The story of "I Miss Hawaii" — an Innovative Marine EXT 75 mixed reef in Vancouver, Canada, inspired by Maui, Hawaii.
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I Miss Hawaii — So I Started a Reef Tank →Showing newest first
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It’s been a busy weekend! I hadn’t really stocked up since December because I was traveling, so I’ve got quite a few new additions now.
I picked up a few torches, octospawn, hammers, and a beautiful large goni I found at my LFS today.
I also grabbed some new snails and got my first abalone. It was impossible to get him off the bag, so I had to cut it open and let him crawl off the plastic inside my tank lol. These guys are strong!
I also found a cute porcelain crab at my LFS, so I had to get him. He’s not shy at all and has just been chilling on a rock all day :)
Everything except the abalone (he’s too large for my observation tank to support) is now in my observation tank for a month before moving into my DT.
While I was on vacation, my fish stock checker (yep, I built a little app that checks all my fish stores’ stock and alerts me if something on my wishlist shows up!) let me know one of the stores had a sunburst anthias available 😍. I’d been looking for one for a long time, so I didn’t hesitate and placed an order.
He arrived on Thursday, and honestly, he’s not shy at all! I didn’t expect him to eat on the first day, but he did. He’s been cruising around the quarantine tank and hanging out near the front glass. He’s only about 1 inch, but he’s already got tons of personality!
Ugh, still not over Tamago's passing. I've had a few fish die before, but his death really hit me hard. I'm building a fish app for myself now, so I added a virtual fish tank in it with all my current fish, including Tamago. They swim around and I can feed them too. I guess this is how software devs mourn.
Also, my Biota YT has been growing fast! He was such a tiny baby just 3 months ago...
I really thought I had everything figured out and my lid was 100% secure, especially since it survived Sushi's jumping attempts for more than half a year now. Tamago always stayed near the bottom, so I never thought he would freak out like that. It hurts so much because they were both getting along so well too.
I've been rewatching the footage and I'm honestly reconsidering keeping bigger shrimp in the future, at least skunks. This is not the first time they scared my fish at night. I've seen them startle Sushi before and make him shoot off like that too.
My blood red fire shrimp usually stays in a cave where it sets up a cleaning station, so the fish can come to them. But my two skunks seem much more active, crawl all over the tank and actually try to jump at my fish to clean them. My tilefish don't really sleep, they swim/hover around the bottom, so I think they can panic when the shrimp suddenly touch them in almost complete darkness, ugh.
I found Tamago on top of my lid today 😢 I tried to revive him for a good 30 minutes, but he was unfortunately gone. This is so heartbreaking. I really thought I had my lid 100% secure.
After watching the footage, it looks like one of my shrimp's antennas touched him while he was hovering at the bottom of the tank. It scared him and he went completely crazy, eventually lifting the light mount insert in the lid and somehow jumping through it. After that, the insert fell back into place, so he had no way to get back into the tank.
I uploaded footage showing him freaking out, then jumping out in slow motion (at 00:12 mark, top right corner), and then how the insert looks at the end of the video. Maybe it will help someone else too. I am going to think of ways to weigh down that insert so it cannot happen again. RIP Tamago 😢
Update on our two tilefish (Sushi - skunk tilefish, Tamago - new yellow tilefish) bonding process. Tamago's quarantine period is now officially over, and he was moved to an acclimation box on Saturday.
Little did I know that Sushi would just swim right inside... (I intervened and got him out in the next minute, as he hates small spaces like that)
After that, Tamago freed himself from the acclimation box overnight, so I found him swimming with the rest of the fish in the morning lol.
I quickly added more rockwork and a whole new cave as a neutral territory. Since then I've already seen both tilefish sharing the new cave several times. Tamago also uses Sushi's tunnels and burrows, and Sushi doesn't seem to mind.
Here's a small video I put together. I'm honestly so in love with these two :)
Here's some more pictures of Tamago, he's so handsome
Quick tank update!
We have two new additions
First one is a captive bred multibanded pipefish. After about two weeks in observation, I moved it to the display tank. I was getting worried there was not enough food in the observation tank. Luckily it is already used to eating frozen, which is a huge win. Super cute fish and very curious too.
Second addition is a yellow tilefish My fiance gave me a gift card for Christmas, and of course the week before that my LFS got a shipment of gorgeous yellow tilefish. I picked one up on day three, most of them were already eating by then.
He has been in QT for about 10 days now. I started with Prazi since I noticed some light flashing and twitching. I am starting copper now, and after that he should be good to go. I will also rearrange the scape a bit and add more caves. I am really hoping my existing tilefish Sushi and the new guy Tamago will pair up and swim together. Tilefish are supposed to be social and often live in pairs, so fingers crossed this helps Sushi feel more comfortable.
I also added a sand sifting starfish. Maybe a bit early, but I have been hiding raw clams, shrimp, and other food in the sandbed. So far it seems happy. I have only seen it climb the glass once, and I do have a pretty deep sandbed.
Other than that, phosphates and nitrates have been a bit higher than I want lately. Around 0.3 ppm phos and 30 ppm nitrates, so I have been doing more water changes. I think this is from trying all the new dry foods. Since I am going on vacation in March, I'm testing different options that are healthy but also something the fish will actually eat. Sushi has been the pickiest by far. He only eats certain flakes and freeze dried mysis and brine. I now own like 20 different dry foods, so hopefully a few of them become his favorite lol.
Anyway, here is the latest video of my tank. Enjoy!
Update time!
I’ve also got two new fish in QT, both captive bred:
Link’s goby – great little sand sifter! Not nearly as crazy as a diamond goby, doesn't build sand dunes, doesn’t bury my corals, and mostly sifts in place instead of relocating the whole sand bed. I’m actually really happy I found this guy. I kind of wish I'd grabbed a pair now.
I also grabbed a few more corals, and my Plank feeder arrived today! I was considering an AF4, but the price was pretty steep and I've seen mixed reviews about it. So the Plank felt like a better compromise. We'll see how it goes once I set it up!
I'm also still on the hunt for another tilefish to pair with my skunk. I haven't seen a single purple one for sale yet – only blue jaw tilefish, and they were pretty big, so I decided to wait and see if I can eventually find a smaller purple instead.
Updated shots of the tank:
Update time! Our fallow period officially ended almost a month ago, and all the remaining fish were transferred back into the DT.
The starry benny was successfully rehomed, as it turned out to be super mean to all my other fish (including killing my diamond goby).
Unfortunately, the tamarin wrasse that was such a friend with my tilefish Sushi didn't make it :( I found it dead one morning, and after watching the footage, I suspect Sushi had something to do with it. It accidentally scared it at night while hunting the sand and lunged at it a few times after. I think the wrasse completely freaked out, bumped its head, and was gone the next morning. I definitely mourned that one, it was so beautiful and had finally started feeding after 2 weeks.
Anyway, I transferred Sushi and the blue assessor back to the tank and they've been very happy and healthy since.
Here he is, coming out of his little cave for some food :)
Also, I've seen absolutely no signs of ich and it's been almost a month, so I think we're in the clear!
That said, I've decided going forward to quarantine everything wet. I set up an observation tank where I've got my new corals and inverts now, as I'm absolutely not taking any chances anymore. Here's a few new corals I've got :)
I also got two other fish a while back - yellow and purple wrasse, as well as a fish marked as 'Deep Water Hogfish' that turned out to be a Terelabrus wrasse (not 100% sure on the exact species). Both went through QT without issues, and the Terelabrus wrasse is honestly such a great curious fish. It's very similar in personality to Sushi. I've not seen it available since, but if you do, buy it! It's always cruising the tank looking for food, often teaming up with the yellow and purple wrasse, always out in the open, curious. Sleeps under my rockwork at night.
And now I'm quarantining another two fish! I ordered a beautiful borbonius anthias and a diamond goby, but unfortunately FedEx overnight shipping turned into 2-day shipping :( The DG was DOA, and the anthias was barely alive in the bag when it arrived. The bag water smelled absolutely horrible, so I temp acclimated and plopped him in my QT (salinity was within range). Luckily he perked up within 24h and now is eating like a pig. This is my first anthias ever, but this fish acts like it's never been fed even though I feed it 4–5 times a day! Huge, huge appetite. I love it so much.
I also went to my LFS after to get a replacement diamond goby, but this beautiful longfin clownfish caught my eye instead. Usually longfins have weird torn fins that I don't really like, but this isn't the case for this guy. Now he's been a bit picky with food, spitting it up a lot, which I didn't expect from a clownfish since I thought they eat literally everything, but we're making progress. I also only got a single one because I want him to remain relatively peaceful, and I've heard single clowns are actually quite mellow if they don't have an anemone to protect or don't pair up. So we'll see how it goes!
And here's how the tank looks now :) All corals seem to be thriving, except for one of my favias that just died a week after I got it, and alveopora not doing too great - the shipping was also delayed on these corals, so I kind of expected for some of them to not make it.
Time for another update - if anyone's still keeping up!
So unfortunately, I discovered ich in my tank. I have no idea how it got there since I QTed all my fish, maybe cross contamination from my QT tank, or it hitchhiked on a coral I got from a local reefer's display tank? Not sure :/ Definitely feels a bit disheartening, considering so many people never even QT anything. It's been a stressful week for sure.
So anyway, now I had to catch all my fish to treat them.
My tilefish was super easy to transfer - he's too curious and immediately swam into the trap. But my starry blenny and blue assessor hid in the rocks all day, so I had to take apart my whole scape to catch them. What a nightmare. I also bought another tank because I was worried about having five fish in a single 15g. Now two are in a 15g and two are in a 10g, both at 2.3 ppm copper. The tanks are multiplying, and my partner definitely wasn't entertained lol.
The display tank has been fallow for a week, so we've still got at least five more weeks left. I'm following the 45 days at 82 degrees method, and so far all my corals have been okay except for one unhappy torch and my mushrooms. Hammers, frogspawn, duncan and zoas are loving the hotter temps, though! Plus, almost all my GHA died off once I increased the temperature. No idea what's the correlation here.
Unfortunately, while my starry blenny was housed with my new diamond goby in the same QT, the blenny ended up viciously attacking and killing her on day 1. I separated them, but it was too late. I'm honestly still really sad about that, the goby was such a character! For this reason I've decided to rehome the blenny once its QT period is over. It's been a jerk to all my fish since day one, and it's been progressively getting worse. I still don't understand why people recommend them so much, or blennies in general. They can be such terrors!
On day 2, my tilefish had a huge freakout in the quarantine tank. He started breathing hard and gasping at the surface, and it kept getting worse at the night progressed. The wrasse in the same tank was acting totally fine, so I was really puzzled. Was it the active ich outbreak bothering him? Gill flukes? Ammonia (tested as 0)? There was plenty of aeration, so I didn't think it was an oxygen issue.
I was freaking out and had no idea what was wrong. I did a 60% water change in case something was off, but that didn't help. Then I thought maybe gill flukes were involved, so I gave him a 4-5 minute FW bath (he handled it surprisingly well), but that didn't help either. Still gasping at the surface. Exhausted at 3am, not knowing how to help him, I shut off all the ambient light in the house and went to bed, expecting to find him gone in the morning... Well, I wake up and he's totally fine! Just chilling in his PVC pipe. Thanks Sushi, for giving me such heart attacks.
Since then he's definitely calmed down and I ended up 3D printing a small cave for him, similar to what he had in my DT - he loves it! Here it is:
Plus, this is the best news so far - my new tamarin wrasse has formed a bond with him! It follows him around like a puppy, and I've noticed it's not as scared when I approach the tank, just curious. The wrasse was only going for live brine shrimp before I put the tilefish in, but now it's become a complete pig: it's eating mysis, frozen brine shrimp, reef frenzy, and pretty much anything frozen I put in. It loves following Sushi around, they're such great buds. Definitely a silver lining to all this madness!
Time for another big update!
The pyramid butterfly in my QT unfortunately didn’t make it. It was diagnosed with ich and most likely an untreatable internal fungal disease. I chatted with the LFS afterward, and they admitted all the other butterflies from the same batch passed or weren’t doing too well. It was heartbreaking watching it slowly fade away, still fighting to live, but it couldn't.
The tilefish, Sushi, that was in the same QT developed flukes on top of the ich I was already treating with copper power. I noticed it was scratching multiple times a day, generally uncomfortable, and yawning a lot. I decided to proceed with General Cure while it was in copper.
Well… let me tell you, never again! Here’s a video of how it acted around 24 hours into GC - gasping for air the entire time even with plenty of aeration. I thought I was going to lose it. One of the worst nights! Luckily, Sushi made it through!
After another 1.5 weeks, I decided to move Sushi into the DT. Although it was in copper for only 18 days, I felt like it was ready. The QT wasn’t good for it; it got very nervous at night, frantically swimming at the surface, etc.
The DT move went well! More on the tilefish later…
Once I moved my tilefish into the DT, however, the assessor completely changed its behavior and started chasing the firefish relentlessly. I tried a mirror (it ignored it), an isolation box (it still tried to attack the firefish), and even added more rockscape for another cave. It would go out of its way to find the firefish across the whole tank and bully it. No idea why!
Anyway, the firefish went into a huge 180‑gal tank from a local reefer and has been doing great there. Sometimes I feel like fish are just people and don’t like living together.
The wrasse is still very small, and while the LFS told me it was eating, I’ve had a hard time. I feed it live baby brine shrimp, LRS Reef Frenzy, frozen mysis, etc., and I see it picking at stuff constantly, but I’m not sure it’s eating enough. So I guess we'll see how it goes.
You can read more about the whole incident here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/how-i-almost-lost-my-tilefish-because-of-my-light-mount.1121348/
I'm actually looking for a second tilefish now, most likely a purple one. I feel like they could be good friends!
Also, I'm not sure about other tilefish, but Sushi is so hungry! I feed 4–5 times a day, and it always looks starving. It's extremely active, swimming in and out of its cave constantly, so I’m not surprised. Here's a short video from feeding :)
I've been dosing 15ml of AFR every day, and parameters have been pretty stable except for my phosphates dropping from 0.08-0.1 to 0.02 and nitrates from 10-15 to 5, so I've been feeding a bit more to make up for it, considering I only have very light stock now. Otherwise, other than some annoying GHA, I think everything has been doing pretty good!
And that's all for now :)
Thought it was time to update this again! Most up to date picture of the tank:
What happened since:
Here you can see them both together:
@video[https://www.reef2reef.com/data/video/4086/4086882-22f4f7500bf3504834b80bbebb26bd23.mp4]
I failed to quarantine my new leopard wrasse. It arrived in poor condition and, unfortunately, died within 24 hours. Thread: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/new-leopard-wrasse-not-doing-well-after-shipment.1115922 . I'll be getting another one only from my LFS next time.
I now have two new fish in my quarantine tank: a skunk tilefish and a pyramid butterfly.
I really need to talk more about my new tilefish. It’s only been a few days since I got him, but I already love him so much. He’s like a puppy - he follows my finger, is super curious about everything, and is always looking to jump out of the tank, lol. I get super nervous during feedings since he always pokes his head out of the water.
I got a few more corals and started dosing AFR (10ml/day to start), as my parameters were getting uncomfortably low (Alk 6.5, Ca 385, Mg 1200). We'll see in a few days if we need to adjust again.
My new lid from Top Lids finally arrived. Not too happy about it, as the lights cutouts were not tight enough for a fish to not jump out. I could put my whole finger through the gap, and had to 3d print a replacement. Imo, it's false advertising on their side. More info in this thread: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/top-lids-incorrect-timeline-poor-communication.1114846/
Haven’t updated this in a while!
After my first starry blenny didn’t make it, I ordered a quarantined one this time, so it went straight to my display tank. What a night and day difference! It started eating immediately and quickly learned to nibble seaweed off a clip. It’s always cruising around, picking algae off rocks and anything else it can find. Such a little fattie. Here it is, sitting on the clip right next to its dinner.
Unfortunately, my two new hermits had to go! They were pretty big, around an inch, and even though I provided lots of different shells (they changed like three times!) and fed them pellets, they bullied my snails and I’m pretty sure I caught one munching on my GSP. I donated them to another reefer.
I also got two cleaner shrimps. They’re so adorable and always climb onto my hand to try to clean me. The starry blenny gets their services regularly, too. One of the shrimps molted less than a week after I got it. Great little fellas!
My purple firefish and blue assessor just finished QT and are moving into the display tank tomorrow. They did really well through the entire treatment (copper first, then GC), never stopped eating, and I kept plenty of surface agitation plus an extra bubbler just in case. Really happy with these two.
I also bought a new return pump (Reef Octopus Varios 2), but got misled by CV claiming I could control it with my X10. Now I’m trying to get my money back. Thread here .
My Hydros has been also randomly losing Wi-Fi and rebooting once a day or so, which always stops my return pumps for a few minutes. Not sure why as it’s only Hydros disconnecting, everything else is fine. I’m asking my ISP to upgrade my router, thinking it might not be handling all the Wi-Fi devices load, but I'm doubtful whether it'll help.
I’m still waiting for my lid from Top Lids, since the old one doesn't fit anymore after I changed my lights. Original timeline was 2–4 weeks from May 2nd, but it’s been delayed. Communication's been really poor, definitely not the greatest experience.
I’ve been battling diatoms (or what I hope are diatoms) for the past week. The dirty sand is driving me a bit crazy. I’ve been dosing pods since I started the tank and also phyto. Planning to get more snails and a conch for my CUC this weekend.
I wonder if the diatoms have something to do with my RODI water, since it suddenly started reading around 4-5ppm (my tap's 20). I wonder if it could've introduced some silica into the tank water, fueling the diatoms. I've changed the sediment cartridge as soon as I noticed though, so we're back to 0 TDS now.
I bought a PAR meter and dialed my lights to about 100 PAR on the sand bed and 200–250 on the highest rock. I’m slowly ramping up now.
I picked up a hammer, gsp, candy cane, duncan, and some zoas, but I’m keeping it low and letting the tank mature a bit more. I really want to cover everything with hammers, torches, and frogspawns, I love how they move! I also love montis and acros, so it’s hard to decide where to place it all. I’ve moved my two wavemakers around to improve flow after spotting some dead zones, but I'm still figuring out the best setup. There's so much to learn!
Regarding my parameters that I’ve been measuring every week, I noticed magnesium was particularly low. Before the WC, my Hanna showed a blinking 1000, meaning below 1000 ppm. After a 10% water change it read 1080, which is still low. Alk was 7.8 dKH and Ca at 410 ppm. My salinity was a bit low though, around 33.5 ppt, so I've been slowly increasing it up to 35 to see if that helps. That said, Some of my Hanna testers have been giving inconsistent values, for example phosphorus often reads crazy high on the first test (like 200), then 50, then around 17. I measure exactly the same way each time, so not sure what’s up. I ordered Salifert tests to cross check, but I’m a bit worried I won’t be able to read those either lol.
Here’s the current picture of my tank (before the ugly diatom bloom)
Even my other half and my rabbit often come to my room and check out what's up :)
All in all, this has been an extremely confusing but rewarding experience so far!
Got my first batch of clean up crew yesterday, and this ridiculously adorable pair of strawberry crabs!
Sad update: I lost my first fish. Unfortunately, the Starry Blenny didn't make it, and died 3 days after I received it. I saw it active and eating some during feedings, but it looks like it was already starving for a while before I got it.
Here's the full post: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/starry-blenny-died-after-3-days-in-qt.1110928/
The other two fish are doing great, and I've started them on copper (1ppm now, slowly increasing). I also got some new non porous decorations, so they have even more hideouts now. Not a huge fan of just PVC pipes!
Yesterday, I couldn't find the Blue Assessor and turned everything upside down, double checked all the decorations, overflow, around the tank, etc. Even crawled on the floor for 2 hours to check if it jumped out. Well.. it just casually came out to eat today, like nothing happened! Only a month into this journey and it's already giving me mini heart attacks lol.
Starry Blenny and Blue Assessor arrived yesterday from Candy Corals. Beautiful fish!
My first fish, Purple Firefish is in the QT now. Picked it up at my LFS today. Very curious little guy, immediately ate some frozen Mysis shrimp and then found its little hidey spot right behind the plastic elbow.
Hey everyone! I've had a few FW tanks before, but this one is my first SW one. I’m in Canada, and over the years I’ve fallen in love with Hawaii - it’s always so hard to say goodbye after a trip! My last visit to Maui in March finally gave me the push to start a reef tank.
The tank was cycled with dry rock and live sand, doing a fishless cycle with Fritz TurboStart and Dr .Tim's Ammonium Chloride in 10 days.
Setup:
Aquascape:
Quarantine Tank:
Current Stock
Originally I wanted more Hawaiian species, but the current ban is really not helping :( I'd love to have a Moorish Idol someday (I absolutely loved diving with them in Hawaii) when I upgrade to a bigger tank (planning on doing so sometime next year), Flame Wrasse and Pyramid Butterfly.
Planned Stock (not all, just fish I'm considering in the future or when I upgrade to a bigger tank next year)
Previous Stock
Corals:
I love Euphyllia! I'm planning to have sections dedicated to zoas, octospawns/frogspawns, hammers, and lots of torches! Duncans are also my favorite, mine popped up like 4 new heads in the last 2 months! I'm trying to grow GSP on the wall as well, but it's been surprisingly slow.
Progress Pics:
Tank and sump cleaned and scrubbed with citric acid, plumbing done!
Working on aquascape!
And that's how it looks like in the tank, with a few small modifications:
Cable management... I hate cable management!
Lights have arrived :) I've not fiddled with the wavemakers yet.
Quarantine tank is here, about to start setting it up for my new fish arriving next week.
Please scroll down for more updates!
