My 185g irish reef

[jl1]

hi everyone!
my name is jim and am living in Ireland,
Dublin city to be precise.
I will start with how I got to the present with my tank.
I had always wanted an aquarium and going on advice I received I purchased the biggest one I could afford at the time.
it is 5ft long 2ft high and 2ft deep and holds just under 700 litres including the sump area.
It is running a year now and as most reefers would probably know its had its ups and downs.
don't worry the talking will soon stop and the pics will start :fun2:

 

[jl1]

a pic of when the tank arrived .


doing the big fill


sand in and one piece of liverock!!

 

[jl1]

before I put up some more pics I will list what equipment I am using.

bubble magus curve 7 skimmer
2 x tunze powerheads 8500lph each (cant remember the model number)
vecton v2 600 uv unit
eheim compact plus return pump 3500lph
my lights are a twin t5 and blue led unit ( upgrading to a reefbreeders photon 48 in the next week or so)
have cheato in the sump and some rowaphos
will shortly be ordering two reactors to run bio pellets and rowaphos.

 

[jl1]

after letting the tank cycle I added my first fish 3 yellow bellied damsels.


I then purchased 30 kgs of liverock as the one piece wasn't really cutting it!!
so the tank now looked like this.


a few weeks passed and approaching Christmas 2012 I added some more inhabitants to the tank consisting of:
2 black and white clownfish
1 bi-colour angel
1 bi-colour blenny



I was feeling pretty chuffed even at this early stage!!




please excuse the awful pics they were all taken on my phone.
my dslr got trashed.

 

[jl1]

I then purchased 2 cleaner shrimp


at the beginning of January I suffered my first loss
my two clowns who I thought were settling in well died within 3 days of each other I was gutted.
so I ordered some replacements and they arrived a week later and joined the gang.

it was at this stage I went a bit tang mad!!
within a month I had purchased a naso tang , tomini/goldrush tang and a regal tang!!




my regal was only 2 inches in size at this stage and very shy so I have no pics of her at the beginning

the whitespots on the naso tang were just stress spots and not the dreaded ich!!

 

[jl1]

at this stage I decided I needed a little bit more liverock for the tank so I purchased another 25 kg and decided to do a little rescape so the tank now looked like this


I then decided the tank was a bit static looking so I added a hammer coral and a torch coral




I must at this point let you all know that my wife has been very supportive in my reefing adventures and even though the tank takes up a lot of room and my money and time but I never really thought she had much interest until my next trip to my local fish shop.
my lfs had just gotten in its delivery of fish and there in one of the tanks was a fish that was always on my wanted list.


this is the actual picture I took at the fish shop and because it was fairly pricey I decided to text it to my wife to see what she thought of it.
to my utter surprise she texted me back with the reply " don't you dare come home without that fish!!"
so needless to say an emperor angel became the latest addition

 

[jl1]

I like unusual fish and when I sen the next little guy in my lfs I knew he had to be my next purchase so nigel the niger trigger was added to the tank.


at this stage things seemed to be going quite well.
water test showed all levels were good and touch wood none of the fish had shown any signs of whitespot which made it even more bizarre that I got up one morning to find my bi-colour blenny dead.
since then I have learned that you might think everything is going well only for something to happen that wasn't expected and its happened quite a few times since.
so another trip to my lfs and I bought a fish that even though I had only seen in pictures and wasn't blown away by it, the minute I seen one in the flesh I was smitten.
a powder blue tang


so the powder blue was added and what I didn't know was that it brought a little guest with it that no reef keeper wants in their tank WHITESPOT!!
unfortunately the powder blue succumbed to the whitespot within 4 days and some of my other fish were infected especially the regal tang.
so a uv unit was quickly put online and I raised the temp and reduced the salinity in the tank in an effort to battle the whitespot.
it worked to a point in that I lost no more fish but to this day its still there as I have no room for a quarantine tank at present but I am not stupid either.
to this day the surviving fish have never shown any signs of whitespot but I did introduce yellow tang to the tank when I had no more signs of the disease but he did breakout in spots but I am glad to say he pulled through .

 

[has no life]

mice tank

 

[jl1]

just thought I would put up a current fts

and a front shot

 

[jl1]

hoping to receive my reefbreeders photon 48 light fixture this week
I just then have to decide how to mount it as I don't like my lights hanging from the ceiling.
three species I haven't had much luck keeping so far are powder blue tangs,blennies and ritteri anemones.
I reckon my lighting is the reason the ritteri anemone hasn't faired well in the tank.
hence the forthcoming upgrade.
regarding blemmies I have no idea although I did move on my niger trigger when I seen him taking out one of my blue cheek gobies .
here is an up to date list of stock in my tank.
naso tang
regal tang
yellow tang
female blue faced trigger( my lovely male jumped out of the tank last week I was gutted)
emperor angel currently starting to change into adult colours
2 clownfish
2 damsels
1 blue cheek goby
bi-colour angel
coral beauty
convict/engineer goby
2 cleaner shrimp
1 carpenter flasher wrasse
1 mandarin
1 tiny rbta
1 condy anemone
1 green hammer coral
1 toadstool

 

[jl1]

going ahead with ordering 2 fluidised reactors 1 for rowaphos and 1 for bio pellets.
my phosphates are a bit high at the moment everything else is spot on.
I currently do 100 litre water changes every week

 

[Joe0813]

you realize your tank still has ich right? and it always will until it goes fishless for 9-10weeks

 

[jl1]

you realize your tank still has ich right? and it always will until it goes fishless for 9-10weeks

Yes I do .
Unfortunately I dont have room for a qt tank large enough to house all my fish and as I mentioned none of my fish show any signs of the disease except for the regal from time to time but she is over 6 inches long now and very plump .
I am currently planning my upgrade so when the time comes I will temporarily have to take over a part of the kitchen with the current tank while I install the new tank.
It's at this stage I intend to treat the ich problem in the 185g by removing all rock coral and inverts from it and dosing it with an ich treatment .
I can do this while the new tank cycles and I also plan on fitting in a 3ft qt tank within the sump area of the new tank.
The new tank will also run 2 36w uv units from the beginning.