Old Gregg Posted July 11, 2011 Share Posted July 11, 2011 Current FTS and Videos Original Video >>>> Current Video >>>> June 25, 2012 Hey everybody! I've been reefin' since November now and it has been and continues to be a rewarding, and at times difficult and frustrating journey. There's an endless flow of new ideas coming from our salt water community. Some are good. Some are bad. Some people know what they are talking about. Most don't lol. I thought I'd share my experiences over the past 8ish months as I went from a saltwater newbie to... well... someone slightly less newbish? My goal for this aquarium is to have a tank that looks "Alive". I want motion everywhere I can with corals swaying in the current and feather dusters waving about with crabs crawling over the sandbed, tiny starfish waving their tentacles out of rocks and healthy fish swimming about. Equipment: -Biocube 29 -Maxspect G2 LED -Maxijet 900 return pump -2x 425 Koralia Nano's -Aquatic Life Mini Skimmer -Nano-Glo Refugium LED -Filter Floss -Activated Carbon -Phosban -Purigen Maintenance: Change filter floss weekly and keep topoff reservoir filled with rodi limewater. 4 1/2 gallon water change every week. I am sure to give the sandbed and back chambers thorough cleanings. I also remove excess chaeto and clean the skimmer if needed during the water change. I feed a mixture of flake foods and pellets a few times a day. Twice a week as the lights shut off for the night I feed a home-made concoction of shrimp, mussels, clams, oysters, seaweed (brown, red and green), and a few other liquid vitamins my brother in law found at a health shop. Toss it all in a blender then freeze the mushy goodness into fishcicles. And when it's feeding time I put a few ounces of tank water into a cup, scrape some frozen mushy goodness into the cup, and simply pour it into the tank. The recipe is in the book "Aquarium Corals by Eric H. Borneman." Great book Water Params: Specific Gravity 1.026 pH 8.2-8.3 Calcium 440 Alkilinity 8dKH Magnesium 1250 Temp 79-79.6 Link to comment
Old Gregg Posted July 11, 2011 Author Share Posted July 11, 2011 The saltwater craze began back in November for me. I'm addicted to Stumbleupon, which is basically the ultimate website for someone with attention deficit disorder. You click "stumble". It takes you to a random website submitted by another stumble user that they found interesting. And it takes you there. If you are uninterested, repeat step 1. After an ungodly amount of clicks... probably 3 hours worth at 3 in the morning, I stumbled onto a miniature nano reef probably 3 gallons. I don't remember anymore. It was the neatest, most delicate and beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life (with the exception of my girlfriend) I began research. I wanted to know everything there was to know about building my very own ecosystem in a bottle and how to make it live and be happy and thrive. I searched google until the sun came up about information devouring all I could. Then I came to this website. Bookmarked it. Went to sleep for work in 2 hours. I got home from work and read Steelhealr's thread on his 24g Nanocube in entirety. http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=54602 I don't know how long it took.... but i promise you it's a long read especially for someone who didnt even know what live rock was and hydrometers and protein skimmers. I was up all night again until the sun came up. Went to work. Came home and repeated. Roughly a week later I'd probably spent on average 8-10 hours every day just reading everything I could and to be honest I was feeling pretty knowledgeable and self-assured I could do this. I went to me LFS and bought a nanocube, live sand, live rock, set everything up in the kitchen, and waited for it to clear. After it cleared I stared at it for hours. There wasn't one spick of visible life in there, the live rock was horrible. The only thing alive was bacteria and a few copepods. But still I watched it and waited for the cycle that I thought would come. A week or so later I awoke and amphipods numbered in the thousands. Little tiny creatures equivalent to pinheads everywhere. The water paramenters never budged. No nitrates, ammonia, nitrites, good pH, running a little warm at 82. I went and bought a yellowtail damsel. We called her ladyfish despite her unladylike demeanor of instantly slaughtering every last free swimming amphipod over the next few hours and becoming very very fat lol. A few days later, Ladyfish was happy as can be, so I purchased my first coral at 2.50$ lol. About this time my older brother says he no longer wished to keep his 55 gallon tank anymore. It's been set up for 5 years sporting only a Maroon Clown, a few pieces of live rock and an urchin. Both the urchin and clown have been in the tank since day one.... and believe me I've never seen a dirtier fish tank in my life. So I took it Set it up. Transferred some live rock from his tank to the nano tank and vice versa. I'll get into the 55 gallon later. After transferring the liverock back and forth, setting it up how I like I bought some more coral for cheap prices. All 5$ and under. I still to this day don't purchase expensive coral and just allow it to grow btw. Now the tank looked decent for having no idea what I was doing. But because I had no idea what I was doing I didn't think to hide the fish food from the other house residents... Not only did I feed ladyfish and the snails and crabs every day.... everyone else did too. So hair algae started becoming a problem a month in. It actually looked kind of nice at first. Like freshly mowed grass on a golf green. But it quickly takes over faster than a guys first intima..... let's just say it was fast I tossed one rock into the big tank to make the algae easier to clean. The precarious stacking of the rocks made cracking the glass a very plausible possibility. Despite the hair algae problem, corals continued to grow. I no longer have the horrid pictures of hair algae at it's worst. They were too embarrassing to keep at the time lol. But I tried aggressive removal. I'd take a toothbrush, scrape it off, until the rock was a shiny purply clean again. But this was stupid. To this day I don't know what I was thinking. I didn't have any sort of mechanical filtration in the tank. nor chemical. Just a heater and return pump in the back chambers. I scraped the algae off in the aquarium itself. So every last bit stayed in there. And floated around until it settled somewhere and made more little Green Hair Babies. A month or so I called this tank quits and put everything into the 55g tank and stuck the 6 gallon in the garage. It took me until very recently, to fully understand that the most effective way to reduce unwanted waste in a fish tank. Is to not put it in there in the first place. GHA killed my favorite coral, the pulsing xenia and a few other zoas I had. Link to comment
lawnmowerblenny Posted July 11, 2011 Share Posted July 11, 2011 Video looks great everything seems happy after the move! Link to comment
JoelRHale Posted July 11, 2011 Share Posted July 11, 2011 This is just a delightful video. And it gives me hope for what my tank could look like in 6 or 7 more months. I like everything about this tank. Ps, subscribed to your channel. Link to comment
Old Gregg Posted July 12, 2011 Author Share Posted July 12, 2011 Thank you both for your kind words Link to comment
Old Gregg Posted July 15, 2011 Author Share Posted July 15, 2011 My new skimmer finally came in. AquaticLife Internal Mini Skimmer 115 It fits snuggly in chamber 1 and so far it's pulling out skimate the color of green tea. There's still micro bubbles being spewed out into the tank a day later. I'll give an update on it in a few days. Link to comment
DK_Reef Posted July 15, 2011 Share Posted July 15, 2011 nice tank! what is the difference between the aquatic life mini and Tunze 9002? (other than price) regarding reliability and quality? Link to comment
hooligan_78 Posted July 15, 2011 Share Posted July 15, 2011 nice tank! what is the difference between the aquatic life mini and Tunze 9002? (other than price) regarding reliability and quality? The Tunze is a better skimmer, hands down. I have the Aquaticlife and it works well enough, but very touchy. Did not mean to hijack... Nice cube! Link to comment
Old Gregg Posted July 17, 2011 Author Share Posted July 17, 2011 I'm sure the Tunze works better, but I don't think it fits in chamber 1. Which is the reason I went with the Mini Link to comment
Old Gregg Posted July 23, 2011 Author Share Posted July 23, 2011 Okiedokie folks it's time for an update here First things first. My thoughts on the AquaticLife skimmer: Pro's -Cheap -Insanely quiet, very nearly silent. -Compact. I love how the pump is built into the bottom of the skimmer so it takes up no additional space other than adding height -Seems solidly built -After every feeding it bubbles out plenty of nasty gunk. Overall it's not a deep dark skimate, but it resembles green tea. My tank hasn't had much time to be dirtied up yet, nitrates, phosphates both are reading Zero still. Con's -It's still a small skimmer so it won't do well in a large tank. Skimate isn't as dark as many other skimmers -Still spews out micro bubbles after over a week, although significantly less. To remedy them flowing into the display and damaging corals, I just turned the skimmer outflow away from the overflow and all the microbubbles now flow into chamber 2. -It raised my water temp a bit, but I suppose that's to be expected from any internal skimmer lol Overall I'm very pleased with it. If I had a chance to do it over again I would. You can't beat the skimmer for the price and size. It blows the nanocube skimmer out of the water I'll continue my fishy journal in a bit. Stay tuned if there's anyone interested hehe Oh and I updated the FTS. More or less the same, just rearranged a teensy bit Link to comment
Old Gregg Posted July 23, 2011 Author Share Posted July 23, 2011 Back to the beginning.... I've been at the saltwater hobby for a few weeks now. My 6gallon nanocube was up and running and my brother gives me a call and asks if I wanted his 55 gallon tank. Of course I was overjoyed at another fishtank and free stuff! lol. The very next day I made the drive over to his house to play with my nephews and to examine my new project. It was not a pretty sight This is what happens to a fish tank after being married 4 years he joked Topping off with tap water. Semi Annual water changes of 4 gallons. Going on a week vacation leaving poor Bozo all alone with a cantankerous Urchine. Frankly I didn't care how it looked. I stayed up all night studying it and cleaning and figuring out how the overflow and protein skimmer and return pump worked. I knew it had to be cleaned up and I had to at least pretend to be knowledgeable in order to set this thing up in my moms house. There would be no way in hell she'd allow it in it's current state Link to comment
Old Gregg Posted July 23, 2011 Author Share Posted July 23, 2011 The next morning it was cleaned up and my brothers wife was having second thoughts on giving it away now that it was cleaned up lol. For a while I sincerely thought he'd change his mind on the matter. But he went into the garage and brought out 4 buckets that we filled with tank water and the live rocks. Bozo the clown was lazily swimming about as usual, nothing phases that badboy. We vacuumed the gravel as we finished siphoning out the water. The fine sugary sand on the bottom of the tank turned out to be large grained graven with a thick layer of detritus on the top. Loaded up the cars. Made the hour and a half drive home and set up my new toy Here is where I learned one of the don't of mixing salt. Never put the salt in the bucket first and water second. For a brief time the salt is so super concentrated, the salt precipitates calcium and all the other good elements in it leaving lovely round pellets of precipitate floating around the bucket and into the tank. This is also where I began to learn just how horrible my tap water was. There're so many dissolved solids in it, rinsing a bowl out in the sink leaves a thin white residue. Within a month of setting up this tank I was battling green hair algae and I suspect using tap water was a major factor =( Here it was a week later with the new addition, Lips the Rusty Angel! Link to comment
Old Gregg Posted July 28, 2011 Author Share Posted July 28, 2011 A few months ago in late April I was given two things. The first was a bit of move that I'd be moving, and I probably wouldn't be able to keep my tank anymore. The second was another fishtank from a customer where I work. He was moving to China and he was unable to keep his 16gallon bowfront any longer. Plans went into motion to sell the old 55 gallon and to transfer my few corals over to the 16 gallon Here's one of the last photos taken of my 55 gallon. Some hair algae going on, I was never able to completely beat it And here is my new 16 gallon just set up: More hair algae... A crappy skimmer that wouldn't stay put nor skim... A very stressed yellow Anthia and Pygmy Angel but 2 happy clowns and cleaner shrimp. The whole setup had been up for 2 years before it was given to me. Link to comment
Kazooie Posted July 28, 2011 Share Posted July 28, 2011 I like how filled in it looks. Link to comment
Old Gregg Posted July 28, 2011 Author Share Posted July 28, 2011 >>>>>>KILL HAIR ALGAE <<<<<<< Ok now that I have your attention I'm going to share the most unbelievably completely magic piece of knowledge I've came across that will save your tank. The one thing to defeat hair algae, even in a system that remains high in nutrients. Yes I find it cheating, but to get rid of hair algae I am willing to bend the rules. Hydrogen Peroxide. Yes it destroys hair algae. Completely. Some of your corals will not like it so here is what I did to prevent an accident. -Go to walmart. Purchase a Spray Bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide H2O2. -Grab a 5 gallon bucket and fill it with tank water, enough to rinse off the rock that will be cleaned -Take out the GHA covered rock -CAREFULLY spray the rock in all areas covered by the algae avoiding contact with corals Note: I directly sprayed mushrooms and zoa's/paly's without any ill effects -Allow the rock to sit out about 1 minute allowing the H2O2 to work its magic -Rinse off the rock in the bucket. It will get rid of most peroxide left on the rock and why not shake off any detritus that could have accumulated? Check the bucket for snails and hermits etc... that might have bailed when you shook the rock and put them back in the tank Bristle worms will die on contact, they HATE this stuff Give the algae 3-4 days to completely die off. It will turn white overnight and the next day and slowly fall off and decompose. I used a toothbrush to scrape the algae off before spraying because I didn't want all that decaying organic matter in my tank. Thank you Reef Miser and Brandon429 for their inspiration and help. Read this link http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=268706 Before and after pics Here's before and after pictures Link to comment
Old Gregg Posted August 4, 2011 Author Share Posted August 4, 2011 Moving day! Not looking forward to moving this >.< Link to comment
Old Gregg Posted August 11, 2011 Author Share Posted August 11, 2011 Pic as promised Front FTS I'm trying to figure out what to put at the top of the tank. I Montipora Digitata just feels out of place in there lol. Any suggestions? Link to comment
Old Gregg Posted August 15, 2011 Author Share Posted August 15, 2011 My brother in law picked me up a very nice Red Montipora Capricornis and Anthelia. They're looking good =) Link to comment
Old Gregg Posted August 17, 2011 Author Share Posted August 17, 2011 I fragged my first coral today! I'm a bit nervous because my finger leather now looks like a shriveled, wrinkled centenarian. Originally it was one giant tree structure attached to a fugly rock. The rock had to go, so I chopped it up into 4 new pieces and took the rock out. Then I fastened the frags to their new homes using superglue. The glue sets quickly in 1-2 minutes so I held the frags into place while it hardened up. The clownfish HATE change. Every new piece in the tank regardless of how large, they WILL topple over and knock it down if it's too close to their beloved torch lol. I sat there for 10 minutes with my hand in the tank like an idiot shooing them off until they got used to it. At least they're smart enough not to bite the hand that feeds them lol Link to comment
JoelRHale Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 Congrats! Just so you know, you'll have some of those leathers reject their new spot and come off I did it the same way and had 3 problem frags but eventually they will be fine. For both our future reference they say to put the base into the sand, let them attach to the sand, then glue the sand. My blenny knocks new things over too, just like a toddler! Link to comment
Old Gregg Posted August 17, 2011 Author Share Posted August 17, 2011 Ahhh crap lol. How long did it take for them to reject it? Link to comment
JoelRHale Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 Haha, I had two that didn't need any extra attention so you might get lucky yet! I don't exactly recall how long but it was like 2-3 days. Then after that one of the three that had to be reglued came undone like 4 days after that. You let it set a lot longer than I did though, I only held for 30 seconds then let them chill in a cup of tank water for like 3 minutes. You need to get some new pictures up after things adjust, your tank is one of my favorites. Link to comment
Old Gregg Posted August 18, 2011 Author Share Posted August 18, 2011 If anything is going to go wrong it will go awry for me lol! I'll poke them into the gravel like you said when they jump ship I will definitely post pics of everything. I didn't think anyone payed any attention to my tank it's just been a way to keep myself entertained during work lol. Btw your avatar. Best. One. Ever Link to comment
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