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kdpuffer
04-08-2012, 10:58 PM
Hey all, its been a long while since ive been on here. i sold my reef tank a few years back and have been dying to replace it. Well ive been in talks witht the wife and she gave me the nod so full speed ahead. before i dive into details i have to say one thing so here goes. I was up in edmonton yesterday looking to get my lighting and get some live rock. i toured through red coral and blue world and i have to say thanks to everyone who helped me out, employees and the guys i ran into at both stores so thank you all for the tips and stearing a guy down the right path. alright thats said so on we go, i spent my evening on friday ripping down my 55g which was previously a freshwater tank with custom 3d background. let me tell you that was a royal pain in the backside scraping all the silicone off the glass and getting it presentable but i got it done. so saturday was full off touring reef shops or so i thought, kids didnt agree lol. well i got my lighting taken care of and settled on an aquamedic 6x54w t5ho which looks great. i also got about 20lbs of rock, one peice is loaded with mushrooms. today i went to oogle a buddies reef while i was there picking up a remora HOB skimmer. he was even kind enough to hook me up with a power and an extra overflow box which matches the one for the skimmer. i got everything setup and running and the water is clearing up after the initial blast the powerhead gave the rock. ill post some pics ina bit.

tim the toolman
04-08-2012, 11:00 PM
Glad to see you got a light. Ps I was one of the guys you saw at both stores lol. Welcome back to the addiction

kdpuffer
04-08-2012, 11:41 PM
9307 I'm glad to be back, here is a pic of one of the mushrooms covering my rock. The colors are awesome.

kdpuffer
04-14-2012, 07:17 AM
Well I got home from work and I realize I failed to inform the wife of what she needs to do for a top off since I don't yet have an ato. No biggie, clean glass empty skimmer and top off water. Had a major diatom bloom but I did have some good news. The local petshop and I are on close terms and after he learned I was starting a reef tank another customer came in and said he was selling his so my number was passed on and long story short I am getting his 25g reef for an afternoon of work. I am an electrician and he needs his hot tub hooked up so we swung a deal. I am robbing a few items from the tank including a purple brain coral, what I suspect is a Duncan, a yellow feather duster and a flame/electric scallop(clam) the flame scallop is awesome and I am going to have to get alot of phytoplankton to keep it going. The rest of the tank will be going to the father in law, he has been wanting a tank for a long time and has always wanted a reef. So the way I see it is spend a few hours to get a complete established system and rob a few corals it's worth it so I am going to give him the rest of the equipment and livestock. He will have it all till my tank cycles then I will transfer it all over gradually. Now que the tang police, I am thinking if I scape my rock right I can manage a kole tang. I have a 4' 55 which is not much smaller than a 75 and plan to have an open aquascape, this should be sufficient. I also plan to get a pair of Picasso along with a fire fish and some sort of easy blenny, bicolor etc... I have also come across alot of seahorse pages and am thinking of converting my 29g into a SH FOWLR. Any tips or suggestions are welcome. I am new to the game so am willing to take criticism.

kdpuffer
05-09-2012, 09:15 PM
So after a couple weeks without updates I figure I should get on it. I have added the last of my live rock and they came with some nice hitch hikers, loads of brittle stars and a porcelain crab. I also added my sand and upgraded my powerheads to a couple koralia 1050. Added some corals also including some lunar eclipse and fire and ice zoas along with a nice green and purple frogspawn. My rodi system came in Monday so I don't have to buy rodi anymore as my ATO is on its way. I also added a bunch of snails and a few emerald crabs aswell as a cleaner shrimp. Everyone is happy and healthy. I had a pretty nasty algae outbreak that I am working on eliminating and so far the battle has been going my way. 948994909491

kdpuffer
06-03-2012, 12:38 AM
I don't know if anyone is following this or not but I haven't updated in quite awhile so here it is. The algae battle wages on but I'm still hanging in there. I made a trip up to red coral yesterday and got some new additions. I got a frag of green montipora cap, some nice green and yellow zoas (I believe are called radioactive zoas) and some blue clove polyps. I also got a fox face lo and a starry blenny. All live stock are happy and looking good. The fish are helping mow down the the algae. 24 hours and I can see a difference. On that note I got some GFO and carbon which I will add to the system tomorrow when I do my water change. The only problem was a couple small aiptasia on the rock with the blue clove which I quickly hit with aiptasia-x. 95659566 here are the fish and apparently I'm over my quota on pics so I have to thin the herd.

kdpuffer
06-03-2012, 12:40 AM
As you can see the algae is pretty nasty and the sad part is that it's an improvement. Gotta love new tanks and getting everything in check. Hopefully the new fish combined with GFO will help.

Coralgurl
06-03-2012, 01:08 AM
Great set up you've got there! I've got a 55 on the go as well, what are the tank dimensions? I had some turf algae for a while, added some turbo snails, cleaned it up in no time! I'm amazed at the difference gfo and carbon have made since I started using, I'm sure it will help clear up your tank! Keep the pics coming!

kdpuffer
06-03-2012, 01:52 AM
My 55 is a 4 foot by I believe it's 12 inches deep and 18 inches tall. I will be upgrading to a 75 once basement renos are done. I would love to go bigger but am trying to restrain the obsession somewhat. I'm hoping the GFO helps I have heard all sorts of good luck stories about it. I will definately keep updating.

Coralgurl
06-03-2012, 05:04 AM
Your tank is the same as mine. I found the hardest thing with the 12 in wide is trying to aqua scape it, we started it with 20 lbs of live rock as well, it wasn't enough, I got it to 50-60 lbs, but there wasn't a lot of room. I had an in tank skimmer and 2 heaters as well. i've been redoing this tank and making different choices with the rock and equipment. You are definitely going to need more lr with the fish load you are planning. Be careful with the tangs, I had a yellow and he got aggressive very quickly, had to sell, catching fish means removing most if not all your rock. Just go slow.....my 55 finally settled around the 9 month point, but I made every mistake possible when starting. :redface: Make sure your fish choices work with your overall goal for the tank.

Are you running a sump? You can always add rock to the sump to make room in your dt. Also a great place for equipment. I don't have one on mine but would make things a lot easier!!

Be careful with that going bigger thing....I went to a 180 at the beginning of the year, once the addiction gets ya, there's no stopping it! :mrgreen:

kdpuffer
06-03-2012, 01:21 PM
I am not getting a tang I got the fox face instead. I don't have a sump but once I get my 75 my 55 will be my sump. I am sticking with a 75 and no larger, I have had the bug hit and got over whelmed having eight tanks (freshwater) going so I decided to move them all out and just have once awesome tank which is my reef. I have more rock kicking around that I think I can squeeze in but I don't want to do it unless I need to. I will be monitoring params closely for the next few weeks for sure to see how the system handles the added bio load. If things stabilize for me without adding rock then awesome.

Coralgurl
06-03-2012, 02:42 PM
Well you are off to a great start! Can't wait to see how your tank progresses!

kdpuffer
06-09-2012, 04:31 AM
So one week after adding the fox face my algae has been decimated. My blenny had stopped eating and was being very lethargic the last couple days and after some trial and error with target feeding I found he likes spirulina enriched brine shrimp, he gobbled that up.

Earthgirl
06-09-2012, 09:10 PM
I have a 55 as well
Been going for almost a year
Love love love it
My second saltwater tank
Used to have freshwater stingrays in a 230 but I love the salt more I think
Are u keeping the Fox face for the bigger tank?

kdpuffer
06-15-2012, 01:09 AM
Stingrays, always wanted some but space and funds didn't allow, that being said I have more cash into my reef than I would have had into rays but the reef is worth it to me. I am keeping the foxface in the 55g for now and when I upgrade he will get a slightly larger home. On another note, I got some new coral last night from a fellow canreefer, I got 5 frags all sps. 2 I know are millipora but the other 3 I'm stumped, they look like acro to me. I have to clear some space and I'll upload pics.

kdpuffer
06-27-2012, 11:51 PM
9665

9666

So it's been awhile so here are a some updates. The new sps are open and looking good, the highlight however is my torch coral I got a couple days ago. This thing is beautiful and was the must have coral when I started this tank.

Coralgurl
06-28-2012, 01:08 AM
Looking good! Glad the Benny is eating, they are adorable fish!

kdpuffer
06-28-2012, 01:48 AM
The blenny is pretty sweet, unfortunately he had a massive infestation of worms so him and all other fish are in a hospital tank being treated. I can't wait till they are all back in the tank swimming around again.

Coralgurl
06-28-2012, 02:11 AM
Ah that sucks!

kdpuffer
12-30-2013, 08:30 PM
Wow it's been a while since I've posted on here lol. I have moved on from the 55g and have a 90g setup now with the 55 as a sump/fuge. It was a bumpy road with a couple minor things creating major problems. Been running over a year now.

asylumdown
12-30-2013, 11:39 PM
pics pics pics!

kdpuffer
12-31-2013, 12:14 AM
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/12/31/6esemube.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/12/31/zy4epabu.jpg

Alright here are some pics, full system shot and full tank shot.

kdpuffer
12-31-2013, 12:27 AM
This build has been a roller coaster and a half and finally seems to be settling in. I started with moving everything over from the 55 and running my spare 29g as a temporary sump and all was awesome. Everything was thriving till I had the 55 baffled and installed then it all went south. When people say don't reuse sand they mean it. I did and nuked my tank. Lost the majority of coral namely all sps and put a major hurt on the LPS. Softies were ok but a bunch of fish perished also. Only survivors where my clowns and blenny. On this build I wanted to actually "upgrade" so I got led lighting (pharos LEDs from aqled) and upgraded my skimmer. That's when round 2 took place. Things had finally settled down and I added new fish and new coral. Then my skimmer decided to drop the plug out of the cup and dumped a full load of skim back into the tank. All fish perished except the engineer goby I got, including the clowns I had from day one in the 55. All new corals died also aswell as all my LPS. Softies were beat down but pulled through. After 6 months things had stabilized and I replaced my clowns along with some other additions. I went for broke and got a pair of mp40s along with a premium rose bubble tip. Mp40s are awesome by the way. The clowns are designer and look very sharp. This was back in September and things have continued to go well and I just added some new coral. Forest fire digi, fire and ice milli, strawberry shortcake, ponape birdsnest, validia acro(stunning) along with candy canes and a three head duncan frag. All the new coral looks great except the Duncan, trying to find a lower flow spot is proving tough but I have a couple more spots in mind. I have also added a mandarin courtesy of my father in law. The odd thing with all the crashes is that none of my snails died nor did my cleaner shrimp.

kdpuffer
12-31-2013, 12:28 AM
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/12/31/4egybehe.jpg

Here is a pic of the frags on the make shift frag rack. Thanks to canreef member baldy for that idea ;-)