Our Tank Journal

[mray2660]

This is our first saltwater tank that we started a few months ago. For years we had fresh water tanks. It is a TruVu 55 Aquasystem that we picked up from a local LFS in Redwood City that was closing down so it was already established which really helps new entry into the hobby.

It is work in progress. Thanks to Beau and Jermery S at the swap in Feb, Robert at Neptune and Derek at OT we have gotten some great advice really pointed us in the right direction. With their help we have been able to start populating this tank. Following are some pictures that we have taken. We have been slowing added gear to the tank. T5 Lights, Remora skimmer that works great. We thought that we fairly clean water but this skimmer has been pulling out brown stuff like crazy. Derek helped us with this. One thing is for sure that this hobby is very addictive. We recently added a JBJ 24 Nano that we got from newreefnut. This one we just started and will post pictures as we get it set up. With this tank we now are learning how to deal with brissle worms. We have one that looks like is 5-6” in length.

 

[Lyn]

Looking good!

BTW, not all bristleworms are bad, just the stinging kind. I have pinkish ones that I actually bought for more tank diversity.

It was really nice meeting you both at Robert's and Cerissa's the other day.

 

[mray2660]

We are still leaning all the ins and outs. Now the trick is to be very patience let everything grow in. There are so many beautiful corals at local LFS you just want to add them to your tank.

 

[mray2660]

Pictures of our 55g these were taken right after the FEB swab

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[saltwatersig]

Nice looking set up , lots of room for frags

 

[seminolecpa]

A suggestion, if I may. I would move that piece of green star polyp in the middle of the tank to somewhere on the sand away from your main rockwork or very soon your whole rockwork will be covered in it. It looks very nice now but the stuff spreads very quickly and is difficult to remove from rock.

I don't want your tank to look like this

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1579880&highlight=GSP+AND+overgrown

 

[mray2660]

Bryan
Thank you for the suggestion. GSP was our first coral.

The following are some updated pictures of Corals that we recently have added to our tank that we picked up on the LFS tour. In additional we have just added a Phosban reactor.




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[mray2660]

Updated pictures 04-29-09 Pink Monti/ Rainbow Acan that we won in raffle at swab/ /Fuzzy Mushroom that we picked up at last meeting


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[bluevoodoo]

Mray2660 do you have any pictures of this tank

 

[Gomer]

Scroll up a bunch in this thread.

 

[mray2660]

Thanks Tony for the response. Bluevoodoo thank you for your interest. We need to update the pictures on both tank journals as we have acquired a few additional corals and did some rearrangement.

Mike

 

[bluevoodoo]

Tony,
your funny, but when I first pulled up the thread there was no pictures. but thanks for pionting that out.
Mike,
The tank looks good, I bet it look even better now.

 

[beaupierce]

Hey Guys,
Looking good!!!! I love all the rockwork!!

Keep up the good work!! your tank is coming along nicely!!!

 

[mray2660]

Beau

It is great to here from you. Yes it is a work in progress coming along nicely.

Our problem now is envisioning what everything will grow into.

Hopefully we can post updated pictures in the next day or so. Still learn how to take good pictures.

Mike

 

[mray2660]

We have encountered a few problems that we are wondering if any one has some suggestions. We have an orange/brown stuff on sand and few rock formations (see pictures).



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[tuberider]

Looks like dinos, start by siphoning out as much of it as possible.

 

[mray2660]

Thank will give it try. I wonder is it related to residue that we observe in salt water mix bucket. I doubled checked phosphates they were at 0.5 ppm must be the cause. I guess I need to up the changes on GFO or add more to the reactor and reduce the lighting levels.

Mike

 

[RavieReefer]

Here is a good article about Dino's and pH by Randy Holmes-Farley

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/rhf/index.php

 

[mray2660]

Thank you for the excellent reference. Recently the pH of tank has been running around 8.1 where as weeks ago when I looked at our tank logs it appeared to be trending around 8.3-8.4 months ago. The only difference is now we have pH meter before we were using colorimetric kits. I thought slight difference was a measurement error between the two techniques. Since we are detecting phosphates, next steps are to change the GFO, try to bring the pH back to around 8.3-8.4, reduce the feeding and up the water changes. One item that is complicating this is the tank is going to be moved the end of the month.

Mike

 

[flugsamom]

Its been a year since we started this tank ... some things have thrived and others sadly have not. When we moved and after the lecture we shifted some things around. Here are some updated pics with the new camera.

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