Reef Safe with Caution - My 150g Build

[Mkvc]

I'm going to chronicle the learning experience that has been my first reef tank in here.

Long time freshwater fish keeper, first time saltwater. Back in May, my mom gave me her 32 gallon Coralife Biocube. It had about 30lb of Fiji live rock, a couple of snails, an ocellaris clown, a watchman goby, and a TON of algae in it. A quick Google search told me that all of the fish I'm interested in need a bigger home. An email to Premier Aquatics and a lot of money later, here we are.



I've actually been up and running for about 6 months but I still don't have a camera that can handle my lighting... I have plenty to post about before I get to the present!

Tank Build Stats

Planet Aquariums low iron 150g tank and stand, 60.5" x 24.5" x 25"
Glass top
Trigger systems 36" sump
Ecotech Radion G5 XR15 Pro x2
Ecotech Mp40 x2
Ecotech Vectra L2
Some ATO system
Grounding probe

I added a protein skimmer and uv sterilizer recently, will post more about that later. I also plan on picking up more XR15s or an XR30 some day.

 

[Mkvc]

Problem #1

WEIGHT. I seriously underestimated how heavy this bad boy would be. The delivery guys offered to put it on the stand for me but I would have had to take it off again to cut a hole for plumbing. Luckily my husband had just bought a home gym setup for lockdown (was only fair with how much I spent on this tank lol). While one of his buddies was over to see it, they picked it up for me together. I'm told it was way worse than any deadlift.



A filled 150g with a sump underneath weighs somewhere just under a ton.

The tank is on the main level of my house, which is above the basement. The basement is half-finished, half-exposed. In the exposed part of the basement the floor joists run perpendicular to my tank. They're doubled 2x10's that run a short distance between steel beams. Should be fine, right?

I got nervous and cut into the ceiling of the finished room below my new tank just to be sure... And as it turned out, in that room, they ran the opposite direction. Parallel. The entire ton of weight was on only two joists. So my husband and I spent a long, unpleasant night cutting a much bigger hole into the ceiling with a hand saw. We added some blocking and two steel jack posts. At least now the ground is more level.

 

[Mkvc]

Problem #2

AQUEON... and lack of research lol. Because I didn't know what I was doing, I bought pre-packaged overflow plumbing kits from Aqueon. Every. Single. Bulkhead. Leaked. My second bad decision was to try to silicon them to stop the leaks. That worked for maybe 10 minutes. It took us three hours to scrape it off again with a razor. Finally I ordered new bulkheads from Bulk Reef Supply. They worked without any trouble at all!

I accidentally cracked the return pipes by manhandling them too hard and had to start again.



Eventually I did get it all together though. I'd definitely do a better job on plumbing the second time around. Some day I'll add flow valves too now that I know they're a thing.

 

[Mkvc]

The rest was comparatively easy. I purchased 150lbs of MarcoRocks. I was planning on getting an eel from the very start, so I fused all of my structures together with coral cement, superglue, and acrylic rods. I also buried pieces of the 2'' PVC in the sand bed.

 

[Mkvc]

Anywho I'm burned out for tonight, but I'll write about Problem #3 eventually!

As a preview, here's a quick video of the aforementioned eel:

https://imgur.com/HsIlNoM

 

[civics14]

Dang!!! For your first saltwater tank. You went all in! The tank size and dimensions are great.
Never owned a Planet tank, but I hear great things about them.

Kudos to you taking care of the floor joist and saving yourself some headache down the road. I had a 150 in my previous home that I had to reinforce the floor as well, but lucky for me, it was not finished, so access was easy.

The eel feeding video, is that currently in your bio cube? I would recommend to feed them raw shrimp, more nutritious for them from what I understand.

 

[Valhoon]

that's awesome and how you do it! It can be done cheaper but the route you took is the most beginner friendly least headache inducing methods! Very nice.

I also love your eel. I have one just like em in my 120. And like Civic said you wanna feed raw. It's far more nutritious. Also throw him some squid, octopus, clam, scallops.

varied diet makes the dreamwork

 

[Cook]

I love the title! Great job planning ahead with the pvc tunnels. I have a snowflake in a mixed reef Planet Aquariums 90 gallon and two fish that have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. When my eel comes out and looks at me, I go to the freezer to thaw out the eel snacks.

 

[jones375]

Love the eel in a mixed reef. Adds such a cool dimension to the tank.

 

[Mkvc]

Thanks! I'm a big fan of Planet Aquariums so far - this tank is so much nicer than any one I've owned before.

Unagi (the eel) is currently in the 150g. It's been up for about six months. I'll catch up to the present soon!

For that entire first month he would only take cocktail shrimp out of everything I offered him. Picky guy! Appreciate all the advice. I will see if I can find some squid for his next feeding.

Yeah, I love predators in reefs! I would have loved a snowflake or a chainlink too but I was worried about fish getting eaten since the ones I started with were so small...

 

[Mkvc]

Alrighty, so back to journalling the past...

While I was setting up, I spent A LOT of time on Reef2Reef. I'm probably going to get some fingers wagged at me for this, but in the name of an experiment thread there, I decided to skip my cycle. Instead I added seed bacteria, the 30lbs of live rock from the BioCube, and live sand. 48 hours I added my watchman goby and my clown. My plan was to test a ton & return them to their cube at any sign of ammonia or nitr(i/a)te spikes. Neither happened. Frankly, it took months for me to register nitrates at all.

After a couple weeks of everything being fine, I added a black clown who immediately paired with my older one. I picked up a royal gramma. Lastly, I added a tiger pistol shrimp. The shrimp my mom had kept with her YWG for years was apparently a peppermint lol. Now they both live in his cave with him.



(sorry for the potato quality pic, I'm still waiting on my reef lens)

I also got impatient and grabbed a handful of cheap random frags in an ARC live sale. To be honest, I still don't know what some of them are lol. They're all happy except for that hammer. I moved it when the pistol shrimp started burying it, and I can't seem to find a new spot that it likes.

I tried and failed to start my refugium. My tank was squeaky clean with no nutrients at all, so my chaeto quickly melted away.

About a week after, I had my first livestock loss. I'm still kick myself over it. I went to the store after a bad day at work and I REALLY wanted a wrasse. They only had one in stock. She was a very overpriced ruby fin fairy. Her stomach was concave and her spine was curved so badly that she looked like a ">" when she swam. We called her Quasimodo. She never ate and lasted only two days before passing away. I definitely knew better than to buy a fish in such bad condition, ugh.

 

[Mkvc]

Problem #3

This one almost made me quit reefing. I am finally interested in everything again after a long break.

My dream saltwater fish was a Regal angelfish. I was aware of their feeding difficulties but felt confident that I could handle one given that I've owned some pretty dodgy freshwater fish before with success. I was willing to risk not being able to have certain kinds of corals. So when Red Sea specimens went on sale on LiveAquaria, I snapped one up.

When he arrived, he had some missing scales but otherwise seemed healthy. I kept him in my empty Biocube.

For almost a week, I couldn't get him to eat anything. I tried mysis, frozen brine, live brine, blood worms, black worms, three kinds of nori, flakes, masstick, Angelixir, etc. SO MUCH stuff! I'm sure I'm forgetting something. He finally ate some little neck clams... as long as I hid in the next room where he couldn't see me watching. First hurdle cleared, woo.

I kept him fed on clams until he tasted some Hikari pellets of all things. Eventually he ate them whether I was standing near the tank or not. Second hurdle, check.

At this point he had been in isolation for a bit over two weeks. I was so excited that everything seemed to be working out that I moved him to my display tank:

https://imgur.com/CIM5ce2

My QT was too short. In retrospect, I should have noticed that he was always swimming back and forth in front of the overflow / return. One morning, right before I was supposed to leave town for the weekend, he was suddenly gasping and covered in a white dusty sheen. Google informed me that he had marine velvet.

Ich ain't got nothing on velvet. He went from being seemingly fine to being completely COVERED In white in less than eight hours. The speckling was so bad I went for a freshwater dip AND a formalin bath then dropped him in a thrown together hospital dosed with copper. He perked up a ton after treatment so I hoped he would pull through, but he was dead by morning.

And now velvet was in my display tank. I bought a UV sterilizer on Amazon in some feeble attempt to do something. I went on to lose my royal gramma and my new clownfish before it arrived.

Neither my YWG nor my old clownfish ever showed any symptoms. I didn't think I could get the YWG out of the tank without completely tearing it down. Frankly I probably can't tear down the tank without some better power tools since the rocks are fused together. I waited months. In October, I considered parting everything out and selling it. Instead I bought a $7 "canary" clownfish from Petco.

That little guy (girl now, she's definitely the dominant one) thrived. So has every fish I've picked up since... I no longer buy from retailers that don't QT, and my QT process is longer.

The velvet was unlucky, but at least I got lucky in that my survivors don't seem to be carriers. I'll post about them next!

 

[civics14]

Problem #3

This one almost made me quit reefing. I am finally interested in everything again after a long break.

My dream saltwater fish was a Regal angelfish. I was aware of their feeding difficulties but felt confident that I could handle one given that I've owned some pretty dodgy freshwater fish before with success. I was willing to risk not being able to have certain kinds of corals. So when Red Sea specimens went on sale on LiveAquaria, I snapped one up.

When he arrived, he had some missing scales but otherwise seemed healthy. I kept him in my empty Biocube.

For almost a week, I couldn't get him to eat anything. I tried mysis, frozen brine, live brine, blood worms, black worms, three kinds of nori, flakes, masstick, Angelixir, etc. SO MUCH stuff! I'm sure I'm forgetting something. He finally ate some little neck clams... as long as I hid in the next room where he couldn't see me watching. First hurdle cleared, woo.

I kept him fed on clams until he tasted some Hikari pellets of all things. Eventually he ate them whether I was standing near the tank or not. Second hurdle, check.

At this point he had been in isolation for a bit over two weeks. I was so excited that everything seemed to be working out that I moved him to my display tank:

https://imgur.com/CIM5ce2

My QT was too short. In retrospect, I should have noticed that he was always swimming back and forth in front of the overflow / return. One morning, right before I was supposed to leave town for the weekend, he was suddenly gasping and covered in a white dusty sheen. Google informed me that he had marine velvet.

Ich ain't got nothing on velvet. He went from being seemingly fine to being completely COVERED In white in less than eight hours. The speckling was so bad I went for a freshwater dip AND a formalin bath then dropped him in a thrown together hospital dosed with copper. He perked up a ton after treatment so I hoped he would pull through, but he was dead by morning.

And now velvet was in my display tank. I bought a UV sterilizer on Amazon in some feeble attempt to do something. I went on to lose my royal gramma and my new clownfish before it arrived.

Neither my YWG nor my old clownfish ever showed any symptoms. I didn't think I could get the YWG out of the tank without completely tearing it down. Frankly I probably can't tear down the tank without some better power tools since the rocks are fused together. I waited months. In October, I considered parting everything out and selling it. Instead I bought a $7 "canary" clownfish from Petco.

It look like you bit the saltwater reef bug and you're moving really fast. I did freshwater for 15+ years and something I learned in salt is patience. Slow down.

That little guy (girl now, she's definitely the dominant one) thrived. So has every fish I've picked up since... I no longer buy from retailers that don't QT, and my QT process is longer.

The velvet was unlucky, but at least I got lucky in that my survivors don't seem to be carriers. I'll post about them next!

Hey, I think we've all been there where we jumped the gun and introduced a fish into our tanks a tad too soon, so don't beat yourself up for it. It is a very hard lesson learned. I loss several hundred dollars because I played that same game thinking "it never happened before..." Sorry for the losses tho.

Now I quarantine everything, 30 days, no matter the source. It's just good practice. I also take this time to fatten them up and train them on pellets. I'm picking up a powder blue tang from a club member that has had it for 2 years and now is undergoing a 3 wk copper treatment, but I still won't introduce it to my tank directly without quarantining tho. Some fish are just carriers and show no symptoms, so its always better to be safe than sorry. I hesitated in the past in setting up a QT, but its so easy and the fish don't seem to care one bit.

Just be careful, just cause you're current livestock is showing no symptoms, that don't mean its not present. I never done this but you may want to look at doing a freshwater black molly test. Basically you transition it to a saltwater molly, move it into your display and see if it gets it, and if it does, you just move it back to freshwater. The saltwater ich or velvet can't survive in freshwater, so the molly is safe.

I know you're already on R2R but if you have some questions, let us know. We're here to help.

 

[hiimsean]

Sorry about the angel and the velvet. Regal angels are beautiful fish but super super finicky. When I was volunteering at the GA aquarium they added a few to the reef wall. After a few weeks they went missing. I talked to Steve (works for the aquarium in Tropical diver exhibit) and he just chalked it up to them being difficult to keep.

 

[Mkvc]

That's a good idea, I'll definitely pick up a mollie the next time I make it out to a store. I'm a little worried that some members of my tank would eat a small one, but I could always move it back to freshwater if it survives...

Sorry to hear that the GA Aquarium struggled with Regals too. They're so pretty - I hope someone figures out how to captive breed them eventually!

 

[Mkvc]

Fingers crossed, but I haven't had any losses since the Regal angelfish incident. I'm gonna share a couple of videos of my new residents! Should give some context to my "with Caution" title...

My canary clownfish was my first addition after the velvet outbreak.

Unagi the eel was my second addition after her in October. I've always wanted a proper eel and he really helped restored my spirits. He's still my favorite fish. He's also the reason I finally got a skimmer (Reef Octopus Classic 200 INT Protein Skimmer). After he bit into his first shrimp, bits of it went everywhere. I knew it was time, lol.

I decided to roll the dice and add two large cleaner shrimp to my tank next because I got a good deal on them. He may eat them some day... For now they live in his hide with him. They crawl all over him and he doesn't seem to notice. I think they like to steal leftovers from his dinner.

https://imgur.com/L5KnTMz

I've got a lot more coral. Some day I'll identify everything and post pictures. My favorite so far is the Aussie elegance pictured above. When I got it, it was the size of a half dollar. Now it's bigger than my outstretched hand. I call it my API Test Kit, cos it's the first thing that starts acting weird in my tank if my params get a little off.

 

[Mkvc]

My next addition was a marine betta. I read about them for weeks and Premier Aquatics happened to have a nice big one in stock when I went in for some CUC. He had literally just arrived in a new shipment and he ate mysis right there in the store. He's so weird and goofy - my second favorite fish.

https://imgur.com/rwAR308

He's been in the DT for about a month now. I still worry about him eating enough. He comes out whenever I feed, but he's really shy when I'm watching him. I'm considering trying to grab some feeder minnows or fiddler crabs for him if I can ever find some in stock, just in case. Not sure I want to trigger his hunting instinct though...

 

[Mkvc]

Between the marine betta and today, I've added a flame angel, a coral beauty, a triggerfish, a blue spot puffer, and a whitetail bristletooth tang.

I love Regal angelfish, but I was pretty traumatized after the velvet incident. We agreed to not get another one. I compromised by getting a coral beauty and a flame. They've never shown any aggression towards anyone, haven't noticed my corals yet, and graze the rocks together. So far so good. I kind of want to try a Potter's angel too, but I'm worried about ruining their vibe.

The tang was a Black Friday purchase. I don't know why, but I've never really liked tangs (except for the Achilles tang... but I ain't trying an EXPERT tag fish again any time soon), so he's probably the only one I'll add. He's my tank boss... for now, at least.

The triggerfish... well, he's probably not be a permanent member of my community. When we were at The Fish Store, they had a bunch of tiny triggers. I had to leave early and I told my husband to buy any one labelled "pink tail". The next morning I saw him for the first time under lights... definitely not a pinktail. Niger triggerfish usually get too big and aggressive for my tank. He's not bothering anyone yet (not even my baby snails) and he's super cute. I've decided to keep an eye on him and potentially rehome him later.

https://imgur.com/09djCCt

The puffer is still in QT. We'll see how that works out.

I'm considering picking up a roaps butterflyfish and/or a harlequin tusk as my only wrasse eventually.

Some day I'll post a full tank shot. This week, in my infinite wisdom, I added Chaeto-Grow/nutrients to my refugium four days before my chaeto order showed up in the mail. Algae everywhere.