The Quilted Reef Build

The Quilted Reef

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I realized never really started a build thread on our forum. Going to cut and paste from reeftoreef.

April-May 2024

Little background until January, I had set up a 12-gallon nanocube, then upgraded to a 32-gallon cube. Both tanks were in my classroom. In 2021, I took over maintaining the tanks at my school. My livestock was blended into those tanks. In January, I went part-time and at the same time was given an opportunity to buy a 120 gallon complete system and more for a deal by the owner of the tank maintaintence company that worked with the school. After convincing/ignoring my husband, I said yes. My sewing room was inundated with reef equipment and a 120 gallon tank plus stand. From January until April 12th, I sorted and organized all of the equipment. There was so much I had to just decide what did I want on my tank. I have stored the rest. My maintenance buddy set up the tank on April 12th. I had acid-washed the rock, followed by bleach. It sat out in the sun for several days. I also bleached the old sand and spread it out in the sun. I had planned and dry fit the plumbing before my guy came. I was proud, he said it was one of the smoothest setups he had done ☺️ I was pretending to be an artist and was placing a grid using tape to think about rock placement.

May 30, 2024

Tank will be set up for seven weeks tomorrow. No corals yet but I have a clean up crew of multiple blue legs, six scarlet legs, three peppermint shrimp, various snails, and six emerald crabs. There are seven chromis and four lyre tail anthias. I only have one light at the moment, added after four weeks. The other one is being repaired. I also added copepods pretty early on. I did Dr Tim’s one and only to begin with and also added Microbacter 7 a few times.

Current equipment:

Trigger Platinum 34 Sump
Nyos Skimmer
Cor-20 pump
Sky Lights
Apex
Trident
WAV pump
Pentair UV - not using yet
Aquamaxx c tech T-1 Calcium reactor - not using slow leak in regulator
Ultimate systems CO2 regulator
 

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June 2024

I ended up with an “instant reef”. Again thanks to my maintenance buddy for $500 and my help, I got live rock with mushrooms, toadstools, cabbage like leathers(?), candy cane, and two huge multi-head hammer corals. As for fish: a foxface, flame angel, a pair of clowns, and a hawk fish.

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September - November 2025:

Traded in bubble coral and large mushroom/toadstool rock at LFS.

Purchased first acropora JF lemongrass and a cynarina at Reef USA.IMG_5544.jpegIMG_5540.jpeg
 
Present day tank and current equipment:

Trigger 34 sump MINUS its roller mat. The V2 motor went nuts after a year and a half of use.
Clarisea SK3000 roller mat
Aquamaxx c tech T-1 Calcium reactor with Kamoer peristaltic pump
2 G5 pro radions running Coral AB+ - (replaced Neptune Sky lights since they were running too hot plus not made anymore)
Apex
COR20 return pump
Two WAV pumps
Trident ACM
Trident NP
Deltec DC skimmer - (replaced Nyos since it would never restart without burping after automated feeding cycle.) with air intake pulling room air through BRS CO2 scrubber.
10 gal Neptune ATO
Manual monthly 25% water changes Tropic Marin Pro salt - (thinking about trying reef moonshiners method)

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