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My First Reef - 29G Mixed


nanoreefer17

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Started this project back in Winter 2015, and after about 6 months of planning. I am now one month in to my first reef!  29 Gallon display drilled, with 20 Gallon custom built sump & stand.

 

FTS COMING SOON

 

Hardware:

Evergrow 2040 LED light fixture

2x RW-4 Wavemakers

Coralife 65Gallon Skimmer

Bubble Magus 3 Part Dosing Pump

Tunze 3155 ATO

300GPH Sicce Return Pump

Magnetic Refugium LED

2x 150 Watt Eheim Heaters

BRS Mini Reactor w/ Carbon/Seachem Phosban tumbling

 

Filtration:

Coralife 65Gallon Skimmer

2x 4" gravity fed filter socks

BRS Mini Reactor w/ Carbon/Seachem Phosban tumbling

Refugium with macro algae

25LBs Live Rock

1.5 Inch Sandbed

 

Livestock:

 

Fish

2x Clownfish

Possum Wrasse

Starry Blenny

Baggai Cardinalfish

 

Invertebrates

Blue Tuxedo Urchin

Red Sea Cucumber

Emerald Crab

Red Bubble Tip Anemone

2x Sea Slugs

5x White Leg Hermit Crabs

7x Blue Leg Hermit Crabs

3x Scarlet Hermit Crabs

10x Dwarf Cerith Snails

3x Florida Ceriths

5x Nassarius Vibex

3x Nerite Snails

3x Trochus Snails

 

Corals:

 

Soft

Devil's hand leather coral

Neon green toadstool

White toadstool

Cream rasta leather

Cespitularia

Green Star Polyps

Pulsing Xenia (In Refugium Only)

 

LPS

 

Branching Duncan

Pink No Name Colony

 

SPS

 

Garf Bonsai

Cali Tort

Pink Lemonade

Red Fire Digitata

Green Montipora Cap

Red Montipora Cap

Alien Haystack

Paradise birdsnest

Hydnophora rigata

Red pocillopora

 

Zoas

Green/Yellow

Fire & Ice

Purple Face

 

 

I would appreciate all comments and feedback on coral placement, aquascaping, livestock choices, ect.... Thanks for looking!

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Tank is looking good.

 

Dang! Thats come a long way fast, looking good so far man.

 

Thanks for the positive feedback!  I will keep this thread updated through the holidays with more FTS.  I am currently trying to stabilize water conditions and setup dosing pump to maintain these SPS, so well see how that works out!

 

 

Very nice write up on your tank! How are you liking your possum wrasse? I was going to get one for my 20 but got a dwarf eel instead.

 

Thanks as well, and I love the possum wrasse.  Funny story here, I purchased my liverock from a fellow reefer who was getting out of the hobby.  So after about 4-5 days of having the live rock in the tank while cycling, one night I see the possum wrasse appear.  He was quite a surprise as he had been hiding in the rock though the cycle.  He was the first fish added to the tank, and therefore has a very comfortable personality interacting with the other fish, the clowns especially get a long well with him.  He spends much time hunting for pods, and diving in and out of the rock work, he hides about half the time which makes his appearances more fun to watch.  Definitely my main [language filter], hands down favorite fish in the tank! 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Update on my tank.  Moved my scape around and built a couple magnetic shelves today.  I purchased a small live rock and went to a place that builds granite counter tops and had them cut it in half for me.  I then went to my local hardware store and purchased a couple 25lb magnets, of which I will probably upgrade for safety.  Mounted a couple pieces of scrap metal I also found at the hardware store to the back of the rocks using glue.  And then proceeded to display them!  

 

Also got a handful of new corals this weekend so I plan to attach them to the shelves either tonight or tomorrow as they start to open up a bit more!

 

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That looks really cool, though I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with some steel rusting away in my tank.

 

Yeah I initially had the same thought but then did some reading, and I read reports of people having them in their tank for 5-6 + years with no issues.  So until I hear some bad experiences I am not too worried.  Also, I figured it happens at such a slow rate that wont consistent water changes cycle it out over time?

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Many rubber sealants have additives to help them stay flexible, and over time they'll leech into the water. I wouldn't trust spray paint to do much more than slow down the rusting, and would be concerned about leeching chemicals there too. You could investigate using an acrylic resin, not sure if they're stable in water over time. You could also experiment with making a tight-fitting acrylic 'box' for the metal, but it'd be a lot of work and really difficult to glue the rock to. I can't think of a cheap or easy solution... salt water is rough on just about everything.

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Yeah I have not came up with anything yet either but I am continuously open to more suggestions I am sure there is some sort of sealant that would hold.  My Tunze ATO uses a rubber seal around its magnet, but I am not sure how that one is built exactly, and cost is definitely part of the equation.  I would be curious what kind of damage the metal can actually do, and in what kind of time frame.  Although if I can come up with a worry free fix that would be great!

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Steel has many components aside from iron and carbon -- many of them you don't want in your tank in concentration (things like nickel, zinc, chromium, manganese, etc etc) because they're rough on living things. The iron by itself will contribute to excess green algae growth and perhaps cyano. 

 

Of course, you're free to set up your tank as you see fit but it won't be long before you have a fair bit of money tied up in beautiful livestock... are you sure you want to experiment with poisoning the lot? I doubt you'll find an experienced reefer who'll tell you to leave the steel in there.

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There is definitely aquarium safe epoxy. There was even a thread not too long ago where people were sealing their sand bed in epoxy. I think gluing the metal bar to the rock and then coating in epoxy is the way to go.

 

Without having done much scientific reading on metal in reef tanks, I won't make a blanket claim that it will ruin your tank. I will say, however, that I would never risk that.....ever.

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There is definitely aquarium safe epoxy. There was even a thread not too long ago where people were sealing their sand bed in epoxy. I think gluing the metal bar to the rock and then coating in epoxy is the way to go.

 

Without having done much scientific reading on metal in reef tanks, I won't make a blanket claim that it will ruin your tank. I will say, however, that I would never risk that.....ever.

Okay maybe I will hunt down that then, and then see about getting some larger magnets depending on how it effects the strength.

 

Based on everyone's hesitation of having metal in the tank I will be looking to do this, this week hopefully.

 

Sent from my VS986 using Tapatalk

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Update:

 

I removed the metal from the inside, as it had already started to rust pretty good in only 3 days.  I simply used coral glue and epoxy to mount it to the wall.  Might not be as convenient to move around or remove, but I am happy to be less paranoid.  Thanks for the tips, I will keep updates of the tank going as some of the new corals start to open up.

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  • 1 month later...

Your tank is great man! Keep up the good work

 

I appreciate the positive feedback!  Just looked over your build thread as well and have to say the smaller tanks can be quite fun!  

 

I am also a college student so I feel your pain on wishing for a larger tank sometimes, but I do love the minimal maintenance!

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Hey people, figured I would post an update, and also using this as a timeline myself as well so posting at the start of the year seems necessary!

 

I picked up an apex lite off craigslist, and loving it so far but also feel like I could get more use out of it than I am if I understood all its abilities better.  Regardless it is cool, and hopefully I learn more about it with time, tips on it would be great!

 

Also got a new skimmer the Aquamaxx C0-1 after having my old Coralife break on me.  I figured a bigger tank will be in the near distant future, so I went a little +1.  Its awesome though so far, only had it running two days but seems to be breaking in pretty quick, already pulling pretty dark skim!

 

Got a cleaner shrimp since my last post, who seems to be doing well!  Also got two green no-name SPS, and a pink no name SPS who have all been doing relatively well, yet to color up completely but all have great polyp extension.  Got a candy cane frag that is already beginning to split, and so far no problems with the homemade shelves, one is simply glued to the wall ,and the other held up by ceramic magnets covered in epoxy.

 

Sadly lost 3 of my initial SPS frags due to shifting water quality when installing the dosing pump, although now have stable Ca around 460, and alk just above 9.  Not dosing magnesium, just doing weekly, and sometimes bi-weekly water changes.

 

Also picked up a sun coral a few weeks back, and now realize the difficulty of keeping NPS corals, although he is opening every night I cant seem to get him looking as healthy as I would like, especially given my two week absence on vacation this winter.  Hopefully he can pull through, seems to be doing better each night.  Sadly also lost my anemone while on vacation, as he crawled underneath some rocks and my sitter was unable to locate or feed it, and still cannot find him, which has been worrying me a bit, maybe someone with experience on this could chime in.  Never though a 29g could be such an abyss...

 

Can't seem to keep macroalgae alive, usually just using calerpa, which just dies within 1-2 weeks.  Any tips on this, is my tank too clean?  Stopped running carbon in hopes to dirty things up slightly, but still tumbling Phosban.

 

Also setup a strict dosing a feeding regiment:

Dosing Reef Energy A & B 3x week 2ml each

Dosing Coral Colors 2x week 3ml each

feeding reef chili every other night, spread throughout

Feeding brine shrimp, mysis, and flake on a rotation daily for the fish

Feeding mysis to both sun coral and duncan nightly

 

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Sorry for the long post, hope someone other than me can appreciate! Happy new year!

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