Late Start

So a few months ago I grew enough balls to start a saltwater tank after many years of admiring others. I bought the tank which is a 210 gallon with double over flows... and a small 40 gallon sump. We cycle the tank for about four weeks and then it all began. We added about 15 damsels to test the water and have something to look at while I shop. We shortly after added the fish and corals.

Fish...
Larger queen angle
One maroon clown
Yellow eye Kole tang
Panther grouper
Dragon wrasse
Sailfin tang

2 torch coral frags
2 sea anemones
1 rose bubble tip anemone (died due to getting stuck in the power head)
3 what I think are Zoa frags
1 flower pot goniopra coral
1 what I think is a flower pot frag.
1 toal stool leather

1 Serpant star
1 scallop
20ish turbo snails
1 unknown mystery snail

... and plenty more I’m sure I’m forgetting things

I intend to add lots more live rock to make it look more like a shelf and then lots more corals.

Any questions comment or concerns just hit me. More than open to any advice you guys wanna offer too. Thanks. Here’s pictures in order from day one til now.

 

Nice big tank! There's not a lot of big reef tanks here so it'll be great to watch your's progress. The fish are beautiful! Very cool grouper.

What's in the sump? I'm amazed at how white some of your rocks still are. Looks like a very well maintained system.

 

Huge tank!
Looks really pretty.

 

Nice big tank! There's not a lot of big reef tanks here so it'll be great to watch your's progress. The fish are beautiful! Very cool grouper.

What's in the sump? I'm amazed at how white songs of your rocks still are. Looks like a very well maintained system.

I spend an hour or two per day keeping up with it. I’ve always dreamed of having one of the nicest most beautiful tanks... no where near my end game yet though. As per the sump tank... I have bio balls ceramic and carbon. Return pump and skimmers. And then I have double hang over filers under there too. One filter is actually a filter. The other one is a really dirty one from another tank that is more than 5 years old. I’m not sure if it was a great idea or not but I put it on my tank to help the water run through it to get some well established bacteria’s in the water so it’s nice and well cycled.

 

Huge tank!
Looks really pretty.

Thank you very much. Them little comments is a lot of what makes it all worth it.

 

I’d stop stocking and sit back and watch for a while. Let the tank mature for a while. Speaking from experience, too much too fast will only end in dead livestock! It’s also a good idea to cover any powerheads if you have nems ...

Also, you’ll want to cure/cycle any new rock before it goes in so it can leach out the phosphates before going into the tank.

Can’t wait to see how this progresses!! Interesting fish!

 

I’d stop stocking and sit back and watch for a while. Let the tank mature for a while. Speaking from experience, too much too fast will only end in dead livestock! It’s also a good idea to cover any powerheads if you have nems ...

Also, you’ll want to cure/cycle any new rock before it goes in so it can leach out the phosphates before going into the tank.

Can’t wait to see how this progresses!! Interesting fish!

Yes I agree 100%. I’m done for a while. I think next year sometime I’m gonna work on getting some more. I’ve been curing and cycling the rock or buying it from the LFS already cycled. I do have a quarantine tank that processing some stuff now but I think I'm just gonna wait til later on I think I wanna loose the crushed coral completely and use all sand. I have sand on one side for the dragon wrasse already. But I found some really good sand on eBay that’s nice.

 

Not sure I believe the stats white forever claim! If there is life in the tank the sand will color some. Some sort of sand softer will help it stay cleaner but I doubt it’ll be white forever! Lol

Also, the finer the sand the more it will blow around and get sucked up with cleaning. You might keep some of the bigger stuff too ... maybe crush it up some?

 

Good idea never thought of that. They only reason I have all the bigger crunched coral/live rock is because I wanted a fast flow/ high water movement tank and I did the wise thing from the beginning and got the big live rock... which became pretty pricey in the end being there is about 105lbs of the live rock and crushed coral and 60lbs of the pretty white sand.

 

You don’t have to have big rocks ... you can stack small rocks to make larger structures. If your flow is knocking rocks over I’d bet it’s a little much. Could be wrong though.