A ski bums Golden 80g build

[Chevre]

Hello everyone!

I am excited to finally kick off my long awaited build thread. My life took a change of direction starting a year ago. The job i had worked at for several years started to grow negatively on me and i gave it up and the nice pay to live a simpler life in a beautiful part of the country with my beautiful and very understanding girlfriend. I gave my old 75g reef away, which you know just had to start filling in and looking like a true reef tank at that time. I did however keep my skimmer, the Reef Octopus lx1000s, which was one of a few items that made the cut to make the cross country trip in my car. A car which barely fit myself, my brother and my crazy dog for a 4000km drive.

So now here i am, likely the only reefer in town with the closest shops 3 hrs away in Calgary. With a very tight budget to work with and 4 months of looking i was able to obtain an 80 g tank and stand in trade for a set of Stanley air tools and a torque wrench.
Currently i have painted the back black and gave the stand a fresh coat of white.

Equipment
tank 48x18x23
Reef octopus lx1000s HOB skimmer

Soon to order
2x Mars Aqua 16" full spectrum dimmable led

Will be acquiring a koralia wavemaker2 and 5 12v power heads from another reefer Saturday

This is how the tank sits currently, my only concern is my woodstove which we use to heat primarily, is on the other side of the room.

 

[Cheje]

This shows how my woodstove sits about 8 ft across from my tank.

 

[Cheje]

And this is why i moved here! A couple photos of the area and one of our latest ski days. Saturday i will be picking up some goodies and likely ordering my lights! And then the cycle begins

 

[Cheje]

Well the trip was hectic but i couldn't have gotten it all done without some help from my fellow hobbyists. Here are some of the goodies. Hydor wavemaker2, 2 koralia2 12V powerheads, 3 koralia1 12V. Ehiem heater, Vertex refractometer, and 2 buckets of instant ocean. I got it all for just over $200. I only need the 2 powerheads but the 5 were all included. However the instant ocean is not the reef crystals, would you see any problem with this salt for a softie and few LPS tank?

 

[Cheje]

Time for an update!
So lights came in last week so i spent my Sunday afternoon helping prep for Easter dinner and hanging up the lights on my designated breaks. I didn't have a long enough wall bracket so i improvised with some pieces of drift wood laying around. Its not perfect and i don't like how untidy the top of the tank looks with my skimmer and wires so i may build a half canopy to clean it all up. Really impressed with these Mars Aqua lights though. First time with LED and I'm absolutely loving the look!

A sump is in the plans in the future to accomidate skimmer and refugium. That will be in the coming months.

Did some aquascaping with my single piece of liverock. Took a lot of time but I'm happy with the results, minimalist look and lots of swimming space.
Some more rock will be on order.

Next up, some clean up crew and eventually frags!

 

[cleverbs]

haha love the wood for the lights.

Good luck with the build Im sure it will be a great tank and well if its not you can just look outside

Right now I live in Nebraska and have always been torn between moving to the mountains or the sea.

 

[Cheje]

Well its time for an update. The tank has gone through some changes and now I'd like to track coral growth. I got lucky that a fellow hobbyist messaged me as he was rescaping his SPS tank and selling his 5 yr old live rock covered in corals. So i ended up scoring liverock with free corals at about $3 lb. This has all been in my tank for about 2 months. There's some hair algae, bubble algae and a few aiptasia (treating with lemon juice) but also hundreds of feather dusters, brittle stars, bristle worms and sponges. I also received tons of snails, and hermits that tagged along.

Unfortunately while i was moving the Green Slimer frag, i not only got glue all over it but dropped it causing quite a loss in pigment and also PE on polyps not directly under the lights. It had fallen over a few times prior to being glued as well. Does anyone else have poor PE on bases or undersides of branches which dont get direct light? I figure with my Leds which i have set at about 60% blues that should be plenty enough light and turning them up higher could bleach the coral. It also is in a spot with strong flow.

I'm also battling cyano and diatoms during the day but by night the tank usually is cleared up. Also interesting during the first month blue clove polyps took over the entire right side island over growing everything including frags and zoas. I had a slight salinity spike just over a week ago (which likely effected the slimer ) and all blue clove polyps have disappeared retracting to two tiny colonies. Even though the slimer suffered i consider this a victory as those cloves grew nearly a square ft in a couple weeks.

Also does anyone know what that green macro algae is? I've had no luck IDing it. It is hard and rigid does not move with the current. What you can see there is all growth in 2 months.

 

[Cheje]

Update: 2 months since adding coral.

2 months ago

Now

Does anyone know what kind of macro algae that is? Its hard and rigid. Also does anyone else have poor color on the undersides which are don't get direct light on their slimers? I upset it the other week by allowing to much evaporation and salinity spiked. I then also got super glue all over it and dropped it several times before placing it in its new spot, about an inch higher. It has great PE on all spots in direct light but it has lost color at its base and underside branches. I can still see polyps in the effected areas they have very little pigment and are quite small. Its in strong flow.

 

[Cheje]

I should mention up until now i thought the green slimer had not grown one bit. Looking at the comparison photos i see some decent growth. I guess not too bad for someone using tap water and basic instant ocean. I do have hair algae, diatoms and cyano but my 2 Mollies take care of most of that.

 

[joshky]

Lol your GSP loves that tap water apparently. I bought 1"x2" frag a year ago and it's maybe 5"x5" now . Pretty slow for a pest. Too bad you don't have a LFS to trade frags of it for store credit.

 

[Cheje]

Yes it really seems to love the tap water! The zoas have been showing great growth too. I'd like to get RODI its just not a major priority at the moment. There are several other SPS frags and mini colonies in there not visible in the photos showing slow growth but still full color and PE. I just let my tap water sit for a day in a tote before i use it. I've currently done 1 water change which was of about 15-20%. I know i will need to step that up a little more frequently for the SPS. I also feed very sparingly as the mollies pick at algae all day so i have a low nutrient input. Im still looking to add some bright softies, a blue polyp toadstool, and some palys and zoas.

 

[moondoggy4]

Pretty pictures, not sure what all the white stuff is, we do not get much of that anymore drought here in Ca.

Tank looks nice. Going be nice after a hard day at work on the slopes.