1 Year Metamorphosis of a tank in pics...

[mmittlesteadt]

This is my 40 gallon breeder tank. I started it in March of 2015 and this is kind of a photo essay depicting the changes undergone in my reef over the last year. I have a 65 gallon sump in the basement (right below my display tank in the living room upstairs). I have about 50 lbs. live rock in the display (started as dry rock) and about another 40 lbs. in the 27 gallon refugium of my sump...that also contains lots of chaeto). It is a softie tank with the following inhabitants...

Fish: Coral Beauty, Twin Spot Goby, Lawnmower Blenny, 2 Ocellaris Clownfish, Banghai Cardinal, Pajama Cardinal, Firefish, Royal Gramma.

Inverts: Various snails (including 4 Nassarius), Red Legged Hermit Crabs, Cleaner Shrimp, 4 peppermint shrimp.

Coral: Red Kenya Tree, Green Kenya Tree, GSP, two different Zoanthids, two different Mushrooms, Condylactis Gigantea Anemone.

Here's the progress over one year.

March 2015 (filled with water only)



May 2015 (starting to grow algae with a few other additions)...



July 2015 (a few more additions)...



August 2015



September 2015



October 2015



November 2015



January 2016 (before I lost my Torch and Plate Corals )...



Today...March 19th, 2016



This is for all of you starting up a tank. Have fun with it. In no time at all that barren, clean tank will start going through a myriad of changes, including the cycling, algae blooms, possibly some things not making it, while others flourish. Just have patience and over time you will be rewarded with a fantastic little slice of a coral reef. Hope you enjoyed this.

[MondoBongo]

love the photos at regular intervals! this is one of my favorite things to do with the tank, since the incremental growth sometimes hides how much things change in even relatively short spans of time.

good looking tank you got there.

[jminick2]

I like the aquascape.

[Flippers4pups]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing.

[Sk8r]

Neat. NTTH folk should take a look at the sand films and other things right along with the growth and health of the tank. They're part of the same process. Bringing everything into balance is neat to watch.

[dowjones1221]

i wasn't sure if i liked the aquascape in the first picture but by the time i got to the last one, and your eye just wanders all over the tank, i absolutely love it!!! great job!

[JohnnyHildo]

really great job man. those zoa's look awesome!

[mmittlesteadt]

Originally Posted by Sk8r

Neat. NTTH folk should take a look at the sand films and other things right along with the growth and health of the tank. They're part of the same process. Bringing everything into balance is neat to watch.

Yes! That's why I posted it. Every time my tank went through a natural process like diatoms, algae blooms, etc. I didn't panic and feel like I needed to intervene. I just let it go through the process. I believe in letting nature take it's own course. It knows better than us what it is doing. For every instance where I wanted to "do something about it", just riding it out and observing let the "problem" work itself out. Which it did.

Even though my sand went from pure white to grungy, I just added sand sifting creatures to work it, and sure enough it all took care of itself. When I had horrible algae growth coming out of rocks, I knew it was only in places where phosphates were leeching out of the rock and that too went away all on it's own.

I also purposely selected fish and creatures that work with each other, each with their own specialization in the system, and they have their own niche in the system, rather than necessarily getting what I wanted.

When nitrates wouldn't go down, I didn't get all freaked out, wondering what to do. I added chaeto to my sump, added kenya tree and GSP to my reef (which absorb them), and the nitrates went away and have stayed away.

By simply letting the reef do it's own thing (instead of me always intervening), it became what I set out to make it...pretty much a self sustaining system requiring very little work on my part. I let the inhabitants tell me how well it was doing. With some observation, they communicate to me what is going on in my reef.

The progress pics are a great way to visually check on things. You can see the early stage of it going through the maturation process, and the growth and development of the entire ecosystem. I think we all too often want to intervene in things better left to nature to sort out. But I guess it's human nature to think we know better.

[mmittlesteadt]

Originally Posted by jminick2

I like the aquascape.

Thanks. The entire back wall is fake, and built out of styrofoam and black pond foam, along with the same sand from the bottom of the tank. The rest nature did. That fake wall hides my corner overflow in the left back corner, and my return in the upper right. It was shaped purposely to enhance the flow around the back of my rockwork. There are almost no dead spots anywhere in the tank. The rockwork was done with fiberglass rods and hydraulic cement creating about 5 separate, yet interlocking structures placed directly on the glass and then sand filled in around them. Many creatures have made homes under the rock, in caves where the sand was moved out.

Here's some early pics (before filling with water). It's come quite a way in one year...

[nmotz]

I remember when you were building this tank. It's growing out nicely, and still room for so much more, no pressure

[mmittlesteadt]

Here's a video of it I took yesterday. 40 Gallon Breeder Coral Reef.

[mmittlesteadt]

Originally Posted by nmotz

I remember when you were building this tank. It's growing out nicely, and still room for so much more, no pressure

Thanks! Yes, I still have all kinds of places for corals. It's still a work in progress, yet it's almost no work at all. Pretty much everything is automated or close to it. My sump is in the basement, where I keep my RODI over my utility sink 5 feet away, my ATO and a mixing station for water changes. The only thing I do with my display tank is clean a little algae off the front glass, and feed.

Here's the business end of my system in the basement directly under my display tank in the the living room. It's a 65 gallon tank with the center section being about a 27 gallon refugium. It's an early pic before adding chaeto and it being all cycled in. It looks far different inside now...certainly not all pristine like this pic.

[Nina51]

i love that rock wall!! super nice looking tank and your livestock all looks wonderfully healthy.

one suggestion...you might want to put that plate coral back on the sand. even when they *look* dead, they can sprout babies long after. and, if you decide to try another one (i noticed your first one was sort of propped on a rock), you should place it directly on the sand bed. being on a rock could have damaged its underside which lead to its death.

[mmittlesteadt]

Originally Posted by Nina51

i love that rock wall!! super nice looking tank and your livestock all looks wonderfully healthy.

one suggestion...you might want to put that plate coral back on the sand. even when they *look* dead, they can sprout babies long after. and, if you decide to try another one (i noticed your first one was sort of propped on a rock), you should place it directly on the sand bed. being on a rock could have damaged its underside which lead to its death.

Thank for the tip on the plate coral. I'll give that a shot.

[mmittlesteadt]

Now that my anemone has settled in, I moved my GSP up higher on the left rock. It must love the current because now it is spreading faster than ever. I'll have to get a new pic of it. I'll just leave this thread up and add to it monthly to note significant changes.

[mmittlesteadt]

After rearranging a few corals along with a new addition. Next week I'm getting some blue xenia...

[ratherbeflyen]

I don't usually like foam backgrounds, but I love this one. I really like the cave effect and depth it creates. You just showed me how to hide a coast to coast overflow on my next tank.

[BlackTip]

Looks great. I love your scape.

[FattyK21]

Dude this is so cool
They need a sticky for something like this
I plan on taking pics at least one a week after i get mine set up