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Junk's tank

J

Junk2

Some of you know, from reading the fish forum, that I took out my 5 fish, Vlamingi Tang, Bird Wrasse, Dogface Puffer, Ocellaris, and Junior Emporata. Tank is a 120 and after moping for several years after Sandy, I want to go back to reef. To get the fish out, I had to take out all of the rock. For the last 24 hours I had a sandstorm in the tank, and I'm currently banging my head against the wall doing rockscaping. Nothing sucks more than rockscaping. Especially when you can't see lol. I should have just taken out all of the water, did the rockscape then add water back, but no that would make too much sense and I didn't want to lose the bacteria I had on the rock. I'm trying to do all of this without cycling the tank.

I'd add a pic but you can't see anything other than my frustration. At this point I'm not even going to do spellcheck.

Thanks for letting me gripe lol.
 
J

Junk2

Haven't had much time over the last few days due to my dad's failing health, but here is the 120 as of now. Gorgonian doing well. Have a small 3 head Duncan in there, 2 trumpets (I have them too high up I think) and a torch all are getting acclimated. There's a dotted goby in there and two cleaner shrimp both survived the rock move.

Rest of the stocking plan as of now is 3 Lyretail anthias, 2 ocellaris, 1 midas blenny, and 1 yellow tang... in that order. Also expect to put in a BTA, some frogspawn, some gsp, then I need to get some red in there or some other color so need to figure that out yet, but after the above I'll slow down.

I'm not a skimmer guy - just always do a 10% water change each week. But I'm thinking of trying a skimmer or a UV. Any thoughts? Next week I'm going to build a canopy so I can finally get the lights off the egg crate.
 

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DangerDave

DangerDave

NJRC Member
I havent used UV, but I do use a skimmer. I feel some sort of nutrient export is required to make up for the organics we put in as food. My last build utilized an algae turf scrubber for this effect. I don’t think skimming and UV would be an either or situation. Skimming removes organics. Isn’t UV more about sterilization/killing microbes? I would think you would want to skim if your using UV, to remove the organics as a UV does it’s thing. This is just my perception, I’m sure someone better versed in UV will chime in.
 
M

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
If you are going to add more corals you have to manage the nutrient export somehow. You can start testing your nitrates and phosphates now with the 10% water change and see how they measure and adjust from there. As the others have said, we run a UV but that is to help keep the fish healthy, not for nutrients. We also run a skimmer and I think the vast majority of people with reef tanks run a skimmer and they are basically for nutrient export (mechanical).
 
M

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
First is external or internal; are you going to run it in your sump or have it outside your tank. Second is size and stocking, how big and what do you plan to keep. Skimmers are rated for gallon and then stocking so like for example a 50g light stock or 35 g heavy stock. Last question is how much you want to spend.
 
J

Junk2

Thanks for taking the time to help. I have a 120 with a 40g sump. I have an empty fuge behind the sump (empty because it cracked a few years ago), but I think I'd prefer to keep it in the sump. I feel stupid for saying this but didn't even know they made external ones. I'd consider my plan a light stock, but will likely end up with ~10 fish (some clowns, anthias, a tang, and wrasse) along with mainly lps and softies. I'm horrible at diy hence why I still haven't made a canopy lol. Don't want to spend too much money.... to give you an idea, I run 2 Chinese LED fixtures and don't have a controller etc so I'm kind of low cost.
 
M

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
https://www.marinedepot.com/Reef_Oc...iums_Reefs-Reef_Octopus-CV5111-FIPSIS-vi.html

Here is a good starting point. The good news is that like I said everyone has skimmers so generally you can find them used. I have not bought or looked at skimmers in like 6 years so I am not good at brand picking right now or up to date on new tech but I am sure there are others out there.

Forgot to mention check water level height in your sump too. That does matter.
 
J

Junk2

Well bad leads to good. Since I'd taken out all of the rock, and most of the water, so that I could remove the 5 fish I had. With moving everything around, I'd initiated a mini cycle. Amonia and Nitrate spike, but this morning Amonia was down to 0. So I'm getting there. Going to go with a larger sump though so that after adding the skimmer, I can still have room for a small fuge and ATO storage. Hopefully in the next few days I'll get the new canopy built and then start adding in some fish and coral.... slowly though.
 
J

Junk2

Bubble Magus 5 delivered and setup today. Thanks to youtube for directions :) Water it's in is 9" deep for now, but I'll put it on something later today.
 

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J

Junk2

Big thanks to Alex at OIA. My wife just sent me a text with this pic of our new RBTA and one of our two Ocellaris in there. She said for the last hour that both of the clowns had been in. Alex has been a great resource as I'm resurrecting my tank. Poor guy though, as I've spent a few hours there lol, but he's a great resource and has a way of explaining things that just seems to make sense.

The RBTA and 2 ocellaris went in last night. So far everyone is well, and yes, I have foam wrapped around my mp40 just in case.

Now the best pic, as it was a cellphone pic that was texted then emailed.
 

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