Here Goes Nothing, Wish Me Luck :)

[littleme1969]

Thanks Big C, and yes ive been well and truly bitten by the marine bug

Updates..

25g..
Well alls well in there. I had another carpet surfing, or should I say desk surfing with my yellow clown Goby. I had not seen him for a few weeks, but that was nothing new, when I was having a bit of a clean up and I found him dry and crispy under my keyboard Another reason for my upgrade..lol the 100g has full glass sliders with no room to escape!.
The red clown goby is now back to his chubby self which is great news as I really did think he wouldnt make it as he got so thin. Everyone else in the tank looks well and has a good apetite , even the little yellow goby has doubled in size
I was walking past the tank the other day when I saw tomato clown and blue damsel playing footy with something. On closer inspection it was a 1.5" mantis shrimp!..lol From what I know there was only 2 in my tank a small green (which is still there 1" never grown any) and a small black that was never seen from when I added it. All I can assume is the black had grown into the 1.5" pretty coloured shrimp that I found. There was a hole in the base of a rock that was always free from sand, I though that maybe a crab was in there, but now the shrimp is dead the whole is full so I'm assuming it was his hole. Judjing by the size of him i think he could have been the reason for my cleaner shrimps death! also his hole was actually in the cave where the shrimp would hang out. So thats one mystery solved

The 25g will hopefully be a mantis tank once the contents are shifted over to the 100g.

100g
I finally got it emptied at the weekend and scrubbed till it sparkled like a new penny Sand and rock where added on sunday and I began to make up 100g of RO and mix the salt in as I went along. By wednesday aft I had it 3/4 full just in time for the 20kg of live rock to arrive.
The quality of the rock was good for what I paid for it 20kg delivered for £144.00 lots of life and a good mix of sizes. There where alo 4 shrimps about 1.5" long possible pistol shrimps of some kind 2 Doa and the other 2 died shortly after, but that maybe was not a bad thing. Theres a nice 2" live scollop on one of the rock and a 2" live muscle also. Lots of medium sized duster worms etc. All in all a good buy
I used 80lbs of medium course marine sand to give a good 2.5" sand bed.
The tank water was topped off and the skimmer added to get it bedded in while I was adding the rest of the equipment.
2 x 5000lph wave makers, My large external filter with a new surface skimmer attachment was also added.

The tanks been running for 5 days now and all equipment including the light upgrades is working great. I decided to change the light configuration with 4 x 55w marine white and 2 x 4ft marine blue and this gives a very brightly lit tank and should be plenty for my softy corals
The internal skimmer, though a bit of pain to start with, is now sucking out rubbish at a huge rate for its size. I'm totally amazed at what its pulling out of the water and am sure it will speed up the cycle too. The skimmer atachment for the filter is also a huge sucess. It cleared the surface in under an hour and now the whole tank sparkles The clarity of the water is stunning for such a large tank that has just had live rock added to it. Its 5ft long and you can see right through from side to side as if it where only 1ft wide. I'm amazed
First and main batch of fish is ordered and paid for and will be delivered at the end of this month. These will be given about 1 - 2 weeks to settle before the contents of the 25g are added.
First tests will be tomorrow and I'll add some pics too of how things have progressed over the week.

 

[connorsbala]

Hey
Your tanks looking great! Cant wait to see the 100Gallon!
What is this coral that the yellow clown is in...i cant tell from the pics lol!

 

[littleme1969]

Hi The coral is infact a large hairy mushroom fav place of my clown gobies when its fully opened.

 

[connorsbala]

Nice! You got a full pic of the mushroom?

 

[littleme1969]

Well its been one busy month. Infact its a month today that I emptied the tank and cleaned it so not bad going at all.
Due to only having 20kg of live rock in there and some bits had tonnes of dead stuff on that had to be removed about a week in, the cycle took a little longer than expected. 2 weeks in the ammonia had gone and I was waiting for the nitrite to subside so I took the decision to put the other 20kg of live rock in from the 25g tank and just leave a bit of cover for the fish. This did the trick and the next day the nitrite had gone and within 2 days all stats where perfect with the nitrate pretty undetectable I did delay the fish for about 5 days just to make sure everything was spot on as I also had a few corals on order from the same place.
Fish arrived this tuesday gone and all are looking well, and more suprisingly eating well Last time I had a real issue with getting fish to eat. My 2 clowns where a disaster from word go and just seemed stressed to death. But not the new guys, all ate within 6 hours of being in the tank and seemed to settled well very quickly. After 3 days of everybody eating and looking well I moved the other fish over from the 25g. Things where a bit bonkers for a few days while everyone found there spot and who was top dog etc and now its all starting to calm down thank goodness.
I knew that the tomato clown and blue damsel would be a real issue as they are both real bullies, but with so many new targets no one fish got over picked on so all settled quickly

New tank contents as follows..
Tomato clown
Blue damsel
Scooter Blenny
Yellow clown goby
Red Clown goby
Scarlet cleaner shrimp
Sexy Shrimp
8 turbo snails different types
16 mixed hermits
1 red 1 green mythrax crab
1 sand sifting starfish
1 coral beaty angel fish
2 common clowns
1 falcon hawkfish
1 bicolour blenny
1 3 stripe damsel
1 fairy longfin wrasse
2 lyretail anthias male female yellow orage
1 " " " purple
Assorted corals and mystery anemome and snails that came with the rock.

Pics and vids to follow...

 

[littleme1969]

First off a quick vid of the 25g before I broke it down. My tomato clown decided to host a tiny bit of red sea xenia just before I emptied it..lol

Tomato hosting


New tank pics.. First off how it was and the breakdown...

Emptying the tank took all afteroon and as I'm only 5' 3" tall I pretty much had to get init to get the gravel out, and belive me after 5 years of being in there the stuff was a bit toxic!

Filling up with RO. Sand and base rock already in. Took 3 days to make and mix approx 80gallon of RO/Salt mix

Tank filled up, base rock in and live rock arrives to build up the scape.

Large hitchikers on the new rock

Skimmer bedding in and doing a good job YUCK!

More to follow..

 

[littleme1969]

More pics..

Transfere over 20kg rock from the other tank and finalise the scape. This will no doubt get modified as I add all the new corals. Infact it looks different already but I'll wait for the new corals to come before I add any photo updates.

Tank pics.. Blue and normal.

Fishy pics and other bits & bobs..

Last but not least a quick vid. things never look as good on a pic as they do in a vid

100g Marine

 

[craigybaby37]

liking what i see littleme keep up the good work. When are u planning on putting everything from your 25g into this tank then?? or is everything in an it just looks a bit empty as it is 75g larger lol

 

[littleme1969]

About 75% was in when that shot was taken. There has been about 7kg of more live rock added with other corals on.
Plus another 9 lots of corals large to medium to go in this week so that should fill in the gaps. I didnt want it too cluttered as I like the open look. I know a large wall of rock is the done thing but I prefer a more arty sculptured open look, well thats my story anyway and I'm sticking to it! LOL

 

[SkiFletch]

Looks great littleme Can't wait to see it with the corals in

 

[littleme1969]

Well my so called coral delivery turned out to be a disaster Oh joy as royal mail strikes again! My next day parcel took 2 days to arrive which killed 4 of my large corals. 2 large sponges, 1 pink coli, and 1 yellow mushroom finger leather. All large corals that where to be my main attractions All that survived in the package was a good sized colony of zoos, which is still not opening and will probably take weeks, and 5 tube worms. So all in all I lost over £100 of corals all becuse royal mail dont know what next day garanteed means When the parcel first went missing the shipper did a check and tracked it down, he then said that he would give me approx 50% of the cost of the losses, but now its come back as £100 hes not even answering my e.mails So hes going to be getting some nasty feedback!!
Lesson learnt . never order more than 2 corals at a time, then if there is a problem you dont loose much money!
Its kind of put me off corals now as I cant keep throwing money away like that, so I'm going to concentrate on the fish side of things for a while.

Well after the death of my first fish ( poorly clown almost dead to day) Ive decided to take drastic action. To be fair this fish didnt look too well when it arrived and was floating on the top of the bag. It did however pick up when added to the tank so I had my fingers crossed. All seemed ok until I added the Tomato and blue damsel to the mix then a calm haven of reef turned into a nut house within minutes I knew it was a risk adding them to the tank , but ive got so attached to them I thought I would give them a go, thinking the larger area and amount of rock , plus lots of fish would diffuse the issue. It did to a degree and they did settle but the main problem was the common clowns. They where chased far too much and ended up living in one corner of the tank just to keep safe. This is not how i wanted the tank to be so today I'm striping out the rock work right down to the sand bed and the dinamic duo are off back into their old 3ft tank. I'm sure they will be little *astards to catch as it took me forever in a 3ft tank but its got to be done. I want the tank to be peacfull with everyone going where they want to go, not pinned in corners and hiding behind rocks I will probablly get rid of the duo if I can find them a home and if not I will have to keep them in the 3ft on their own with a bit of CUC and maybe use it as a frag tank. I didnt want 2 tanks running but needs must.

Other than that alls been going well. all tank stats are perfect with both nitrates and phosphates not detectable. Calcium is also still nice and high at 550 so is the KH at 11 Magnesium is also good at about 440. I also got a TDS meter as my RO is now about 8 months old and it came back at about 25 which is OK. I think it would benefit with a flush to the membrane so I'll be askng advise on that guys
The skimmer is still doing a great job and I also shut down one of the powerheads as there was plenty of flow with the one and the filter outlet.

Only issue I have is with the PH. I never had PH above 7.9 to 8 in the other tank and this tank seems to be the same. I hoped with the larger sand bed and rock that it would be better but its static at 7.9 just as the other tank was. I guess thats as far as the salt will buffer to as when my water has been through the RO the PH goes to about 6.6 then the salt buffers back upto 7.9. I didnt seem to be an issue in the other tank but just thought I would ask in the long term will this be and issue?

 

[littleme1969]

A few more pics before the strip down which I'm not looking forward to

 

[littleme1969]

Well my heart said yes, and my head said no.. the heart one and against my better judgment I bought a tang So I think you can all guess what coming next. B*oody white spot!!! Will I ever learn.
Just spent two hours striping all the corals out of the main tank so I can treat it. My fish look healthy otherwise lets just hope the Octozin treatment does what it says it does. I took the corals out as a precation. Seemed silly to risk them too for the sake of a few hours moving stuff over. Also lowering the s.g. and raising the temp at the same time.
Only time will tell, and just when everything was looking settled and happy... GGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRR

 

[BigC]

Sure are having some testing times there LM. Theraputic hobby....I guess not. I think what was ment when someone coined that phrase was other folks find it theraputic to look at after the engineers have spent eons keeping the thing looking good and ticking over. Unfortunately you , I and many other aquarists are the engineers and we dont get time to enjoy the fruits of our labours much. Why did I jump the fence, Im a hell of a lot poorer and have developed a severe case of anxiety, freshies we soo much easier.
Keep us informed regarding the med treatment for future reference.
Just a pity things happen like this, but thats life isnt it. No doubt you'll soon be back on track with a better understanding and setup.
Regards
BigC

 

[littleme1969]

Thanks BIG C.. its nice to have you back
Update..
Well Im still in the process of lowering thes.g. in the 100 to 1.017 . This is recomended as part as the octozin treatment. I also saw that Ski Fletch used the lowering of the s.g. to treat his fish with sucess so I'm praying the combination of the 2 does the job. I guess Ive done it a bit back to front as you normally remove the fish and quarantine them to treat. But with such a large tank and almost 100kg of rock to remove to catch the fish I decided against it. It just seemed silly to me to try and catch the fish as the stress of catching and a bare new tank would give the white spot an even greater hold and re infection.
The product I am using is classed as reef safe, but I removed 90% of the corals as I wanted to bring down the s.g. and didnt want to risk losing everything. I'm happy to report that so far nothing in the 100g has died or apears unwell. All crabs hermits starfish and the remaining 2 types of Xenia look in good health. S.g. is now down to 1.020 temp is upto 82 to speed up the life cycle of the white spot and I added my second lot of treatment yesterday. Will do the third tomorrow. I hope to have the s.g down within another few days and if I'm still seeing spots I will repeat the drug treatment for another 3 day course by which time the low s.g. should also be helping. So far all fish look well and continue to eat like its going out of fashion The only 3 fish that where really affected where the Tang, The long Fin Banner Fish and the coral beauty angel, but I have seen the odd spot on a few others over the last 2 weeks since I first spotted the outbreak.

I also realised that my original clown that I moved into the 20g had a spot I hoped he had got away with it as he was only in the tank 3 days with the tang, but sadly no So I have now had to treat the 20g with all my corals in
Happy to report that the meds so far seem to have not bothered the corals in any way. They are all opening fine and looking well. Ive uped the temp in this tank also to 82 but I wont be touching the s.g. If it looks like the meds alone wont work I will quarantine the 3 fish from that tank and use the copper meds on them .

I also have 2 x 3ft tanks on stand by just in case this does not work so I can, at a last resort remove the fish and treat with the copper based meds.

As Big C says its all a learning curve, but with about £300 worth of corals and £200 worth of fish its a curve Id rather not be doing thanks!..LOL and yes fresh water its just so much more simple and cheaper but I dont regret the change one bit