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Opy's BC29 Upgrade!


opy01

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FTS 9-17-2012

 

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Tank upgraded on 3/7/2010

 

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Tank born on 5/25/2009

 

My current setup:

10G DT

20 lbs live sand and 15-18 lbs live rock

10G Sump/fuge with 10 lbs live sand, 10 lbs live rubble, caulerpa and small amount of cheato

LED lighting for DT thanks to Evil's help (13 w and 13 rb run by 2 Meanwell ELN-60-48D) More info on page 2

45W 6,000k CF light for fuge

Reefkeeper Light with 2x PC4, ALC, SL2, SG and ph probe

Eheim 1250 for ATO controlled by the Reefkeeper (probably overkill but it was just laying around)

heater and 2 computer fans for temp control

Continuous Siphon 600 gph overflow with dosing pump for air removal (it's a must)

Bak-pak 2+ HOB skimmer with external and modded internal bubble traps

Pentair 3000 (780 gph) return pump

hose and lock-line for return plumbing

 

Livestock:

2 onyx clowns

tail spot blenny

rainbow monti

idaho grape monti

orange digi

blue/green tennius

green slimer

hydnophora

brain coral

frogspawn

lots o zoas

green star polyps

silver ric

metalic orange ric

2 random shrooms (in hiding :ninja: )

1.3 nassarius snails ( the .2 one is just small lol)

tons of cerith snails

hermits

tons of little white sponges

 

Hitchhikers

 

Good:

 

amphipods

brachiopod (at work)

bristle worms

brittle stars

asteriniid stars

clams

copepods

feather dusters

hair worms

isopods

limpets

peanut worm (maybe)

spirorbis

stomatella

vermetid

Corynactis (a.k.a. ball) anemone

 

Bad:

 

aptasia (still hanging on :rant: )

flatworms (on the front glass of my work tank, unknown if they are good or bad since there only a few small ones)

mantis shrimp (rip :owned: )

red bugs (gone I hope :scarry: )

 

As of 9-7-09 my Reefkeeper light controls everything like my ATO, my heater and fans, my LED day lights, my lunar LEDs etc. I have been toying with the idea of a second ATO with SW only to run if SG goes below 1.024 and have RO if SG is above 1.024. End of update.

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Thanks guys!

 

Right now I have a 20" Current Sattelite 10,000k 40W x 1. I am currently working on an LED system that should be done by the end of the month if my optics from the group buy show up by then. The case was supposed to be here yesterday according the Fed-Ex but as usual their tracking system lied and it wont be here till tomorrow... if I am lucky.

 

On my fuge I have 15W 5,500k CF from Home Depot.

 

I am heading to the LFS to check out one or two more corrals this weekend if my wife allows lol.

 

Original post from July 14 2009 moved from Post 1 to keep it as the most up to date info and FTS:

 

Since I have been trolling these forums and involved in a couple of threads I thought I would introduce myself and my tank. My name is Oscar and I am from Texas and I have been keeping fresh water fish and other stuff for many years. I have wanted a saltwater aquarium for a while but I always thought it was too expensive and alot of work... turns out I was right lol. I started doing research back in April then finally started putting stuff together for my build in mid May. I have several 20"x12"x10" 10G tanks from other projects that are long over so I took a couple and put together a 10G DT with a 10G sump/fuge. May 24th I went and got the water, live sand and some live rock from a LFS and put it all together. They have a really nice 8G nano that the manger has on display so I have been following his advice and guidence on most stuff. Both systems have evolved from my original plan into a (IMO) nice setup that seems to work for me. It has been a huge learning experience and the people here and on a couple of other forums have been a huge help.

 

My tank started out with 10lbs of LR and 15lbs of LS with a HOB filter and now it has about 15-18lbs of LR and a nice sump/fuge with about 15lbs of LS, live rubble and 3 different types of macroalgae. I went through a horrible cyano outbreak not too long ago and now it's gone from my DT and 95% gone from my fuge. I have 3 different types of soft coral in there right now, some hermits, a nassarious snail and a peppermint shrimp. The peppermint shrimp isnt the brightest of the lot, he's been sucked into the sump a couple of times and I think he may have a little dain bramage since he hasnt eaten since then... then again he could still be in shock. I can't seem to keep turbos alive so i ordered some cerith snails to see how they do. Everything else is doing great. I do have some hair algae growing but I will get that taken care of soon enough and I try to scrub it off periodically. Here are some pictures of my tank and its progression.

 

My test setup

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My sump after the build (always drill the holes before glueing :blush: )

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My sump being tested

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My tank right after the innitial setup

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Evolving into something nice

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Sump evolving

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The bio-balls are now removed and the cheato is in there. The caulerpa is doing awesome too. I dont recomend sea grass to a beginner.

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My enitre setup

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My corals (that rock had at least 11 shrooms on it so I decided to remove two of the smaller ones and attach them to another rock)

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Well Shrimpy (my pep shrimp) died this morning. Stupid shrimp shoulda stayed out of the sump. He was stuck in a hole so when I got him out of the hole he slipped by me and went into the return pump chamber... you probably know where this is going. This was his third trip to the sump and I was hoping he wouldn't go back, now I dont have to worry about that. Well it's a good thing the crab I am getting can't swim up to the overflow.

 

On a brighter not, I am going to the LFS today to get about 5 lbs of rubble to put where the bio-balls were. That mat help with my somewhat high nitrates. I am also getting the stuff to finish my second tank and some more parts for my LED setup. I will have to post pics of that this weeknend.

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Sadly one of my trumpets, that was splitting, is receding and does not look good at all. The center is still green but shrunken and you can clearly see the outline of the bone all around the edges of the coral and one of the mouths looks like it is gaping. I posted in the coral threads and I will be trying a sugestion from SPS20. Hopefully it will recover.

 

On a brighter note I did get a nice star polyp this past weekend and ended up splitting that into 2 medium and 2 small corals and I also got an emerald crab at the same time. The two small star polyp, 2 shrooms I transfered and a small rock of zoas will go in my other 10G I am setting up to take to my office.

 

I also ordered some cerith snails, small hermits and a red mithrax crab and they came in on Tuesday to help with a small algae problem. Well I needed them anyways. The red crab, hermits and half the snails went into my office tank and the rest of the snails went into my main tank in the livingroom. Now when I ordered 20 cerith snails I was not aware the guy was going to send about 100 of them lol. When the lights go out one side of the tank looks like its infested with snails lol. We'll see how they do on the algae.

 

I finished my LED light last week, minus the optics, and put it on my other tank for testing since the only thing in there at the time was about 5 lbs of LR, 20 lbs of LS and a hermit. It was working great for a couple of days so I transfered it to my DT last night in hopes that it will help my trumpet coral. I have pictures of it on my other tank but I will wait to post pics till tomorrow when I can get some good ones of it on my main tank.

 

Other than the couple of small problems, that I was warned about getting into nanos, all my specs are good and constant now.

 

Calcium is 460

Alk is 10

pH is 8.2

amonia is 0

nitrites are 0

nitrates are 10-20

phosphates are 0

SG is 1.025-1.026

temps are 78.8-79.2 at all times (thanks to my RKL)

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Thanks, I got some pics last night so I figured I'd post them.

 

Here is my tank as of last night. It's a good thing the emerald crab and cerith snails came in because my algae was getting out of hand.

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This is Bulldozer, my emerald crab. He is keeping my hair agae mowed. No seriuosly, it looks like a freshly cut lawn as seen in the next pic lol.

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Here is my mushroom rock. Once my blue mushroom sticks to the rock I have it on a couple of these will be transfered to another rock to make room for growth. On the right side is the algae that my emerald keeps mowed down. Does anyone know what those little bug things on the algae are?

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These are my new star polyps. I will get better pics soon without the pumps going.

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Another pic of my zoas. They seem to like the new LED light.

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Here is my trumpet coral. the one on the left seems to be really thin. Hopefully target feeding them will help.

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This was an interesting discovery. I must have gotten him when I got the shipment of 100 snails. I have no clue what it is. Anyone?

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Well I had an expensive weekend. I got a new coral for my main tank and finished stocking the LR on my office tank I am building. My new macro lense should be here tomorrow hopefully so I can get some really really good pics :D. Here are some new pics.

 

This is my emerald crab, Bulldozer. Named that because every morning I have to pick up at least one coral that isnt glued down lol.

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This is my new rock with a few different things on it. I mainly got it for the soft coral on top but it came with a random SPS also.

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Here is my tank I am taking to my office in a couple of weeks.

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Here is one of my 3 known hitchhikers. I got one more of these and a fan coral. I will be picking up a pepermint shrimp today to keep him company lol.

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Ok so Monday right after work I went to get a pep shrimp to take care of that aptasia and when i got home and put him in the tank my red mithrax crab was standing where the aptasia was wiping his mouth off lol. I am not sure but I really think it ate the aptasia.

 

On a side note, when working with acrylic be sure to have two of everything cut. I was working on a new overflow, because mine sucks and is way too big, and I ended up bending the wrong spot and when I tried to fix it it just snaped. oops. Its a good thing I had two cut lol. Hopefully when i get done with this I can put another shrimp in there and not have it sucked into the sump.

 

I got my lenses in for my LED light and put them on two nights ago. When I got home my newest coral was closed up and the lenses on the back row made the blue LED only shine on it. I dont know if it was that or if a crab had just walked on them. Either way I had to take the back row of lenses off since the back of the tank is rock about half way up. That helped with lighting the back of the tank more evenly. I will see tonight if it is happier. Other than that the tank looks good and I moved 4 small coral over to my office tank. If they like it over there I will glue the rubble that they are on down to stuff.

 

Picutres coming tomorrow!

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Huh, can't believe I missed this before... Nice little tank! (I love 10 gallons :wub: )

 

Just a thought about that live rock rubble... if the pieces aren't at least 2" round or larger, I doubt much denitrification will occur (depending on the porosity of the rock), since oxygen can penetrate up to 1" in a porous substrate. I've been wrong before though... I didn't think my rock would be able to keep the nitrate in my tank down.

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Thanks. The thread gets burried fast but now that I have it in my sig maybe a few more people will see it lol.

 

So you are saying that the bacteria that changes nitrites into nitrates live deeper in the rock than 1" because of the oxygen that gets in the pores of the rock? So rubble 1" or smaller will not have that bacteria?

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Thanks. The thread gets burried fast but now that I have it in my sig maybe a few more people will see it lol.

 

So you are saying that the bacteria that changes nitrites into nitrates live deeper in the rock than 1" because of the oxygen that gets in the pores of the rock? So rubble 1" or smaller will not have that bacteria?

It's my understanding that in order to get the benefits of a deep sand bed's anaerobic bacteria, the sandbed needs to be greater than 3". In addition, there needs to be large surface area. Otherwise it tends to trap waste and may cause increased nitrate levels since there is not enough anaerobic bacteria to break it down. This is primarily why most people with nano tanks keep a sand bed of only 1"-2", or none at all.

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Interesting, I will have to do more research on that. Most of my rubble in my sump is about 1" or so but there are a few larger ones. It's gotta be better than the bio-balls lol.

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Interesting, I will have to do more research on that. Most of my rubble in my sump is about 1" or so but there are a few larger ones. It's gotta be better than the bio-balls lol.

Sorry, Opy - I misread your post. You were talking about liverock rubble, and I was talking about sandbeds (that's what I get for speed reading). I'm not sure if the DSB science applied to liverock ... Maybe someone else knows?

 

Reading over the posts better, I'm not even sure I understand what liverock rubble BlueAbyss is talking about.

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I'm so confused today :wacko:

 

So I finally get what you guys are talking about, and I agree with BlueAbyss. I haven't used rubble as a filtration medium because I agree with the theory of those that say it'll just trap detriutus and cause nitrates to build up. I've read some people on NR use it though, with no issues... so I guess if it's working for you, great.

 

I'd suggest though, that if you notice any unmanageable increases in nitrates, to check there first.

 

Done. Brain less confused.

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I read the same about bio-balls. As far as the nitrates, I was overfeeding a little and thats why they went up some. Those are back under control though. I have cut waaaaaaay back since shrimpy past on. Now I dont target feed anything except my trumpets and they only get a couple of shimp twice a week... if that.

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Nice Opy. i really like seeing the way tanks evolve and you have done a great job documenting so far. any close ups of the LED array?

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I will get some tonight, as for right now I got a call so I get to drive an hour to get a stupid server back up :rant: . I also got my macro lense today so I will post my first macro shot later too.

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Thanks. The thread gets burried fast but now that I have it in my sig maybe a few more people will see it lol.

Yeah this is a really active site... it's frustrating sometimes, since I don't generally go further than page 3 when looking at people's tanks, but it's great conversationally (and means that people check the site more often!).

 

So you are saying that the bacteria that changes nitrites into nitrates live deeper in the rock than 1" because of the oxygen that gets in the pores of the rock? So rubble 1" or smaller will not have that bacteria?

 

I mean the bacteria that takes the step after that... nitrates to nitrogen (correct me if I'm wrong), the ones that reduce nitrate. I understand they are anaerobic, and that oxygen doesn't penetrate much deeper than 1" in even a very porous substrate (like a gravel bed) because it gets used up by aerobic bacteria in that first 1". This was information from the undergravel filter days (I've been interested in starting a reef tank that long :lol:), so it may not apply here, but I think the science behind it is still valid.

 

It's my understanding that in order to get the benefits of a deep sand bed's anaerobic bacteria, the sandbed needs to be greater than 3". In addition, there needs to be large surface area. Otherwise it tends to trap waste and may cause increased nitrate levels since there is not enough anaerobic bacteria to break it down. This is primarily why most people with nano tanks keep a sand bed of only 1"-2", or none at all.

 

It would seem that way, people that have had the most success with DSBs seem to have at least a 6" sand bed (which is around the minimum for the true seagrass Thalassia ;) ) and relatively large tanks. I also understood the same, that a DSB needs to be at least 3" to be effective against nitrate. I suspect this might have more to do with the efficiency of the bacteria than the depth of oxygen penetration in the sandbed.

 

Sorry for all the long windedness... if you feel it's too much I'll edit my post, just shoot me a PM.

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Never remove good info! lol Now that I read over it again I am wondering why I even thought you meant nitrites to nitrates. I knew that you meant nitrates to nitrogen but thanks to your last post I understand even more and it makes a whole lot more sense now. Thanks for the long winded explanation lol.

 

Thanks to a corrupt hard disk my whole evening of playing with toys was ruined. I managed to get one good pic though. I will post it in a few when I connect to my house and upload it. It's been a rough couple of days anyways. I tried my first fragging a few weeks ago with some shrooms. I took two of them and put them on one rock and used the mesh cloth to hold them down. A week later they were attached. Now I moved those two (on one rock) into my other tank and I lost one of them the first 24 hours. Who know where he went to but the other one is still there. Maybe the shrimp pulled it off accidentally when cleaning the rock. I still have at least 9 more shrroms on that one large rock so I will get a couple more and attach them to some small rocks later.

 

I got home late last night to find my emerald crab eating (I think) my anthelia. There were maybe 5 polyps left on it yesterday and last night I only saw about 3 and they looked bad. I have seen the crab eating some of the algae on it, the stuff on the back right, but he didnt seem like he was bothering the coral... at first. I have now quarantiened it in the other tank inside one of those plastic things that Petsmart puts the fish in before bagging them. It is submerged so the crabs in there cannot get to it but it still gets some circulation. I also thought I saw some aptasia on it but I am not too sure so now the pepermint shrimp can get in there and take care of that if needed. I know a few of those coral are still alive so we will see what happens.

 

This is what it looked like the day I brought it home. Now there are maybe 2-3 polyps left.

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Well the couple of polyps on my anthelia are still there so I will leave them in that tank for a while... or for good. While I have a minute I will post one of my first pics using my new macro lense. I will take more detailed pics of my light later tonight if I am awake. It's been one of those weeks you know.

 

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Wow, nice zoa pic!

 

:lol: I actually had an even longer explanation and a theory or two, but edited heavily because I didn't want to 'intrude' on your tank thread. Next time I'll just go ahead ;)

 

If your Anthelia seems to be dying in the next few days, (or at least not doing any better), I'll bet the emerald was just doing his scavenging thing.

 

EDIT: I want to add something, about what I said about oxygen penetration being limited to the upper layers of a medium... if your medium is 'solid' like live rock (with a porous surface and gradually less porous the deeper you go) it may not take an inch of depth to provide a suitable area for denitrifying bacteria, but I think the efficiency issue would still come into play. It may take a lot of live rock rubble to give any benefit if that's the case.

 

I also wanted to add that my tank has never seen nitrate, when I have tested. 0. Actually, I take that back... this tank has never tested positive for ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate. Where it goes, I don't know... but I do feed the tank, so it must be going somewhere, and the Bryopsis being gone hasn't changed anything... still no nitrate. Coralline has taken off in the past few days though... not sure what that means.

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