My 55 gallon reef build.

[Just.A.Bit.Salty]

Ok everyone I upgraded from 29 to this tank. It has been set up for almost 6 weeks so now the stocking starts!

As you can see in the pics there are 2 clowns , one royal gramma, and one bi-color angel( which thankful has not been picking at anything hes not supposed to). Theres some snails, crabs, and an emerald crab as well.

Rock is not all that pretty yet but it is on its way, will be adding more soon.
Lighting is Coralife 4x65 watts, 2 10k and 2 Actinic. The only filtration right now is the AC filter which is holding up fine until I get my DIY 20 gallon sump finished which I'll be starting sometime next week. For now I'm performing weekly water changes, yesterday PH was 8.2 and nitrites where 0 and same for ammonia.

Looking into what to add next feel to give me any advice or suggestions.
Here are some pics for now

 

[Zer0]

Very nice tank. It looks extremely clean. Keep an eye on that angel! But still, it's very beautiful. Always loved angels, never had the guts to put them in any of my reefs.

Think about adding any more rocks? Funny story, but those zoas are the very first zoas i ever started out with. Guess they are pretty popular.

 

[Just.A.Bit.Salty]

Couple more pics

 

[Just.A.Bit.Salty]

Very nice tank. It looks extremely clean. Keep an eye on that angel! But still, it's very beautiful. Always loved angels, never had the guts to put them in any of my reefs.

Think about adding any more rocks? Funny story, but those zoas are the very first zoas i ever started out with. Guess they are pretty popular.

Thanks, yea good luck so far with the angel, I heard it is pretty much hit or miss. Yea I will be adding more LR pretty soon hope it will come together nicely. The zoas seemed like a good starter, we will see

 

[Zer0]

Yeah they were for me.. until they closed up all together and then melted away. I blame it on the fact that they were placed pretty high up in my tank and i had a really powerful T5 fixture. Should have thought of it at the time, but i didn't. :/

Anywho.. looking forward to seeing this thing grow out.

 

[appleton]

Great start, nice fish,take it slow.

 

[uscamaro]

What are you planning on putting on the right side of the tank, 1 huge piece of LR or will it look like the left side? I would also get a background to hide those wires. Do you have a sump/think about getting 1?

So far it looks great!

 

[Just.A.Bit.Salty]

At Zero: that sucks, My light is not quite that strong lol ..lessons learned right lol.

Thanks appleton and uscamaro, I'm not quite sure yet on the rock I was thinking about what you said maybe just putting 1 or 2 large pieces full of holes in the right corner. In 1 to 2 weeks I'll be making a sump from a 20 long tank and when that time comes I'll have some questions on the protein skimmer for sure . Thanks!

 

[mr_X]

looks nice so far. i've always had good luck with flame angels. i've kept quite a few of them in different systems and they were perfect......angels.

you might want to upgrade the power heads down the road. you could probably take them out and replace them with just 2 koralia 3's. might make the tank look less cluttered up top there.

as you can see, you have very little algae. keep that in mind when adding algae eaters like snails. you might want to put a little piece of nori in there on a clip, or wedged between 2 rocks for the herbivores (the angel might like a nip too).

 

[Just.A.Bit.Salty]

looks nice so far. i've always had good luck with flame angels. i've kept quite a few of them in different systems and they were perfect......angels.

you might want to upgrade the power heads down the road. you could probably take them out and replace them with just 2 koralia 3's. might make the tank look less cluttered up top there.

as you can see, you have very little algae. keep that in mind when adding algae eaters like snails. you might want to put a little piece of nori in there on a clip, or wedged between 2 rocks for the herbivores (the angel might like a nip too).

Hey Mr. X yea thanks to your past advice everything is going pretty well lol. I was torn between the flame angel or the bi-color and when it came down to it the LFS could not get the flame to eat for me. Yea I CAN'T wait to replace some of those power heads it really takes away from the tank when I'm looking at it at home. I actually have some green marine aglea pieces and now that you say it I probably should stick some up in there. Thanks, BTW Perfect......angels...lol

 

[Just.A.Bit.Salty]

Thought it would be funny to put up an old picture of my first salt tank (about 5 years ago) and compare to my current build. As you can see from the pic I did a lot of things wrong back then lol. Home Depot light, cheap anemones with chocolate starfish and a yellow tang who needed more swimming space. I was proud of that rock work back then lol, as you can see from the starfish on the back wall none of that rock along the back was touching glass.

 

[Hinds04]

It looked a little unnatural but I have seen much worse.

 

[Just.A.Bit.Salty]

It looked a little unnatural but I have seen much worse.

Haha, yea it definitely looks man made.

 

[iDream]

it looks very... unstable

but i definitely like the new setup! im jealous of your percs lol

your rock and those zoas look great, sorry i skipped through most of the talking for the pictures, but what lights are you running? they have some nice coloration!

 

[Just.A.Bit.Salty]

Haha thanks! Lighting is just Coralife 4x65 watts, 2 10k and 2 Actinic.

 

[Just.A.Bit.Salty]

Ok some updates. The bi-color was just being to rough on the polyps so he went back to the LFS I traded him for two firefish and some LR. The day before that I added 10 more pounds of LR. Only problem I'm having right now is I have only seen one firefish since I added the two. The one has been out front all day and eating good. I checked around the tank to make sure he didn't jump out and looked all around my rock and no luck. I've been trying to find my emerald crab which only usually is out at night, I know if the fish is dead he is probably somewhere around. Pics of the tank now will be put tonight

 

[melosu58]

Good catch on the angel. Cant wait to see the pics. The earlier pics were pretty impressive.

 

[Just.A.Bit.Salty]

Thanks! will do.

So the other firefish just appeared out of no-where. It's not dead yet but safe to say it's on it's deathbed. My fault for not checking it out long enough at the LFS or watching it eat. Unfortunately I do not have a QT tank. Now I can tell I can't do anything to save the fish, should I just watch it closely and let him die in peace in the tank then remove it right away. Or I can put it in a 5 gallon bucket with a heater? I would feel bad putting it though more stress lol.

 

[iDream]

id leave him in and make sure you have some nice and clean water. mine did this, disappeared for 3 days then he came out all tattered and torn fins and not looking so great, he's still alive and looks great now!

and he's always swimming front now too!

 

[nxb161]

Do you have some type of top on the tank, I couldn't tell from the first pic. I've heard that firefish can be quite the jumpers. Sadly I lost a goby last year to not having a lid on the tank it was in