Mystikal's Tank Journal
 

Hi,

Never really started a tank journal before..but here it is.
So I never thought I would get into saltwater aquariums...This was my first jump after discussing in depth the pros and cons of having a small piece of the ocean in my living room. I searched, researched, talked, asked, annoyed just about everyone.
Went into Living Reef orlando, and spoke to a representative about a AIO tank...I had no idea of what a SUMP was, or how to do a water change. The rep showed me everything, I guess it was very helpful since I was a visual learner. At the time I was very interested in the LPS corals, since it moved with the flow of water. But...yea never mind that.

So I purchased the IM 40 Gal. Felt it was aesthetically perfect for my living room, and my fiancé/wife loved it! Win for me ;)


http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...rst%20Tank.jpg

Established ~ 4/10/2015 :fun4:

Tank Cycled pretty quickly
Heres a picture of the NOOB aquascaping...Which I constantly and still think I need more LiveRock lol

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...1/Set%20Up.jpg

It wasn't too long until I added fish to the tank...A pair of true percs.
Several Snails and Hermits, and several LPS Corals.
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...%20Tank%20.jpg

Afterwards I ended up getting this HUGE nem that my clownfishes were afraid of. But I thought it was amazing...however it was really really large.
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...1/IMG_1330.jpg

Fast forward to Dec 2015. My wife and I bought a home...And I had to move the tank. The move went well-->
Put every specimen in individual baggies, buckets, containers, and moved 20 miles.. NOT one fatality.
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...etankCrash.jpg

Believe at the time I had several SPS small colonies/frags. My favorite was the Birdnest :)

update
 

Unfortunately sometime afterwards my nitrates skyrocketed...And well being a complete noob I totally was side tracked with life events I neglected the tank.

Lost mostly all my SPS, except the Red Planet that was attached to the rock. I ended up trimming the RTS and it continued to strive...However, all of the other SPS completely died...

So, I quickly did several water changes and purchased several SPS pieces to "fill in the tank"

After the crash I started having some issues with my fish. At the time I had a Coral Beauty, several cardinals, pair of original true percs, and a male mandarin..
I ended up selling/trading/rehoming everyone except the mandarin. Well I guess he felt lonely and packed up and left, because I found him dried up on the floor one morning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRWFevrVI44&app=desktop
(this is him eating frozen food)

So I had to restock as well. Update as of today June 1, 2016

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...tnt911/FTS.jpg

Current live stock;
1) Pair of Frostbite Flurry (see below)
It was a bit difficult because the first set I purchase ended up not making it...And I had to get a different pair that was not bonded...BUT I bonded them myself with and well they seem happy :thumbsup:
2) Female Mandarin that is way conceited to eat frozen food (but Im trying to train her)
3) Blood shrimp (very personable, and not shy at all)
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r.../Frosthost.jpg

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...loodshrimp.jpg
(the mandarin is very shy, see the bottom right of the photo?)

Here are some updated pics;
(will update more once, I figure out how to use this camera)

LPS; Frogs, Hammers
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r.../LPSGarden.jpg

SPS, Strawberry Wine
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...11/JF%20SW.jpg
Joe The Coral
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...tnt911/JTC.jpg
Red Planet Survivor :)
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r.../RedPlanet.jpg

Equipment:
- IM 40 gal tank and stand
- Ghost protein Skimmer
- Tunze ATO
- Marine Orbit led
- Dual Ecotech Mp10
- Ecotech Radion

Livestock:
- Pair of frostbite flurry clowns
- Mandarin
- Bloodshrimp
- Several red and blue hermits
- Nassarius Snail
- Mexican turbos
- Trochus snails

LPS:
- Hammer (Swirlygig)
- Torch (Swirlygig)
- Frogspawn (Swirlygig)

SPS:
- Red Planet (TS Aquatics)
- Strawberry Shortcake (TS Aquatics)
- Red Dragon (LR)
- Green Milli (LR)
- Miami Tort (Nitr8)
- Cali Tort (Nitr8)
- Strawberry Wine (Nitr8)
- Joe the Coral (Nitr8)
- Aussie Tort (Nitr8)
- Garf Bonsai (Nitr8)
- Birdnest (Nitr8)
- Red Robin (Plyle)
- Pink Lemonade (Plyle)
- Sunset Milli (Plyle)
- Bubblegum Milli (Plyle)
- Chips Acro (Plyle)

Zoas:
- Radio Active (TS)
- Bam Bam (TS)
- Smurfets (TS)
- Rastas (TS)
- Blonde (TS)
- Sunny D's (Lusenut)
- Twizzlers (WWC)
- Candy Apple Red (WWC)

DIY:
Fuge with Cheato
Frag Rack
Media Rack

Looking good my man.


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I agree with Macon, looking really good, going to be sweet to see some of those frags grow out. Nice Start brother!
Cheers!

Thanks guys! Appreciate the kind words and the frags :)

Update: I went ahead and purchased a RODI Unit. Figured it would be much easier to make 5-10 gallons at home.

Picked up the RO DI buddy for a fairly cheap price (MD online) and Red Sea Pro Salt
I quickly saw great results both in Polyp extension, water quality and even numbers.
Tested the day after at:
Nitrate: 0
Salt: 1.026
Ca: 475
Alk: 9.8

Pretty high numbers compared to the LFS water that I was purchasing.
Enjoy
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...inputwater.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...nt911/Rodi.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r.../Outputtds.jpg

I'd like to see a pic of your DIY:Fuge with Cheato

Following along.

I used that RO Buddie system for a while and it worked great for me. I refilled the DI resin cartridge with the BRS DI Resin.

A booster pump also increase my water output by a lot.

Alright finally had sometime to add a quick picture.
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...1/Refugium.jpg

Here it is..So I ended up peeling the black of the last chamber (I used the one on the right) and hung the marine orbit light vertically along that chamber. Also, I ended up using the stock media holder. I felt like the stock was much thinner than the new media caddy, and didn't have the extra glass that the light had to go through to reach the cheato. (I did have the lights and media caddy in there or around in several positions) Thus avoiding the build up of algae. As I was taking the photo I could clearly see amphipods and copepods in that area.

In the stock caddy, I used just regular floss, and the carbon and phosphates

The opposing side has Seachem Matrix Bio Media 250ml, and chemi pure blue.. I will be adding socks or another filter to help clean up the water, for clarity

Heres a quick shot of my cabinet...I will update this information for people looking for the top off container or wiring or help how I got that container in there... I believe it holds around 5-7 gallons of top off water
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...11/Cabinet.jpg

Awesome, I just switched the monitor unit around...i noticed the water coming out from the membrane was 0 tds, and then had to flow through the DI unit.

Beautiful tank! Super jealous of your corals!
How hard is the mandarin? Does it eat only frozen or are there pods?

Thanks!
The Mandarin isn't really hard to take care of. She does her own thing. I have tons of pods in my tank, because of the refugium. In the back has a copepod condominium lol, live rock rubble and cheato algae in separate compartments. This allows the pods to multiple without the mandarin eating them out.
I also dump in copepods usually monthly or every other month just to continue the population.

Just purchased a Reeflink :)

Super excited about this...really wanted wireless control over my older ecotech products.

Will post pictures later. Stay tuned

As promised:
Reeflink addition :)
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...1/IMG_2903.jpg

And here is a picture of the radion hanging from the 10' ceiling:
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...1/IMG_2904.jpg

Took some quick pictures today.
My Ghost Skimmer has been working well thus far! It was a pain to get it dialed in, probably because I was always thinking "more bubbles." However that is not the case. The less bubbles surfacing to the top, makes a larger bubble. After the bubble hits the underneath of the lid, it starts coming down into the collection cup. Now its giving out that green stuff :bounce3:
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...ostSkimmer.jpg

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...lectionCup.jpg


Quick picture of my Red Planet that started encrusting my LR. Polyp extension is going well :)
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...edPlanet_1.jpg

Heres my new frag, Rainbows in Spain aka Spainbow. Thanks Cham
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...tnt911/RIS.jpg
I stumbled across this frag and really liked it for the name. After traveling to Spain several years ago, I figured why not start a collection with SPS named after Cities!

Its a little brown on the underneath, probably due to less light. The coral looks good though, some polyp extension and started coraling in a little. Just got it yesterday, so I have been monitoring it.

Update Pictures :)
 

Built a top down viewer and took some snaps :bounce2: Enjoy
Zoa Rack
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...fragracktd.jpg

Red Dragon Frag
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r.../RedDragTD.jpg

Aussie Tort
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...1/AussieTD.jpg

Cali Tort
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...911/CaliTD.jpg

Chips Acro
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...hipsAcroTD.jpg

StrawberryWine
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...trawWineTd.jpg

Pink Lemonade
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...inkLemonTD.jpg

Miami Tort
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r.../MiamiTort.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...iamiTortTD.jpg

Part two
 

:fun2:
Strawberry Shortcake
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...t911/SSCTD.jpg

Birds of Paradise
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r.../BirdsofTD.jpg

RedRobin
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...RedrobinTD.jpg

Red Planet
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...edplanetTD.jpg

Garf Bonsai
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...911/GarfTD.jpg

Grizzly
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r.../Grizzlytd.jpg

Joe The Coral
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...thecoraltd.jpg

Nice set up, your colors look great. Whatever you're doing is working well :)

Thanks man! that Rainbows in Spain is coloring up and showing good PE. Im just waiting to see some purple/blue tips!

BTW everyone, these photos were taking on a DSLR camera and uploaded straight to my bucket..I did not photo shop or adjust them in any way

Excellent. It had bright blue tips in the pic I sent you but my mini colony doesn't now. I've had a ton of color loss lately and I think I might have just found out why. My Red Sea test kit is reading almost 2 dkh off :/.

Bought salifert today. Hope to see better colors soon


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Oh nooo! That sucks man! Get that up!!!! Slowly tho, not too fast lol. And start getting your nitrate up lol


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How's your lighting schedule and intensity? I will downgrade to a cube in a couple weeks and will transition from t5 to led specifically the radions you have. Your corals are looking great..

I've been on the fence about switching but after seeing a few tanks including yours I am convinced leds are as good for sps.

Light schedule
 

Thanks! For a period of time I was using the high growth before the tank crash. Then I started using a more blue schedule. Currently I'm using a hybrid of both which ecotech released in their new upgrade and did a good case study

http://ecotechmarine.com/wp-content/...ralLab_WP1.pdf

So far this schedule works great. Lights come on around 10am-9pm, around 65% but I'm slowly increasing to 100%

You will love the radions.
Check out the case study!

6 months later update
 

So a lot has changed.. New baby so took some time away from the tank. Ive finally gotten some spare time to do minor adjustments. I think I did 2-3 water changes between the 6 month time period, didn't have much time...
Had some small issues, minor algae, and lost one sps. Guess it fell over and I didn't see it missing. Poor Red dragon...

But here are some pictures...Enjoy. Will add some more of the equipment later.

Red Planet. Exploded...but I need to get some more color
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...17hugeside.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...pdown11617.jpg

Strawberry Shortcake finally started to show some color
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...tcake11617.jpg

Pink lemonade PP extensions
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...onade11617.jpg

Aussie Tort
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...etort11617.jpg

Rainbows in Spain A.K.A Spainbow
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...wside11617.jpg

Joe the Coral
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...coral11617.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...polpy11617.jpg

Birds of Paradise
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...617topdown.jpg

update part 2
 

Cali Tort
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...itort11617.jpg

Strawberry Wine
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...ywine11617.jpg

Red Robin Stag
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...nstag11617.jpg

Zia Garden
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...617topdown.jpg