72 gallon bowfront bedroom build

[lliieemm]

I'm afraid of the ridicule i'll receive for things i haven't done correctly but I try to do research before I try things out and ultimately i want my fish alive and healthy. oh well, this thread might be mainly be for my historical usage. if i end up figuring things out, i hope others can learn from my adventure too.

5/21/15 pick up the fish tank from a craigslist seller. 72 gallon bow front, 20 gallon sump, aquatic life t5 (4 bulb) plus LED night light, mag 7 sump pump, 300w heater (died the next day), 750gph circulation pump, aragonite substrate, good amount of live rock, tank has been running for about 2.5 years
https://youtu.be/VBbLycdibGw


5/22/15 do a water test. Nitrates are 160+ppm!!! i freak out and try a 75% water change. Afterwards the nitrate reading is still 160+ppm!




5/24/15 - added some seachem prime liquid to help reduce nitrates



5/27/15 - changed the rocks around



5/31/15 - 20 gallon water change. nitrates still read 160+ppm. added instant ocean nitrate reducer and sea buffer

6/2/15 - added 3 tail spot blennies. a few days later i found one jumped out of the tank while i wasn't home

6/4/15 - 22 gallon water change. nitrates still read 160+ppm

6/6/15 - added a bag of live copepods


6/9/15 - added eheim Ultra G Series 160 Model canister filter

6/10/15 - added a few small dead rock

6/11/15 - nitrates still read 160+ppm. added instant ocean nitrate reducer liquid

6/13/15 - hooked up home reverse osmosis unit. 20 gallon water change. nitrates still read 160+PPM

6/14/15 - after some online research i decided to go with someone's suggestion that the aragonite substrate is holding a bunch of the nitrates. picked up 40 lbs of sand to replace the aragonite. I probably removed about 60-75% of the aragonite in total. I did it in two phases, took out about 25% the first time. Then waited about 2 weeks then removed 40%.

6/18/15 - added macro algae to the sump

6/19/15 - 20 gallon water change. nitrate reading looks a little less red. i'm marking it as 80-160 ppm. starry blenny added.

6/23/15 - overflow box is loud. i added the filter foam to allow the water to trickle in instead of rush through the intake pipes. that greatly reduced the water sound.

6/25/15 - 20 gallon water change. nitrate reading looks less red again. i'm marking it somewhere between 40-160ppm

6/26/15 - RO water test. 0ppm for ammonia and nitrates

6/25/15 - 20 gallon water change. nitrate 20-40 ppm. added clean up crew. with the lower nitrates the green algae doesn't seem to be growing.
5 Snail Trochus
1 Snail Ninja Star
5 Snail Cerith
5 Snail Nerite
15 Hermit Blue Leg


copepods https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUUZADCjJJw
two spot blenny https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRSVF2LLPT0

[lliieemm]

6/14/15 - picked up sand to replace the aragonite

[lliieemm]

6/10/15 - added a few small dead rock

[lliieemm]

6/8/15 - lots of fan worms

[lliieemm]

a tail spot blenny

[lliieemm]

sump https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T1Ci_uNHS0

[lliieemm]

letting mother nature grow the green and brown algae like crazy. that should eat up the nitrates.

[lliieemm]

[lliieemm]

woo hoo! nitrates are coming down!

[lliieemm]

7/1/15 - 20 gallon water change. nitrate 10-20 ppm.


7/1/15 - snail eggs! the location of the eggs are in the far back corner of the tank, so i couldn't get a good picture.

[lliieemm]

7/1/15 protein skimmer just arrived

[sde1500]

Wow that is a lot of algae! Question though, high nitrates aren't that great for the tank, obviously you are working to bring them down, but why would you add fish while you work through this problem? Wouldn't it be better to get the issue under control before putting fish into an environment that isn't great for them?

Also, maybe adding in some sort of fuge loaded with Macro algae would help getting the nitrates down.

[lliieemm]

the fish added were algae eaters. i agree high nitrates isn't good for them, but i wanted to get them started on eating the algae. probably not a smart way to go, but they seem fat and happy.

i added macro algae a couple of weeks ago - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T1Ci_uNHS0

Originally Posted by sde1500

Wow that is a lot of algae! Question though, high nitrates aren't that great for the tank, obviously you are working to bring them down, but why would you add fish while you work through this problem? Wouldn't it be better to get the issue under control before putting fish into an environment that isn't great for them?

Also, maybe adding in some sort of fuge loaded with Macro algae would help getting the nitrates down.

[lliieemm]

7/2/15 - manually tried to pluck off brown algae and remove large chucks. seems like the brown algae itself is easier to remove now than before. is this due to the lower nitrates?

I also hooked up the protein skimmer. this morning already there was a nice green/brown 1/8 cup filled up not dark but not light.

[setsail4mexico]

You may want to check your phosphate level... That leads to a lot of algae too. If high a phosban reactor helps greatly! Good luck!

[lliieemm]

Originally Posted by setsail4mexico

You may want to check your phosphate level... That leads to a lot of algae too. If high a phosban reactor helps greatly! Good luck!

that was going to be my next step if the nitrates didn't come down. but i got some good news, check out this image. just did another 20 gallon water change

[setsail4mexico]

Awesome! Glad to hear!

[lliieemm]

recent video. small coral frag and neon goby added

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggqBvV9Ed7k

[lliieemm]

a frogspawn coral added, 3 fire fish added

[lliieemm]

LOL school of fish.... 3 firefish, a tail spot blenny and a neon goby.

[lliieemm]

3 purple fire fish added. 2 additional flowerpot and 1 bubble corals added.

[reef_fish]

nice to see I'm not the only one with a bedroom tank! I got a 75 sumpless. You can put a small bag of carbon and a small bag of phosban in the other chamber on the reefoctopus. That's what I'm doing right now, and I have it on a timer to keep the tank quiet while I sleep. Are all those firefish getting along?

[lliieemm]

Originally Posted by reef_fish

nice to see I'm not the only one with a bedroom tank! I got a 75 sumpless. You can put a small bag of carbon and a small bag of phosban in the other chamber on the reefoctopus. That's what I'm doing right now, and I have it on a timer to keep the tank quiet while I sleep. Are all those firefish getting along?

wow thanks for that advice on the chamber use on the protein skimmer. i may just do that when i feel my tank is in need of that.

all the firefish are getting along, but i do fear the day when they get mature and start fighting...... it seems like other aquarists report that problem. though it may take up to 3 years for the fish to get that fighting testosterone?

in the last few weeks, i've seen it a few times when two firefish go literally head to head. they swim in place, but head to head only for a couple of seconds. i'm not sure if they are kissing each other (i doubt that haha), or if they are sizing each other up for a potential fight... other than that, i haven't seen any aggression. i'm very surprised actually, not even the dominance act of "move out of my way, i'm going to swim right where you are because i'm more macho." heck if anything i see that from the starry blenny (SB) and one of the tail spot blenny (TSB) that swim through the schooling firefish to show off their "macho-ness", just by making the fire fish move out the way temporarily.

there are days that it seems i spend hours staring at the tank. so when i notice that one of the red firefish has a beat up dorsal fin, i actually chalk that up to swimming into the rocks too fast. i have yet to ever see one of them bite each other. in two cases, the dorsal fin is already grown back. as for the purple firefishes, their tail is a little beat up, i remember receiving them like that from the LFS. i'm keeping an eye on the tails to see if they don't heal up. but like i said, i don't see them biting or even chasing each other, so i'd be surprised if it doesn't.

i had to add a lawnmower blenny (LMB) from my other tank since there was a lack of algae for him. it's great news that so far the starry blenny has been relatively nice to the LMB. at first there was a couple nips or dominance acts, but now the starry seems to accept the LMB. it's hilarious to see the starry come cudde, literally sit so close where he's cuddling with the LMB. but after a few seconds i think the LMB is scared, so it swims away.

it's pretty awesome to see the tailspot blennys swim with the red and purple fire fishes! the tailspot blennies swims with them very often. once in a long while the starry blenny and neon goby even join in! i hope to get some video footage of that rare occasion when they got their swimming party going on

the only thing i dislike about my tank setup is the noise from the overflow box. i can't see to silence it. i think the last owner tried to do a standpipe setup, but the holes are maybe too big the rear side of the overflow box.

[lliieemm]

i'm not sure if i'm fortunate, but all 6 firefish stay out swimming all day. maybe 1-2 of 6 will hide during moonlight time.

[lliieemm]

a good picture of my flowerpot coral, i can't seem to get the colors to show up as good as when you're standing in front of it