Steely's 40 breeder

[purplepeopleeater!]

omg your tank is really looking good this is pretty much what i want to do with my 40br i really love the sps looks great man

[Arkayology]

drool...

[steely185]

Thanks for the compliments guys. I'm very happy with this tank now. Things are really taking off now. Lots of growth and my 20 should be rocking pretty soon as well.

[sammy113]

This is on fine 40B. So full of beautiful SPS. I Love the acan garden. Nice work

[steely185]

Thanks sammy. It's been a project but it's starting to come together nicely.

[falln_star]

Truly amazing! I am slowly getting the funds and supplies together to start my own 40B. Which might go faster if I decide not to go with starphire glass, but then I might beat myself over the head for not going with it later... Again awesome tank and thanks for keeping us in-tune with bulb selection process; as I am looking at the Tek Light fixture also and all the bulb combos is creating quite the conundrum.

[steely185]

Thanks fallin_star. I love my tek fixture but will say it can be a bit much for zoas (they suffer a little shrinkage). I will say that SPS and LPS love that fixture and grow like crazy with it. It took a little while to find the right bulb combo for me but I like what I'm running now since it gives me the perfect pop.

 

I think the addition of kalk and the mp40 have helped with growth as well.

[steely185]

Came home to find my tank as warm as bath water. Tank was at about 88F (11 degrees higher than it was set). Needless to say I unplugged the heater and the skimmer (in case there is an issue with the skimmer pump heating the tank), turned off 4 of the 6 lights. This should drop the temps a bit. I had a couple extra heaters (for the 20 and for my saltwater changes).

 

I ran out and picked up an eheim heater to switch brands (previous heater was a marineland). Got my fingers crossed. The only coral I noticed in distress was my frogspawn which was deflated.

 

Just hoping for the time being but I think I caught it quick enough.

[falln_star]

I hope things turn out for the best.

[steely185]

Temp is down to 80.6 now. No visible damage done at this point.

[steely185]

Did a quick check this morning and the temp was down to 74.8 with the new heater set at 77. A little lower than I like so I bumped the new heater up a notch to 79. The eheim heaters can be calibrated so I may have to play around with it to dial it in. I plan on swinging home for my lunch break to double check on the status of the heater.

[timdanger]

serious temperature fluctuations -- that's awesome that you're not seeing any negative effects!

 

are you sure your thermometer is working right?

 

good luck!

[steely185]

Yeah, I got a couple of digital thermometers laying around so all is well with the readings. Yesterday you could tell by touch that the tank was way to warm. I have had my tanks hit 82 plenty of times before with no issues but 88 is a whole new ball game. I will say that my corals have been very durable for me. They can be tougher than most people think unless you have water chemistry issues.

 

Someone recommended using a ranco controller to control the heater. They are pretty cheap compared to normal aquarium controllers but reliable. Stevie-T's heater issues with his controller just have me a little concerned with going that route. I do hear the APEX controllers work well when the temp probe fails since they will reset a heater to on (power restored to the heater to function normally).

[timdanger]

Yeah, I got a couple of digital thermometers laying around so all is well with the readings. Yesterday you could tell by touch that the tank was way to warm. I have had my tanks hit 82 plenty of times before with no issues but 88 is a whole new ball game. I will say that my corals have been very durable for me. They can be tougher than most people think unless you have water chemistry issues.

 

Someone recommended using a ranco controller to control the heater. They are pretty cheap compared to normal aquarium controllers but reliable. Stevie-T's heater issues with his controller just have me a little concerned with going that route. I do hear the APEX controllers work well when the temp probe fails since they will reset a heater to on (power restored to the heater to function normally).

 

i am very familiar with StevieT's controller issue - I do believe that somewhere along the line it came out that there was a way to adjust the default so the heater is "on" when the temp probe fails (as opposed to simply turning it off, which was StevieT's problem). That at least allows you to rely on the heater's internal thermostat as a fail-safe. Obviously it wouldn't have helped in this case, but ideally the temp probe on your controller wouldn't fail at the same time as the thermostat on your heater (... if it did, it just isn't your day).

 

I know what you mean about the expense of those controllers. Aren't the ranco dual controllers at least as expensive as a reefkeeper lite, though? Maybe i'm not looking in the right place.

[steely185]

Did the drop by for lunch. Temp was still sitting at 75 (~4 off the set temp of 79). Calibrated the new heater and it is warming up nicely.

 

Only coral that seemed effected was my cap which had a small sliver that had lost tissue. I'll monitor it closely but it should grow back over the effected area in a short amount of time. I have had monti eating nudis in the past but was sucessful at getting rid of them. This appears to be only related to the stress of temp fluctuation.

[steely185]

I had to chip away a dime sized piece of cap where the tissue was coming off. I also woke up to find that one of my large acans snacked on another acan overnight. My red acan is now missing two large heads and several small ones. There was a large web of slime and tissue between three acans. My red acan was the most effected. Everyone now gets plenty of space.

 

 

Now that hopefully all the bad luck is over, I have picked up some tropic marin pro coral food. It was described as coral crack with great results. We will see how much color and growth this causes. It was sworn to work by a reliable source so I figured it was worth trying. I also picked up some mb7 and a milwaukee ph pen (tired of guessing the colors). I'll probably up the dose on the kalk by a teaspoon or so. I'm in the market for a new fish and was thinking about a tailspot blenny so I'm keeping my eyes out for one. That's about it for now.

[timdanger]

I had to chip away a dime sized piece of cap where the tissue was coming off. I also woke up to find that one of my large acans snacked on another acan overnight. My red acan is now missing two large heads and several small ones. There was a large web of slime and tissue between three acans. My red acan was the most effected. Everyone now gets plenty of space.

 

 

Now that hopefully all the bad luck is over, I have picked up some tropic marin pro coral food. It was described as coral crack with great results. We will see how much color and growth this causes. It was sworn to work by a reliable source so I figured it was worth trying. I also picked up some mb7 and a milwaukee ph pen (tired of guessing the colors). I'll probably up the dose on the kalk by a teaspoon or so. I'm in the market for a new fish and was thinking about a tailspot blenny so I'm keeping my eyes out for one. That's about it for now.

 

sorry to hear about the troubles - frankly, it sounds like it's not nearly as bad as it could've been. those are some hardy corals!

 

on a more positive note, i was at fish world yesterday -- they had two nice looking midas blennies (however, now they only have one! ). not a tailspot, obviously, but pretty neat looking and colorful. might be worth a look as an alternative if you can't find a tailspot.

[steely185]

Yeah, I swung by there yesterday and they were pretty nice. Nice score. I talked to Joe and he thinks he will probably get some tailspots in soon.

[Mojorizn]

Nice tank...

 

Gonna save the thread and give it a good once over.

 

We have similar light set-up. I have a 6x39 T5.

 

Very nice....

[steely185]

Thanks for the compliment. Sooner or later I need to invest in a nice camera so I can show it for all it's worth. I'll take some pics soon after everything recovers from the stressful end to the week. Glad to have someone following along.

[steely185]

I hope to have a few additions this week. I plan to pick up a tailspot blenny on Wednesday and possibly a ORA gold maxima if they arrive as expected. Got some store credit to spend so I figure using it on a clam is about as good as anything.

 

Rock finished cycling for the 20 and is in the tank now. I'm not crazy with the rockwork so I will have to work on it a bit. That's about it for now.

[Guest nanoreefchris]

sick

[steely185]

I started using MB7 today on my breeder. Caulerpa is growing on some rocks and dictyota (hate the stuff) is getting out of hand. It's feeding off of something and I hope to kill the source or control it at least. The sand bed in the fuge is about 3-4" in a small chamber but always remains clean. Last resort will be to siphon out the sandbed of the fuge. I don't believe flow is an issue. Since the fish are fed every two to three days I don't believe overfeeding is the cause. We will see how well the mb7 works.

 

New livestock in two days. Looking forward to it.

[timdanger]

I started using MB7 today on my breeder. Caulerpa is growing on some rocks and dictyota (hate the stuff) is getting out of hand. It's feeding off of something and I hope to kill the source or control it at least. The sand bed in the fuge is about 3-4" in a small chamber but always remains clean. Last resort will be to siphon out the sandbed of the fuge. I don't believe flow is an issue. Since the fish are fed every two to three days I don't believe overfeeding is the cause. We will see how well the mb7 works.

 

New livestock in two days. Looking forward to it.

 

where is the new livestock coming from?

 

based on my research, 3-4" = dangerous depth for sand, regardless of how clean it looks -- you'll probably either want to go deeper (5-6") or shallow (1" or less). wetwebmedia gives a lot of good information about sandbeds and proper DSB depth. what size grains are you using?

[steely185]

City reef for the blenny ( good prices on fish) and Atlantis if they get some gold maximas.

 

Just a guess on depth, I'll check more accurately later. Sugar sized sand that came from my old 20.