Daelie's 3 Feet of Reef Tank

[daelie]

Never really posted too much here, but have had tanks for a long time and having upgraded back in december, and things also going decently well and stable for me, I thought I would at least start my first build thread on the site and hope to keep it updated regularly from this point.

Equipment List

Tank Dims: 36" x 21" x 20"

Skimmer: Vertex Omega 130

Lighting: Giesemann 8 Bulb 36w T5 with Kessil A360WE supplementation

Heaters: Eheim Jager 100W x 2

Flow: Jebao DC6000 Return & 2 x Ecotech mp10wQD & 1 x Ecotech mp40wQD

ATO: Gravity Fed Reservoir combined with a Tunze Osmolator

The tank itself took a very long time to level on the carpet in the room where we wanted it. Several fills and refills later it finally stayed true.

The first piece to unbox was the lights, which I originally ordered a 6 bulb setup during a sale, but it was mislabeled, and turned out to be an 8 bulb setup, so the store honored the same price, so I didn't complain in the end. Here's a few shots of the lights.



After getting the tank partially wet, I had all my corals/rock/fish from the previous tank divided between two 20 gallon tanks, so I ended up transferring all water/rock/corals from each tank over the course of a couple days, making sure it was a decently slow transition to not really cause a new cycle. Then began the aquascaping.

I started with a small island on the left that's mostly stayed the same this entire time



And then I decided for some shelves on the right side that are mainly going to be the make-up of a large zoanthid garden when everything grows in (hopefully).



To this :



After getting everything up and running, I was skimmerless for the better part of a month because my old tunze didn't really fit anywhere very well and I was torn between what would actually work well in the sump. In the end, I went with a used vertex that was a pretty good price, and it ended up taking up most of my sump space, but it started pulling out some really dark, awful smelling junk. I also repurposed some kessils I had lying around to supplement the t5 lighting and I mostly use them for some shimmer, and the dawn dusk lights on the tank. This FTS and sump shots were taken just after I got the skimmer.





These pictures were all taken roughly around the same time: Thumbnails are clickable



I began dosing a few of the zeovit additives as well a couple times of week to help nutrient levels and see a little better growth than I had in my 30L in the year and a bit prior. My doses were based on someone else's tank build on the zeovit forums that had a very similarly sized tank. My nutrients dropped fast, slightly bleaching a couple of my favias, but everything else responded really well to it and the favias are recovering at a slow pace.

The latest full tank shot is this one taken about a week ago:

[Image: ETcBHFth.jpg]

[daelie]

Adding in the photos and the edit expired to add the last photo: So here is the latest FTS.



As well doing my weekly water change, I took a bunch of top down photos thinking that I would be finally setting up a build thread sometime this week: (Again all clickable for larger versions)

[Skimmer Juice]

nice zoa's , also running a t5/kessil combo best lighting I have had to date. That vertex skimmer smell is quit foul lol.

[daelie]

Originally Posted by Skimmer Juice

nice zoa's , also running a t5/kessil combo best lighting I have had to date. That vertex skimmer smell is quit foul lol.

Thanks, I really like the T5 Kessil combo, it looks great with the shimmer and no shadows. The vertex is awful, I try shoving it in my girlfriend's face whenever I clean it, she's not amused haha.

Update:
Things have been growing quite well over the last little while, and I added a few new frags during a sale. I had a chance to snap a quick few photos the other night during a water change. Thinking of adding a sand sifting goby if I can get my hands on one in the next little while. A small bit of cyano has started appearing on the sand in some spots, so I've ramped up the flow a little bit more, and I vacuumed it out during the WC, hoping it doesn't return, and it's been a few days since I last saw it.

Some of the photos I uploaded (Always clickable thumbnails):

[albert_dao]

Great write-up. Really appreciated the well organized flow of this post

[smokinreefer]

Matrixx is nice!

With those mounting legs how high off the tank is it?
Do you find there is a lot of light spill?

I want to light a tank with matrixx but it would be beside a dining table.
Do you think the light spill would be bothersome to guests sitting trying to enjoy a meal?

Thanks!

Great tank!

[daelie]

The cyano I mentioned in my last post actually got a decent hold shortly after and covered the sandbed. I did a water change and siphoned it all out and it hasn't really come back since. Other than that things are going well. My parameters have been staying quite solid and the favia that bleached during the transfer is finally getting some of its purple color back, very slowly but surely, I have it hiding slightly under a ledge on the left side of the tank. Here's a few pictures, still having trouble really showing how blue a few of the corals are, more practice with the camera and I'll figure it out.

New FTS:



Some half tank shots and a few macros

[daelie]

For today I just have a small little photo dump of some frags that I'm gonna try to keep track of the growth of over the coming months and hopefully trade/sell them once they get around to covering their plugs. Some have already taken off a lot more than their friends around them. Pictures were taken with the kessils on 100% intensity and 0% color.

[daelie]

Update!

Added a tuxedo urchin and a few chromis to get some more life in the tank, plus added a couple new corals and fiddled around with the camera to take a few new photos. Hopefully I'll be able to update my frag shots from the earlier post in the coming days/week, as I've looked at a few of them and have seen some good growth, just need to get off my butt and actually get some photos. For now, I'll leave with these.

[daelie]

A sad update today unfortunately.

2 days ago, I came home to see my female maroon not eating anything. Usually always at the top of the tank waiting for it when I walk in the room, she was just huddled inside the anemone watching the food go by. I was a little worried, so I took a video and some pictures for a guy who's very active on the international forums and is generally quite good at diagnosing fish diseases, since I looked and couldn't really see anything with regards to white dots on her skin or sliminess building up. He had a good look and couldn't see anything other than he mouth looked a little bigger than normal and she wasn't closing her mouth either, from this he deduced that she may have bitten some zoas near the anemone in an attempt to move them away, as that's decently common behavior, so I turned the lights out, and she stayed in the anemone as I went to sleep.

I woke up, and she was still in the anemone flapping away, still swimming strongly from all I could see, so I went to work that day. My girlfriend feeds the fish once she gets home from work earlier than me and called me to tell me she looked worse, no longer in the anemone and just swimming very lethargicly, sometimes with her fins no longer moving and very near the bottom of the tank. I posted some pics for the fellow again as well as video and he still could see nothing in terms of parasitic infection, but suggested I get her out into quarantine to start some antibiotic treatment. Unfortunately, she was gone when I got home. Within 24 hours, she went from a voracious eater to no longer in my tank, and his best guess was that she bit a zoa/paly and ingested a small amount of palytoxin that led to her rapid demise. Everyone else in the tank seems perfectly fine so far, with the smaller clown taking over the anemone for the time being, until I'm able to find a suitable mate for him, probably soon to be her.