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GiantBen's BC29 - New Pics


GiantBen

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Latest pics HERE

 

I have a BC29 with the following changes:

 

(1) No false floor in C1. My heater is there

(2) BioBalls are gone from C2. I'll be running an inTank media rack and fuge there. Nothing is there currently.

(3) I have a MaxJet 1200 pump

(4) I have a Koralia 1

(5) 20lbs fine sand

(6) 19lbs LR

(7) I am using Red Sea Salt

 

I filled it up last night. Comments/Questions:

 

(1) The water in C2 and C3 is very high. Should I worry about this. It looks somewhat stagnant in C3, and is well above the "Max" line on the side of the tank. The surface is pretty undisturbed.

 

(2) I put all the salt in the tank directly, after I added the water. There were a few areas where salt collected on top of the sand, but it seems to have dissolved for the most part. I checked it with my refracto this morning and it was a little low: 1.023. I'll wait a couple days and see if it balances out or not.

 

(3) The LR I got from my LFS seemed decent. Had a bnunch of junk growing on it. One of the rocks has a muscle (or something) in one of the crannies. It didn't pull off easy. I left it in. Should I remove it?

 

(4) I plan on getting more LR, but wanted to scape what I had, then pick pieces to enhance later.

 

(5) Still working on getting good pics. I'm using my HD camcorder, which may not be the best choice.

 

Here is the FTS

DSC00064.jpg

 

Thanks for any comments.

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The Minimum and Maximum line are only for when u have bioballs in it... So u won't have to worry. I keep my water in the back chambers up very high with water. Chamber 3 will also look like it's not moving to much.

 

I would also try and get your salinity up to about 1.025 or 1.026

 

But right now its not a huge deal since u have nothing living in ur tank yet.

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The Minimum and Maximum line are only for when u have bioballs in it... So u won't have to worry. I keep my water in the back chambers up very high with water. Chamber 3 will also look like it's not moving to much.

 

I would also try and get your salinity up to about 1.025 or 1.026

 

But right now its not a huge deal since u have nothing living in ur tank yet.

 

 

Agreed. My water level is also very high but doesn't really matter. I keep my salt at around 1.024-1.025.

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Okay, I got 12lbs more live rock, and pulled the muscles out of their holes. The small brown one was definatley alive (I broke it trying to get it out of the hole it was in). I tossed the small one, but decided to leave the bigger one somewhere I could easily pull it out if I wanted. Not sure if it is alive, but I have seen it's shell be more or less open recently, so I think it is. I reworked my aquascape and am pretty happy with it. Comments? I'll be adding some more salt to raise my salinity and re-measuring in the morning.

 

New FTS

DSC00077.jpg

 

The muscle I left in the tank (on the shelf to the left).

DSC00078.jpg

 

 

I think when I get my filter floss in there the water will clear up.

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the green macro algae looks like grape calupera to me, you should remove that rock asap and do a thorough job of completely removing it and make sure no small bits of it remain before placing the rock back in the tank

 

this is a debatable topic though, some will tell you they never had a problem with it, some will tell you it's as bad as aiptasia or majano anemones (two other things you want to look for and remove asap), calupera is known to go "sexual" and take over

 

here is a nice resource for ID'ing mant different things, he also has lots of other info on the site, when you have time check it out

 

http://www.melevsreef.com/id/

 

looks good so far, the water will clear, i dont have a nano tank so the specifics on that i have to leave to the nano guys n gals ;)

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the green macro algae looks like grape calupera to me, you should remove that rock asap and do a thorough job of completely removing it and make sure no small bits of it remain before placing the rock back in the tank

 

Hmm. The LFS guy said that stuff isn't supposed to be in CA, since it can mess up the eco system. I'll keep an eye on it. The rock is in the bottom of the tank atm.

 

The clam/muscle I posted earlier seems to be alive (shell snaps closed when I turn the light on), but he has some crap coming out of him, so I doubt he makes it. Should I just toss him?

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the green macro algae looks like grape calupera to me, you should remove that rock asap and do a thorough job of completely removing it and make sure no small bits of it remain before placing the rock back in the tank

 

this is a debatable topic though, some will tell you they never had a problem with it, some will tell you it's as bad as aiptasia or majano anemones (two other things you want to look for and remove asap), calupera is known to go "sexual" and take over

here is a nice resource for ID'ing mant different things, he also has lots of other info on the site, when you have time check it out

 

http://www.melevsreef.com/id/

 

looks good so far, the water will clear, i dont have a nano tank so the specifics on that i have to leave to the nano guys n gals ;)

I would remove it!

 

I had a piece that size come in on a frag... Now, it has overgrown every rock in my tank. Get a handle on it now!

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Heh okay. I'll post some of these in other forums and see if I can get a consensus on how to proceed. At this point I'm inclined to leave the worms and pull out the ball algae.

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Couple things now.

 

Based on advise given, I removed as much of the grape algae as I could find. This caused me to remove the rocks, and change much of my aquascape. I redid it again this morning because I didn't like the outcome. I'll post some pics when the water clears.

 

I left the worms in the tank because I was told they are good for it. This is a good thing because I don't know how the hell I would have tried to remove them.

 

I found another clam(muscle?) in one of my rocks. I pulled it out of it's hole. That makes three found, one killed (accidentally). I put the other two on top of the rock ledge to the right of the tank. The small one has re-attached itself where I put it. This morning the larger one had move to the underside of the ledge and re-attached itself. The junk that was hanging off the front of it must have been it's old suction cup from when I removed it from its original location, because it had left it behind (I tossed it).

 

I'll post some pics of them later with the new scape.

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Okay, my salinity is at 1.026, and my temp is hovering between 79-80F. I have not done any water tests yet, because it has on;y been 2 days, so I didn't see a point.

 

Here are some shots of the new aquascape. I wanted a ridge along the right, with more of an open "courtyard" in the center. I tried to open it up a little and add some height variation since last time.

In the "right" pick, you can see the clam that was in one of the rocks. he is now hanging under the outcropping on the right. I'll post more questions about him in another thread.

 

The things I was going for were:

(1) To have a flat area fir a coral field

(2) Some swimming room for fish, with a tunnel/cave (on the right)

(3) Have a decent amount of open sand bed

(4) My LFS sells coral colonies on base-ball sized rocks, so I'd like to be able to add some of these.

(5) Add more variety (compared to previous tries) of height between the left and right. Now the left side is pretty low except at the very back.

(6) Allow better flow in the center of the tank

(7) Be able to get my magnet scraper all the way round and on all of the glass. This should also give the fish some swim room over there if they want it.

 

Comments welcome. I think I can get my turkey baster anywhere in there. The rock on the bottom right is pretty airy, so I think I can shoot water through it.

 

 

FRONT

DSC00089.jpg

 

LEFT

DSC00090.jpg

 

RIGHT

DSC00095.jpg

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