Just reefing

[LittleNat1]

Hey reefers! Just gonna share m y reefing experience and stuff :). So this was my first tank going into the reefing hobby. Nothing fancy, just a 2ft IOS tank that i bought 2nd-hand from someone. Also I was trying to keep my budget as low as I can without sacrificing aesthetics / ease of maintaining so i decided to go small. In total, I think i spent about 1k on everything including corals, fish, rocks, salt, light, chiller, ro/di etc etc. For me, I think I did pretty well budget wise (I bought the tank, light and chiller 2nd-hand which cut down on the costs a lot) but I'm pretty sure there are others who can do better than me. This also proved to me (and i hope to others who want to get into reefing) that reefing doesn't need to be overly expensive. * for reference my freshwater 4ft tank should have also cost about 1k too *

My idea was to build a cozy and small reef that i could enjoy with little maintenance but after a while the small size felt very constricting and it was very tedious to do any kind of maintenance like siphoning out detritus. Although I really like the rockscape and how it fit the tank, it was time to get a larger tank (the reefing bug got me). 

[LittleNat1]

Wanted to also share my 4ft freshwater tank which i had before i got into reefing.

This was my 2nd fish tank that I've owned and also the tank which got me into fish keeping seriously. This picture is was taken just today and needless to say the tank is still running smoothly :). This tank has been through quite a lot with me already from rescapes to disease outbreaks and water quality issues. Even though taking care of this tank hasn't always been a smooth sailing experience, it still solidified my interest in fish keeping and helped me to where I am now.

I know this is a club for reefing / marine but I just wanted to share a bit of pinch of nostalgia for those who had / have freshwater tanks

[LittleNat1]

Now for my reef tank!




It's been set up for almost 3 months now. All of the rocks was from my previous tank which is why the left side of the tank looks empty but i plan to add more rocks there. Again, I went bare bottom to make maintenance easier.

In the red circle is my zoa garden * in making *. In the blue is my soft coral collection and green is where i plan to put my SPS. Needless to say, im going for a mixed reef.

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[LittleNat1]

Precious fish :')



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[LittleNat1]

I'm a big fan of soft corals in general because of their shape, movement and colour. I've accummulated a pretty big collection of them to be honest, consisting of many different morphs of GSP. I also have a few types of pipe organ, clove polyp and kenya tree. Here are some of my favourites



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[soggycookies]

I'm a big fan of soft corals in general because of their shape, movement and colour. I've accummulated a pretty big collection of them to be honest, consisting of many different morphs of GSP. I also have a few types of pipe organ, clove polyp and kenya tree. Here are some of my favourites



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same here! glad to know there are still other fans of softies around. what sort of kenya trees do you have?


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[LittleNat1]

I've got a normal pink

And also a sort of green-blue base


I love their shape and would like to get more variants in the future . Do share your pictures if you have them too!


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[soggycookies]

I've got a normal pink

And also a sort of green-blue base

 

I love their shape and would like to get more variants in the future . Do share your pictures if you have them too!

 

 

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awesome. i like how they bring a lot of swaying motion to the tank, especially in high but turbulent flow.

 

here are some of mine:

 

Common brown nepthea. turned more salmon/pink/orange over time in my system

 

this one can be considered a kenya tree but it’s actually a lemnalia and not a nepthea. i got lucky finding this one at a LFS recently that came in with a bunch of other japanese neptheas.

 

A pink nepthea(i think this is a japanese koji wada specimen) that recovered from tissue necrosis. When I first got it from a fellow reefer it had an infection at its base/stalk that caused its surrounding tissue to turn black and I had to cut off half of it to save the coral. used to extend thrice as big but just glad it’s doing much better now.

 

 

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[LittleNat1]

Wow really nice colours and shapes. Do you go hunting for rare soft corals at LFS or something?

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[soggycookies]

Wow really nice colours and shapes. Do you go hunting for rare soft corals at LFS or something?  Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

 

 

 

 

thanks! recently yeah. i got the japanese lemnalia just before the cb. am into different kinds of toadstool leathers and sinularia too. i run an ultra low maintenance system(not to be confused with an ultra-low nutrients one hahahah) with large fish stocking and feed generously so keeping sps is not a goal of mine.. which means the next best thing is finding more unique/rarer kinds of softies. and since i have a large pomacanthus angel, i can’t keep zoas, torches and other fleshy lps corals either. so having a variety of leathers fits best in my setup 

 

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[LittleNat1]

I see i see. Have you tried galaxea? Do you have seafans?

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[soggycookies]

I see i see. Have you tried galaxea? Do you have seafans?

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yep used to have both. had them in my old mixed reef system that my current angelfish wasn’t a part of. thinking of getting a purple seafan again eventually, this time perhaps one of the species with thicker whips.


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[LittleNat1]

Icic. I saw your comment on another thread and got curious about chemical warfare between corals. What's your experience on it? Does running carbon help?

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[soggycookies]

Icic. I saw your comment on another thread and got curious about chemical warfare between corals. What's your experience on it? Does running carbon help? Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

 

 

 

 

carbon definitely does seem to help, when i ran it i noticed everything stayed open, i.e polyp extension was better and the leathers seemed to shed less often. when i had to turn my carbon reactor off for a couple of weeks or so to dose polyplab medic i noticed a few of them closed up for a while and began to shed. could have been the side-effects of dosing medic(peroxide) but i think more likely it was that i wasn’t running carbon during this period.  

 

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[ReefRap]

Hi guys, im a big fan of softies also. Will share some of my soft coral photos later.

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[soggycookies]

Hi guys, im a big fan of softies also. Will share some of my soft coral photos later.

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cool! what leathers are your favorite? here’s one of mine: a pink pulsing sinularia



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[ReefRap]

cool! what leathers are your favorite? here’s one of mine: a pink pulsing sinularia



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Yes, my tank is now mostly leather corals. Very easy to keep and beautiful also.

I think i have a pink sinularia also.

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[ReefRap]

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[ReefRap]

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[soggycookies]

Yes, my tank is now mostly leather corals. Very easy to keep and beautiful also.

I think i have a pink sinularia also.

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agreed. especially if you can get your hands on some of the rarer ones. i was inspired to keep more of them after seeing this video on youtube:

even more glad that one of our fellow reefers here happened to have the exact same species of sinularia as the one in the video so i got it from them some months ago


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[LittleNat1]

These are the fish I have now



I really like the bright colours of the royal gramma and its cave dwelling behaviour. Definitely an eye-catcher for both nano and larger reefs. However, when i first introduced it to the tank, it got bullied by my bicolour blenny (probably because both have similar colours) but they seem to be okay with each other now.

Im currently looking out for a orchid dottyback which has similar behaviour as a royal gramma and is equally striking in appearance


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