55 Gallon Reef Tank

dbank999 · 03-06-14, 07:19 AM

I decided recently that I wanted to get into saltwater reef keeping, so I began the process last weekend after many hours of researching and scouting for equipment.

Ended up with a used 55 gallon acrylic tank made by Sea Clear off of craigslist, it came with a bunch of other stuff he was using to run his saltwater set-up; but I have, and will be upgrading most of it.

The Set-up

55 gal tank
Reef Octopus BH-1000 HOB protein skimmer*
1x Sicce Voyager 2 powerhead*
2x Hydor Koralia nano 240 gph powerheads*
^^Hooked up to Hydor Koralia SmartWave pump controller*
Aqueon ProHeater 250watt
~45 lbs of base rock
30 lbs of arag-alive oolite sand

Aquascape

I already had the water in the tank with sand and was awaiting the arrival of my base rock, I had not considered how cloudy the water would get, making it nearly impossible to see what I was doing. lol overall I think I did pretty good, just want to add to the left side, maybe a higher perched shelf to make a "cove"...

Added 1 block of frozen mysis shrimp last night to hopefully kick start the nitrification cycle.. will be checking for signs of ammonia in the next few days

Can't wait to be able to get a small clean up crew in there to have something to look at besides rocks

drumcrush · 03-06-14, 07:41 AM

Lookin good!

Teal · 03-06-14, 08:31 AM

Nice!! Do you plan to add any fish, or just corals and clean up inverts?

dbank999 · 03-06-14, 10:06 AM

Thanks!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Teal

Nice!! Do you plan to add any fish, or just corals and clean up inverts?

Going to slowly build up a CUC and then add fish one at a time (clowns will be introduced as an established pair).

Looking at a pair of clowns, watchman goby, midas blenny..

..maybe one more down the road, not sure yet (we shall how my set-up handles the bio-load) but I'm thinking of a mimic saddle puffer filefish.

I do plan to have some small easy beginner corals, but this is really more like an expirement tank before I go with a large mixed reef (200+ gal

)

IW17 · 03-06-14, 08:21 PM

Awesome. I might have to post some pics of my tanks.

Cruddown · 03-06-14, 10:49 PM

Great hobby. Be patient, and enjoy the little things. Also, don't forget to take a red light and look at it in the dark in the middle of the night. That's when reef tanks really come alive, and you'll see stuff in there you had no idea was in there. That became my favorite part of reef keeping.

dbank999 · 03-07-14, 06:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IW17

Awesome. I might have to post some pics of my tanks.

Would love to see them!

I'm going to get some live rock from a LFS this weekend to help introduce more bacteria colonies..

Quote:

Great hobby. Be patient, and enjoy the little things. Also, don't forget to take a red light and look at it in the dark in the middle of the night. That's when reef tanks really come alive, and you'll see stuff in there you had no idea was in there. That became my favorite part of reef keeping.

I will be very patient, I'm putting a lot of time and effort in to try and do this right.. so that I don't have to start all over again lol

And I already have some red tac lights to look in the tank with

Teal · 03-12-14, 02:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dbank999

Going to slowly build up a CUC and then add fish one at a time (clowns will be introduced as an established pair).

Looking at a pair of clowns, watchman goby, midas blenny..

..maybe one more down the road, not sure yet (we shall how my set-up handles the bio-load) but I'm thinking of a mimic saddle puffer filefish.

I do plan to have some small easy beginner corals, but this is really more like an expirement tank before I go with a large mixed reef (200+ gal

)

What kind of clowns are you thinking of? I want to add a pair of maroon clowns when I get my 135g predator tank going. We have a pair of true percs and a snowflake right now.

The local petshop has a puffer mimic filefish right now, and a longnose filefish... So pretty! But my current filefish would eat them ):

My boyfriend hates our diamond watchman goby because he covers corals in sand... so just be aware of that lol.

dbank999 · 03-12-14, 07:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Teal

What kind of clowns are you thinking of? I want to add a pair of maroon clowns when I get my 135g predator tank going. We have a pair of true percs and a snowflake right now.

The local petshop has a puffer mimic filefish right now, and a longnose filefish... So pretty! But my current filefish would eat them ):

My boyfriend hates our diamond watchman goby because he covers corals in sand... so just be aware of that lol.

Either just regular tank bred or percula, when I do the larger reef I want to be able to have a couple different pairs. Will the maroons be a mated pair ? They can be pretty aggressive when full grown to one another over territory from what I have heard

I haven't seen any mimic puffer filefish around here at any of the lfs' :/

And that's good to know about the goby! Lol I don't know how long term this set up will be as I plan to move in the next few years so I may stick to few to none on the corals but if I do I'll be sure to place them high.

I'd love to see some pics of your tank !

Teal · 03-13-14, 12:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dbank999

Either just regular tank bred or percula, when I do the larger reef I want to be able to have a couple different pairs. Will the maroons be a mated pair ? They can be pretty aggressive when full grown to one another over territory from what I have heard

I haven't seen any mimic puffer filefish around here at any of the lfs' :/

And that's good to know about the goby! Lol I don't know how long term this set up will be as I plan to move in the next few years so I may stick to few to none on the corals but if I do I'll be sure to place them high.

I'd love to see some pics of your tank !

Oops, double post. My phone is being a jerk! Lol

Teal · 03-13-14, 12:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dbank999

Either just regular tank bred or percula, when I do the larger reef I want to be able to have a couple different pairs. Will the maroons be a mated pair ? They can be pretty aggressive when full grown to one another over territory from what I have heard

I haven't seen any mimic puffer filefish around here at any of the lfs' :/

And that's good to know about the goby! Lol I don't know how long term this set up will be as I plan to move in the next few years so I may stick to few to none on the corals but if I do I'll be sure to place them high.

I'd love to see some pics of your tank !

I keep reading different things about maroons pairing... So we'll see. I may end up just going with one . The LFS had someone drop off a huge, gorgeous maroon with ich ): I wish I was all set up and could take her if the ich heals. Both filefish I mentioned are already gone!

If you keep track of your frags, or glue down your plugs, the goby won't be a problem I don't think. Just might have to shake some sand off em lol

I have one thread in here with fish pictures.. Can't remember if I posted a full tank shot. We are basically starting over with corals... Before I moved in, I lived 6 hours away and my boyfriend works out of town... The roommates tried to take care of the tank, but didn't exactly succeed ): lol

IW17 · 03-13-14, 11:14 AM

Maroons are one of the few clowns not recommended in pairs. They are jerk for the most part and only recommended in tanks with larger more aggressive fish.

Teal · 03-13-14, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IW17

Maroons are one of the few clowns not recommended in pairs. They are jerk for the most part and only recommended in tanks with larger more aggressive fish.

They (or just the one) will be in my predator tank. I'd never dream of putting one in with my peaceful reef!

dbank999 · 03-17-14, 12:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Teal

They (or just the one) will be in my predator tank. I'd never dream of putting one in with my peaceful reef!

I love a lot of the predators, (which is probably going to directly result in me owning a decent number of tanks

)

I would love to have a Tessalata eel, stars n stripes puffer, Humu picasso trigger, with either an angler or boxfish as well, in a FOWLR set-up. The tessalata's can get up to almost 6 feet long! Love the patterning on them as well.

Update for the 55 gallon tank:

Re-did the rock scaping
&
Ordered a few more things:

Hydor nano (425 gph) and evolution (1150 gph) powerheads (probably going to remove the 240gph nano's from the set-up or position them to keep detritus off the sand/from under the rocks)
Hydor Koralia Auto Top off system
Sicce syncra silent 1.0 pump (251 gph) Auto top off pump

Day 17 of cycling:

10% water change

Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrites - 5++ppm
Nitrates - 40ppm
dKH - 13 (this seems high to me, although 7-12 seems to be acceptable, at least PH swings shouldn't be a concern)
S.G 1.026 (going to lower this a little with water changes - shooting for about 1.023-1.025)
Current Turnover rate: 35.5x
Temp: 78.5*F

As of now I have a little bit of brown algae starting to show on a few rocks and some areas of sand! Looks like I'm starting to get there