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Freshoffthegrill's 120G Reef Tank

Well I never assume others experience will always be the same. It's part of what make's this hobby so interesting. Hope it works out.


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Well I never assume others experience will always be the same. It's part of what make's this hobby so interesting. Hope it works out.


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Me too. Next on the stocking schedule are some fire fish and chromis, I do not anticipate an issue with adding them. After that it is on to adding Tangs.

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Quick note...add the tangs last. Try to add smaller less aggressive fish first.
I really enjoy fish, more than corals to be honest, getting different acting fish is a goal I have. Even in freshwater I have a boatload of schooling fish and added some kribensis which totally reinvigorated how I felt about the tank.
Back on track.
I would suggest a couple smaller fish gobies, blennies, maybe an orchid dottyback the ORA ones are pretty friendly, I had a terror of a bi-color before and that lil b@st## would attack me. Those would be your ground guys.
Then maybe if you want a dwarf angel, the pygmy angel was good for me...saw Trop had some coral beauties on sale for about 20 bucks they were good looking fish. All angels can be hit or miss. Cardinals, wrasses, firefish, other schooling fish ...these would be your middle ground.
Then if you want any tangs, rabbitfish, or other larger fish put them in last. I and my experience only is that if you want multiple tangs add them last at the same time. It also helps to not add two tangs that are similar. For example a hippo tang and a yellow tang are pretty dissimilar. But a scopas and yellow tang are close in shape. Hippo tangs have always been good for me have had two one with a naso and one with a desjardini. Same size tank as you and no problems. Tang police can come out after I am done.
The whole idea is to keep the fish from competing too much with each other and provide you with variety.
 

art13

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
JR has the right idea, i can just add my experience though as well. If you get to know your fish, they all have a personality about them, when i got rid of my idol, my kole tang saw his chance to run the tank, killed the yellow tang and i'm pretty sure terrorized my anthias which are now gone, he even chased after my angel constantly after it was in a tank, i had to turn the lights out for a day and he was ok after that. He was kept in line by my idol, so i picked up a larger sailfin, along with the blue tang, the kole went after the blue tang for a bit but adding him at the same time as the sailfish helped, when the kole went for the sail fin, he wasn't going to take his crap and after a few days, put the kole back into his place. now everyone is peaceful. I've had a purple firefish for a couple years as well, i recently added another one with no aggression, though they suggest to add in at the same time if you want more than one. My tank is well fed, so that probably helps, but anything can vary in this hobby. There's one guy my friend was telling me about, i think he has like 20 different clowns in a tank thats someplace around 40g and hasn't had an issue. Ridiculous, but it's working for him for some reason.
 
Quick note...add the tangs last. Try to add smaller less aggressive fish first.
I really enjoy fish, more than corals to be honest, getting different acting fish is a goal I have. Even in freshwater I have a boatload of schooling fish and added some kribensis which totally reinvigorated how I felt about the tank.
Back on track.
I would suggest a couple smaller fish gobies, blennies, maybe an orchid dottyback the ORA ones are pretty friendly, I had a terror of a bi-color before and that lil b@st## would attack me. Those would be your ground guys.
Then maybe if you want a dwarf angel, the pygmy angel was good for me...saw Trop had some coral beauties on sale for about 20 bucks they were good looking fish. All angels can be hit or miss. Cardinals, wrasses, firefish, other schooling fish ...these would be your middle ground.
Then if you want any tangs, rabbitfish, or other larger fish put them in last. I and my experience only is that if you want multiple tangs add them last at the same time. It also helps to not add two tangs that are similar. For example a hippo tang and a yellow tang are pretty dissimilar. But a scopas and yellow tang are close in shape. Hippo tangs have always been good for me have had two one with a naso and one with a desjardini. Same size tank as you and no problems. Tang police can come out after I am done.
The whole idea is to keep the fish from competing too much with each other and provide you with variety.


+1 on the aggressive dottyback, I had a bicolor in the 54G and suffice to say that was the last fish I was able to add to that tank. The clowns got along with it, but it killed every other fish I tried to add to the tank. My Tang wishlist: Yellow, Hippo, Salifin, Purple and a Kole
 
JR has the right idea, i can just add my experience though as well. If you get to know your fish, they all have a personality about them, when i got rid of my idol, my kole tang saw his chance to run the tank, killed the yellow tang and i'm pretty sure terrorized my anthias which are now gone, he even chased after my angel constantly after it was in a tank, i had to turn the lights out for a day and he was ok after that. He was kept in line by my idol, so i picked up a larger sailfin, along with the blue tang, the kole went after the blue tang for a bit but adding him at the same time as the sailfish helped, when the kole went for the sail fin, he wasn't going to take his crap and after a few days, put the kole back into his place. now everyone is peaceful. I've had a purple firefish for a couple years as well, i recently added another one with no aggression, though they suggest to add in at the same time if you want more than one. My tank is well fed, so that probably helps, but anything can vary in this hobby. There's one guy my friend was telling me about, i think he has like 20 different clowns in a tank thats someplace around 40g and hasn't had an issue. Ridiculous, but it's working for him for some reason.


I know I am taking a risk with multiple clowns, but I am banking on the fact that were added at the same time. Moving up from the 54G to the 120G is a big step that brings more fish into play and I am excited to the get this tank stocked over the coming months.
 
Well the brown diatom bloom has transformed into a powdery green algae outbreak that has my entire tank covered and my water cloudy. Over the past three days I have adjusted the skimmer to skim wetter, done three water changes. Hoping that this will resolve itself soon.
 
I added live rock, two hermits and some snails to the tank and boom! Algae bloom, it was impossible to
keep the glass clean.Algae Bloom--January 2017.jpgpost-Algae Bloom-- February 2017.jpg

The tank after water changes and siphoning out as much algae as I could.

The diatoms have died down, the green film algae gone and the water is clear now.

Between the live rock and the clean up crew there is now bryopsis and some GHA in the tank.

Now I get to see if the Algae scrubber will out compete the nuisance algae in the display tank.

Let's Goooooo!
 
Last edited:
I forgot to post, picked up some corals over the past week and a half.

1x GSP, I plan on mounting it to one of the overflow
1x GSP (yellow) will mount to other overflow
1x small frag of Galaxia
2x small colonies of Zoas

So far the corals are doing well in the tank.

Galaxia.jpg GSP.jpg GSP (Yellow).jpg Zoas.jpg
 
Firefish in the QT are doing well, should be ready for the DT in two weeks.

Added a white pipe organ coral, one of my favorites and a branching hammer.

I plan on getting a frogspawn and torch to complete the euphyllia trifecta.
 
It has been awhile therefore here is my overdue update:

Fish-

The clownfish are working out okay in the tank. After some aggression issues things have settled down. I added two firefish, of which one remains the other went basement floor surfing and turned into fish jerky. I need to make a net top for the tank, add that to the list of things to do. The last fish to go in were three Chromis about a month ago. I am debating which direction to go with my fish stocking.
 
Corals-

The galaxia frag has tripled in size and has since been attached to my overflow. The yellow GSP is attached to the other overflow. The Zoas are growing steadily and I will be looking to add to the collection in the coming months. The pipe organ is growing nicely.

I love plate corals and have since added a green long tentacle and an orange short tentacle.

The euphyllia trifecta has been achieved, picked up a frogspawn and torch last week, both are doing great. The hammer coral is already splitting its heads, started with five and I am quickly on my way to ten.

My favorite recent addition has been a RBTA. It has been in the tank for about two months. It is awesome! It divided last and now I have two!
 

Mark_C

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NJRC Member
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Looks great! The scale of the tank with the clowns makes me want to go out and do something that would inevitably lead to my wife murdering me (though there would then be a 120+ gallon tank available cheap)
 
Tank and water-

My filtration strategy of filter socks, DC skimmer and Algae Scrubber is doing well. Since the bioload is small scrubber has taken a long time to come online. Right now I run it 12 hours a day on reverse cycle and hair algae is starting to grow on the screen. Coraline algae is starting to cover the rock work and the bryopsis in the tank, what little there was, is pretty much gone. In its place is some bubble algae that I think came in on the Hammer Coral. I am trying manual removal, but I might get an emerald crab if it gets out of hand.

I owe pictures for all.
 
Phospate last test was .10 ppm on a Hanna, I was in a rush and was not able to retest since it was a big increase since the previous week. I upped the flow and light intensity in the Scrubber and will retest later this week to see if it went down. Nitrates are at or below 1ppm on a Nyos kit. This has been consistent since it started testing.

I am manually dosing Alk and Calcium as needed. I am debating on getting a dosing setup, right now I am doing manual dosing with BRS 2-part.
 
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