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Kat's badass BC14, retired


metrokat

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Did you get a porcelain anemone the white with dot kind? They are shy, they find a soft coral to host and never leave it so if you have some corals or soft patches of maybe algae, turf grass or something in the back he might be there.

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Did you get a porcelain anemone the white with dot kind? They are shy, they find a soft coral to host and never leave it so if you have some corals or soft patches of maybe algae, turf grass or something in the back he might be there.

Nice brain. Isn't that the one that was receding? Looks good.

Two for one image

y7823_450.jpeg

 

 

Um no mine is purple with orange stripes. Like this.... The only thing it "hosts" is a rock.

1215280C.jpg

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Not sure how the brain is since I'm in Atlanta at the moment. I do have an update on it, will be in the tank sitter thread in a bit. Yes that is the Caribbean porcelain, mine is called dingbat like I mentioned on your thread. He's an idiot.

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  • 1 month later...

Today is the last day my BC14 will be running. It goes to another reefer tomorrow and I will miss it.

Buh bye cutie.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Aww, my pleasure!

 

Sorry if this is already posted, but what lighting are you using now on the RSM and how are SPS doing?

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I have T-5's stock lighting plus 1 ecoxotic Panorama PRO 50/50 and 2 stunner strips in the RSM. Click my signature for my thread. The SPS came back from the dead, I have progression shots in the thread too.

 

Thanks.

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I have T-5's stock lighting plus 1 ecoxotic Panorama PRO 50/50 and 2 stunner strips in the RSM. Click my signature for my thread. The SPS came back from the dead, I have progression shots in the thread too.

 

Thanks.

 

 

Ok what happened to your SPS?

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They were nearly dead under the LED's in the BC14, the lights were simply not enough.

 

 

Right, you just had the one panorama pro and stunner on the 14? Did they turn brown or white or ?

 

 

 

I only ask cause I have 2 Pro's and 1 stunner on my 10G. So far so good one some of my SPS.

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They turned brown and some died. 2 PRO's on a 10 seems about right.

 

Did your green slimer have more of a yellowish color under the old lighting/tank?

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  • 2 months later...
albertthiel

You sure put a lot of work in that tank and its design and that is very laudable .. planning is and should be a major part when you begin to set up a small or medium or large tank as once everything is in it and you decide you don't like the look of it, or it just does not come across as 'appealing' and you decide that you are going to start making some changes ... you will have a lot of work to do and usually end up with a mess on the floor (unless you plan the takedown carefully as well).

 

I had to take a 400 gallon down years ago when I was doing consulting for large tanks and that aquarium had not only a very thick layer of substrate but so much rock that just to get it out and spread out I needed a 4 by 8 blue plastic sheet to lay it all out on nicely separated from each other and of course in that kind of size there were tons of fish and invertebrates that needed to go into temporary tanks (which the owner did not have so I had to go buy them).

 

If I remember well I started the rearranging job and the cleaning once the tank was empty, and making modifications to the filtration system very early in the morning (it was in Westchester NY and I lived in CT in those days so it was not too long a drive to get there), and did not finish until about 2 am the following morning.

 

But the end result was what I wanted, and what the owner was very pleased with (a Doctor), and after that I "managed" the tank for a few months to make sure that all was ok and that the filtration was adequate as determining in advance what was really needed is not really possible (one can take a good guess at it and be be close but to be exact one has to follow what goes on.

 

I made needed changes and in this case I did have to add a second sump (fortunately the owner had all the filtration in the fish room behind the tank so that was not a big issue)

 

Of course a lot of more work was involved. Amongst others: doing a lot of re-piping and adding more controls to ensure that the flow from one sump to the other was adequate and that the bio-filter in the larger of the two sumps was progressing nicely as well. It did.

 

I should have pictures of that tank somewhere but not sure where I saved them ... If I find them I'll post them.

 

Anyway as I was saying "planning" before getting going and just adding rock and other items willy nilly to a tank is usually not going to work out and many are in such a rush to get their reefs or even just plain tanks up and running in a jiffy that more often than not planning is not part of what they do ... as I did find out in those days when I took on consulting jobs for large aquariums and reefs and ran into many instances where lots of time needed to be spent changing things around in those tanks.

 

The largest one I worked on btw was a shark tank at Sharky's Reef in Metairie LA, a restaurant. That thank was over 120 thousand gallons (8 feet deep and covering the whole length of the back of the restaurant. If you have been to that restaurant you will know what the tank looks like. That job started off with a phone call from the owners of the rest (3 lawyers) because there sharks kept getting skin diseases and eventually die (and buying new ones from Florida cost them over 8 grand in those days).

 

I spend about 4 full days there and worked probably 14 if not more hours a day getting that tank taken care of of but in the end with all the changes made (including adding special half circle panels at the end of the aquarium on both sides as sharks cannot make 90 degree turns - so the ends had to be rounded to they would not bump into the sides - but I guess whoever built the original tank did not know that).

 

That was quite a job believe me as I had to dive into the tank to check out the substrate which was close to 3 feet deep and take samples from the top and the bottom to analyze to find out what was going on it that substrate (a mess I can tell you).

 

You may wonder how I got into the tank with 10 Tiger sharks in it ... yes 10. Well not that difficult .. I had someone else feed the sharks and feed them more till they were satiated and did not care for food anymore. Once that was accomplished I was quite certain they would leave me alone for the most part, although a few did come and sort of "check" what the heck is that thing in the aquarium (me) ... but they never got aggressive.

 

I finished the job after just about changing everything including a large portion of the bottom of the substrate as there was a lot of anaerobic stuff going on there and a lot of the dolomite and cline they had used was fused together in large clumps and obviously totally prevented water from going through and that is what created the anaerobic areas inside those clumps - and that is what ended up fouling up the water and when things got too bad that is when the sharks started to get those skin diseases. What a job that was I tell you. I'll try and write a blog about it and post it to the forum in a few days when I try to recollect what else went on as I did that job something in the early 90's so I really am going to have to think back and try to remember as much as possible so I can post some more details (I may still have some water quality numbers somewhere on a back up zip drive as that is what I used in those days to back up docs). I'll have to check ...

 

Anyway so much for a post that started off with the statement that "planning" before you actually start putting anything in the tank IS most important ... hopefully the details about other tanks I dealt with made it real clear that you must plan and rethink your plan and even run it by some hobbyists who have been at it for a much longer time than yourself and get their input. It always amazes me that a lot of hobbyists do not do so even tough there are so many experts or hobbyists who have kept tanks for years and years, around and who are willing to share their knowledge.

 

Albert

 

 

 

Any time you want to be "needdy" you can scape a tank for me :). Nice job
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albertthiel

If they turned brown (burnt) it may have been an issue of either too much light, or the wrong light or too long a full light cycle ... some have gotten around this by using light dimmers but unfortunately that does not work with every kind of bulb. Some just cannot be attenuated or dimmed.

 

The alternative is to wire the lights not all on on circuit but on 2 or more depending on how many bulbs there are so that say if you have 6 you can switch them on and off 2 at a time, thus lowering the light if you start with six and then go to 4 and then to 2 and then to night lighting (they used to call it moon light but I never liked that term). Low light from very low voltage of the newer twisted looking FL tubes has worked well for a friend of mine (Leo Wojcek from NJ - don't know if he is still around - he used to make and sell filters and very large skimmers some so large in fact that I called them the "Monsters" :) . They did the job though but you sure needed a lot of space for them and some hobbyists I dealt with in those days used to build frames around them out of water resistant treated wood and paint that so the actual skimmer was not visible as they were indeed kind of unsightly even though they were very efficient. Wonder if any of you remember Leo and whether he is still around. If he is let me know will you.

 

Note that I have observed some of them turn back from brown to a nice creamy white ilke Nacre, with proper care and of course a change in the lighting conditions. Whether that happens depends on the type of coral and where it geographically came from as even similar corals coming from different geo areas react in a different say to lighting and other conditions

 

 

They turned brown and some died. 2 PRO's on a 10 seems about right.
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albertthiel

Just curious ... why did you take it down .. ?

 

Albert

 

 

This tank was retired on March 11th 2012. What a great little tank it was.

 



FTS: Nov 23 2011

IMG_3434.JPG

 

Details:

  • Oceanic BioCube 14 Gallons

  • MJ900 pump

  • Stock lights
    Ecoxotic Panorama Pro 12K/453nm + Magenta/453nm stunner strip

  • Removed false floor in chamber one to fit Oceanic Skimmer and Submersible heater

  • Removed bio balls, chamber cover & false floor from chamber 2

  • Used a zip tie to suspend chemipure to false floor of chamber 2

  • Purigen on top of False floor

  • Floss on top of that

  • Koralia Nano

 

Macros

  • Red Glacilaria

  • Halimeda Incrassata

  • Chaeto

  • Flame Algae, (Bryothamnion sp.)

 

Inverts

  • 3 Virgin Nerites

  • 3 Nerite Snails

  • 2 Nassarius Snails

  • 3 Scarlet Hermit Crabs (murderers)

  • 1 Blue Porcelain Crab (
    Dufus
    ) (Dingbat)

  • 125 Dwarf Cerith Snails

  • 9 Astrea Snails

  • 1 Zebra Pistol Shrimp at large, armed and dangerous

  • 1 Black Pistol Shrimp! most like a HH

  • 3 Dwarf Planaxis (eeny, meeny, miny)
    (presumed dead)

  • 1 Sexy Shrimp (Bubba)
    banished to pico

  • 2 Limpets

  • 1 Zebra hermit crab
    presumed dead

  • 2 Light blue hermit crabs

 

Fish

  • 1Yasha Goby (Piggy)

  • 2 Blue Neon Gobies (pair) (Mater & unnamed)

  • 2 Baby Ocellaris (Max & Ruby)

 

Corals

  • ORA Green Birdsnest

  • Caribbean Rose Coral

  • Blue spotted mushroom

  • Green Stripe mushroom

  • Blue mushroom

  • Eagle Eyes

  • Neon Blue Zoas

  • Blue Hornets

  • Orange Zoas

  • Pink Zoas

  • Hidden Cup Corals

  • Blastomussa

  • Kenya Tree
    sent to pico

  • Neon Green Leather

  • Various unidentified zoanthids

  • Red mushroom

  • Orange Ricordea (was supposed to be yellow)

  • Purple palys
    gifted to the trash bin

  • Green Leopard Palythoa

  • Unidentified palys

  • Green Paly

  • Yellow Sea whip

  • Yellow ball sponges

  • GSP

  • Duncan

  • Superman rhodactis (meh)

  • Rainbow Monti

  • Tangerine dream Acan
    some red acan

  • Sympodium

  • Hellboy Favia

  • Pink Gonipora

  • ORA Spongodes

 

Hi everyone, this is my first post, I'm very excited to be here. I'm a newbie, my first tank (a friends actually) was set up over thanksgiving in 2010, I learnt a lot over the months and my brand new shiny BC14 is up and running with 10lbs LR, 10 lbs live sand for about 4 days now. I am awaiting a shipment of gulf-view's premium decor rock.

 

With the first tank I realized that it was so important to have a good aquascape design, a composition. The first tank has some beautiful corals and 3 fish and I can spend hours watching it but it doesn't make me go "wow". I don't know if mine will either but it wont be because I did not try. I googled pictures of peoples tank to death, most favor the "wall" look, "valley" look, some feature arches and of course that amazing bonsai scape is just to die for. In my little 14G it is a bit of a challenge.

 

i started out looking for "shelf rock". Shelf rock is thin flat LR that resembles a ledge. You can use it to display coral especially if you have a tank suited for SPS (mine is not, it's a stock biocube). I traced out the shape of each rock on paper.

 

Then I made a framework out of plastic straws (I was showing pictures of it to my LFS guy and he went "wow you are nerrrrdy!" you have to understand what a huge complement that is, I'm a girly girl, pink nails, branded handbags, in the fashion industry blah blah) anyway. Here's a picture of my straw-scape:

IMG_20110711_143522.jpg

 

Then I added the traced outlines of the shelf rock to see how I like the height etc. (I made a paper pattern of the BC footprint to work on too). Finally I took a 1/2 inch PVC pipe and every kind of do-hickey that you could use (cross, elbow, 3 way connector 45 degree connector, I bought like 100 of these things!) sawed the PVC into bits and different heights (didn't know I had a saw in my apartment!). This is what it looks like:

IMG_20110712_130838.jpg

 

Now that i am expecting the deco rock the scape will change, I read online that using acrylic rods is better (first of all they are skinnier so i dont have to drill mega holes in my LR. Plus the skinniest PVC (1/2") is too big for a 14G tank. In the pic above the exposed pvc was going to be covered up with live rock etc but it would greatly reduce the open space design of the aquascape.

 

So that's my first post. I know you all have more experience than me, so I would appreciate your comments.

I'm currently also awaiting a shipment of acrylic rods from us plastics. Can't wait!

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