55g reef build

kdpuffer · #1 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 · #2 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 · #3 04-08-2012, 11:41 PM

Attachment 9307 I'm glad to be back, here is a pic of one of the mushrooms covering my rock. The colors are awesome.

kdpuffer · #4 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 · #5 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. Attachment 9489 Attachment 9490 Attachment 9491

kdpuffer · #6 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. Attachment 9565 Attachment 9566 here are the fish and apparently I'm over my quota on pics so I have to thin the herd.

kdpuffer · #7 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 · #8 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 · #9 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 · #10 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.

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!