Neven's Reef

[neven]

Figured i'd stop lurking and start keeping my journal here
Display tank size: 33 Gallons
Sump size: 33 Gallons
approx total water volume: 55-58 G

Lighting:
DiY Homemade fixture, GU10 bulbs custom manufactured
21 bulbs 3x2W LEDs each (blend of Blue/Pure White/Cool LEDs)

Equipment:
Maxijet pro 400 (circulation sump)
Coralife CP 750 (circulation display tank)
Rio 1400+ (return pump)
Prizm Pro 300G HoB Skimmer (on sump)
150W heater (in sump)

Plumping:
1x 3/4" full siphon w/ valve
2x 3/4" Open channel
1x 1/2" lockline return

Fish:
Neon Blue Goby
clown goby
purple firefish
tailspot blenny
six line wrasse
lyretail anthias

Corals:
Neon Green Leather
Orange Rhodactis Mushroom
Orange Ricordia
Green Stripe Mushroom
Green and Blue Caribbean Bullseye Mushroom
Green Marble Mushrooms
green star polyps
white button polyps
Brown button polyps
Starburst Zoanthids
Green Goblin Zoanthids
a couple unknown Zoanthids
Candy Cane
torch coral
Anthelia
Soft Finger Leather (making a comeback)
neon green leather (making a comeback)
favia
frogspawn
Tyree Seasons Greetings


macro algae:
Halimeda
Red Gracilaria

Inverts:
Hawaiian Feather Duster
Blue Legged Hermits
Red Legged Hermits
Cerinth Snails
stomatella Snails

[neven]

This system has been through some ups and downs. It started as my first venture into the reef tanks with a DIY foam rock wall build in a 10 gallons with a 20 gallon sump. It ended up being a bryopsis breeding ground thanks to me using too powerful lights too close to the tank.

The next generation of the tank was from me buying 3x33 Gallon tanks from a local here, 2 of them were planned for my salt water venture, the other one to replace my 29 gallon fresh. After going through a lot of work, installing my own bean animal overflow box that i had made at a glass shop, i messed up and didn't go right to the edges with the outside box. This put a lot of stress on the back pane and while i was sleeping in the next day after transferring everything over my wife runs in yellin there's water on the floor. So that tank was gone and i downgraded to the 20 gallon i was using for the old sump.

i was happy with the 20 until my son decided to dump a whole container of NLS flake into the tank, i didn't catch it in time, so even with switching out 25% water a day for a week, the fishies all perished and i had to do something drastic. I tore down my freshwater, drilled it, tore down the 20 gallon, threw out the fouled sand, used the 20 gallon for the fresh fishies and now i was back at the 33G reef display tank. Well the transfer took 2 days, and lots of buckets and rubbermaids, and angry spouse moments.

The last hurdle i had was the nitrates started creeping up because of that food incident and me running a DSB, so i ripped out the DSB and went with a refugium, not a difficult change atleast.

I restocked the tank slowly to current levels, tripled my corals and tripled the amount the wife was angry at me too :P My latest purchase was a fragbox group buy, so here are the pics since then.

Left side of tank

left side of tank angle 2, better view of the tyree's seasons greetings and green marble mushrooms i got from fragbox

right side of tank

FTS

My Tuxedo urchin hiding


Two of the 4 things i got from fragbox:
green goblin zoas

fruitloop zoas

[Ram3500]

looking good ! I have always wanted black gravel in a reef tank nice work.

[monkE]

looks good Neven!!

[gregzz4]

Looks really good neven
'bout time you started a jounal here

[neven]

update!
some fishies perished a while back, i thought it was something wrong, but fingers pointed to my feeding regime being very inadequate with such a heavy feeder in the tank. So one by one a few fishies got lethargic and passed on without a body to be found thanks to the CuC.

So i increased my feedings, had a bad incident with a very angry diedem pseudochromis that i had to get out and now is in a time out nano tank all to itself, More stock (clown goby, clown fish and royal gramma), and a proper phosphate media reactor (which wasn't needed but nice to have).

Im all fish stocked up again, i know i have around 50 G of water in my system, but i dont want to push it territory wise, Currently the six line wrasse hates the clown fish, but not chasing him anymore so they might get better, but if not i changed the sump a bit to allow me to time out the wrasse without it getting into my refugium side and killin all the good critters.

unrelated to the above, i gave away some macro algae and a member here commented on the colours popping from my lighting, so i will post my incredibly easy GU10 Build