60 Gallon - New To Reefs
 

Hey everyone,

My names Mike, I'm new to this forum. I was told by members on BCAquaria that this was a great resource for Saltwater information so here I am!

Im a life long fresh water keeper, and planted enthusiast, but have taken the plunge so to speak in salt water. I've got a standard 20 gallon tank and with the help of some friends picked up all that I believe I need to start a successful reef.
My equipment so far is an aQ.Led 108w Light fixture, Remora Nano Skimmer, Hydor Powerheads.
I've got a deep sand bed as well as 22 lbs of live rock.

After lots of reading, I got the tank setup and cycled - the cycle only took about a week because the live rock was already established and housed a good colony of bacteria. When the Nitrites and Ammonia got to 0 I went out to J&L and picked up the starting pieces, 5 Common Hermit crabs, 2 Clowns (oso something) and a couple pieces of soft coral. Very new to these so I'm not sure on the names. Can someone Id these coral for me, I believe they are both very common so it shouldn't be hard for you guys :)


http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0179.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0180.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...E3D78804CF.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0183.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0185.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0188.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0190.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0195.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0201.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0203.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0204.jpg

:welcome:

Love your sand bed, your tank looks good. The second pic looks like a Xenia of some sort or maybe Anthelia. Photos are kinda dark.

Welcome to Canreef Mike! Looks like you're off to an awesome start!

Its great to see how quickly you got started and now have livestock in the tank already. Good Luck reefing and keep the updates coming!!

Welcome to Canreef. Lots of great information here

Thanks Leah! definitely the Xenia, that name rings a bell.. i'll try to get better pictures tomorrow.... i took those while the light was still on moon lights
hey there's a familiar face/name! how u doing buddy, thanks a lot. It's so much better than fresh water!!!! lol never thought i'd say that :)

Thanks DCDN! I'm almost overwhelmed with the sticky threads here, so much new info!

I went out to J&L's to bring back a cleaner shrimp that died before i even got him out of his bag. (i got him with the clown fish) and while there I grabbed a colt coral and a rock full of green button polyps. I also grabbed a ELOS phosphate test kit and a Sybon refractometer (my ventrex one didn't compensate for temp so i wasn't sure of it's accuracy...and i'm not a fan of math!)

A buddy came by my place to trade some of his frags for driftwood/fish in my 125 planted tank. He brought with him his test kits from home to make sure everything is OK with my water chemistry. All tests came up good.

After floating the frags for a while we started to place them around the tank. Some opened up immediately, others took a bit, but now they are looking good. The tank is glowing under the moon lights and i wish i could get a decent picture but no luck so far.

I already forgot the names of most of these but here's some pictures. I know there is hammer coral, a couple zoas, an electric green lps (dont remember what harp called it) and some more.
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0280.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0279.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0288.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0285.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0286.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0276.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0273.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0270.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0266.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0265.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0262.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0229.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...w/DSC_0223.jpg

Looks like a great start Mike! seems like there are alot of BCA members are here on Canreef as well! Harp is EVILLLL :twised:

nice setup , it seems to be the clowns deciding who wanna be female lol

BCA member here as well as Canreef member!
 

Who's Harp ? :surprise:

Harp is Purple Monkey

beautiful tank :biggrin: the sand looks really nice i like deep sandbeds imo the powerheads need to be moved up a bit to disturb the surface of the water?
looking forward to seeing this progress :angel:

thanks for the kind words...

there is also a skimmer and a HOB filter running so there is lots of surface agitation

Hey Mike
Welcome to Canreef and The dark side :smile:

hahaha thanks man! i've already started selling off my big planted tank to make room for a large reef! :)

Be warned ... a big reef tank can suck up all your wages faster than that boat you fixed last week :surprise:

I shut down my 125g freshie in fall of 2011 to alleviate the maintenace headaches and went salt for a change
I have more free time from my tank now, and more time to gawk at it, but my research didn't prepare me for the costs :mrgreen:

Hope you enjoy the hobby and find a tank size you like
There's lots to read here if you want to do more research, and lots of help

oh i hear you man... i'm over $500 into my 20 gallon already! so i'm definitely nervous about the costs, but you know it's all worth it in the end right! :) well almost

I'm keeping all the cash i make from the livestock and equipment on my 125 and using that toward my salty fund.

Removed and sent to PM

Well it's the 4 week mark.... damn i'm not patient enough, I thought it was a lot longer than that.

Well here's the low down, this morning I did the 3rd water change after testing the parameters and here's what we got:
PH 8.2
Temp 77
Phosphate between 0 and 0.05
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0

The denitrifying bubbles stopped and the detrius on the sand stopped both about 2 weeks ago i think, but yesterday just noticed the bubbles coming back and another couple spots of detrius... i guess the cycle is not completely done although my water chem seems to be in a good place. I still haven't picked up a calcium tester - but will be purchased next time i swing by J&L.
I've added another coral piece, though once again the name has slipped my mind... becoming a bad habbit i know, but i'll get there :)

Here's the newest pics... oh and I just got a new samsung galaxy s3 and the camera seems to be real impressive, these are almost on par with my DSLR.

Enjoy!
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps0645e78f.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...psf06c82d5.jpg
here's the new one... any help with an ID would be great. Its tips look very much like my flower pot, but it doesn't stretch nearly as far out
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps08bef73e.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...psb7865a93.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps3e8be723.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...psd00291c6.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps51e3e399.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps2cfd2048.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps6b4dee34.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...psa56310ee.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps070df03e.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...psdc6b511a.jpg

http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps5077bbe1.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps3919d336.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...psd93d34e4.jpg
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http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps3dc69011.jpg
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http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...psffd6ee73.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...psf3aaf1b7.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps79e3cebe.jpg

Looks like a big duncan colony to me. I might be wrong though.

And you have only spent $500 on your tank till now? You got a long way to go then ;) But great progress I must say :D

Looks great! Salt is so much more interesting than fresh :smile:. How long have you had the flower pot? Your new coral looks like a pagoda cup. (the little flowers do resemble duncans)

$500. I wish. Moma bear and myself figured that my 26g was topping $4000 but that's also livestock

Looks great. Looking forward to the upgrade

Thanks for the ID, I WAS at $500 i think i cleared $800 after this weekend ;)
Thanks for the kind words, I love this tank and can't even look at my 125 planted any more ;) Thanks for the ID i think you are right, it's a pagoda. I've only had the flower pot for a couple weeks, from what i've read i might struggle with this one but it looks happy so far. I've got a couple small capsules of reef-roids that i've been spot feeding it along with the candy cane and they both seem pretty happy so far.
oh yeah like i said to mrhasan, i WAS at $500 lol
when i get a big one going then i'll probably be in pretty deep... pardon the pun

looks like a really happy tubinaria/cup coral

I've had this 60 gallon drilled tank sitting here for a while and now it's time to get her full of water. First things first, I had to set up my first sump system. I took a couple trips out to JnL's and talked with one of the guys there to get a good understanding of the mechanics of the sump. I've been perplexed by them for a while, but now it all makes sence. So out comes the wallet and I got my return pump (eheim compact 2000) bulkhead fittings, gate valves and lock lines. They sent me to Corix Water Products for the PVC stuff. Ok so 10 feet of 1" and 10 feet of 3/4 plus a bunch of elbows and threaded adaptors. It probably took me an hour to map the system out in the store and make sure i had every peice i needed!

So i got home and went to work.

On the advice of the guys at JnL I decided to do a Herbie drain to keep the noise down a bit.

Now this is my first sump setup so if you see something weird with the plumbing just let me know please... not that I can do anything about it now, but let me know so i can learn.

Here's a good before and after shot! lol
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...pse44477b1.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps16c0acd0.jpg
and the full tank shot
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps1a1f52dd.jpg

So... 50lbs of lr later....


http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps8fdc3db8.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps93e0e319.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps29a57c3b.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps0c546568.jpg

So here we go! finally had a day off of work and it's time to make the jump. First thing i had to do was get some shelving brackets from home depot so i could suspend my 24" light fixture above the tank and allow the beam to spread out enough that i wouldn't have any shadows. With that task done, and my coral thoroughly ****ed off, I began moving the 20 lbs of LR from my small tank into the new one... a few changes in formation later i think i have it where i want it. Man it's so much easier to plan an aquascape with plants and wood than it is with rocks! my first idea was to basically build a central pillar around the overflow box but that didn't look right with the rock mixing and matching so i did more open top water and a random rock formation by putting together the rocks that seemed to fit together.. just trying to do a natural feel but i've got rock from two different locations so it's a big mix and match anyway... let me know what you think, or any ideas you have. The next thing was moving the coral across... i figured id go at about the same water level with everything like i had it in the other tank but now the light is so much farther away i'm not sure what the best move is. I suppose it's going to be a wait and see scenario. If you guys see anything that looks totally off please let me know... i'm still a rookie reefer.

These pictures were taken about 10 minutes after i was done so that's why the coral is all closed up.... besides the xenia which stretched out almost immediately

http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps1489d4c8.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps48f71a18.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...psc53cbd8a.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps2ec5952d.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps06bd2995.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...psbbe7e6ad.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps48f3a206.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...pse4ec2595.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...psa93b9d76.jpg

Really looking good! your sinularia is really pretty, look like you really have the bug now! :lol:

thank you very much pinkreef!!! i love having this much space to play with... now it's time to decide if i want to switch my planted 125 over to salt! lol

Quick update, got some frags off of Kelly (KPG007) today... as well as a couple more damsels, and so that is a perfect reason for a photobomb update ;)



no idea what this one is called
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...psc6767dfd.jpg
branching GSP... hasn't opened up yet
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps37cd0b9f.jpg
apparently easy SPS... forget what it was called (i know there's a theme here)
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps899b4ba8.jpg
beauty zoas (that is my official name for them)
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps06184131.jpg
galaxy something
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps61491019.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps5e24e0a1.jpg

One point I give with nanos.... Anything you do to a small tank is exponentially more noticeable. For example, less water has little room for chemistry errors.

Evaporation is ten fold. If you don't top up daily you will have spikes in your salinity. Which could be harmful.

Temperature. In summer the tank will heat up more rapidly then a large body of water. Temperature spikes can kill your corals and fIsh if not monitored.

Good luck. Looks ok so far.

thanks for the input bud... i can't figure out how to change the title on the thread but i've actually moved from the 20 into a 60 gallon tank with a sump, so my water chem is a little less susceptible to the large swings associated with small tanks.

Yah the picture looked a little bigger than what I would expect a 20 gallon to be haha :P Looking good :)

As a mod. They change the title. You can't do it alone.

Looks good. If you want the title changed just contact a mod

thanks for the info guys.... the mods changed it up for me


here's some new coral pics!

http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps645f3294.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps6064e359.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps4d94c201.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps1940d25f.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...psdee73ceb.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...psa378abd1.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...psacc95eda.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps5257d41d.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps74c19c55.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...psf86c480f.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps8acf25c6.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps93c73d82.jpg

Picked up a Reefkeeker Lite and after some tinkering I have the system all running and working. I've also set it up with an auto top off, which almost became a huge problem when I didn't think about the top off hose siphoning the 5 gallon bucket straight into the sump after the pump was shut off... luckily it stopped when the water level equalled out and i didn't move the salt content too far so nothing in the tank seemed to be adversely affected. at this point i'm only an RO/DI unit away from having this system right where i want it.... ok a higher end LED light also

downloaded the myreef 2.0 software from the Digital Aquatics website and started to play around with the controller. I'm going to need a phone line splitter because there are no open ports in the system but i just removed the temp probe and temporarily connected my laptop using the usb cable that was supplied in the box. The one draw back i have found with the reefkeepr is there was seemingly no way to change the name of each channel so you have to keep a map handy to remember which channel was which component, but when i connected and ran the software i found that i could customize the channel names so now instead of my display reading CH1 - ON it reads LEFT P/H - ON, or SKIMMER - ON... SOOOO much better.

http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps2ece23ed.jpg
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/a...psc357d6ed.jpg