt alive in the ocean. As a teenager, I always wanted a fish tank and never got around to it, as a young adult I traveled too much. Now that I'm finally settled in life, I am excited to start on this journey with my first saltwater tank. I am writing this to not only ensure I do not repeat past mistakes but also can help others on this journey, happy to share my experience so you can take what you need from it. I started on October 28, 2023. Cycled the tank with pre-packaged saltwater, treated rock, and live sandbed along with a quickstart kit my LFS provided. Tankaray cycled over three weeks and I then ran off to the LFS to get my first habitants. 3 weeks after cycling on Nov 17, 2023 we added: 1x Ocelaris Clownfish - Allin 1x Cleaner Shrimp - Pepe 3x Snails (do not remember the types) 2x blue leg hermit crabs All along I was testing weekly with a RedSea Marine Pro test kit for all the parameters. I couldn't quite figure out the alkalinity one so I just skipped it but did focus on the core of Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, and PH. During November I also watched a ton of videos and read Facebook group posts and forums to decide what to do with the sump. Filtration In the first chamber, I removed the stock filter and placed my heater, I'm not going to share what it is because I do not know the name of it. It's cheap, and honestly, I'm stuck with this for now until it breaks. It is bulky and the temp setting doesn't really work so I'm always messing with it to ensure the tank is at 78 degrees. I would recommend the cobalt nano heater, I have one of those and use it to heat the water for the water changes. I will throw that one in my tank once the one that is there dies. In the second chamber, I have added the InTank media holder for the Biocube. I got this because I wanted to ensure that water was going through the media. For media, I have: Filter Floss - At the very top above the media basket Filter Floss - First Section AquaChar - Second Section Aquarium Biofilter Media Spheres - Third Section In the third chamber, I have the stock pump and left the sponge at the bottom between the second and third chambers. I have read some people removed this and added other media filters, which I may do later in the year when I decided to clean out the pump. By the beginning of December, I started doing a few new things: Started mixing my saltwater using Coral Pro Sea Salt Mix Testing for phosphate, alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium using the RedSea Coral Pro test kit Given things were stable through November and December I got a little too impatient and went all in on adding another fish, coral, and an anemone. I did this all within a week! Big mistake. On the week of Jan 7th, I added more rock to the back of the tank to create hiding space for any new fish I purchase but I also added... 1x - Yellow Watcham Gobi from my LFS 1x - WWC Midnight Daisy Polyp 1x - WWC Rainbow Bubble Tip Anemone 1x - WWC Muy Verde Birds Nest I am pretty sure anyone who has experience with a saltwater tank will be tearing me apart with these additions. My first mistake was the gobi. The gobi passed away just a few days later, he was stressed by the clownfish and the hermit crabs, and he could not find a safe space at all in the tank. So I'm sure he passed from stress. My second mistake was the Birds Nest, I read that this was a beginner SPS and saw many others who had success with it. However, my tank is not well established and honestly, I should stick to LPS and Softies with a Biocube lighting. Third, my lighting schedule was horrible, I was not running the daylights at all, so that was probably what took out my bird's nest, whereas I thought it was the parameters that were very good. RIP Houdini. During this time I also purchased a wavemaker to ensure that there was enough flow in the tank. On the positive side, the BTA is doing GREAT! He found a spot immediately when I put him in, moved over slightly just once, and has not moved since. He inflates and deflates like they all do and seems to be in good health, is not bleaching, etc. I was worried about this as after I purchased him I heard that I should wait for 6 months before getting one. Time will tell but so far so good. Jan 13, 2023 Yesterday, I visited my LFS and discussed the gobi and bird nest, where they agreed with my assumptions regarding my mistakes. They recommended that I go ahead with more softies and SPS at this time, and they ran a water test there as well, which oddly enough were all extremely different parameters than my testing. I think I'll just stop taking water in for testing and keep testing with RedSea as I'm comfortable with how to do that and the numbers are fairly consistent. So, with the green light, I went ahead and added two more corals yesterday! Jan 20, 2024 additions: 1x Jelly Bean Hammer Coral Frag 1x Pink Goniopora Coral Frag 1x Conch 2x Turbo Snails So I'm all caught up with updates. I am slowly trying to get my lights up to 8 hours of daylight, right now I believe I'm running 6 hours of daylight and have good growth showing up on my polyps. I don't want to overdo the daylight as I do not like how the tank looks in those lights at all. Mainly as I can see a ton of algae! Maybe this is just the "ugly phase"?! I never got the really bad ugly phase but again tank is barely three months old so it should show up soon. Oh yeah one more thing, I threw bottles of copepod into this tank about two times. It's been two weeks since we did it before and typically I throw it in, then do not see them at all a couple of days later. Yesterday, we saw a bunch just show up out of nowhere. So that's exciting. I hope they clean up the algae in the tank. Here it is today, under white lights. The dots are the copepods and air bubbles. You can see that the rock has algae all over it but the substrate is not bad. I plan to update this journal every two weeks with progress pictures and any updates. If you have questions feel free to ask, I just ask that you be kind as I'm learning, I know I am doing things wrong so no need to be critical about things. Thanks! 1 1 Quote Link to comment
MsSandyE Posted January 28 Author Share Posted January 28 Yesterday I added a few more corals from my LFS: Green Star Polyp on rock Jack O Lantern Leptoseris Toxic Green Platygyra Think I’m going to give this a rest for at least a few months until I find a cool singulars or something I can put at the back of the tank. 1 Quote Link to comment
MsSandyE Posted February 11 Author Share Posted February 11 This weekend we decided to return the Zoa. My wife googled them and grew concerned about their potential toxins. so instead of dealing with the back and forth I decided to return the zoa. I now have a Candy Cane coral and Mushroom in its place! We moved some stuff around the tank and the pink frag didn’t make it! It wasn’t a goni after all but something else so I guess i just didn’t have enough light for it. 1 Quote Link to comment
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