I started my first aquarium 10 months ago. I originally started just to get a cool looking decoration for my house. I quickly realized how much work and investment would be needed to obtain a beautiful home aquarium and instead of shying away I immediately started to appreciate a beautiful aquarium and my passion grew and I decided to make it a great hobby of mine.
I have several advantages to become the owner of a beautiful reef aquarium. The first is that I absolutely have the passion to put the necessary work in to obtaining a healthy, beautiful reef tank. The second is that for the most part I have the time to dedicate to the hobby. The final advantage is that I have the funds to invest to get myself the tank of my dreams. The biggest disadvantage I have is my lack of patience. I really didnt understand the hobby and therefor believed I could simply buy myself into a beautiful aquarium. That has not gone so well. The second disadvantage is the fact that i do have funds to invest and therefor, given the fact I lacked patience, I spent a ton of money on new life when neither me or my tank was ready to sustain it. So I have learned from that and that is why I am finally joining this community. I have learned enough over the past months to consider myself slightly above beginner level and I need to help to go along with my ambition to really get the tank I want.
I currently have a 110 gallon tank. I have a sump with a refugium, large high quality skimmer, and oxide reactor. I am running apex hyrda 52 LED lights. As far as fish, I have a large purple tang, a yellow tang, a small hippo tang, a sailfin tang, 2 clown fish, a bottle nose hawkfish, 4 firefly fish, a large starfish, a blue fish that I cant remember its name, about 9 cleaner crabs, and about 9 cleaner slugs, and a cleaner shrimp. For corals I have a large blasto colony, 4 large zoa colonies, a large hard body brain type coral, 3 alveopora colonies, about 20 polyp frags, 3 stylophora corals, 3 hydrophora corals, toadstool, and a frogspawn, and a few mushrooms.
My current water levels are:
salinity: 1.025-1.025
Nitrate: 0
Phosphate: 0
nitrite
ammonia: <.1
Ka: 10.3
MG: 1500
Ca: 450
temperature: 72
It has been a long joyrney for me in 10 months. I have been through 3 fish "maintenance professionals" Started my aquarium with a fish focused tank in mind. Then switched to a reef tank about 3 months in. I think the biggest problem I have now is I just have put my tank through so many changes and just added a lot of life probably too quickly. About a month ago I moved from a 75 gallon petland tank with an overflow box to a new tank with the water flow system internal. I have added a number of the corals listed above within the past month. About a week ago I noticed my salinity was down around 1.021-1.022 so I did a 40% water change with ro/di water with higher salinity just a few days ago. The salinity has now balanced out right out the perfect level. I feed my corals reef roids 2 x per week. I also have acro power that I put in 2x per week and amino acid concentrate that I put in 1x per day. I feed all of my fish aquadine.
I am concerned howver because every since I did that water change, some of my corals are really not looking great. The weird part is, the harder to keep corals, the sylophoras, the hydrophoras, and a few others that my fish guy said probably wouldnt make it when I ordered them are looking very bright and healthy, however some of the easier corals are not. My toadstool has not fully opened in over a week. I have not seen the little green polyps from it in over a week. My blasto has bee wilting away over the past few days. I got a new torch coral a few days ago that got brown jelly and died 2 days later. My star polyps are not opening up recently. And my other polyp frags are too brown for the most part. I am not sure what the issue is. I have literaly done everything I could for this tank.
I am looking for some help building and maintaining a really spectacular tank. Again, I have the time, the passion, and the money to have one of the nicest tanks in the world. THe only thing I am missing is the profesional guidance to get me there.
Can someone please give me an idea what I need to do better to get these corals healthier? If there is any more information you need then please let me know and I will post it. My first questions I wanted to ask are:
1) what size cleaning crew is necessary for my size tank? I think I am low on cleaners.
2) what are the optimal settings for my LED hyrdo 52 lights? Do I keep them on all night on a lower setting? What is the best setting for all the different light ranges?
Ok, that is a pretty long introduction so I will leave it at that. I really really appreciate any help anyone can offer me. I have literally put over $12,000 into this tank and I have probably wasted at least $8,000 on dead life and shitty equipment. I am ready to work hard and i need some help. Thank you all very much.
I have several advantages to become the owner of a beautiful reef aquarium. The first is that I absolutely have the passion to put the necessary work in to obtaining a healthy, beautiful reef tank. The second is that for the most part I have the time to dedicate to the hobby. The final advantage is that I have the funds to invest to get myself the tank of my dreams. The biggest disadvantage I have is my lack of patience. I really didnt understand the hobby and therefor believed I could simply buy myself into a beautiful aquarium. That has not gone so well. The second disadvantage is the fact that i do have funds to invest and therefor, given the fact I lacked patience, I spent a ton of money on new life when neither me or my tank was ready to sustain it. So I have learned from that and that is why I am finally joining this community. I have learned enough over the past months to consider myself slightly above beginner level and I need to help to go along with my ambition to really get the tank I want.
I currently have a 110 gallon tank. I have a sump with a refugium, large high quality skimmer, and oxide reactor. I am running apex hyrda 52 LED lights. As far as fish, I have a large purple tang, a yellow tang, a small hippo tang, a sailfin tang, 2 clown fish, a bottle nose hawkfish, 4 firefly fish, a large starfish, a blue fish that I cant remember its name, about 9 cleaner crabs, and about 9 cleaner slugs, and a cleaner shrimp. For corals I have a large blasto colony, 4 large zoa colonies, a large hard body brain type coral, 3 alveopora colonies, about 20 polyp frags, 3 stylophora corals, 3 hydrophora corals, toadstool, and a frogspawn, and a few mushrooms.
My current water levels are:
salinity: 1.025-1.025
Nitrate: 0
Phosphate: 0
nitrite
ammonia: <.1
Ka: 10.3
MG: 1500
Ca: 450
temperature: 72
It has been a long joyrney for me in 10 months. I have been through 3 fish "maintenance professionals" Started my aquarium with a fish focused tank in mind. Then switched to a reef tank about 3 months in. I think the biggest problem I have now is I just have put my tank through so many changes and just added a lot of life probably too quickly. About a month ago I moved from a 75 gallon petland tank with an overflow box to a new tank with the water flow system internal. I have added a number of the corals listed above within the past month. About a week ago I noticed my salinity was down around 1.021-1.022 so I did a 40% water change with ro/di water with higher salinity just a few days ago. The salinity has now balanced out right out the perfect level. I feed my corals reef roids 2 x per week. I also have acro power that I put in 2x per week and amino acid concentrate that I put in 1x per day. I feed all of my fish aquadine.
I am concerned howver because every since I did that water change, some of my corals are really not looking great. The weird part is, the harder to keep corals, the sylophoras, the hydrophoras, and a few others that my fish guy said probably wouldnt make it when I ordered them are looking very bright and healthy, however some of the easier corals are not. My toadstool has not fully opened in over a week. I have not seen the little green polyps from it in over a week. My blasto has bee wilting away over the past few days. I got a new torch coral a few days ago that got brown jelly and died 2 days later. My star polyps are not opening up recently. And my other polyp frags are too brown for the most part. I am not sure what the issue is. I have literaly done everything I could for this tank.
I am looking for some help building and maintaining a really spectacular tank. Again, I have the time, the passion, and the money to have one of the nicest tanks in the world. THe only thing I am missing is the profesional guidance to get me there.
Can someone please give me an idea what I need to do better to get these corals healthier? If there is any more information you need then please let me know and I will post it. My first questions I wanted to ask are:
1) what size cleaning crew is necessary for my size tank? I think I am low on cleaners.
2) what are the optimal settings for my LED hyrdo 52 lights? Do I keep them on all night on a lower setting? What is the best setting for all the different light ranges?
Ok, that is a pretty long introduction so I will leave it at that. I really really appreciate any help anyone can offer me. I have literally put over $12,000 into this tank and I have probably wasted at least $8,000 on dead life and shitty equipment. I am ready to work hard and i need some help. Thank you all very much.
