That stinks, I liked that fish very much and was enthralled when you first mentioned it on here. It fascinated me to read about how the yashia haze formed a symbiotic relationship with a shrimp.

He was fine until he started to get 'antsy'...started roaming around the tank....then...started going into the sump. Getting stuck and hidden back there is the kiss of death. SH

Hey SH! Sorry to hear about your yashia. Quick question for you. How often are you using your protein skimmer? Do you notice much of a difference when you use it?

Oh yeah, quick update on my tank. I added a fuge last weekend with some live rock rubble and come chateo. The setup went great. My nitrates are still at 40 even with bi-weekly water changes. The only things that I have added to my tank other than the LR and Live sand is 4 Nassarius Snails and
3 Astraea Snails (I added them after 4 weeks after setup). My tank is now 10 weeks old. Could my tank still be cycling? I am at a complete loss as to why my nitrates are staying at 40 after 10 weeks.

Did you setup the external lighting mod and what light you using? 40 is high in my books...that's a nice orange color and orange makes me nervous. I'd do a few extra water changes. Are you feeding your tank and how much? Some of it, at ten weeks, may still be some breakdown from the live rock from cycling. Fish in there?

I rarely use my skimmer. My nitrates are fixed at 0 ppm since my chaeto's growth took off. I dumped a whole cube of mysis in there recently and ...no budge in nitrates at all. I only skim now if I do a lot of work in the tank....have my arms in there and plucking macro out or prune/frag a coral. I'll skim after that to remove anything that went into the water column. Otherwise, just water changes. I have no other magic to explain my recent 0 ppm nitrates except the change in how I illuminate my chaeto and it's ensuing explosive growth. SH

I am using a Palm light for my fuge. I leave it on for about 12 hours (8pm-8am). Right now I only have one fish (a blue damsel) and I only feed it a small amount of mysis twice a week. I guess I am just going to have some patience and wait for the nitrates to drop. I have already waited 10 weeks, what is a few more. To make things even more fun I am batteling a cayno probelm (due to the high nitrates).

Wow. Took me a couple of days but finally got through this thread from start to finish. Thank-you SH. What an excellent resource.

I can't beleive you're living with that crack in your tank. It makes me nervous thinking about it right now. I think you should give us a paypal address where we can all chip in a get you your 30g Oceanic. It might be a little while before you hit the Megamillions. In trade for all the info you've provided I would be more than willing to chip in a couple of bucks as I think everyone who has been following your thread would be. That way we can all learn and be entertained from your '30g Oceanic Cube Startup' thread. How about it everyone...2 bucks each? Who's in?

Dude, he's a surgeon

Well there goes that idea. And I was so looking forward to the new thread on the 30g Oceanic.

SH, why are you risking the lives of your livestock in a faulty tank?

..because people still think doctors are making a lot of money......lol. SH

The cost of running a practice is high, capitation has limited reimbursement, income is not what it used to be for sure.

I CAUGHT THAT!!!

Is that how you did it TheReefDude? Not very hard. Sorry to waste your thread space SH, but TheReefDude thought it would be funny to quote me and edit it, his parents must be proud. Good work little boy, maybe you should hit the kiddie forums, the adults post here.

No problem. Some humor on this thread is a nice diversion. Yes...medicine and surgery are in crisis. We've lost 2 surgeons in our area in the last six months, both forced out of practice by rising malpractice costs and premiums. Most people don't realize that we can get called to the ER at 2AM and spend several hours there working up a patient for a potential surgical problem and get reimbursed $40. People still think that we make thousands of dollars from doing surgery. By the time my medical malpractice premium gets to me and then Uncle Sam, my take home for doing an appendectomy is under $200, not enough to cover the costs of delivering good care to my patients and less than what my landscaper gets for cutting the lawn. SH

"Beauty comes slowly, disaster happens quickly".
SH



Tank Summary

Born on date
April 9, 2005

Lighting
JBJ stock lighting, 72watts PC 50/50 actinic

Maintenance
-Weekly 10-16% water changes.
-Bimonthly SW and topoff water made with AquaSafe 6 stage RO/DI unit. Water aged and heated.
-Started with Oceanic, tried Tropic Marin, currently using Reef Crystals.
-check s.g. every 1-3 days. Daily topoff with 1 liter pure water
-parameter checks 1X per week, more frequent if tank looks problematic

Tank Supplements

None except for B-Ionic or Kent CB Two Part for calcium/buffering.

Live Rock
Initial 20lbs from Premiumaquatics.com, mixture Kaelini, Marshall Islands, Fiji; 3lbs live rock rubble

Additions: 2.5lbs Solomon Islands, 1lb Marshall Islands

Substrate

20lbs lbs CaribSea Aragalive Aragonite sand
3lbs live find sand from existing tank

Average Parameters

pH: 8.1-8.2
ammonia: 0
nitrite: 0
nitrates: 0 ppm

kH: 7-9
Ca2+: 380-390 ppm
P: 0 ppm
Mg2+: 1450ppm

s.g. 1.026
temp: 81.5-82.7 by Coralife digital temp probe

Chambers

Chamber 1: Stock pump, Chemipure, SeaGel, Purigen, Algone, filter floss changed 2X/week
Chamber 2: lr rubble, chaetomorpha, external fuge light mod with 27Watts PC light 6700K; Coralife digital temp probe and Pinpoint pH probe
Chamber 3: MJ1200 PH, Ebo Jager 100W heater, Hydor Flo

Modifications

1) Additional Maxijet 1200 PH, total 590 gph, 25X turnover
2) Stock pump in chamber one with bulkheadless outflow
3) Chamber 2 refugium with light
4) NanoBob surface skimmer over intake grate
5) Hydor Flo wavemaking nozzle on stock outflow

Livestock

1) Initial cleanup crew:
-5 nassarius
-5 astrea
-2 blue legged hermtis
-2 red legged hermits
-2 emerald crabs
-1 skunk cleaner
Losses: 3 margaritas, 3 cerith, 3 astrea, 2 emeralds, one skunk cleaner, 2 red legs, one blue leg
Original survivors: 2-3 nassarius, 2-3 astrea, one blue legged hermit
Replacements: skunk cleaner, 2 trochus, 3 astrea, one scarlet hermit, black longspine urchin

2) Current fish
-Sixline wrasse
-true percula
-Randall's banded pistol shrimp (yashia haze recently died)
-Banggai cardinalfish
Losses: green clown goby, yellow-striped clingfish, 2 common firefish, tailspot blenny, yashia haze

Added Corals

Softies/Leathers
-sinularia flexibis (spaghetti finger leather)
-sarcophyton elegans (yellow Fiji leather)
-tubipora musica (organ pipe)

Zoanthids
-green, orange (firecracker), green/pink

Corallimorphs
-ricordea florida: orange, blue, green
-actinodiscus: red, fluorescent green, blue

LPS
-fungia sp (orange plate coral)
-caulastrea curvata(trumpet coral)
-favites (green closed brain)
-acanthastrea echinata (rainbow acan)
-euphyllia ancora (hammer coral)
-tubastrea aurea (orange cup corals)
-nemanzophyllia (fox coral)

Gorgonians
-pterogorgia sp (purple sea whip)

Losses: purple sea whip, orange cup coral, orange and green/orange zoanthids, tubipora musica, fox coral

Feeding

-Cyclopeeze, baby brine shrimp, alternating for corals 1-2X per week
-frozen mysid, Ocean Nutrition II flake, Nutrafin slow sinking pellet, Hikari enriched brine shrimp for fish every other day
-very occasional small piece of seaweed (nori) for the urchin

Tank Losses/Insults

First 6 months

1) Green clown goby disappeared after acclimation
2) Severe cyanobacteria infestation; eradicated with E-M tabs
3) Large open brain died, disintegrated, contaminated tank
4) Yellow striped clingfish died after two weeks
5) Common firefish trapped in cassette mod, drowns
6) Sea star, fromia indica, disintegrates after 48 hours and contaminates tank, 30% zoos close down and some lose their color permanently
7) Hawaiian feather duster drops its crown, disappears and reappears 2 weeks later
8) Various invert losses/deaths/stolen shells
9) Halimeda fails under submersible halogen fuge light; chaeto survives
10) Discovery of a hairline fissure and the JBJ NC 24G cracking debacle unfolds

Second 6 months

1) Feather duster drops it crown several more times then disappears forever
2) Red macroalgae comes in as a hitchhiker on added LR and becomes pervasive
3) Orange cup coral makes nitrate control extremely difficult
4) Replacement common firefish keeps hidden, disappears, shows up in the rear sump 2 weeks later emaciated and dies
5) Tailspot blenny acclimates well but slowly beccomes emaciated and dies
6) Unknown 'toxin' sweeps thru the tank tanking down my zoos, fox, purple gorgonian, tubipora. Etiology may have been the death of the gorgonian (first to go). Nitrates were 10ppm average.
7) Change of tank lights bleaches out 2 brains, remaining zoos and stresses the Fiji. All recover.
8) Switching to an external fuge light drives chaeto growth crazy and now consistently keeps nitrates at 0 ppm
9) Yashia haze continually jumps into the rear sumps, eventually is found dead behind the surface skimmer.

Nasty Visitors

I had them all:

• valonia (bubble algae)
• aiptasia
• cyanobacteria
• hair algae (always stayed small, never spread)

Regrets or things I would have done differently

1. Love the NC, but, would have gone with a 30G Oceanic and metal halide in retrospect
2. Wish I had made a greater effort to improve lighting on the refugium early on
3. Out of my control but wish I never added the additional LR that carried in the macroalgae hitchhiker
4. Adding a sea star. No nano tank should have one
5. When changing your lights, reduce the lighting interval and/or change one bulb at a time. Avoid bleaching and decimating your corals
   
   Final Thoughts After One Year and Myths Debunked

• The single greatest mistakes you can make are stocking your tank early with corals and fish immediately after cycling
• Consistent weekly water changes are the key to nano tank survival. You don't have to protein skim if you choose not to, or, can't afford a skimmer
• There is no better piece of advice than that given by an experienced successful nano reefer
• NEVER EVER dose your tank with anything except for calcium. NEVER EVER dose your tank unless you are testing the additive that you are dosing with and make SURE you have the correct test kit
• Using anything other than pure water, well, you might as well throw your money down the drain
• Crashes happen even with experienced nano reefers
• "Can jump" means just that
• You CAN achieve 0 ppm nitrates. 10ppm is not bad
• Attention to detail and observing your tank may prevent a crash

Summary Photos

Initial aquascape during cycling:



First frags:








Cyano outbreak:



Tank at it's peak:



Macroalgae invades:



The 'Plague' comes:



Aftermath:

Steel,

Congrats on the one year anniversary for your tank. Looks awesome.

I have a question that I haven't been able to find an answer to anywhere on this site.

One of my clown fish has developed a "bubble eye." What causes this?

Is there anything I can do about this?

Thanks for your help.

Piratefish

This only thing I can think of is if the perc has Brooklynella which I've read affects percs. It's a bacterail infection and typically eye bulging is bacterial. Research it out. I've never had to treat it. SH

Congrats Steelhealr. One year huh seems like just yesterday
I may have missed it but are you getting a different tank?

Hey Debbeach..welcome back.How is your tank coming along? Not at the moment. I still have the replacement JBJ in my basement...never used it out of fear that THAT tank has worse markings on the glass. The basement if unfinished and was thinking of making that a prop tank someday. I'd still love to try a 30G Oceanic with a metal halide. We'll see. But...if I add another tank to the house right now, I'll come home from work and find the doors locked and my clothes strewn all over the lawn. ROFLMAO (just kidding.....or am I, lolol ) SH

Hey SH,

I have a question for you about your 1 year write up... In your "First 6 Months Losses", you state your firefish got caught in the cassette mod. That's sad and all, but how did a fish drown?



...for those of you with your finger on the flame trigger... this is just a joke

Drowning is suffocation underwater. If the force of the water kept the fish's opercula clamped shut and prevented it from getting oxygen from circulation of water over it's gills...it could suffocate from hypoxia. SH

Just got done reading your guide. Awesom thread. I learned alot out of it. My Aquapod 24G should be here this aturday, along with Illuming 70w MH kit. I signed up this moring to join the community. I have had SW tanks before, but being that they were too big, I lacked the high cost of maintainign them.

Well alrighty then.....welcome aboard. Aquapod really isn't too different from the 24G and with your marine background, you should be good to go. My only recommendation is to do a thorough water leak test and ESPECIALLY temps. I ran my test for almost a week tweeking things. Good luck. SH

Thanks for all the great info you have posted here. I have been lurking around for the last few months and have read through your whole thread a couple of times. I have a 24G nano cube thats been running for about two months. So far so good. You inspired me to add a fuge light after seeing the great results you had with it. Since mine is a little different I was thinking about posting some pictures on the project but I'm not sure about the appropriate place.

You can add a few here if you'd like. WTG. SH

Added a new zoo frag today yesterday:



SH

Great site and great information for a newbie! Thanks..... I just ordered my Aquapod 24g w/HQI. I can't wait.


Question #1. When cycling with cured rock - is there light needed?
Question #2. On a brand new tank - Is it ok to mix the salt into the fresh water in the tank or does it mix better in buckets. (maybe a silly question but wanting to do everything right)....

For the first time mixing, you can add the salt to the pure water that you fill the tank with.

I usually recommend to start lighting the light for a short interval and increase it over 2 weeks. Eg, you could start at 4-6 hours per day and increase it by a half hour per day. SH

As noted above, I had lost my yashia haze goby leaving the pistol shrimp alone and unprotected. Replacing the yashia is not easy as they are not found readily in my area. What they DO have tho' are yellow watchman gobies. I decided to avoid the shipping costs and also decided to stay 'conservative'. So...bought one. The goby initially was pecked at by my sixline wrasse. Probably just a 'I'm the boss here' warning. Initially, he parked himself under my orange plate coral which had MOVED on it's own. Yes folks, the coral moved itself into that position overnight (pardon the coralline algae):







Fortunately, the goby found the pistol's cave and they've shacked up. The goby is now making the same protective posturing as the yashia did. SH

Gobies are nice little fish with a Dr.Seuss kind of face. They are hardy little guys and, when they get used to the tank, come out to look at you through the glass, like the one in your pic, SH. Of the three fish I keep in my reef tank, one is a Tangaroa Goby, which is opaque with red, orange and white spots. Nice addition you made SH, and as for the plate coral's locomotion, all these corals amaze me daily with how they cope and survive.

Thanks for the info.

One more question:

I know when water evaporates the salt doesn't. So usually top off with filtered water only. But, when doing water changes, what level of salt is added to the water?

SH,
Great choice on the goby and great thread also, beautiful pics, solid info. I spent way too much time at work reading it...quite a body of work. I checked out an Oceanic 30G cube today and was again impressed by that company's construction quality. I have one of their lizard lounges in about 40 breeder size and it's a beautiful tank, my tortoise loves it. The 30G was being sold with a glass hood and single strip light (obviously not enough for any planted/reef system). My question is about hood make-up. In my planted FW tanks I've removed any glass or plastic that was placed between the bulbs and the surface. Is the NC stocked in a similar way with something between the bulbs and water and if so, do modders regularly remove this? Or is this some type of "permissive glass" that allows the correct wavelengths to pass undiminished? Again, very comprehensive, yet easily approachable thread, thanks.

DocToxyn

BTW- researching to set up a 20G nano at work, wish me luck.

To Iamtheone...always do your water changes with the same s.g. gravity that you want to maintain. If you want to lower the s.g. lf the tank, you con do it very slowly over days with topping or better yet, the most accepted way is to do your water changes with a s.g. gravity lower or higher, depending on which way you want to go.

To doc....

Makes sence, thank you!

When you guys replace the stock pump with the MJ1200 (just placed an order for one) does the stock tubing/coupler fit the MJ1200? Stock is 3/8" if I am not mistaken.

I put in a MJ1200 as well and the tube connection from the stock pump was a little bit larger than would fit snuggly on the MJ1200. Mine had plastic "ties" to tighten the rubber hose to the fittings. I pulled off the stock pump, tested the MJ1200 fit and it was a little loose. I tightened the plastic tie a notch or two and then it fit nice and tight.

Great! I will give that a shot.


Thank you.

You should not be changing such a high percentage of water that it would affect your S.G. even if there was a slight variation between the tank water and the change water. There are always slight differences in the best attemps to match, if you change 10% there won't be much variation or disruption. Larger changes are a greater risk, unless its an emergency situation, be careful. Short term things may look good, but its long term these things really affect a tank.

Yeah, I don't plan to do no more than 10% on my 24 gallon.

Thanks for the great information guys. Got the Remora installed, stock pump replaced. Good flow, water conditions are good. 5 days in...

Quick question, and I am the patient one. Is it possible to not get ANY hitchikers with LiveRock? It was cured Marshall from Premium Aquatics. I washed it pretty good. Also got 20lbs of sand from the FL Keys. Washed it good too. Maybe watched it too good? Or too early to see signs of life....

I bought the cured Marshall Island Live rock from Premium Aquatics, it has great shapes and nice coralline algae that will come out more over time. However, it does not have a great amount of live hitchikers like uncured rock, or rock you get from a store tank and put right into your tank without shipping. I had some small featherdusters, pods, and sponges that came out over the months, but its not a huge amount, a fact verified by the guys at Premium Aquatics. It is the best looking rock around and with light and time, nice coralline will bloom, and its full of beneficial bacteria which is what you got it for, the filtering capacity. Enjoy it!!

Yes, I agree. It is good looking rock and I am glad of the purchase...



Alright, let me ask ya. I am new to this game. Been a sponge before I took the plunge however, but curious...

My pod was created this past Monday. It is now Saturday.

My levels are

Ammonia = .1
Nitrite = .2
PH = 8.1
Nitrate = 5
SG = 1.024
Temp = 79

(1st water change should level these out)

OK, Now I know not perfect scores, but has my tank already cycled this fast?

(20lbs Marhsall cured) + (20lbs Agra-Alive Pink Fiji) + (10lbs FL Keys)
MJ1200(replaced stock pump)
AcuaC Remora-MJ1200 (4 hours daily)
70W HQI (4 hours daily)
No water changes. Only several top offs.
Berlin Method filteration.

No signs of any algae or growth, water crystal clear. (besides the damn microbubbles - "new remora" )

So, any advise you could give as to maybe something I should be doing or maybe something I am doing I shouldn't.....

Once again, thanks for the wealth of information on this site.

hey what do u mean by setting up a cleaning station on the reef? im referring to the cleaner shrimp.

Wheew read it in one sitting, Word SH.

Sorry....to doctoxyn:


Some people have modded the 24G by completely removing the hood so that they could use a metal halide lighting fixture. Unfortunately, some sort of covering has to be made to help reduce evaporation AND..most of the fish we keep are escape artists, particularly firefish, sixline wrasses and some gobies.

As what NYReef stated, changing 10% water will not greatly affect the tanks s.g. unless the difference between the tank and water change is huge. Eg., if your tank is at 1.025 and you change up water that is 1.026, your tank will not show a change enough to shock the tank. SH

And as SH said, my tank is not entirelly covered on top and my poor little gobie took the "leap of faith" a couple of weeks ago, miss the guy rushing up to the front when it was feeding time.....

Great Info: my 24gl Aquapod is on the way!
Can't wait to get started
Ed

Steel or anyone who might be able to help me,

I am looking for Sea-Lab No. 28 Automatic Replenisher's website on Google and cannot find it. Anyone know it?

I recently found a box of this stuff in my vacation home in Florida that I was hoping to use for my tank in Ohio. The cubes look like they are in pretty good shape. That being said, the cubes are about 7-8 years old. Shelf life issue?

The cubes look brand new.

I don't want to kill everything in my tank, although I doubt that what's in the cubes can kill anything in the tank. You supposedly cannot overfeed with them.

I have been using these cubes in my tank in Ohio before I found the box of these cubes in my house in Florida. They work really well.

Thanks for any help.

PirateFish

steelhealr,

I really appreciate what you've done here as far as a complete startup guide. I've read through about 39 pages so far and am still going at it.

I have started to try and decide between a nano (24cube) and a larger tank (72gal+). I am looking to have some sort of reef setup, I am new to the game here and this would be my first sw tank.

My biggest fear is that I am going to lose everything with small fluctuations of a smaller tank.

I am leaning towards a larger tank, but I can find no such guide as this one for larger reef setups. Your guide has given me a lot of confidence to jump in on a nano, but some of the stuff here does not translate well into larger tanks (doing large water changes on bigger tanks for example).

Do you, or anyone else on this thread know of any howto's similar to this for larger tank setup (72gal+), going over each component of the setup, maintenance, etc?

Much appreciated, and still reading.

-Mike

Hey Steel

Dan from FF, Glad to see that your thread is as popular other here as it is back 'home'

Great Thread

Hey Dan..thanks....and welcome aboard.

To Doofoo: I highly recommend the following books as basic starters:
Paletta's book on The New Marine Aquarium, out of date but good with pix

Jeffrey Kurtz's book How ot Start a Mini Reef. Basic, recently published.

SH

first off this thread is awesome!.....im still too lazee to read all of it....im just kind of skimming thru the pages......

SH......how did u mount the external 27w light on the back? i have the regular stand and its hard trying to figure out a way to mount it on the back with my limited wall clearance in the rear......

i bought the same style light w/ 27W pc bulb (cheaper plastic version) at Home Depot for $15.99 on sale this week.....

trying to think of ways to mount it.....

any help would be great! thanks!

My fuge light simply rests on a cardboard box behind the tank. Some people have found a way to remove the base and screw it into the back of the NC stand if you are using that.

I had to throw out a huge amount of chaeto yesterday. The middle chamber was VERY tightly packed...the growth is phenomenal. SH

Wow! I finally made it through the thread. Great thread SH!

Question though. In the post, where you originally installed the fuge light behind the tank, the picture shows an Azoo palm light that you clipped onto the cord. When I look those up, they say they're 7 watts. Recently, you stated that you use a 27watt light. Did you change it, and I missed it? Thanks for your help!

Mel