New to reef

Reeferkcp

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#1
Hello SCR. Im new to reef keeping and would like to be part of this community to share knowledge and learn. Ive been in the saltwater hobby for about 2 months (total newbie) but I have kept all types freshwater for 15+ years from discus to exotics.

I would like to share a few pictures of my first tank. Advices are welcome. I will share details later about the set up. Tank appears to be stable. A little algae. Working on phos and nitrate balance. Everything is growing though and encrusting. I havent lost any corals to this date…knock on wood. Nothing fancy. Mixed reef.

I apologize beforehand that my post will be piecemeal because just like most people here, I am very busy with other obligations. Thus I do not have time to write a well written organized post.

first detail about the tank: it is in the garage with a 1/4 artica jbj chiller bc my wife said she doesnt want an ugly beginner reef tank in the house. I guess I gotta prove myself first. Hopefully i can upgrade to a peninsula 120-150 gallon in the future. Size: 75 gallon 4 foot long. This is a mature setup i bought on offer up. It has been running for 1 year total. I have double the coral species since I had it. I might be too trigger-happy. After 1 month of not losing any coral, ive decided to start trying out new corals. So far, it has been ok without any loss…

74D98401-2EA9-4848-AEBE-46061074E99C.jpeg
 
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Reeferkcp

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#4
Welcome and thanks for sharing. You like very far along. Any challenges you like some help with
Thank you.

my main struggle is with phos and nitrate. I had 0/0 for most of the time. No dino. No algae. Corals looks great. But im worry about reducing biodiversity long term and having dino. Tank came with gfo and a super efficient sump and fuge. I started dialing back. Gfo is off. Fuge is 6 hours at night. Overfeeding. Skimmer still on.
At one point, i might have swung too far and got some algea issues, nothing major. Now reducing nutrient again.
Question: should i worry about 0/0 nitrate phos really? If tank is doing well?
 

Reeferkcp

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#5
i assume this is algae not cyano….this started happening bc i tried to keep my phos and nitrate up…
AFDC1C72-C4CF-4A35-BC74-301956B1BB92.jpeg
 

Reeferkcp

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#7
randall goby in his burrow entrace wondering why he woke up to euphyllia today. Never see his pistol friend though
 

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Jimbo327

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#8
Gotta keep the wife happy. This is a great start. It’ll be full in no time, and then it’s upgrade time inside the house. 😀

most tanks takes a year to mature and stabilize. So you are lucky to get an used setup, so you pretty much skipped the ugly phase.
 

Kupo

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#9
Looks amazing. I started 5 months ago and my tank is nothing compared to yours. Still struggling with zoas.
 

Reeferkcp

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#10
Gotta keep the wife happy. This is a great start. It’ll be full in no time, and then it’s upgrade time inside the house. 😀

most tanks takes a year to mature and stabilize. So you are lucky to get an used setup, so you pretty much skipped the ugly phase.
Thank you. You are right that I was lucky to find a clean mature set up. Its always a gamble to buy used setup or live rock bc u dont know what pests may come with it. I was lucky to not have to deal with any major pest so far….
 

Reeferkcp

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#11
Looks amazing. I started 5 months ago and my tank is nothing compared to yours. Still struggling with zoas.
Thanks! Buying a mature tank really helps. But it is a risk. Just like buying used car….u can get a lemon or a great deal. I was lucky to find the latter. If i start with dry rock, i probably wont even add coral until after 6 months mark. But i would be able to aggressively stock more fish. Stocking fish now has been tricky due to aggression issue from established tangs
 

Reeferkcp

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#12
Here are some more details on filtration.

1. Drain to filter sock. Never clean it out to increase phos and nitrate
2. Skimmer in same chamber. Bubble magnus.
3. Then to fuge lighted by kessil grow light. 6 hours at night for now. On timer to allow tuning.
4. Them into return chamber with some marine pure for extra bio filtration. Return pump is a small pump jebao 25 watt only. I may buy another one for redundancy. My current tank turn over is super low currently.

Flow: eco tech 10mp and tunze. Upgrading to tunze to mp40. Will see how that goes.

light: 2x radion xr30 gen5 at 40% AB+

autoaqua awc 3% every 2 days. I have two dyi 55 gallon bin behind the wall in my freshwater fish room. I make 100 gallon salt everytime they run low.

No controller for now. Only inkbird on my chiller and heater

i use two part dosing with two dosing pump about 40cc per day. Esv bionic two part.

i do have a parr meter. I run 100 at bottom and 200-300 on the rocks.

plan to covert my gfo to carbon reactor rox 0.8 since i have leather coral in there. I throw in a carbon bag in the sump for now. So far sps seem ok but im sure any future acro wont like the leather toxin

im sure im forgetting something


Any input appreciated
 
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BgFish

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#13
Man, sounds like a great start! I don’t see anything glaring out that I would change at the moment. For only two months, seems you have done some research. I find most reefers don’t have a good grasp of things until later in the reefing journey. There is so much to learn, that the learning never stops lol. That is why I love this hobby! Plus it’s full of super cool reefing people as well! YouTube has Some great information, and maybe some
Not so great info at times lol. My only suggestion is take it slow, don’t believe the first thing you hear lol. Many people do things many different ways, and in the beginning I was trying to do too much! It’s best to make only one change at a time. Otherwise if something goes bad (or good) you will be able to pin-point what the cause was. I was dabbling with YouTube videos. I took a break when my brother passed away, but hopefully should be back at it soon. Heres a few links of your interested:


but welcome to SCR and HAPPY REEFING!
 

jamie1210

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#14
The tank looks great so far! I think you're being too modest and calling yourself a beginner :) I'm impressed with the growth on those SPS frags.

Do you keep cryptic fish? I actually don't notice any fish in the pics you posted.
 

Reeferkcp

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#15
Man, sounds like a great start! I don’t see anything glaring out that I would change at the moment. For only two months, seems you have done some research. I find most reefers don’t have a good grasp of things until later in the reefing journey. There is so much to learn, that the learning never stops lol. That is why I love this hobby! Plus it’s full of super cool reefing people as well! YouTube has Some great information, and maybe some
Not so great info at times lol. My only suggestion is take it slow, don’t believe the first thing you hear lol. Many people do things many different ways, and in the beginning I was trying to do too much! It’s best to make only one change at a time. Otherwise if something goes bad (or good) you will be able to pin-point what the cause was. I was dabbling with YouTube videos. I took a break when my brother passed away, but hopefully should be back at it soon. Heres a few links of your interested:


but welcome to SCR and HAPPY REEFING!
Thanks bro. Ur right. I should stop doing too many things. I think that was my mistake with tunning nutrients control so far and went from ULN tank to algae outbreak lol. Gotta stop checking nitrate/phos frequently and let the tuning sink in before i tune it further
 

Reeferkcp

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#16
The tank looks great so far! I think you're being too modest and calling yourself a beginner :) I'm impressed with the growth on those SPS frags.

Do you keep cryptic fish? I actually don't notice any fish in the pics you posted.
Actually i have super rare invisible fish. Ill let you have one if they breed 😂.

i took the pic after cleaning glass and everyone hides. I have a blue tang, tomini tang, coral beauty, algae blenny x2, pistol shrimp, clown x1, randall goby. Thats it. Im planning on adding more. I have a qt tank working on new fish.
 

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