stayhome FOWLR to ongoing conversion to Reef Tank

[Teck pang]

Hi all SRC memebers, i am pretty new in this reef hobby and will like to share my story to get some opinion and at the same time participate in "Stay home, stay safe reef at home contest".

I have been in fresh water hobby for a few years and recently took interest in reef tank at the mid of year 2019. 

To be honest, the learning curve was indeed very steep and mistakes are made along the way.

My very first saltwater tank bought form LFS at chinatown with a cute porcupine puffer (Dead now though). I will like to share some mistakes that i had encountered along the way.

Mistake 1: Do take advises from LFS with a pinch of salt. Always do your research and do not make purchases on impuluse.

Mistake 2: Not cycling the tank properly and putting livestocks after three days as told by LFS. 

Mistake 3: The All-in-one top filter tank, which i learnt later that it is not sufficient to handle bioload from the fishes ( I have live rocks inside at that point but in the pic i have removed it because i am bringing it over to new tank) 

Mistake 4: Gravel. Trap debris like crazy and major contribution to the ammonia spike that wipe out the entire tank. 

Mistake 5: 2 feet tanks is just too small to have porcupine puffer (They poop alot!) 

Since then, i begin to research, read and watch videos extensively before starting on my new tank. 

I have since upgraded my fish tank ( 4 feet IOS tank) and invested a little more in hope of reaching my goal of having my dream reef tank. started from a FOWLR tank but slowly working towards mixed reef tank. 

FOWLR tank with beamswork Hi-lumen light in Dec 2019. 

At one point, we have this magic clean feather duster looking thing (Dead now though) but we still could not figure out what it is. so if any of the kind members could help us to identify what it is, it will be great! 

Fast forward to now, i am slowly trying to convert to mixed reef tank (Trying to keep a few frag alive) and my latest set up as below:

Equipment:

• Spartan DC 4300 return Pump (Fairly decent for the price)
• Bubble magus C3.5 Skimmer 
• Jebao crossflow wave pump 120
• HS-28A chiller
• 1 x Radion XR 15 G4 
• Lumini Pixie 150 

My current lifestocks are:

• 2 x 1.5 inch porcupine puffer fish 
• 2 x Common clownfish
• 1 x Foxface rabbit fish
• 1 x  sandshifting goby

I have bought a quite a number of different species of fishes over the last few months but none of the managed to survive over 2 weeks except those guys. I thought they were killed by ich but with much researching i had recently learnt that most of them are killed due to marine Velvet. 

Right now i am trying to set up a quarantine tank to let the tank go fish-less during this CB period in hope to eliminate the ich as well as marine velvet. 

Lastly i will like to show my gratitude to fellow senior reefers who has given me a few coral frags to try out. Really appreciate it! I hope for the best!

Stay home and stay safe!

Edited April 26, 2020 by Teck pang

[Admiraltian]

Use this cb period to cycle ur tank. Seem like ur tank didn’t go through any proper cycling. Add more medias and bacteria.

[soggycookies]

if you are just starting out with corals i’d suggest avoiding sps and going for soft corals like leathers and toadstools.. i would avoid stuff like zoas and polyp-like coral like zenia or gsp though, since you have a porcupine puffer. it’s hard to stock up on coral when you have larger puffers in the same tank. they might use sps and hard coral to grind their teeth and eat soft coral.. so frankly it’s not ideal. but no harm trying out with some cheaper ones to see what they go for.

 

a lot of times with fish stocking for stuff that aren’t tangs, damsels or smaller wrasse... whether the fish is “reef-safe” or not is largely subjective(except for fish that must have coral in their diet like some butterflyfish species). for e.g. i have an 8” annularis angel in my reef tank with all kinds of softies except zoas and it’s been a model citizen for close to a year now.

 

 

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