March 19, 2005 I started a reef tank. A friend of mine in Cincinnati really recommended that I try a JBJ Lighting 24 gallon Nano-Cube. I got one and let the system cycle (the initial periodd when setting up a marine tank that allows for the growth of beneficial bacteria to break down ammonia and nitrites into nitrates) which took about 10 weeks.
After a while I finally added my first corals, a Kenya tree coral and a green star polyp. I've added many since then and moved everyone of them from Cincinnati to Columbus. I had a horrible diatom bloom for 3 months from the move but I still didn't lose a coral or fish in that process.
As my tank got better I added more corals to it. I attended Phishybusiness's store opening and bought a fox coral. I ended up losing that coral which I'm still not sure the reason but I think it's because the skeleton was damaged a bit. The other coral I lost was a candy cane coral. That one I lost because I had surgery and was in bed for a week before I can walk on my own. During that time my echinophyllia coral dismounted and landed face down on the coral. From there on out it was war between the two for about a week. I rescued the candy cane coral but it was too late for it, the echinophyllia was just too strong for it.
Onto the present time....
I obtained a great deal on a 50 gallon tank and 20 gallon long tank so I decided to upgrade my current fish tank. Here is a picture of during the cycling stage of the setup.
After about 2 months all my tests stayed consistant which meant the tank has
completed it's cycling phase. I added my clown fish this past weekend and their flower pot they call home.
They appear to really like their new home. It's over twice as big and has 3 times the water volume. My nitrates are still a bit high so after a few water changes I'll add the corals from my previous tank.
I noticed today when I came home from work that my fish felt at home and were in their flower pot. For those who don't know clownfish behavior, they will find an Anemone in the wild and "host" to it. That means they call it home. They spend a lot of time by their host and rarely venture off except for getting food. That being said, I have a reef tank and an anemone could spend a lot of time walking around stinging
other corals till it finds a spot it likes to settle in. So I put a clay flower pot in it and mounted a Green Star Polyp to the pot to grow. I'm pretty happy how the new tank turned out. It was a huge learning experience for me. There are still a few things I need to do to the tank. I want to hard plumb the return pump, or at the very least put a union right out of the pump so I can get the darn thing out of the sump when I need to clean it. I'd probably also setup an overflow box inside the tank but with the placement of the whole in the back glass it would have been a really big hole so I didn't want it to distract from the rest of the tank.
That's about it for now, tune in next time for more updates....
After about 2 months all my tests stayed consistant which meant the tank has
completed it's cycling phase. I added my clown fish this past weekend and their flower pot they call home.
They appear to really like their new home. It's over twice as big and has 3 times the water volume. My nitrates are still a bit high so after a few water changes I'll add the corals from my previous tank.I noticed today when I came home from work that my fish felt at home and were in their flower pot. For those who don't know clownfish behavior, they will find an Anemone in the wild and "host" to it. That means they call it home. They spend a lot of time by their host and rarely venture off except for getting food. That being said, I have a reef tank and an anemone could spend a lot of time walking around stinging
other corals till it finds a spot it likes to settle in. So I put a clay flower pot in it and mounted a Green Star Polyp to the pot to grow. I'm pretty happy how the new tank turned out. It was a huge learning experience for me. There are still a few things I need to do to the tank. I want to hard plumb the return pump, or at the very least put a union right out of the pump so I can get the darn thing out of the sump when I need to clean it. I'd probably also setup an overflow box inside the tank but with the placement of the whole in the back glass it would have been a really big hole so I didn't want it to distract from the rest of the tank.That's about it for now, tune in next time for more updates....
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