hi all been a member of this forum for a while now but never got round to doing a tank dairy so here is my tank dairy from the beginning.
i started of in a 50l nano cube witch was borrowed to me from a family member who upgraded to a bigger tank i enjoyed watching it when it was set up so i took the offer and borrowed the tank to try the hobby here it is
View attachment 123526 i started off with nothing no rocks or fish this was a few months into the hobby. i bought more lr and corals different fish and could never keep the water to a good standard so i gave up and this was one of the last pictures i had of the tank setupView attachment 123527 View attachment 123528 View attachment 123532i had lost intrest in this tank when i couldnt keep corals alive and things would go right with the water quality so i lost intrest in it
the next project
my friend had an amazon 190l fish tank witch he had nowhere to store so asked me if i would like to use it until i was finished with it so i took the tank and began the upgrade thinking it would help me keep my water more stable as i was getting fed up of the nano tank so heres how it looked as i started out in the 190l View attachment 123529 i started off doing good. water quality was good for a while i added some new fish and i got a alage blenny to take care of the hair algae i had on the rocks from the nano transfer he did get rid of it all in the end i also bought myself a yellow tang as it was being sold in a tank breakdown so i got her for £25 she was a really nice fish and she kept me intrested in the hobby here she is a few days after adding to the tank View attachment 123530 she settle in quite well there wasnt many fish in there anyway. i also bought myself a white chalk goby but found out the hard way it was to early to add him witch the store i bought him from didnt tell me this View attachment 123531 he just wouldnt put wieght on tryed everything to get him fat i put food in the sand for him to eat while he was digging but nothing worked and he died in the end. while i was trying to fatten the goby up my nitrates got a little high. after much asking questions and alot of water changes that didnt bring my nitrates down someone said i should add more lr. so i went and bought a load more lr to see if it helped me control the nitrates alittle so after adding the lr it ended up like thisView attachment 123533this is when i added the rock i was happy with how it looked kept doing the water changes changing the media in the external filter and in the end my nitrates fell and the water improved then my kids flooded the bathroom one day and cracked all the roof so it needed to be plastered witch ment the tank had to be moved to another room while we decorated so i took some photos to remember how the rocks was and where the corals were on the rocks here are the photos of the tank before movingView attachment 123534View attachment 123535View attachment 123536View attachment 123537as you can see in the pictures the tank was really coming on and colouring up nicely all fish were doing great. the only thing what was annoying me was i didnt have much growth on the corals i was keeping. i was using a 6x tube t5 unit with mixed bulbs so i ened up replacing all the bulbs in the unit to see if this was the problem after moving the tank to another room to redecorate my tank ended up looking like it was going down hill again. it was probably from the lack of intrest i had for it while i was decorating and i must admit i did neglect it while i was decorating my friend asked for the tank back so i had to move all the stock so i had to find a tank set it up in its new place and transfer all the stock over while i was in the middle of decorating the front room
the newest project
my patner found a tank witch she liked i wasn't to interested in it to be honest i had a 6 foot gap in the living room witch i thought i would fill with a big reef tank but she wanted me to look at this one so i went down with a friend and took a look at it and was shocked at the size of it and thought a 6ft tank would be huge so ended up buying this one witch was 4ft by 2ft by 18 inches i got it for £110 it came with a stand and a sump no other equipment. when i got the tank home i looked at the stand and it was very warped and water damaged and i was amazed it had held all the weight of the tank. here is what it looked like View attachment 123538you can see the damage the stand had in the picture. i decided if i was going to have a really nice tank the tank and stand needed to have a better look so i started by testing the tank was water tight first so took it into the back garden with a friend as it was really heavyView attachment 123539View attachment 123540fter leaving the tank 24hrs with water init the tank didnt leak. i then cleaned the whole tank out and removed some of the trims and excess glass witch wasn't needed i also removed the weir cover as it was falling off and was damaged. it was cleaned and ready to be brought back in to build a lid and stand for this tank. i had a wardrobe witch was not being used so i thought it would be a good idea to use this to make the stand and save some money. i didn't like how the stand was before the tank sat ontop with a lip around it. so on the stand i was making i thought it would be a good idea to make the new stand with no lip around it. so the stand diminsions would be the same size as the tank. i wanted the stand to be black and water proof aswell so i used plastic wrap to wrap the tank on evey side you would see and i made sure you couldn't see any joins in the wrap. it took me one weekend to make the stand and at the end i was impressed with the outcome i went and bought some new door handles and it looked like new. the next thing i had to make was a lid i wanted to make this so i could leave space at the back of it to allow for the pipes and wires and for the tank to breath a bit. i had a few bits of my hard wood flooring left over from decorating and i had the idea to use the last few bits to make the lid without having to pay for wood. the lid didn't take to long to make i also wrapped the lid in the same plastic film and finished the lid off with the same handles as the stand. by this point i was looking at the tank and thought it looked brand new totally different tank. This is the first picture of the finished tank View attachment 123541he next thing was the plumbing . i really had a night mare with this as i bought the tank with no plumbing at all the person i bought the tank from had ordered a return pump for this tank but wasnt sure if they was selling it . in the end she sold it to me and i bought myself a 6500lph return pump Jebao. i was really having a hard time trying to get the wier and return to match so the flow was the same in the end i got there but it was a pain .so next i had to work out how much water this tank held. the tank itself holds 350 litres of water the sump also holds 130 litres so its nearly 500 litres. so i had to fill the tank up and get it running. i bought 25 kg of white sand and filled the tank up i didn't take no photos of the tank maturing for some reason but i let it do its thing and eventually it was ready. I went out and bought 10 kg of live rock for my sump and got some algae to go in the sump to start a Refugium and while i was shopping i upgraded the 6 t5 tubes for an aquaone mariglo led unit View attachment 123542View attachment 123543he tank was all set to add the fish and and the stock from the old 190l tank after the transfer the tank was doing good no problems what so ever heres a few pictures of the tank shortly after it was setup View attachment 123544<this was the night i finished adding the corals fish and live rockView attachment 123545< this was the day after or a couple of days later i cant remember.
so as you can probably guess alot of this stock had been with me a few years now this tank was set-up October 2014 and is still running today. i started having problems around late November with this tank i noticed i was losing palys and zoas they was slowly disappearing i was having trouble with my toadstool it would stand up started to come off the rock it was attached i moved it trying to help it as you will see in some of the photos. one of my hammer heads started to close. and i tryed lots of things to get it to reopen heres a few photos of before and after i noticed the changes in the corals mentionedView attachment 123575View attachment 123576View attachment 123577View attachment 123578so were up to date now u basically have and idea how i got to where i am today with my tank so here is the equipment list and current stock
approximately 35 - 40kg of live rock
360 litre tank 4ft by 2 ft by 18 inches
sump 130 litres
2 heaters one in sump last section one in display
6500lph return pump
aqua one g series skimmer
aqua one mariglo 50w led unit 4 ft long
one 4000lph powerhead in sump
fish stock
yellow tang
regal tang
two clown fish
one anthias
yellow saffron goby
six line wrasse
4 turbo snails
6-7 hermit crabs
brittle star fish
conch
nasus snail
small matis shrimp in sump
large boxer shrimp
corals
green star polyp
ultra green star polyp
green mushrooms
red mushrooms
green dragon eye zoas
unknown zoas
unknown palys
button polyps
hammerhead 2 heads
pulsing xenia
toadstool frags
yellow twig thing lol
so heres a few pictures of the tank today and a few pictures of the fish and corals
View attachment 123579View attachment 123580
sumpView attachment 123581View attachment 123582View attachment 123583View attachment 123584
fish
View attachment 123585View attachment 123586View attachment 123587View attachment 123588View attachment 123589View attachment 123590View attachment 123591
corals
View attachment 123592View attachment 123593View attachment 123594View attachment 123595View attachment 123596View attachment 123597View attachment 123598View attachment 123599View attachment 123600View attachment 123601View attachment 123589View attachment 123602View attachment 123603View attachment 123604View attachment 123605View attachment 123606View attachment 123607View attachment 123608
so this is my current setup with all corals listed and equipment.
so heres a few problems i am having trouble with at this moment (1)i have fragged my toadstool into a few pieces as i just couldn't get it to reattach
i now have the odd piece that keeps coming lose i have supper glued it to the rocks i have used a rubber band tryed string and nothing is working the glue just lets the coral go after a while the rubberband is to tight and if left cuts into the coral no matter how tight it is and the string is similar to the band so any help on getting this toadstool to attach to live rock would be much appreciated .
(2)i have had a problem with nitrates so on the 9.9.15 i started using no-pox i dosed 12 ml on Friday the 9th and i dosed 12ml on saturday i got my water tested for nitrates on Friday and they was 20ppm of nitrates i got them retested on sunday and there was 0.25 of nitrates nearly undetectable i havent dosed any nopox today as i am going to return to the shop tomorrow and get all my water retested and also i am going to get there water tested as i always have a mg reading of over 1600ppm so i suspect a error in the people who are testing my water for me and i will find out for me tomorrow. if anyone reads this from start to finish im sorry if i have spelt things wrong or it doesn't make sense please try to read it the best you can and thanks for viewing my tank dairy
i started of in a 50l nano cube witch was borrowed to me from a family member who upgraded to a bigger tank i enjoyed watching it when it was set up so i took the offer and borrowed the tank to try the hobby here it is
View attachment 123526 i started off with nothing no rocks or fish this was a few months into the hobby. i bought more lr and corals different fish and could never keep the water to a good standard so i gave up and this was one of the last pictures i had of the tank setupView attachment 123527 View attachment 123528 View attachment 123532i had lost intrest in this tank when i couldnt keep corals alive and things would go right with the water quality so i lost intrest in it
the next project
my friend had an amazon 190l fish tank witch he had nowhere to store so asked me if i would like to use it until i was finished with it so i took the tank and began the upgrade thinking it would help me keep my water more stable as i was getting fed up of the nano tank so heres how it looked as i started out in the 190l View attachment 123529 i started off doing good. water quality was good for a while i added some new fish and i got a alage blenny to take care of the hair algae i had on the rocks from the nano transfer he did get rid of it all in the end i also bought myself a yellow tang as it was being sold in a tank breakdown so i got her for £25 she was a really nice fish and she kept me intrested in the hobby here she is a few days after adding to the tank View attachment 123530 she settle in quite well there wasnt many fish in there anyway. i also bought myself a white chalk goby but found out the hard way it was to early to add him witch the store i bought him from didnt tell me this View attachment 123531 he just wouldnt put wieght on tryed everything to get him fat i put food in the sand for him to eat while he was digging but nothing worked and he died in the end. while i was trying to fatten the goby up my nitrates got a little high. after much asking questions and alot of water changes that didnt bring my nitrates down someone said i should add more lr. so i went and bought a load more lr to see if it helped me control the nitrates alittle so after adding the lr it ended up like thisView attachment 123533this is when i added the rock i was happy with how it looked kept doing the water changes changing the media in the external filter and in the end my nitrates fell and the water improved then my kids flooded the bathroom one day and cracked all the roof so it needed to be plastered witch ment the tank had to be moved to another room while we decorated so i took some photos to remember how the rocks was and where the corals were on the rocks here are the photos of the tank before movingView attachment 123534View attachment 123535View attachment 123536View attachment 123537as you can see in the pictures the tank was really coming on and colouring up nicely all fish were doing great. the only thing what was annoying me was i didnt have much growth on the corals i was keeping. i was using a 6x tube t5 unit with mixed bulbs so i ened up replacing all the bulbs in the unit to see if this was the problem after moving the tank to another room to redecorate my tank ended up looking like it was going down hill again. it was probably from the lack of intrest i had for it while i was decorating and i must admit i did neglect it while i was decorating my friend asked for the tank back so i had to move all the stock so i had to find a tank set it up in its new place and transfer all the stock over while i was in the middle of decorating the front room
the newest project
my patner found a tank witch she liked i wasn't to interested in it to be honest i had a 6 foot gap in the living room witch i thought i would fill with a big reef tank but she wanted me to look at this one so i went down with a friend and took a look at it and was shocked at the size of it and thought a 6ft tank would be huge so ended up buying this one witch was 4ft by 2ft by 18 inches i got it for £110 it came with a stand and a sump no other equipment. when i got the tank home i looked at the stand and it was very warped and water damaged and i was amazed it had held all the weight of the tank. here is what it looked like View attachment 123538you can see the damage the stand had in the picture. i decided if i was going to have a really nice tank the tank and stand needed to have a better look so i started by testing the tank was water tight first so took it into the back garden with a friend as it was really heavyView attachment 123539View attachment 123540fter leaving the tank 24hrs with water init the tank didnt leak. i then cleaned the whole tank out and removed some of the trims and excess glass witch wasn't needed i also removed the weir cover as it was falling off and was damaged. it was cleaned and ready to be brought back in to build a lid and stand for this tank. i had a wardrobe witch was not being used so i thought it would be a good idea to use this to make the stand and save some money. i didn't like how the stand was before the tank sat ontop with a lip around it. so on the stand i was making i thought it would be a good idea to make the new stand with no lip around it. so the stand diminsions would be the same size as the tank. i wanted the stand to be black and water proof aswell so i used plastic wrap to wrap the tank on evey side you would see and i made sure you couldn't see any joins in the wrap. it took me one weekend to make the stand and at the end i was impressed with the outcome i went and bought some new door handles and it looked like new. the next thing i had to make was a lid i wanted to make this so i could leave space at the back of it to allow for the pipes and wires and for the tank to breath a bit. i had a few bits of my hard wood flooring left over from decorating and i had the idea to use the last few bits to make the lid without having to pay for wood. the lid didn't take to long to make i also wrapped the lid in the same plastic film and finished the lid off with the same handles as the stand. by this point i was looking at the tank and thought it looked brand new totally different tank. This is the first picture of the finished tank View attachment 123541he next thing was the plumbing . i really had a night mare with this as i bought the tank with no plumbing at all the person i bought the tank from had ordered a return pump for this tank but wasnt sure if they was selling it . in the end she sold it to me and i bought myself a 6500lph return pump Jebao. i was really having a hard time trying to get the wier and return to match so the flow was the same in the end i got there but it was a pain .so next i had to work out how much water this tank held. the tank itself holds 350 litres of water the sump also holds 130 litres so its nearly 500 litres. so i had to fill the tank up and get it running. i bought 25 kg of white sand and filled the tank up i didn't take no photos of the tank maturing for some reason but i let it do its thing and eventually it was ready. I went out and bought 10 kg of live rock for my sump and got some algae to go in the sump to start a Refugium and while i was shopping i upgraded the 6 t5 tubes for an aquaone mariglo led unit View attachment 123542View attachment 123543he tank was all set to add the fish and and the stock from the old 190l tank after the transfer the tank was doing good no problems what so ever heres a few pictures of the tank shortly after it was setup View attachment 123544<this was the night i finished adding the corals fish and live rockView attachment 123545< this was the day after or a couple of days later i cant remember.
so as you can probably guess alot of this stock had been with me a few years now this tank was set-up October 2014 and is still running today. i started having problems around late November with this tank i noticed i was losing palys and zoas they was slowly disappearing i was having trouble with my toadstool it would stand up started to come off the rock it was attached i moved it trying to help it as you will see in some of the photos. one of my hammer heads started to close. and i tryed lots of things to get it to reopen heres a few photos of before and after i noticed the changes in the corals mentionedView attachment 123575View attachment 123576View attachment 123577View attachment 123578so were up to date now u basically have and idea how i got to where i am today with my tank so here is the equipment list and current stock
approximately 35 - 40kg of live rock
360 litre tank 4ft by 2 ft by 18 inches
sump 130 litres
2 heaters one in sump last section one in display
6500lph return pump
aqua one g series skimmer
aqua one mariglo 50w led unit 4 ft long
one 4000lph powerhead in sump
fish stock
yellow tang
regal tang
two clown fish
one anthias
yellow saffron goby
six line wrasse
4 turbo snails
6-7 hermit crabs
brittle star fish
conch
nasus snail
small matis shrimp in sump
large boxer shrimp
corals
green star polyp
ultra green star polyp
green mushrooms
red mushrooms
green dragon eye zoas
unknown zoas
unknown palys
button polyps
hammerhead 2 heads
pulsing xenia
toadstool frags
yellow twig thing lol
so heres a few pictures of the tank today and a few pictures of the fish and corals
View attachment 123579View attachment 123580
sumpView attachment 123581View attachment 123582View attachment 123583View attachment 123584
fish
View attachment 123585View attachment 123586View attachment 123587View attachment 123588View attachment 123589View attachment 123590View attachment 123591
corals
View attachment 123592View attachment 123593View attachment 123594View attachment 123595View attachment 123596View attachment 123597View attachment 123598View attachment 123599View attachment 123600View attachment 123601View attachment 123589View attachment 123602View attachment 123603View attachment 123604View attachment 123605View attachment 123606View attachment 123607View attachment 123608
so this is my current setup with all corals listed and equipment.
so heres a few problems i am having trouble with at this moment (1)i have fragged my toadstool into a few pieces as i just couldn't get it to reattach
i now have the odd piece that keeps coming lose i have supper glued it to the rocks i have used a rubber band tryed string and nothing is working the glue just lets the coral go after a while the rubberband is to tight and if left cuts into the coral no matter how tight it is and the string is similar to the band so any help on getting this toadstool to attach to live rock would be much appreciated .
(2)i have had a problem with nitrates so on the 9.9.15 i started using no-pox i dosed 12 ml on Friday the 9th and i dosed 12ml on saturday i got my water tested for nitrates on Friday and they was 20ppm of nitrates i got them retested on sunday and there was 0.25 of nitrates nearly undetectable i havent dosed any nopox today as i am going to return to the shop tomorrow and get all my water retested and also i am going to get there water tested as i always have a mg reading of over 1600ppm so i suspect a error in the people who are testing my water for me and i will find out for me tomorrow. if anyone reads this from start to finish im sorry if i have spelt things wrong or it doesn't make sense please try to read it the best you can and thanks for viewing my tank dairy
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