Finally filled the tank. Rocks and sand from TBS arrives on Wednesday to start cycling. Am I missing anything?

I got this feather duster worm about a month ago and only in the past few days it started emerging for extended periods of time.

I made a previous post about it not coming out and took some of the advice given there. I think what worked was having most of its tube surrounded by and in contact with rocks in addition to anchoring its base. And also feeding phytoplankton helps to encourage it to come out more.

I started with a beat up acrylic tank I got off of marketplace. I sanded and refinished the acrylic and I also rebuilt the stand to hold my bigger sump. It’s been a super fun build and I excited to start adding coral in the future. 10/10 awesome experience

Reef Aquarium!

After many months one of my clowns has started hosting my BTA. So cool!

I buy new calibration solution every year for the past decade or more and my Bulk Reef Supply solution was a year old so it was time to order more. When the new solution arrived, my refractometer was reading roughly 30PPT. I was alarmed, but I’m an experienced reefer so I didn’t change anything on my systems right away because the corals still looked good. I Amazon primed a bottle of brightwell to double check the BRS solution before making any changes. Brightwell showed up and was reading just slightly higher than the bottle from BRS. So I was convinced at that point that my salinity was off and over the course of a several weeks I was slowly raising it to match the calibration solution.

Something in my gut still didn’t feel right about believing my salinity was off 5PPT that whole time so I ordered 4x more solutions from other brands and websites. Sure enough I confirmed that the BRS and Amazon brightwell calibration solutions were 40+ PPT in both bottles. All 4x of the other solutions I ordered included Accurasea, Fritz, another brightwell bottle and others were all very similar to each other around 35PPT which matched my year old solutions.

I have now purchased the tropic Marin floating hydrometer to use to double check my refractometer and other testing tools moving forward. I’m done using calibration solutions out of the bottle. As or right now some of my corals look stressed but I have slowly started bringing things back to where they need to be.

Hopefully this helps someone from learning the same lesson the hard way.

Kenya Tree, GSP, Organ Coral, Bryopsis. All in perfect balance. It doesn't usually flat around like this but I harvested some for my nudibranch colony in another tank, so the bryopsis algea wall is a form of nutrient export as well.

Hi everyone, my nitrates bottomed out. I’m testing with salifert and it’s as zero as zero could be. I don’t have a sump just an hob filter. I guess I’m just confused because I don’t have much filtration happening, I’m using a tidal 75 on a 35 gallon tank and running purigen, activated carbon, sponge and floss etc.

I added my first cuc yesterday to eat some algae and poop some nitrates out but how should I increase my nitrates without growing a bunch more algae? How do I still have so much algae even though nitrates are at zero? Before the algae grew I think nitrate was 5. Thanks!

I have two clownfish and periodically feed my coral (a VERY small amount) with reef roids.

Other parameters: phosphate 0.03, alk 8.2, calcium 410, temp 78.

Also put on the white lights to show the algae - I’m not running white channels at all usually.

I had a reef tank for several years in the past but took a two year break from the hobby recently. I have the itch to get back into the hobby.

I had a Red Sea 170 with a sump, an Innovative Marine 25 AIO, and a Waterbox 20 AIO.

I want to stock the tank mainly with zoanthids and euphyllia along with a few other easier corals. After being in the hobby for a while I have a sense of what I like now.

However, my wife and I have our first baby on the way next year. So maintenance is a concern. I’d like to keep it simple to small water changes. I also don’t want to make my own RODI water because of how long it takes and I can see it being a chore in the future. Luckily I have a LFS that sells water 5 minutes from me. We are also renting and will be here 2-3 years

I’m thinking of the following systems and am curious what people’s experiences have been with them.

1. Innovative Marine 25 AIO - decent size to stock all I want. Loved this tank when I had it. Only con is there isn’t a nice stand that goes along with it.

2. Waterbox 10 - small enough to put on a shelf and I can probably fit majority of the corals I want and a fish or two. Easiest water changes. Just concerned how small it is.

3. UNS 60A - not a lot of info on these but it’s about twenty gallons. Less ideal dimensions imo compared to the Innovative Marine but I already have a stand for it.

4. Innovative Marine 15 - $100 only. Similar to Waterbox, idk if it’s too small.

5. innovative Marine 50 or 40L AIO - nice size. But I wonder if it’s too big. Water change goes beyond a single 5 gallon bucket. For the smaller tanks I can change half a bucket a weeek and be done with it but with these sizes, it might be more of a task

6. UNS R60s - same dimensions as Innovative Marine 25 AIO but comes with a sump. Should still be small enough for easy maintenance but there are more parts to it. Also probably over $1k more expensive than the Inmovative Marine when it’s all said and done.

Can I use rodi or tap water or is distilled a must?

They seem to be doing well. They pull in food as it passes by. Haven’t noticed them reject anything or spit anything out. Even the small baby ones are seemingly doing good. Time will tell though.

Just noticed this, what is it?

Some sort of nudibranch imo hasn't eaten anything im aware of the only thing thats died recently is a hammer coral(only had one sps dominant reef)

I added the smaller cardinal last week and until now the older one had been chasing it away, but it seems the water change stress has pushed it accepting the little guy?

I have been wondering why my elegance coral hasn't been able to keep all the fish I have been feeding it. Is this hairy crab?

Just added this Ricordea to my tank 3 days ago. It’s moved off the rock I put it on and looks like it’s going for the sand bed. Should I just leave it be or try to place it back on the rock work?

Is it rare or common? Paid 15$ for this ocellaris.

20 gallon nano with a 6 gal side tank ... I let this thing go into the trash heap the last few years but now I've been back on top of it and it's crazy that all the corals survived the obsurd hair and bubble algae outbreak, and have grown back this much already .. some of the SPS were the size of a pinky nail under the hair algae

Hi. I’m new to marine tanks. Picked myself up a TMC habitat 60 150ltr with sump. Unsure whether my rock scape is too chunky or big. Any thoughts appreciated? Thanks.