Newbies in NH

[Enterprise]

Hello Everyone

I have been starring at my sister's 54 gallon corner for years and my girlfriend/domestic partner and I decided this would be a good hobby for both of us to get into together. This tank is also is going to sub in for some money we would have other wise spent on decor. Because of this part she had to have the pretiest tank around so we decided to get a Oceanic Tech Series 120 Stainless Steel. We got the tank in last week and it does look nice.

After much research, shopping, and scouring this site I have decided to do a refugium and I want to do a reef tank with LPS, sponges, and some inverts with the usual starter fishes. I bought off another reefer a used 65 gallon setup for the rock, sand, refugium algae and mud, cleanup crew and some of the equipment and all those odds and ends that add up. I plan to maybe merge this with some more live rock and sand to get my tank up and running without having cycle it. After that I am going to sell off the setup maybe minus a few minor peices.

For my setup I have collected the following items from various sources new and used. Mike at Aquarium Gallery has been especially helpful and got me a good deal on the tank and some of the major components. We are very fortunate in that we saved up the money and can get some of the stuff we really wanted.

Oceanic Tech 120 with Stand
ADHI 30 refugium
Outer Orbit Pro 48" with 250 MH, T5 and lunars
Reef Octopus 150 in sump skimmer
Eheim 1260 return pump
Red Sea Wavemaster
4x MJ 1200 with magnet holders (I am going to try the sureflow mod on one of them)
300W Rena Smart Heater
100 gpd RO/DI (too far from water for auto top off)

The biggest thing I have debating as of late was the power heads. I really wanted to use the wavemaker and I could not bring myself to buy the controllable Koralias or Tunzes. This will probably be a future upgrade and I like the flexibilty of having 4 instead of 2. I read a lot of conflicting information about modded Maxis and wavemakers but I figured for $15 I will try one. Any experience with the Sea Flo? The main wish item after all this will probably be a calcium reactor but I think we need some experience before getting into SPS and harder to keep corals and it might not be needed for a while. I also wanted to keep my filtration as natural as possible and avoid using carbon and a UV sterilizer as my favorite fish so far are Mandarins and I need all those little critters to breed and not get zapped!

Here are the fish that I would like to eventually have. Please tell me if there is some problem with the combination as I have tried to pick out reef friendly species.

I currently have via other tank:

Neon Damsel
Pistol Shrimp (I have only seen him once since moving the tank)
Some sort of feather duster
Sand Sifting Sea Star
Tuxedo Urchin (has not moved in 5 days but the spines are still active)
cleaner crabs and snails

Want list:

Pair of Clowns (preferably Gold Stripped Marroons)
school of Blue Green or Blue Tail Damsels (which one is better?)
Green Mandarins (preferably mated pair)
Watchman Goby (to go with shrimp, how hard is it get the symbiosis?)
Niger Trigger (she wants this one, I am worried about future corals)
Orchid Dottyback
Royal Gramma
Scott's Fairy Wrasse
Blue Assessor
6 Line Wrasse
Coral Beauty
Midas Blenny
Neon Goby (for cleaning habits)
Purple Firefish
Foxface Rabbitfish
Some sort of Tang but I fear for corals with this one as well


So far we have just plumbed it and filled it with RO/DI water to wet test it. I hope when I get home from my trip I can mix the salt in and get the live rock put in late in the week as well as move the fuge contents. I am sure I am going to asking a lot of dumb newbie question over the next few weeks!

Here are some picts of where we are at for the moment. Note: the Eheim has not showed up yet so I was using a Mag 3 I got from the used setup as seen in the picture to at least test it out.

 

[pvh]

Very nice setup! Look like you're done some research before you started. Keep us posted.

BTW welcome to BRS!

 

[Aquaman_68]

Looks nice..Oceanic tech is a nice plug & play unit...Welcome to the hobby....(good to see you have support!!) (for now...)

 

[Blueflu1]

Nice setup. i really like it. Good sump too. Better then mine and I am on my second tank. Welcome to the BRS

 

[MFreef]

welcome to the hobby!!! I have both korallias(regular non controllable) and the seaflow mods on a tsunami wave timer and they work fine!! the korallias are a bit clunky but thats all!! good luck!!

 

[RayD]

Want list:

Pair of Clowns (preferably Gold Stripped Marroons)
school of Blue Green or Blue Tail Damsels (which one is better?)
Green Mandarins (preferably mated pair)
Watchman Goby (to go with shrimp, how hard is it get the symbiosis?)
Niger Trigger (she wants this one, I am worried about future corals)
Orchid Dottyback
Royal Gramma
Scott's Fairy Wrasse
Blue Assessor
6 Line Wrasse
Coral Beauty
Midas Blenny
Neon Goby (for cleaning habits)
Purple Firefish
Foxface Rabbitfish
Some sort of Tang but I fear for corals with this one as well

Stay away from any of the Damsels other than the Blue/Green Chromis. All the others become real aggressive and they're a bugger to catch. And you WILL want to catch them! LOL

Be careful with Triggers and Angels as they could be problematic with corals in the reef and definitely will be problematic with inverts.

Also be careful on the Blenny if you plan to keep clams down the road. I'm not sure about the Midas Blenny but I do know others are notorious clam nippers. I had a Bi-Color Blenny that wiped out 4 Crocea clams before I could catch him! Read up on the Blenny before purchasing. Lawn Mower Blennies are pretty bullet proof.

Tangs will not bother your corals.

 

[Blueflu1]

Stay away from any of the Damsels other than the Blue/Green Chromis. All the others become real aggressive and they're a bugger to catch. And you WILL want to catch them! LOL

+1 on catching the damsels. I have a blue damsel that is a PAIN to catch. I had to move him to a QT Tank last year and I had to dismantle my whole Display tank to get him and had to corner him. I tried catching him last night to move him into the new tank with no luck. I am gonna let him calm down and try again next week.

 

[afboundguy]

Welcome aboard and I def agree with only blue/green chromis...

 

[Enterprise]

Thanks Everybody

I think a small school of Blue/Green Chromis will be the first fish we add. I'll post more photos as we get along in the process. I am worried that the Neon Damsel will bully new additions. He was just a part of the setup deal that I bought. I can't wait to get home and work more on this project.

 

[afboundguy]

Are you going to wait untill the tank is cycled before you add them? It's not a good idea to cycle a tank with fish as it's kind of cruel.

 

[Blueflu1]

Are you going to wait untill the tank is cycled before you add them? It's not a good idea to cycle a tank with fish as it's kind of cruel.

I agree with that. I never cycle with fish. LR only and you can add a piece of raw table shrimp.

 

[Enterprise]

SInce I have the other setup I was just going to add the LR, aquascape, then add the sand and wait to test for a cycle. I am hoping that since I have the rock in the old system that I won't need much of a cycle, but we will see. Will the livestock be okay in the old system for a week without the rock and sand or do I need to leave the sand until the rock cycles? Also I have the fuge so when I do move those contents?

 

[jbishop]

Welcome to the club. Great to see your already getting a ton of info.

 

[Enterprise]

update

Hello again

This has been a real busy week as I got the rest of my live rock from Aquadiva and a calcium reactor from ONe eye. After some trial and error with my return plumping I decided to stick with some pool vacuum hosing I got from Home Depot. I have now tried 3 different tubings and this stuff is a bit noisy but it attaches well the the bulkhead and goes where I tell it to in my sump. I want to avoid hard plumbing for now as I am still arranging where things will go especially with my new Ca reactor.

After getting all the rock and adding it to my existing rock from the other setup we made our first attempt at aquascaping. It was a lot harder and frustrating than I first thought it would be. After a while the water was so stirred up from just the the stuff that came off the rock that we could barely see. We let it settle overnight and finished with the MHs on to help. We actually have way too much rock now and we'll be selling off the extra next week but we are happy with the initial result. The only thing I am worried about is that we have too much cliff and not enough plateaus for future coral at medium depth. It is plenty flat on top and the 2 sunken in areas are going to pretty cool for the fish. I also have a little side channel on the right side overlooked by the 2 pieces of Tonga I have. I know it is cheesy, but we are going to put a sunken ship in the front right corner so I have to leave room for that.

Right before I left for this trip we put the sand bed in and I hope it will all be settled by the time I get home. My GF is hopefully going to turkey baste off some of the sand on the rock because after the first couple of scoops it was just pure guesswork where the sand went. There is so much rock that I am worried the sand bed is too high! I also moved the fuge contents so the system should be starting to stabilize. The rock I got from Aquadiva has not seen light in a year but was heated and circulated and probably needs to be recolonized, but I am hoping that it does not need a full blown cycle.

I am going to break down the old setup and sell it off as well next week and setup my quarantine so I at least can start to think about getting some livestock depending on how the tank is doing. I am thinking about doing a school of Green Chromis first. Do I need to QT my clean up crew as well and for how long? I guess they go in before anything else. Also can you mix a Scopas Tang with a Purple. I have read that they will fight with a Yellow.

Here are some picts of our attempt at aquascaping.

 

[afboundguy]

Looking good so far... Good luck with scaping... I feel like I re-scape monthly because I don't like it lol...

 

[pvh]

Looking good so far... Good luck with scaping... I feel like I re-scape monthly because I don't like it lol...

Me too...Enjoy aquascaping when you have room. I rescape because I need to make room monthly. lol

Tank looking good there.

 

[jbishop]

very nice rock work.

 

[Enterprise]

update

Well we survived the blackout with a 800 watt inverter run off our cars. Luckily there was not much in our tank. The only major event was that when the damsel in the other tank start to look real bad Deb put him in the tank and I had to disassemble the rock work to get him out!

Now it is put back together more or less the same as before. RayD donated a encrusted piece of Gargonia that is sitting in the sand bed. There are a few frags of corals that came from the old tank that I am not really sure what they are. Below are some pictures of said corals.

Yesterday we went to Skipton's and bought our first fish. The main reason we went there is because the quarantine their fish and I wanted to use the QT for the baby GS Maroon Clowns we also picked up from Jr_reefdweeler. We wanted to just get some Green Chromis but theirs were being isolated for a suspected bacterial deal and they did not want to sell them. Michelle steered Deb and I to some good starter fish and we ended up getting:

1) 2 Pajama Cardinals
2) 1 Royal Gramma
3) 1 Neon Dottyback TR
4) 1 Yasha Hase Goby
5) 1 Fire Shrimp
and also 2 GSMs in the QT

So far the Gramma and Dottyback seem pretty happy as they have been swimming all over and finding their new homes. The PJs have been real shy and are hiding in opposite corners of the back of the tank. The Yasha proceeded to immediately hide but luckily we put him right were the pistol shrimp was and for the first time I have managed to see him since moving him into the tank so I think they are hanging out together.

Below are mystery to me coral picts. The first one has the Gorgonia in the left and the ? on the rock. The second one are the 2 frags that are up on the rock work.

 

[Blueflu1]

Looks good so far. My only comment is I would be concerned about getting that many fish at once. I could be wrong, but your water parameters probably aren't equipped to handle too much of an ammonia spike. I always get one fish at a time and wait at least a few weeks before I get another so I don't upset the balance in the tank.

 

[RiverReefer]

welcome enterprise....where did you get that sump, and what brand is it? tank looks nice but liek blue said don't spike it with a large influx of fish