1st Reef Tank - Lots of Bright Coral & Fish!

[ed84g]

Hey everyone,

A bit about myself and how i ended up doing this before we get going...
- Im from Adelaide in South Australia
- I work in media, communications and marketing during the week, on weekends i DJ in clubs and work in radio
- I moved out from my parents with my girlfriend 8 months ago and we both decided that our lovely new house needed a centrepiece so thought why not go for a saltwater aquarium (problem 1 sorted... the girlfriend was keen!!).
- I wish that we had decided on getting a saltwater aquarium before building the new house so that we could have accommodated it into the design but unfortunately we didn't plan that far ahead
- I settled on a Juwel 180 partly because it looked good but mainly because i was new, had no idea about sumps/custom builds or any of that stuff and everything was included.
- I had a coldwater tank for 6 years which i left with my parents when i moved out
- This is my first attempt at a saltwater aquarium
- I ask a lot of questions including some really dumb ones (generally this is in life not just about the fishtank... It annoys my girlfriend immensely!)
- I have a crap memory so suck with names so i generally refer to things as "that blue thing", "the green wavey thing" and "nemo"!
- I have a silly accent because im from southern England and moved to Australia in 2001 so you should read everything i write with that accent in mind!!

Anyway, Ive been annoying my Facebook friends with photos of my setup for a while and thought that its about time i started some kind of blog to discuss with more knowledgeable people who can provide me with more constructive advice than "ooohhhh that looks pretty"!!

I started this about 8 months ago and currently have fish and coral in the tank but i want to post my progress up starting from the beginning. I hope to include some information about what ive done and why ive done it in order to help others because these forums (and Dr Google) have been vital in getting me going, so if anything ive learnt can help others then thats great !

Along the way i will drop a bombshell... there will probably be an in depth discussion about said bombshell... then ill post a picture of something exciting, all will be forgotten and we will move on

Please comment and get involved!

[ed84g]

After a lot of reading online and figuring things out we finally went for it and bought the tank. We settled on a Juwel system because, as i mentioned before, i wasn't too sure about sumps and all of the other things when building something custom. Since this is my first saltwater aquarium i want everything to be as simple as possible, that way i can concentrate on the water chemistry, the livestock and everything else without having to worry about all the fiddly little things and getting a custom filtration system working.

The Juwel system has everything enclosed in a nice little package. The skimmer sits on the left at the back and the filter and heater sit on the right at the back, both are hidden away out of sight and tidy... Plus we liked the white!

Its a 180 litre tank but by the time all the rocks and equipment are in there it is closer to 130 litres of actual water.



Got it home and assembled it (flat pack is much easier than smashing out half of your wall and creating a custom aquarium. Although that would be cool to do one day i definitely think i need to work up to it!). Ignore the emptyness off the house... We are new here!!



I picked up some standard rock as well, they had some pretty cool shapes and i loved the one with the giant hole. The intention was to have these as the main rocks in the tank and then seed them with the live rock over time.



We decided to get some of the rock looking back wall as well, that way the back wouldn't need painting. Looking back i can see that each way of doing the back has its pros and cons but the intention from the start was to use this as extra coral space.



Next comes the water and waiting for it to cycle... Ohhhhhhh the fun fun waiting!!

[gb530]

Sweet! Looking forward to seeing what you turned this tank into after 8 months

[ed84g]

Stage 2... The cycle...

Next up its time to get wet and then wait

I got the water into the tank. One big mistake that i made here was not rinsing the sand beforehand hence all of the cloudyness. Looking back, if i do this again i would rinse all of the sand before putting it into the tank.



The cloudyness setted overnight and after leaving it for a day or so i went out to get some live rock.

After annoying the woman in the shop by making her pull out rock after rock i finally found some that i like. When i got home and told my girlfriend how much i had spent on rock i thought i would be spending the night on the sofa... thankfully i didn't have to but i did get a pretty poor dinner that night (apparently i had spent the dinner money on rock but im skeptical about that!!).

Next lesson learnt... Be careful when rinsing the rock! Another mistake made... Whilst rinsing the live rock and pulling off all the crap i didn't want in the tank i managed to kill a couple of starfish which i found in the bottom of the bucket. I was kind of annoyed about that, partly because i should have taken more care but mainly because there wasn't much to look at in the tank whilst it cycled so even a starfish would have been nice!

Here is my first attempt at aquascaping... and by aquascaping i mean that i just threw it in there to get the cycle going.



Rearranged attempt 2.

Its nothing special but i hadn't done this before and i was trying to fit in as much live rock as possible. In my research i had read that live rock helps with the filtration of the tank and since i don't have a sump or anything else aside from the Juwel filter and skimmer i figured that i would need all the help i could get!



This is where the fake rock wall at the back came in handy. The ledges gave me something to lean rock against whilst stacking them and made it much easier to arrange the rocks. since i wasn't using any kind of putty at this stage it was definitely useful and allowed me to not cover so much of the sand bed with rock since i could use the wall to balance things against.

There will be many more attempts at aquascaping to come but this was essentially our uninspiring view for a month whilst the tank cycled.

[ed84g]

Here is the location of the tank. Its in the back part of the house which is pretty much where we spend most of our time and its a good spot because we can see it from the kitchen, the lounge or the theatre room. Its also the first thing i see when i come out of the bedroom in the morning.

I did originally want to put it in the theatre room but it gets warm in there because its surrounded by windows and South Australia can hit 45 degrees in summer so changed my mind on that one.

[FTDelta]

It's looking good so far. Wish I can start my own but the money is tight at the moment. Sigh... I'll just keep on reading for now. I can't wait to see how your tank turns out.

[ed84g]

Quick question. What do you guys think about the depth of my sand bed... Im asking because Ive had people tell me that they don't think its deep enough?

At the moment i siphon it off every 2nd water change and then add a little bit to replace what comes out with all the crud that gets siphoned. Is this alright to be doing? Ive read that you shouldn't disturb a deep sand bed which is why i went shallower because it was my belief that i could stir it up a bit when cleaning it and i like it to be clean!!

[tommer725]

it could perhaps use another inch or two

[Mishri]

I prefer shallow sand beds myself, I've only had a dsb a couple of times. You have about .5-1" more than I use now. I'd say you are fine like it is.

[ed84g]

Ive never been so excited about looking at a pile of rocks!



Lots of these guys came out of the rock after a couple of nights







And there were a lot of sponges on the rock as well.



There was a pretty cool starfish that i didn't manage to get a photo of before he hid himself in the rock.

Then this guy made himself at home in a hole near the front of the tank... the urchin is my favourite hitchhiker. Ignore the mushroom, this photo was taken later, they didn't come on the rock!



The rock had a lot of feather dusters on it which at least gave us something a bit colourful to look at. Lots of little slugs and snails made an appearance as well... Needless to say, my girlfriend found my excitement about all of this a little bit strange!!!

[ed84g]

Do you remember in my first post where i mentioned leaving my freshwater tank in the not so capable hands of my younger brother at my parents house?

Lets just say that it isn't so fresh now!

It is in what became the spare room after i left and despite the fact that the window was open, when i opened the door the smell was terrible and massively overpowering...

Prepare your eyes for what you are about to see! Luckily there wasn't anything special or expensive in here but its still terrible to think that he could let it get like this, especially considering the decent condition that i left it in! He didn't even remove the dead fish.

Ive got to ask; Is this is the worst condition you have seen a tank in on this forum?!!!



To be honest, i didn't expect much from him! Once, many years ago, he thought that he would set up a saltwater tank. Our parents bought him a 350 litre tank and all of the equipment for his birthday/Christmas and despite trying 3 times he could never get past the cycling stage before it was full of algae. He gave up on this and turned the tank into a "fresh"water one. About 6 months later, after putting quite a lot of expensive livestock in there and somewhat looking after it, he spent the day working near a river and managed to catch a load of yabbies which, for some unknown reason, he decided he should put into the tank... Needless to say the whole thing got infested with a lot of gross algae and disease and the fish that didn't get eaten died from a chronic algae infestation!

[ed84g]

The Juwel skimmer is a relatively new product and as such there are still a couple of issues with it. Overall the reviews are positive and i can say that it seems to being doing its job well. Its a little bit on the loud side but nothing too concerning.

The only thing that did need fixing was a couple of air leaks. After searching on the internet i found talk on a forum about this being a common problem. It was suggested to contact Juwel directly and they would send out a packet of 3 rubber rings to fit to the skimmer to stop this issue. I did this and they were very helpful, i received the rings in a couple of days and fitted them without issue which stopped the air leaks.

As you can see... The skimmer is working well and pulling out lots of crap!



Got salt.



Im all set for testing.



Ive got some magic bottles to keep the water clean.



Ive got my coral food and supplements. im not sure if Red Sea is the best, but it was recommended that i use Red Sea salt and that came with a free bottle of Reef Energy A and B so i just bought the same brand for the other products. Does anybody have any thoughts on this?

I'm also not sure if i actually need all of this. I obviously need the Marine Snow plankton and the corals love it. I also need Reef Foundation ABC as that helps keep my kH and a few other things in check. Im still not sure about the Reef Energy though... Do you think that still need to use it if im using Marine Snow and keeping up with regular water changes?



I also feed the fish frozen mysis shrimp and i alternate this with pellets because of the higher nutritional value.

Finally, thank you to these local guys for all the equipment and helping me get set up!!

[ed84g]

The cycle went well, but unfortunately i got a new mobile phone during this time and 1 month later had to replace it an lost most of the photos i took early on.

I got some of these (can't remember the name) on the glass. I wasn't too concerned, but after some investigation i figured that i should get rid of them so kept scrubbing them off for a few weeks and they eventually stopped coming back.



Also got some algae and cyano forming



A couple of weeks later, after cycling for 5 weeks i was ready to add my first fish. I wanted something hardy and something that would help keep the tank clean... Meet Blenny!



He is still one of my favourites to watch in the tank, partly because of the way he moves and sits on things and partly because his face reminds me of a frog! Every reefer should have a Blenny!

[gb530]

Sweet. I'm following along still. What kind of lights were you using at this point in the build?

[ed84g]

At the start I was using the stardard lights that came with the Juwel system which I think were a 45watt day glo and a 45 watt white glo tube so nothing special

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[ed84g]

Im surprised that nobody had any comments about the state my brother let the other tank get into!!

Anyway... Update on the lights, they are both T5 supplied by Juwel with their systems. I have since upgraded to a blu glo to go with the day glo.

I rearranged the rocks again before adding my first fish soon after the tank finished cycling... As i add more coral in the future i will be removing rocks to make room.



This is Nemo and Nemo (named by my ever so creative girlfriend!) i also got my first coral... a hammer.





A couple of weeks later i added a Bangaii Cardinal



And then a couple more Clownfish, you can see them in the background, they are still young here so are only a little bit black but they grow to be fully black and white. My girlfriend also named these 2.... Black Nemo and Black Nemo! There is another hammer coral in the background as well, and a couple of snails. I have no idea what happened with these snails but they spent their entire lives rolling over on their shells so i eventually gave up on them.



All the Clownfish are paired as well, the 2 orange and the 2 black ones. The orange ones have claimed the right side of the tank and the hammer coral as their own and are hosting it whilst the black ones just swim around everywhere.

[davidadelp]

Pretty sure once those clowns mature you will have problems with having the two pairs. Youll want to get rid of one pair when this time comes or theyll harass each other till death

[ed84g]

Originally Posted by davidadelp

Pretty sure once those clowns mature you will have problems with having the two pairs. Youll want to get rid of one pair when this time comes or they'll harass each other till death

Yeah ive thought about that, they are all getting along fine at the moment but should an issue arise ive got a mate who is happy to take them off of my hands.

hmmm... Looks like photobucket is playing up so ive moved my images to "Minus" which seems to be a much better service. Ill the broken links from my last post here before getting to the new ones.

Early full tank sort


This is Nemo and Nemo (named by my ever so creative girlfriend!) i also got my first coral... a hammer





Bangaii Cardinal



And then a couple more Clownfish, you can see them in the background, they are still young here so are only a little bit black but they grow to be fully black and white. My girlfriend also named these 2.... Black Nemo and Black Nemo!

[ed84g]

On to the new photos...

I have added the things here over the course of a couple of months because i wanted to go very slowly, only adding 1 or 2 things a week.

Here are the clownfish together and a star along with a couple of new corals..

I added a shrimp to keep things clean



Some new coral having a bit of a feed.



A second hammer coral. I saw this in the shop and it was almost fluorescent green so i had to have it! It doesn't show up too well in the lights i have here but new photos under different lighting coming soon.



And my first mistake when it comes to fish. I bought this copper banded butterfly. The guy in the shop warned me that it could be difficult to get to eat because of its mouth. I didn't see it eat anything i put in the tank and unfortunately it died after about 3 weeks.





I also added a Yellow Tang as one of the few large fish i will have in the tank.



Here is another early full tank shot before another change in the aquascaping!

[ange062]

Sweet looking tank and really coming along well, but 47g isn't a nano unfortunately.

[ed84g]

Yeah I know its technically not but going by the rules in the sticky its judged by the amount of water and its about 130l of water by my estimates so its close enough to count in the nano forum! It's definitely closer to nano than 'large tanks' so it went in here since there is no medium forum

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[CAPSLOK]

Coraline algae is coming in nicely on the rocks by the look of it. I really like the look of those first 2 big rocks you picked out.

I also like the white framed tank, I don't think I've ever seen one.

The sandbed depth looks fine to me too. The picture is down so I can't see what type of snails you had - not that I'm great at identifying them anyways - but you should see if you can get some of the burrowing ones (nassarius) to help stir your sandbed. Those guys also don't tip over.

I know you no longer have him but the butterfly was actually not a copperband. I think he was a marginalis butterfly. Both those types are very difficult (there is a whole thread about copperbands in the reef fishes forum (http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1492696) and I suspect most of the info would probably go for marginalis butterflies as well. I would expect the yellow tang would be aggressive to the addition of another one anyways (similar looking to the tang), so you should probably steer clear of those guys for this tank.

Keep an eye on your shrimp, I've read that coral banded shrimp can eat fish and yours looks like a fairly big one.

[reeferstace]

When clownfish reach sexual maturity they will kill each other off until they leave the last mated pair.

[ed84g]

Thanks for the info Capslok. That butterfly was definitely a learning thing... Research research research before being sucked in to buying things because they look good in the store!! I'll be keeping an eye on the clownfish and take the black ones out should it become an issue.

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[ed84g]

I had a bit of an issue with one of my lighting globes caused by not being careful enough when moving them backwards. I managed to bend the connector so thought it was a good opportunity to upgrade and get a bit more of a pop in the colours.

I ended up getting a 45 watt Juwel T5 blu glo globe to go with the t5 day glo. Despite the fact that the tank appears to have more depth with the blue one at the back, ive got the blue one at the front because that is where the majority of the colours are.

Im still taking these on my mobile phone so im struggling a bit to get a faithful reproduction of the colours as opposed to looking at it in person but these shots give you a good idea.





Hammer corals under new lights



Here is a coral having a feed



I also bought a sun coral



It took about a week to open up but now it does most nights after i moved it into a shaded area and it looks great when it does!



And ive been having trouble getting this one to open up properly. It did for about a month but now is stays closed most of the time and only parts come out. If anybody has any ideas why this couple be please share because it is looking a little sad as you can see!