Spleen's 15 gallon nano

[spleenman]

I finally have a tank, with live rock and water. First real step to having the nano of my dreams!

 

This isn't my first SW aquarium, but I've only had one before, a 35G about 20 years ago. No live rock, just fish and an undergravel filter. Love it until someone decided to break into my apartment and put my motorcycle helmet through the front of the aquarium! They didn't even steal anything - not one thing. So it must have been something personal, I guess... but I digress! Back to my tank...

 

15 gallon 24"x12"x12"

Aquatraders 24" 4x24W T5HO with moonlights

2 Koralia 1s

100W Marineland Stealth Pro heater

28ish lbs of Vanuatu live rock

18ish lbs of Caribsea Ocean Direct live sand

 

My rock arrrived this morning at the airport, and by pure coincidence a friend of mine called while I was getting ready to go pick it up. Turned out he was AT the airport doing some paperwork for a trip, so I had him pick it up for me and bring it by my house. Sweet, saved a trip...

 

Unpacked the rock. It smelled good, actually. Very ocean like, nothing rotting about it at all. However, I was disappointed by the look of it when I took it out. Not quite as nice as the pictures, but I guess nothing ever is. Nice and light, good sizes of pieces, though they are almost all basically pyramid shaped. Lightly scrubbed it in some salt water and rinsed it off.

 

Wow. Aquascaping is incredibly annoying to do. Took me an hour, and still looks awful! Worse than if I'd just thrown all the rock in there randomly! Still, someone made a comment in my beginners thread that I'd probably want to move it around anyway later, so not to worry too much about it now. I really appreciate that comment, lol. He/she also suggested that this would be worth doing to ensure there's no detritus rotting underneath it, which sounds like a good idea to me.

 

Poured in the sand, what a mess. I like the theory behind putting the rock in first then the sand, but wow would it have been easier to put the sand in first. Hard to squeeze it in and around all the rocks, and because the water gets so cloudy I have no idea while I'm doing it whether the distribution is any good at all. I guess I'll have a lot of sand to blow off the rocks once it clears up.

 

Now I guess I get going on my cycle! I'll be running my lights as soon as the water clears up a bit. Should I start running them now even though the water is pretty murky? Should I bother testing the water in the first day or two, or wait until it clears? I don't even know if I could actually test any parameters with water this riddled with sand and gunk...

 

Opinions on whether I should do a good water change tomorrow? I was thinking of about 3-4 gallons tomorrow as I have that much water left over from my first purchase. I'll be going out to get more tomorrow either way.

 

Now a few pics, since everyone loves pics in a tank thread!

 

Here's the tank after setup before water on saturday.

 

Next, full of salt water sunday night.

 

Box of live rock has arrived!

 

But my cat has decided that it's his. Every box is, really.

 

He's old and sick, but he's still the man.

 

And finally, the best new tank FTS EVAR!!!!!!!! Look at my brilliant aquascaping and marvel!!

 

It's actually only half frustrating to not be able to see. It's also kind of fun - a mystery slowly emerging from the murky depths! I could have gotten ANYTHING as hitch hikers! For all I know, there could be a WHALE in there! Or a sunken pirate ship full of dubloons! Dubloons!!

 

Damn, I can't wait for the water to clear out a bit...

 

Thanks for looking, and cross your fingers for me! I'm really hoping for a whale...

[mbarton2010]

nice cat

[spleenman]

Thanks. He's great.

 

So over 24 hours in now, and my water has cleared up, hurray!

 

Tested everything I could today, as follows:

 

SG: 1.023

Temp 78.1 F

Ammonia/NH3: 0.18 mg/L

Nitrite/NO2-: 0.4 mg/L

Nitrate/NO3-: 4 mg/L

pH: 8.05

Alkalinity: 4 meq/L (*2.8 = 11.2 dKH)

 

So I guess my pH is a bit low, but not too bad. And the Ammonia is high, so I probably want to go ahead with a first water change ASAP if I'm hoping to soft cycle. Sound about right?

 

Now that the water's cleared up a bit, here's an FTS where you can actually see something:

 

Can't say I'm sure about the 'scaping, but it will do for now. Maybe as I look at it I'll become inspired with a new idea.

 

Some macro seems to be perking up. I haven't identified what kind it is yet, I'm a little afraid to in case it turns out to be some horrible nuisance! I'm a little nervous about the hairy stuff that seems to be prevalent right now.

 

Here's a close up of one of the nicer pieces of rock. Sorry for the bad pictures, guess I have to learn how to use my camera properly now!

 

Here's another one of the nicer pieces

 

And finally, can anyone tell me what this is? I'm hoping it's something good, but haven't actually gone looking to find out yet...

[spleenman]

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

 

End of day 2. No visible changes yet, aside from the water getting a little clearer.

 

Did a 33% water change wednesday night, and another 33% thursday night.

 

Here's some more parameters:

 

Thursday, 6PM (Pre-water change):

SG 1.022

Temp: 78.1

Ammonia: 0.11 mg/L

Nitrite: 0.1 mg/L

Nitrate: 1.0 mg/L

 

Thursday night (Friday morning), 1AM (After 10pm water change)

SG 1.025

Temp: 78.1

Ammonia: 0.015 mg/L

Nitrite: <0.1 mg/L

Nitrate: <0.2 mg/L

 

That's a big jump in SG in a short time, I know. I was trying to raise it a bit when I did my water change, by replacing 33% with 1.025 SG water, but somehow ended up changing it a lot. Guess I'll have to be more careful about this in future water changes. I'm hoping it won't have done much damage with no real livestock in the tank yet.

 

Nothing really going on in there right now. A bit of algae, still hard to tell if even it is growing.

There's still a lot of detritus floating around in there. I try to get it out when I do my water changes, but there always seems to be lots left.

 

Any advice, tips, tricks, words of encouragement?

 

Here's a new FTS. Water was still a bit cloudy from the water change, but nothing seems to have changed much since yesterday.

[cruiZe]

to N-R !! and to the 15g club !

 

looks great so far. seabass has tons of info on cycling, he did a lot of experiments on soft cycle, etc. (search for them)

[spleenman]

Thanks, cruiZe!

 

I've read a few of his threads on the subject, but I'll look for more.

[spleenman]

Friday night, no water change.

Test results:

 

NH3: 0.1 mg/L

NH4: 0.18 mg/L

(Which of the above should I be quoting when I list my test results? Do people usually stick to free ammonia (NH3)?)

NO2: 0.4 mg/L

NO3: 0.4 mg/L

 

Saturday night tests:

 

SG 1.023

Temp 77.9F

NH3 0.02 mg/L

NO2 0.5 mg/L

NO3 1.7 mg/L

Alk 3.5 meq/L (*2.8 = 9.8 dKH)

pH 8.13

 

Did another 33% water change tonight.

 

Still no signs of life other than algae!

[spleenman]

Latest FTS, five days in.

 

 

Should I be nervous that the only living thing I've seen in here since I got it is algae?

 

Live rock on the left side

 

 

 

Live rock on the right side

 

 

Does everything look like it's going along properly?

 

Can anyone identify these two things for me?

 

I'm pretty sure I've seen the macro algae growing on the left somewhere, and I'm pretty sure it can be a problem. Should I be doing something about it? And what is it?

 

And the curved cylindrical things, what are they? They look a bit like some sponges I've seen, they have a small opening in the very end, but their colour looks more algae like to me. Not to mention they seem to be recovering from their travel already, and I was prety sure sponges almost never did. I've tried searching the web for them, but haven't had great luck yet. I'm assuming it's an algae.

 

Oh, and I should mention that I'm colour-blind if I'm way off on thinking the cylinders are green...

 

[spleenman]

Monday night/tuesday morning, 1AM:

 

SG: 1.023

Temp: 77.9F

 

NH3: 0.05 mg/L

NO2: 0.7 mg/L

NO3: 1.8 mg/L

pH: 8.12

alk: 3 meq/L (*2.8 = 8.4 dKH) - This keeps going down, should I be concerned or doing anything about it?

 

I can't be sure, but I think I saw my first life in there last night. Though this morning I'm starting to doubt it. The moonlights were on, and I snuck over near the tank and was looking around. I could swear I saw some kind of leg moving on top of my live rock. Looked just like a tarantula moving one of it's legs, so I was thinking crab or maybe some kind of star. Lifting and tapping on the rock tentatively. I quickly went to get a flashlight, but when I got back, I couldn't even be sure about where I had seen it, and couldn't find anything at all! Did I imagine it? Wishful thinking maybe? I'd guess the whatever it was would be about 2.5 or 3 inches across total judging by the size of the one leg I thought I saw...

 

I hate not being sure about this!

[spanko]

Nice setup. Green cyclinders are Neomeris annulata

[spleenman]

Finally, last night, I saw life in the tank that isn't algae!

 

I wasn't imagining the crab, I spotted him creeping around inside some of my live rock. He's about 2 inches across with his hairy legs. I'm sure he's likely a bad crab, though I'll be asking for an ID in the Identification forum later. However, even so, it's nice to have somehing alive!

 

 

 

I also spotted a very long thin tentacle or worm probing around on the outside of the live rock. Managed to get a couple of pics, but it was gone an hour later andI couldn't find it again. Maybe the crab ate it!

 

 

 

And finally some more transparent "psuedopod" looking tentacles. They extended out from the rock an inch or two, but not pressed against the rock like the previous "thing". These ones seemed to be probing for something, and one of them could be clearly seen picking up grains of sand that had settled on the rock and moving them or feeling/tasting them.

 

 

[bluefish]

Cool tank! I like your placement of the live rocks, it really fits the shape of the tank. Did you ID the crab yet? I am setting my my first ever saltwater tank, a 14 gal biocube. I still have to mix up some salt water and then go get some rocks and sand. Did you use live sand? What sand is that it looks really fine.

 

 

 

Finally, last night, I saw life in the tank that isn't algae!

 

I wasn't imagining the crab, I spotted him creeping around inside some of my live rock. He's about 2 inches across with his hairy legs. I'm sure he's likely a bad crab, though I'll be asking for an ID in the Identification forum later. However, even so, it's nice to have somehing alive!

 

 

 

I also spotted a very long thin tentacle or worm probing around on the outside of the live rock. Managed to get a couple of pics, but it was gone an hour later andI couldn't find it again. Maybe the crab ate it!

 

 

 

And finally some more transparent "psuedopod" looking tentacles. They extended out from the rock an inch or two, but not pressed against the rock like the previous "thing". These ones seemed to be probing for something, and one of them could be clearly seen picking up grains of sand that had settled on the rock and moving them or feeling/tasting them.

 

 

[spleenman]

Thanks! Yeah, the arrangement of the rocks has grown on me a bit. I'm especially happy with the channel that runs diagonally between the two "islands" down the middle.

 

The sand was Carib Sea Ocean Direct Live sand. It seems pretty fine, although I do have alot of flow in the tank and for the most part is stays put. There's one spot where I have a little vortex of water which moves a dozen of hte larger sand particles around in a little whirl-water! It's right under one of the Koralias.

 

I think I probably remove some of the finer grains every time I change the water, so I'm probably slowly increasing the average grain size.

 

Good luck on your tank!

 

I did some test again tonight, and have actually decided NOT to do a water change for the 4th night in a row. That makes me nervous, since I'm trying to soft cycle, but the test results just don't seem to call for it. Everything is pretty low, and ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate all seem to be coming down steadily without water changes, so I really don't want to mess with it right now.

 

Please let me know if any of these values are high enough that I should do a water change! There's nothing in there yet except for my hitchhikers, but I do want to try to go as easy as possible on anything that is alive in there as long as I'm not slowing down my overall cycle too much. If I should change water, I gladly will. It's all mixed up and ready to go in, I just decided after the tests tonight that maybe I'd let it run a little more first!

 

SG 1.025

NH3: 0.01 - 0.05 mg/L (SeaChem tests are hard to read, maybe even harder when you're colour blind!)

NO2: 0.05 mg/L

NO3: 0.5 mg/L

 

The nitirite and nitrate have both come way down on the last couple of days. That's a good thing, right? There's certainly no shortage of detritus in there to be feeding the cycle...still all sorts of deal algaes and I'm sure lots of other dead things I can't see...

 

Didn't test Alk or pH tonight, figured there isn't much point in testing these every time. Should I be testing them anyway?

 

I'll probably do another FTS tomorrow, and I have a few more IDs to ask for as I found a couple of small coral looking things that I'm curious about, I'm just too damn tired to take the pics and upload it all tonight!

[spleenman]

Oh, BTW, someone IDed the tentacles in the last and second last pics as peanut worms. From what I read up about them, seems to be a pretty solid ID.

 

The worm/tentacle from the 3rd to last pic is still unidentified. Anyone help out?

 

I believe the crab is a gorilla crab, as suggested by several people. I guess I should be thinking about getting him out, but he's my first real animal in there, lol, so I'm reluctant. Also, I'd have a hard time killing him and have no refugium to put him in.

 

This looks very much like him, as near as I can tell. He's usually pretty far in the rocks so it's hard to get a real picture of him, but this matches everything I've seen of him!

 

 

Damn guy is kind of cute...

[spleenman]

Day 9. The algae is getting a bit crazy, so I'm open to suggestions about anything I can do for it! I see hair algae, and have quiet a bit of it, and I've spotted some bubble algae just starting to grow. I also have a bit of caulerpa, though only one piece I can see yet, so I should probably yank it before it's too late!

 

Here's a couple of pictures showing the live rock and algae.

 

 

 

Here's the caulerpa...

 

 

And here are some strange tubes I've found lieing at the bottom of one piece of live rock. Anyone have any ideas what it is?

 

 

And a coral I found and am asking about in the ID thread. I hope it's still alive and is worth saving!

 

 

And a polyp like guy that I'm hoping isn't some sort of aptaisia I don't recognize because it's so small:

 

 

And finally my latest FTS as of this afternoon!

 

[spleenman]

Tonight's test results:

 

SG 1.025

NH3: ~0.008 mg/L (def. less than 0.01)

Is this value getting a bit ridiculously low for me to continue measuring? I think tomorrow I'll do a side-by-side comparison to some pure RO/DI water from my LFS and make sure that I read that as 0

NO2: 0.03 mg/L

NO3: 0.4 mg/L

pH: 8.08

Alk: 3.5 meq/L (*2.8 = 9.8 dKH)

Temp: 77.9F

 

There's more and more life (and algae) every day, and the numbers keep going down for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, so I think things are still progressing well! Hardest part right now is resisting the urge to throw some CUC in there to start dealing with the algae!

[MGDMIRAGE]

Awesome little crab even though he is an obvious menace from the look of his claws. You should make a little nano beside that tank for him

[Spicer]

Alright, first off, great job, I had been waiting in your other thread for an update before I saw this in your signature.

 

2nd, big als got rid of the shark.

3rd, maybe you should have painted the back of the tank black? Try and get something to cover up those wires, get some sort of background for it.

4th, maybe an ac-70 mod? Throw your heater, temp probe, and some chaeto to eat up all that GHA?

 

5th, once again, great job. Love the dual island scape.

[chucktdbm321]

looks great so far i love the scape. im starting a 15 as well and i was wondering how do you like those lights? How are the reflectors? and what bulbs combination did you put in there thanks?

[spleenman]

Hey everyone, thanks for the compliments! I'm loving the tank so far. Every day there's something new and bizarre going on in there!

 

A few nights ago, I discovered that my tank was filled with tiny little shrimp like creatures. I'm assuming they are copepods? They seem to have a dark "eye" at one end, and what looks very much like a fish tail at the other. I would likely think they were newly hatched fish if I didn't think there was no way for that to be possible. They all seem to be gone now, a few days later. I only saw them for 2 nights, really.

 

Here's one of them in the center of this pic. Sorry for the quality, but they are only a few mm long at best, so it's the best I can do with my little compact digital camera!

 

And here's another one. Even though it's fuzzy, between the two pics you do get a good idea of their shape.

 

Thought the crab was dead, as when I did a water change last saturday, a small dead crab washed out of the rock. It was smaller than I thought when I had seen it, but it seemed like it was the one I'd seen before until a few nights ago when I saw a familiar face peering out at me from within the same piece of live rock. Saw it again two nights ago, apparently feeding on algae. It was entertaining to watch, as it's obviously quite a nervous animal! Hid in a crevice, and just reached out with one claw to grab bite after bite of algae! I can't make up my mind whether I'm pleased it wasn't dead after all. It was nice not to have to worry about it!

 

It's about 2 inches across, and very reclusive.

 

I've also got quite a few of these green "flower" like things. They're about 3-4mm across, and I'd love to know what they are.

At least I think they're green - I'm colour blind, so let me know if they're actually orange or something!

 

And slightly related, I have tiny daisy like things growing in the patches of hair algae. They have a <5mm stem, and then 3-4mm diameter flower on the top, that's white petals with a tiny dark center. Really does look like a tiny daisy or something...anyone know what those would be?

 

Awesome little crab even though he is an obvious menace from the look of his claws. You should make a little nano beside that tank for him

 

I wish I could! Wife would think I was nuts if I started another tank so soon after the first! "But honey, it's for the crab I found that I don't want to keep in the first tank!"

 

Alright, first off, great job, I had been waiting in your other thread for an update before I saw this in your signature.

 

2nd, big als got rid of the shark.

3rd, maybe you should have painted the back of the tank black? Try and get something to cover up those wires, get some sort of background for it.

4th, maybe an ac-70 mod? Throw your heater, temp probe, and some chaeto to eat up all that GHA?

 

5th, once again, great job. Love the dual island scape.

 

I don't really like the look of black backs on tanks. I prefer the open look, but I know hwat you mean about the cords. I will soon tie up the cable a little more neatly and hide it all behind the plastic rim, the heater, and the corner seam. I just want to finalize my placement of equipment first. I may try to get the heater mounted horizontally behind the rock soon, and put the temp. probe behind one of the koralias. I don't think I'll have any way to hide them, really, the tanks just too small for that, but they are at least by now partially obscured with algae, lol.

 

If I have to add equipment, an AQ-110 or 70 mod fuge would be one of the first things I'd do, but I'm still hoping not to have anything but the rock and sand...I'm thinking if my water test well next time I check it, that I may go and pick up a few CUC members to start grazing on the algae.

 

 

looks great so far i love the scape. im starting a 15 as well and i was wondering how do you like those lights? How are the reflectors? and what bulbs combination did you put in there thanks?

 

The light seems to work very well so far! The algae sure seems to like it, lol. The seperate cords is great - I have it plugged into a timer that runs a daylights, actinics and lunar lights cycle automatically, so I generally don't have to remember to turn on and off the lights. I do shut the LED moonlights off at the switch sometimes, figuring the moon isn't ALWAYS lighting up the reef at night, and often not for the full 14 hours that are currently set up as my night cycle. So I generally turn them on a bit in the late evening manually and then turn them off when I go to bed. Actually, the moonlights do seem like they might be too bright for this tank. Not sure if any future critters will believe it's night at all when they're on!

[spleenman]

Here's a pic I took of a peanut worm out poking around. Turned out pretty well, actually.

 

 

And here's a tiny thing that looks a bit like a crown-of-thorns star, though it was only about 2mm across. It was attached to the glass, and there was another one on another side of the aquarium. Pics not great, but it was tiny! Disappeared a few days later, and I haven't seen any more of them since. Maybe some kind of urchin?

 

 

Here's a small ( 10mm or so) worm I found on the glass late one night in the dark:

 

 

And next up is a little transparent slug like thing that was crawling on the glass, maybe 5-7mm in length. It was amorphous, and at first I thought it was a small chiton or stomatella-sort-of thing, until it spontaneously tore itself in two, and each half crawled away, never to be seen again. Moved very slowly, so I would only peridoically look at it, and one time I came back and they were both gone.

 

I had a horrible time getting a picture of it. The camera refused to focus on it and kept picking up the algae or rock behind it, so this was the best picture I got!

 

[spleenman]

Long time no update! I've since done some stocking, here's a current list of inhabitants!

 

Things I don't have pictures of yet:

8 Blue-legged Hermits

1 Extra Large Orange Spotted Nassarius snail (don't know the proper name!)

4 Zebra Snails

 

10 Nassarius, 8 of which look like the following pic. The other 2 are dark in colour and slightly larger. I love these snails. They have lots of character, and it's awesome when they "burst" out of the sand and burrow back down underneath.

 

1 Small Candy Cane coral. Seems to be growing well.

 

And here's a pic of the candy cane at night with it's feeder tentacles out. I feed it mysis every couple of days, which it seems to love.

 

(going to add some more in a minute)

[spleenman]

Small Hammer coral frag. Any suggestions on where to permanently place it? I understand it should sit in the substrate?

 

And a single mushroom I bought. This one's growing like mad.

 

Here's my first fish, a Yellow Clown Goby named "Aloo" (by my wife).

 

And here's a shot showing the general condition of the live rock and algaes, with the hammer coral thrown in too.

 

And an FTS from around the same time as these additions, which was 4 weeks ago for the snails and hermits, 3 weeks ago for the goby, and 2 weeks ago for the corals.

 

I've since added a few more things, which I'll post up soon along with an updated FTS after I clean the glass and do my weekly water change.

[spleenman]

I'm posting this as someone else asked about it in an ID thread, and I thought I had a pic of it here. Found quite a few of them a few weeks into my cycle, never got an ID, and they've now mostly gone away (eaten by hermits I suspect!).

 

[spleenman]

Added a Tiger Pistol Shrimp and Yellow Watchman Goby recently. They were purchased seperately, but paired up in minutes and are now best buddies.