2008-2009

Before I was a teenager I was keeping aquariums. My bedroom was covered on all available walls with 10 gallon and smaller aquariums occupied by all the common inexpensive pet store inhabitants of the time. Around that time, a new pet store opened up in town and for their grand opening they had a raffle for a new 29 gallon aquarium with the light and wood stand included. They didn't have a limit on entries and I remember filling out at least twenty slips hoping to win it. My mom filled one out when we went back to drop them in the tank for the raffle and I mostly forgot about it. A week or two later there was a message on the answering machine for my Mom saying she had won it. Of course she won it for me and it was soon set up for an Oscar and a Firemouth Cichlid until the Oscar got bigger and took it over. He lived in it for years and after he was gone my fish interest turned to tropical plants and the aquarium became a terrarium for tropical ferns for a couple years. After that the tank set empty in my closet for many more years until I moved out to my own place. That's where this story begins...

My 12g AquaPod was almost 3 years old and I had a spot for a bigger tank in my new place. I was wanting a FOWLR for colorful fish and had a lot of leftover equipment and live rock so I set the 29g up and let it cycle.

                                                               December 18, 2008
Roughly 20lbs of live rock from previous tanks and the 150w JBJ Viper modded to hold a pendant hood made from a security halogen light. Unfortunately I used tap water and Reef Crystals so this tank had problems from the beginning.

                                                                         January 2, 2009
Added a Hydor Koralia 2 and Reef Octopus BH-100 from when the 12g was set up for SPS. Also added the Yellow Tail Blue Damsel from the 12g.

 

 

                                                                 January 28, 2009
I finally had one of the fish I had always wanted, a Flame Angel. I paid way too much for it, but I was too excited to get one to go price shopping at the time. I shortly after added my Ocellaris Clownfish from the 12g and then decided a Royal Gramma would round out all the bright colors I wanted for the tank. I found one for a great price and after adding it I learned the hard lesson of why you should always quarantine new fish. I had an outbreak of Ich and it wiped all the fish out in days.

                                                                        March 8, 2009
Since I had to go fish free for a while to let the Ich die out, I added most of my remaining Zoa/Paly frags from the 12g which became an LPS garden. In hindsight, I really wish I wouldn't have moved the Zoa frags over. My last polyp of the original PPRPE floated off it's plug never to be seen again and I still kick myself for that. For better flow I upgraded to a Hydor Koralia 3 and tossed in some plastic plants to give this empty tank a little aesthetics.

 

                                                                     March 21, 2009
To test if the Ich was gone I added a few Damsels. The 14k Phoenix bulb was a couple years old at this point and only using tap water was starting to take its toll on this tank, especially with the new bio load.

 

                                                                     September 22, 2009
I added a couple more types of Damsels as algae slowly took over the tank and nutrients went up and up. I didn't bother with water changes and this tank continued downhill for the rest of the year.

2011

Through 2010 this tank continued seeing neglect and the loss of all the Damsels except the pair of 3 Stripe Damsels. I also added a Bi Color Pseudochromis and soon cyano algae blanketed the tank and the only invertebrate in the tank was a lone Aiptasia. I added my other BH-100 protein skimmer in vain to keep up with the nutrients along with an overflow style filter full of live rock rubble.

 

                                                                    February 21, 2011
While at the fish store with my wife she saw a fish she REALLY wanted. She normally had little interest in the hobby so I gave in quickly. I knew Volitan Lionfish got big but figured he'd be a good excuse down the road to get a bigger tank.

 

                                                                           March 15, 2011
After a large clean up and addition of Astrea Snails, I started vodka dosing to try to rid some of the nutrients this tank had accumulated. I also added some plastic plants to make the tank more presentable and give the smaller fish a place to hide from the lionfish.

 

                                                                      March 29, 2011

 

                                                                        April 16, 2011
A side effect of vodka dosing, a Dinoflagellate bloom took hold and quickly killed off most of the snails.

 

                                                                         June 6, 2011
As the dinos went away after I stopped vodka dosing, bubble and turf algaes started taking over. By this time the Lionfish was very tame and would usually only eat out of my hand. He would even get my attention when I was nearby by squirting water out of the tank at me like an Archerfish.

 

                                                               September 14, 2011
After a massive rock scrubbing and water changes I added a small Derasa Clam that was in my 12g as a baby. Once again, my wife just had to have this clam and I have to admit it grew on me as well. Unfortunately around the new year the Lionfish stopped eating and eventually died. One day when I can properly house one I would like another, they are very personable fish!

2012

With the Lionfish gone, my care of the tank diminished and turned back to its usual neglect. The bubble algae definitely didn't mind...

 

                                                                     February 22, 2012

 

                                                                          March 7, 2012

 

                                                                      April 30, 2012
I finally got an RODI unit and after a couple years of tap water, this tank finally had 0 TDS water in it. Unfortunately the rock absorbed more phosphate and silicates than I can imagine and was perfect algae substrate. I moved a large Indo Acan colony from the 12g I'd had for years into this tank where it would finally have some room. The Phoenix bulb finally went out, so a dual 65w PC fixture went on the tank until I could get a new bulb.

 

                                                                          May 15, 2012
Earlier that month I figured I lost the battle with nuisance algae in this tank and came up with a new idea, grow nuisance corals to cover over the algae. I got a bag of Xenia clippings from a local club member and when I noticed them becoming food for the 3 Stripe Damsels, the fish got the boot. I also got a small frag of Kenya Tree from another member since I had heard many stories of how invasive they can be. With the Phoenix bulb out and money extremely tight I ordered the cheapest "14K" bulb off eBay I could find which ended up being at most 10K. A re-scape and cleaning rounded out the start of my new plans for this tank.

 

                                                                      June 6, 2012
With renewed interest in this tank, I finally started using my coveted ESV salt to do water changes with this tank and began shopping for soft corals. My first interest when introduced to reef tanks was all the movement soft corals gave a tank and I wanted to do that after years of keeping expensive and colorful but motionless corals. I also added two old favorites from my early days, a Royal Gramma and a Fire Shrimp. I later added an Azure Damselfish, a tiny Percula Clownfish, and an intensely orange Ocellaris Clownfish.

 

                                                                          June 8, 2012

 

                                                                         June 20, 2012

 

                                                                          June 25, 2012

 

                                                                         July 9, 2012
Soft coral collection coming along, but the small Percula Clownfish didn't survive. Within a couple weeks my favorite fish, the Ocellaris Clownfish, decided to jump out while I was asleep and found too late to save. A new nuisance algae began to take over as well, apparently some type of Turf Algae.

 

                                                                        September 4, 2012
The corals grew well, but unfortunately over the next year the Turf Algae grew better and strangled out a few of them.

2014

 During 2013 the Turf Algae grew thicker and thicker. I was doing weekly water changes and it would grow back just as thick before the next one. I lost a few corals and others grew well. The original Royal Gramma died and was replaced and I added a Skunk Cleaner shrimp. On a vacation to Florida I picked up some Mangrove propagules and put them in the tank and then began to lose interest yet again in this tank.

In spring of 2014 my interest returned and I decided it was time to try some new approaches. I pulled every rock out of the tank and doused them in hydrogen peroxide and then scrubbed them as clean as I could after letting them sit and sizzle a while. Unfortunately this scrubbing required a massive water change while I was out of ESV salt and I was forced to use Reef Crystals since it is available from nearby stores. The major change took out both cleaner shrimp within two days and nearly killed my last bit of Xenia.

I also constructed an LED fixture using 10 CREE XT-E Royal Blues and 4 XP-G R5 Cool Whites on a 700mA driver. I was pretty sure the metal halide was producing an algae loving spectrum and figured LEDs should all but eliminate that problem. The next problem I saw was locked in phosphates. I hooked up a Two Little Fishies PhosBan Reactor 150 to a MaxiJet 600 and run 6 tablespoons of RowaPhos through it. I had to put a small hole in the tubing before the ball valve to relieve some of the head pressure since restricting the pump caused terrible noise. I did some nearly total water changes with ESV and do 80% weekly water changes until I see some major improvement.

                                                                             June 14, 2014
I know it doesn't look that great, but if I took pictures a month before it would look very impressive by comparison. I also moved the two Prism Favia frags from the back of the 12g to color up that had turned nearly white from a year of very little light. I also added some bright red Discosoma Mushrooms to add some color. Another change I'm making is dosing 1 mL of Reef Plus per day and feeding freshly hatched Brine Shrimp once a week.

                                                                          July 9, 2014
I put a temporary frag rack on the back for the Stunner Chalice and Prism Favia frags that I had let turn white from lack of light. They seem to be coloring back up pretty quickly. I also took a few frags of the only Zoa I have left from my Zoa collecting days, Safecrackers with lineage back to the original colony. I don't see them around anymore, especially not the original ones, so I figured I better make some frags for back ups and trades. The algae hasn't regrown and seems to be finally losing it's hold on this tank thanks to the GFO, ESV salt, RODI water, and LED lighting. Fingers crossed it keeps improving and maybe the rock will someday grow coralline algae on it.