NiVleK's Reef Journey

[NiVleKsg]

It's time to start my own thread on my own journey in this new hobby. Getting into reefing is probably the last hobby that I will go into, but I am still here. Will backtrack my progress from the start to now in a couple of posts.

It all started with my office lobby tank. We used to have a Arrowana tank which the main occupant inside decided to die. And then, I was introduced into marine saltwater tanks as the new replacement tank was a saltwater tank.

After much consideration, I thought, why not? Just get a small tank from the same place that helped to set up our office tank. I settled for a IOS tank 1.5ft with a total volume of about 63L.

That was way back in late August 2016. And oh, I didnt know that this forum exist until the day that I bought my first tank on impulse. 

I knew absolutely nothing when I bought the first tank. Thinking back, I was quite the carrot to pay $700 for the tank.

 

[NiVleKsg]

This was the entire set that I paid $700 for. Overpriced to me now. Didn't think much then. And I will not disclose which LFS is this, its a west side LFS. Those in the group would know since I complain about that LFS quite a bit. 

[kenyee]

Past is past, learn from it will do..hope u find happiness in reefing..do continue to share ur tank progress..cheers

 

[NiVleKsg]

Yups. Agree with that completely. I learnt many things over the last few months and met a couple of nice reef people.

[Admiraltian]

What do u intend to keep? 

[NiVleKsg]

So with this $700 set up, it comes with a Skimmer, a touch sensitive LED light, coral chips, some own branded phosphate reducing media and carbon media in 2 separate bags, 5 KG live rocks, 1kg live sand and a couple of starter fishes.

• 2 clownfish
• 1 goby
• 1 bi-colored dottyback (falsely sold as Royal Gramma) 
• 1 Yellow bellied damsel

Corals in the package are:

• 1 Zoa
• 1 GSP
• 1 Mushroom
• 1 more Mushroom

Oh, and of cos, saltwater. Again, I have zero reef tank experience. It was an impulse purchase.

[NiVleKsg]

Then after reading more articles, topics, forums, everyone talks about cycling.

What is cycling? I did zero cycling and was not told to do any cycling. It was plug and play. Went home, dump the rocks, the sand, the water, the corals and then the fish.

And I continued reading and was soon in the so fantastic chat group of fellow reefers.

In that first 1 weeks, the goby died, I added one more, and a sand sifting star and 3 snails. I also started to get test kits on KH, PO4 and bought their own branded additives.

A FTS of the 1 week old tank.

[NiVleKsg]

Double posting

[NiVleKsg]

 

22 hours ago, Admiraltian said:

What do u intend to keep? 

During then, I just like the idea of keeping some clownfish, I didnt even know reef tanks are so beautiful!

[Admiraltian]

 
During then, I just like the idea of keeping some clownfish, I didnt even know reef tanks are so beautiful!

Haha, I also started reefing with the same idea as u. Wanted to keep only some clownfishes. Got poisoned deep deep in the end.


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[yukok.lim08]

I think i get my sand , salt water , stone from same LFS with you. I dint get the tank from them but from their neighbour. Also start with zero knowledge and never visit again know their item is so overpriced.


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[yukok.lim08]

I also start reefing with idea keeping nemo and dory . Now they are happily in my tank lol.


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[NiVleKsg]

4 minutes ago, yukok.lim08 said:

I also start reefing with idea keeping nemo and dory . Now they are happily in my tank lol.


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Nice. What size tank are you having now?

 

[NiVleKsg]

About 3 weeks into the tank, I started adding more and more livestock, still not knowing much about nitrate levels or the space required for tangs to be housed in. I didnt even know that the Dory (blue tang) can be so huge!

It was also around this time that I got my refractometer. And at a damn expensive price at the same LFS @ $89. At this point, the only LFS that I went was this LFS and its neighbour.

My first reading with it shocked me, my tank was at almost 1.030. OMG. I immediately removed some water and added the LFS DI water to lower the salinity....not knowing also that a sudden drop in salinity might have adverse effects on the livestock.

I also shifted the rocks around again and again and in the blurry shot above, you can see the new fishes added then. The blue and yellow tang were during then, my favorite. 

[Guest]

Welcome to reefing ! It's a very neat tank now and you have beautiful healthy fish in your existing tank! The refractometer is overprice haha but I guess it did help check the salinity at the time needed.

Just some tips try not to shift the rock so much as once establish it might cause nitrate spike as it move around the sand which have nutrient bury in it.

The lower the nitrate the better but however tangs do shit a lot causing nitrate level to increase if you don't export the nutrient fast enough so I'm suggesting you can look continue your weekly water change which is the easiest way to bring down nutrient if you ever have issue else feed lesser ? :>
Enjoy your reefing. !
Personally I don't test nitrate level I'll just observe the corals and the cloudiness or the algaes on the wall itself. But you should probably get salifert or nyos test kit to check your nitrate monthly if you do not have good exporter.


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[yukok.lim08]

Nice. What size tank are you having now?
 

My tank is 1.5ft 63L. Exactly same with yours. .

Wah you have yellow tang which i try to have but didnt get it as i feel my tank overstock already.

Currently i have one pair clown fish, one pair firefish, one blue tang, one yellow wrasse and one cleaner shrimp.


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[NiVleKsg]

Around about 1 month into the reef tank hobby, I started visiting many LFS. Wow. They are all much more stocked with more varieties of fishes and corals. What have I been missing? I basically went from Jurong to Pasir Ris numerous times and also to Marine Life at Clementi and CF and 201.

The FTS. This is about 1 month old. I added the torch coral and a green plate coral. A boxer shrimp was also added and hiding in this photo.

 

[Mahesh]

Its a neat and clean tank..i stated cycling my tank two weeks ago. Would like to know the shop so i can be careful. I stay in west too. Can pm me ?

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[^RaCe]

4 day old marine noob here want to know which lfs that sold you the tank. Pmed you.

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[yukok.lim08]

Around about 1 month into the reef tank hobby, I started visiting many LFS. Wow. They are all much more stocked with more varieties of fishes and corals. What have I been missing? I basically went from Jurong to Pasir Ris numerous times and also to Marine Life at Clementi and CF and 201.

The FTS. This is about 1 month old. I added the torch coral and a green plate coral. A boxer shrimp was also added and hiding in this photo.
 

Where is ur yellow tang? May i know how many fish in your tank?


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[shetland]

89 for a refractometer is expensive  I brought mine at 52 (East Side LFS)

[NiVleKsg]

During this period, I also realised that the zoas are not doing well, they started to drop off one by one and rot in the tank. It was disposed off immediately.

I liked my yellow tang a lot and spent quite the hefty price for it at $55, again at this west side LFS. 

But after reading up some, I realised that I am overstocking my tank and a yellow tang should not be kept in such nano tanks. I was looking for a new owner for him and decided to sell this and get a AL-60 chiller from a fellow reefer bro here.

Things went wrong, the chiller kept leaking despite many attempts at fixing it but this bro was cool and I returned it to him. Also realised that we started reefing at about the same time!

During this period also bought more stuffs, like the accudrip from F&M, introduced by a reefer bro.

Kinda expensive for such a simple device, but it made acclimination of fishes much easier. Didnt regret it even though you can do the same thing for less than 5 bucks.

A Jebao RW-4 was also added to the tank. With so many photos in the forum, it does look to me that they have one thing in common, at least one wavemaker.

As I was also going on a long holiday soon, I was figuring out how to do a water top up. I didnt want to spend hundreds on a ATO system but found this at the west side LFS.

This is probably the only thing that I did not regret buying from here. It is not cheap, not expensive and served its purpose for the duration that I was away. 

 

[NiVleKsg]

2 hours ago, shetland said:

89 for a refractometer is expensive  I brought mine at 52 (East Side LFS)

Yes. I learnt the hard way.

[NiVleKsg]

2 hours ago, yukok.lim08 said:

Where is ur yellow tang? May i know how many fish in your tank?


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Not with me any more but with one of the SRC bros here. Well taken care of by him!

[Mahesh]

During this period, I also realised that the zoas are not doing well, they started to drop off one by one and rot in the tank. It was disposed off immediately.
I liked my yellow tang a lot and spent quite the hefty price for it at $55, again at this west side LFS. 
But after reading up some, I realised that I am overstocking my tank and a yellow tang should not be kept in such nano tanks. I was looking for a new owner for him and decided to sell this and get a AL-60 chiller from a fellow reefer bro here.
Things went wrong, the chiller kept leaking despite many attempts at fixing it but this bro was cool and I returned it to him. Also realised that we started reefing at about the same time!
During this period also bought more stuffs, like the accudrip from F&M, introduced by a reefer bro.

Kinda expensive for such a simple device, but it made acclimination of fishes much easier. Didnt regret it even though you can do the same thing for less than 5 bucks.

A Jebao RW-4 was also added to the tank. With so many photos in the forum, it does look to me that they have one thing in common, at least one wavemaker.
As I was also going on a long holiday soon, I was figuring out how to do a water top up. I didnt want to spend hundreds on a ATO system but found this at the west side LFS.

This is probably the only thing that I did not regret buying from here. It is not cheap, not expensive and served its purpose for the duration that I was away. 
 

Bro, where did u buy this? How much litre capacity?


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