HexyliC Reef

 OMG long have I waited for this day... Finally... Time for FISHES AND CORALS! I hadn't felt this excited for a long time. Is this what women feel when they are shopping for new Prada or Chanel bags? Hahaha just kidding :)  I checked the parameters again and all looks good. The 2 parameters I keep an eye out for the most would be alkalinity and phosphate at this stage. Phosphate is high but should be manageable using NOPOX over a couple of days. Ready to test the water quality by introducing some livestock. Anyways, I managed to snag a pair of nice SPS frags and Jackie from S3 gave me a good deal on 1 of the blotchy anthias he has in the shop. A bit ted expensive for a 'test water' fish but I really love them but hadn't had much luck with the previous pair. I got them in on a Mon (01/03) and they look great. Acclimating them for over an hour through the floating bag method. Once its done I would release them into the tank. I would take this as the official day 1 of my s...

 This is the part where things get messy and complex. Yes, we are talking about water chemistry. I will explain to the best of my abilities what to look out for and some experiences here and there. Mixing Saltwater I think this is pretty simple. Choose a salt that has the parameters you want to maintain and mix it into clean freshwater. By clean freshwater I mean 0 TDS water, for me I would allow a TDS of up to 5 and that's it, would change my RO/DI cannisters the moment I see a 5. TDS stands for total dissolved solids, it is the measurement for the total concentration of dissolved substances in the water. The concept is that you want to strip everything your water has and depend on your salt to give you whatever you need for your tank to thrive. The reason why is because you do not know what's in the water, let's say it has a 50 TDS reading, the dissolved substances in it may be toxic, it may not, it may be excessive iron due to rusty plumbing and the list goes on. You cou...

 What is a huge deciding factor that determines the outcome of a reef tank? Definitely without a doubt, any experienced reefer would tell you that light is one of the big players in a reef setup. I wanted to get it right this time and that means the PAR needs to be correct. PAR is the abbreviation for the term Photosynthetic Active Radiation, it is the measurement for light intensity in its full spectrum that is usable by corals. It is different from lumens as lumens measures for visual light, light that can be seen by the naked eye. Every coral species have their own PAR requirements and these are in my experience, the best for them (I'm not that experienced with SPS yet, on a learning journey): Softies: 50-200 PAR NPS: No PAR requirement LPS: 100-300 PAR SPS: 250-500 PAR (There are reefers who kept them >500 PAR but really, it requires a really experienced pair of hands as corals bleach easily in those lights) With that being said, the last thing I want is to see corals being ...

 Here comes the tough part, waiting. Cycling takes time anytime from 3 weeks to 4 months. The nitrogen cycle needs to kickstart and be stable before I can introduce any lifeform into the tank. It is the foundation of the 'ecosystem' for the tank. In a way I'm trying to play God, creating a world for my little fishes.  Bing advised me to dose a small measuring cup full of Special Blend and Nite-Out 2 everyday. He told me that I should expect a spike in nitrates since ammonia in the tank is being consumed, converted into nitrites and then nitrates. Best case scenario would be that my ammonia hit a good 0, nitrates spike to 25ppm, those would be a good foothold to start off.  I did an ammonia and nitrates test using Salifert test kits 4 days (13/02) after I kickstarted the cycle. Wow, 0 ammonia and 5ppm of nitrates. That was surprisingly fast that it almost felt like cheating. I decided to wait another week before adding stuff in. Just to be safe.  Recalling that there ...

 Continued with filling the tank is filled with RO/DI water. Fast forward to a filled tank, I will leave it to run for a day. This helps to kill off any bacteria using the concept of hyposalinity. In layman terms, anything that lives in a saltwater environment will suffer adverse effects should they experience a liquid environment with lesser salinity or just freshwater. A day went by rather quickly, and soon Bing came by to place my rockscape in and deliver the other items that I purchased as well. Looking great. I started adding salt into the tank. I decided to stick with the Tropic Marin line of salt, since I had great success with it before and by far it mixes cleanly and faster compared to other brands. However, I did decide to take a leap of faith and try out the Bio-Actif bucket. The cool thing is that it already has a few carbon dosing components mixed in with the salt, which will help in creating a low nutrient environment. It too contains natural bio-active marine substan...

 So now that I've got the aquascape sorted out, it's time to game on and start the reboot process.  On a Saturday (06/02) afternoon, Bing came over and started getting everything out of the tank. He got a long hose, one side clipped to the side of my tank and the other side will be to a drain pipe. While draining the water, he started removing the rocks/corals/fish from the tank. Included in the reboot package would be some cleaning as well.  It took a good solid 2-3hrs to get it done. I was actually amazed it took that short of a time! Especially for a tank that size. The tank looked empty and I was abit sad to be honest. Sad that I now have to wait a couple of weeks/months before I have some 'colours' in my tank again.  It was about 5pm when he left, and I started filling the tank with RO/DI (Reverse Osmosis De-Ionized) water. For those of you who do not know what RO/DI water is, it's basically pure water. No chlorine, no sodium, no traces of any other minerals/el...

 I have a thing about the stuff in my tank being 'natural'. It bugs me for some reason. Ever since I had fishes, I hated those man made rocks/wood and the likes. To me, an aquarium is like bringing a piece of Mother Nature back in the comfort of our home. Man-made stuff just 'pollutes' it in a way. So I did do some research on Marco Rocks, seem natural and made from ancient dead reef in Florida? Cool.  After a day or 2 from the initial conversation with Bing, he dropped me a video of the 1st part of the scape. Wow talk about efficiency. I was amazed. Looked brilliant. After another 2 days he sent me a video of the finished scape and wanted my opinion. I told him he had really outdone himself. So this is the difference between a pro's work and a novice hahaha. Absolutely loved the work. Can't wait to get them in.

 Out of all the different reefscapes I liked those done by the Suprem3 Corals. It has a good mix of free space for fish to move about and a good amount of estate for coral placement. I got in touch with Suprem9 Solutions, a branch for the Suprem3 Corals chain which specialises in the more technical and 'building' side of reefing. I gave one of their staff, Bing, a quick text, he was really helpful and offered to swing by to take a look at my tank's situation since he stayed near my area. He did mention to me that its best that I find the root cause of the problem so that I can avoid it in the future. He tried to find out why I would have nutrient spikes in the first place, one look in my sump and he told me my bacteria media is insufficient, hence recommended more Siporax. I explained to him despite my 6mths of effort in finding the root cause and battling algae, I'm tired of letting this drag on and I would prefer a restart. He gave me an idea of how the reboot is gonn...

I had successes with LPS nano tanks before (about 2 years of experience under my belt) but as any reef enthusiast, I wanted more. More fishes. More Corals. Over a period of time I managed to put up a case with myself (yes I know it sounds weird) to convince myself to upgrade my tank. Eventually I upgraded to a 4ft tank (150g total volume) early Feb 2020. Got in some dream fishes and corals that I couldn't have due to space constraints in my nano.  But a series of unfortunate events and mistakes happened resulting to a tank crash and absolute failure. Algae is on a rampage. Corals not doing well despite how much water changes I do. Fishes dying mysteriously although all major water params check out right.  It sucks. Big time. I almost threw in the towel. But I decided to give it another go. The idea of having my dream tank all looking sparkly and cool with awesome corals and fishes motivated me to give it another go. But this time, I want to get everything right. I approached a...