Russian Boys BC29

[RussianBoy]

Ok so here is my tank, I bought it from a women who needed to get rid of it, it's really a wonderful tank but needed help. Now we are running:

100w Jager Heater

Koralia Nano

Maxijet 1200 pump

Nanocustoms 4.36 lighting mod 2x 50/50 2x blue actinics (PC-R)

3 blue LED bars each with 15 LEDs

 

Chamber 1: heater, and cut tab for more flow

Chamber 2: InTank media rack, filterfloss, Purigen, chem-pro elite, phos guard

Media rack 2: cheato, 13w lamp outside back of tank.

Chamber 3: Maxijet 1200 return pump, denitrator, seagel

 

Stock: (all hermit and snail counts no longer accurate)

12 white leg hermits

1 turbo snail

6 astrea snail

16 nassarius snail

16 cerith snail

1 cleaner shrimp

1 sexy shrimp

2 Emerald crab (who we almost never see)

1 Male Banggai Cardinal

1 Female Banggai Cardinal

1 Firefish

3 Margarita snails

1 Randalii Pistol Shrimp

1 Tangaroa Goby

 

Corals:

candy coral

watermelon burst zoa

blue daisy

purple daisy

couple mushrooms

Green star polup

Blasto

yellow polups

1 piece of unknown SPS

blue zoa

purple zoa

purple/lime zoa

orange/green/blue ricordea

devils armor zoa

and another zoa i forgot what it was

MORE ZOA's im loosing count lol\

lobo

acan

armor of god

devils armor

wellsi blasto

favia.....

AHHHH i don't think this list will be updated anymore I can't keep track of all my corals

 

Temp holds at 79.5

light 8on/16off

 

Let me know what you think about my tank please and any coral placement advice, i have worked hard trying to place them right concerning the water motion and all but has not been easy.

[bird]

What can be seen looks pretty good. Any full tank pics? Kind of difficult to opinion it only seeing sections.

 

Weird, the 2 pictures just disappeared.

I wonder if it is my browser? Anyone else see 2 pictures?

[RussianBoy]

What can be seen looks pretty good. Any full tank pics? Kind of difficult to opinion it only seeing sections.

 

Weird, the 2 pictures just disappeared.

I wonder if it is my browser? Anyone else see 2 pictures?

 

I did that, messed up on the resize and replaced the two pics with full tank pics... try now

[bird]

OK, see them. Sweet. Love the rock work. Looking good. Going to place the chaeto in the back chamber out of the way and get a small light for it? Maybe run it on a reverse cycle. I do that and found that the ph stays more stable.

[RussianBoy]

OK, see them. Sweet. Love the rock work. Looking good. Going to place the chaeto in the back chamber out of the way and get a small light for it? Maybe run it on a reverse cycle. I do that and found that the ph stays more stable.

Yeah it's gonna go in the back, just waiting for the backorder of lights from InTank, but I was gonna run the lights 24/7 just blast the algae with light.

[RussianBoy]

What do you all think about the placement of the corals? I worry about coral wars and who is too close to the light and so on.... I run the lights 12 on and 12 off w/moonlight....

[jeffblly]

The corals look like they have room to grow but you do have some fast growing corals in your tank.

[RussianBoy]

Rock makeover and moved corals, soon I will get you all new pics...

[StevieT]

interested in seeing the new scape

[RussianBoy]

here are some new photos, it is hard to see a bit cause of the blue lights really show when you take pics, which i find strange, but you will see some of my corals, they are all small right now, hope they grow and be big. The only one I don't know what it is, is the green one that looks like a giant zoa.....I have a little piece of SPS stuck up on the top of my rocks, I was told I could not keep sps, however it is still alive and it's been in there since 8/19... I think it's in part to the nano-tuners 4.36 lighting upgrade. also sorry about the putty, I know it looks like crap and I regret using it now, but it's hard as rock. I also have changed the stats up in my original post to what I currently have in the tank.

 

two more, if anyone wants a particular shot please let me know and Ill try to take it. my camera sucks butt.

[RussianBoy]

here are some new photos, it is hard to see a bit cause of the blue lights really show when you take pics, which i find strange, but you will see some of my corals, they are all small right now, hope they grow and be big. The only one I don't know what it is, is the green one that looks like a giant zoa.....I have a little piece of SPS stuck up on the top of my rocks, I was told I could not keep sps, however it is still alive and it's been in there since 8/19... I think it's in part to the nano-tuners 4.36 lighting upgrade. also sorry about the putty, I know it looks like crap and I regret using it now, but it's hard as rock. I also have changed the stats up in my original post to what I currently have in the tank.

 

two more, if anyone wants a particular shot please let me know and Ill try to take it. my camera sucks butt.

 

Ok well I just had to move my torch, just to much flow where it was so he is more toward the back and the nano pump is now on the left side glass taking all the flow off my frogspawn. Its hard because some of these corals were in place from the previous owner so I have had to keep adjusting things to make sure I can get everything just right so everything is as happy as possible.

[StevieT]

Looking good. A few things if I can add. Go lighter on the epoxy unless you don't mind. you only need it under the coral and if done correctly will be completely hidden.

 

Paint the mag float black with krylon fusion. It will make it disappear.

Maybe one more rock on the top? Seems like a little more height woudl help plus adds another filter.

[RussianBoy]

Looking good. A few things if I can add. Go lighter on the epoxy unless you don't mind. you only need it under the coral and if done correctly will be completely hidden.

 

Paint the mag float black with krylon fusion. It will make it disappear.

Maybe one more rock on the top? Seems like a little more height would help plus adds another filter.

yeah i tried to get the epoxy to work for me but it just didn't and now it's all hard and I am stuck with it till the coral grows big enough you don't notice it anymore. I could add another rock, but all my corals are already glued in place, im not a very good aqua scaper yet since this is my first SW tank. Don't think im doing to bad yet though, room for improvement, but all my critters and corals are alive and happy. Do you know where I can get a real nice colored Ricordea frag?

I don't know what else to do, all those newbie worries go through my head about messing with it too much. your underwater lights I ordered from you should arrive on monday, that will be so great, but I worry there is not enough water in chamber 2 to keep my cheato far enough underwater in your second media rack, i ordered lights and the top shelf for it then realized there is not a ton of water in it, guess I could try to raise the level some.

[StevieT]

Add water to the rear chamber to bring it up.

 

Glue like this: super glue is the bond putty is the void fill

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...0&start=160

 

you can always pop off the epoxy

[RussianBoy]

Add water to the rear chamber to bring it up.

 

Glue like this: super glue is the bond putty is the void fill

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...0&start=160

 

you can always pop off the epoxy

I really feel dissapointed with my tank now I want to go in and just redo it all, but I just got it all to stablize and so on.

[NU2REEFIN]

Don't worry about the putty, give it time and it will be covered in coraline algae and you wont even know it's there. That is the key to this hobby GIVE IT TIME.

[RussianBoy]

Don't worry about the putty, give it time and it will be covered in coraline algae and you wont even know it's there. That is the key to this hobby GIVE IT TIME.

Thanks for the words, today I am going to take the arrow head crab in to trade, he is getting too big and too agressive for my tank, keeps attacking my hermits and stuff even my emerald crab got injured by him. I think I will grab another non agressive shrimp and the one other fish I want, a firefish. I think that will be enough for my tank without over bioloading it. I have three new corals coming from coralfanatics.com, they have some wonderful corals. I also will be getting my lights on monday from Stevie T at InTank, so I put my cheato in the back instead of floating in a fishnet in the tank where it's been for like two weeks.

[RussianBoy]

+1 Firefish

+1 Porcelain Crab

 

-1 Arrowhead crab

[rO.oster]

when your nerves settles.... it shouldn't be a big deal to take a flat head screwdriver and pop those locktite putty mounds off your rock. you can even leave the rock there IN the tank, take a small short flat-head screwdriver and sterilize it with rubbing alcohol. then rinse it off good with RO water. pop off the rock mound from the rock, and bring out the coral. have some small real rubble rocks ready (or snail shells, or whatevers chunky), then pop off the coral from the putty and superglue it to the rubble piece. re-insert back into tank 40 seconds later when super glue dries. wa la!

 

 

you are looking for the super glue gel with the main ingredient of "Cyanoacrylate" or Cyano for short.

[RussianBoy]

when your nerves settles.... it shouldn't be a big deal to take a flat head screwdriver and pop those locktite putty mounds off your rock. you can even leave the rock there IN the tank, take a small short flat-head screwdriver and sterilize it with rubbing alcohol. then rinse it off good with RO water. pop off the rock mound from the rock, and bring out the coral. have some small real rubble rocks ready (or snail shells, or whatevers chunky), then pop off the coral from the putty and superglue it to the rubble piece. re-insert back into tank 40 seconds later when super glue dries. wa la!

 

 

you are looking for the super glue gel with the main ingredient of "Cyanoacrylate" or Cyano for short.

went out and picked up some glue and some red putty, instead of the grey, my other ones that I used red for you can barely tell, so I have three new corals coming on wednesday, and when they get here I may move a few corals and fix some of that putty, however some I am not going to touch just cause they are working and coral is growing well and will cover it. I just wonder why everyone always says nice tank, cool and so on, for me everyone was just like, wow that putty sucks.... grr

[RussianBoy]

Tuesday or Wednesday I will have new pics posted, I will be fixing some of the putty, a little coral rearranging, and more pieces of live rock to fill up the huge void of space I have near the back of tank, I will be grouping my zoas together, and if anyone has any ideas on what corals could be near each other I would appreciate it, I am sure this is the LAST time I will be moving things in my tank I hope, it's hard being OCD with a SW tank cause even though it's perfect, you think it's not lean and you can't clean it without killing the whole tank >.<

[RussianBoy]

Nanocustoms 4.36 light mod....

 

My filter modification..., thanks to StevieT at InTank, who although a couple years younger than me, is leading the way in AIO products.. thanks

[rO.oster]

Nice 4.XX mod, that extra 2 lights means you can keep a lot more varieties of coral. I might try and mod mine the same!

 

I wonder what kind of fans they use to cool that mod?

[RussianBoy]

Nice 4.XX mod, that extra 2 lights means you can keep a lot more varieties of coral. I might try and mod mine the same!

 

I wonder what kind of fans they use to cool that mod?

i forget what kind of fans they are, but they are pretty quiet, I don't notice them over the tv or regular noise of the house, and the light mod is fantastic, I see you are pretty handy so you shouldn't have a problem installing it, but it is a kinda pain in the ass, lots of wires and crimping and so on... check out the online instruction videos before hand and make sure you have all the tools you need lol, i didn't do that.... I had to change a few little things as I went to make it fit just a hair better, but really not a big deal and anyone who can build stuff can do this mod... it really is worth the money, I have two blue actinics and two 50/50 both pc-r and it makes my tank look so great, plus the R2 Moonlight option, is worth it, WAY brighter than the stock lights, however it is it's own thing and not wired into the hood... oh the last thing is make sure you have plenty of power strips... cause the mod sure adds like 3 more plugs... but again it's totally worth it for the tank.....

almost forgot, it does raise the tank temp about 1-2 degrees though, in my apartment sometimes I have to open the back of the biocube to help cool it, but I also have the underwater halogens for my cheato too...

[RussianBoy]

My home done mod, I took out the halogen lamps in my tank because of temperature, so now I have a power compact, 13w with the black scraped off the back of the tank, and a little industrial velcro and tada... cheato light....

 

New whole tank shot... only thing I have not finished with is adding more LR to raise the back section of my coral mountain cave I will post another when I get the rest of the LR, next paycheck I hope.