Chris's 27 gallon mixed reef

[--chris--]

Hi, welcome

 

A bit about me. Ive been into reefs since 2007, i have a knack for diving into things headfirst and not looking twice. Since 2007 ive had a 50 cube, 5.5 gallon, a dual 60 (48x18x12 stacked) frag setup, a dual 30 (36x18x12 stacked) frag setup, a 20 long and a 10 then a 15 gallon office setup. Ive also dabbled in clown breeding, with limited success of course

 

If case you haven't noticed, i was very excited about this hobby and its many facets. Ive learned to settle down some and focus this ambition into just one small tank.

 

That brings us to the current tank, the 27 gallon Dutch Aquarium (from Texas, yehaw). Ive had this setup, and running since 2008 when my 50 cube cracked (thank god, it happened while i was at home and I was able to capture some water and save everything). In this 27, ive had it setup with and without a skimmer. With and without carbon dosing. With and without sand. With new rock, with old rock, with no rock (briefly). Ive learned a lot on this tank, and im ready to make the best of that 'learnin i did.

2009

July 2012

October 2012

January 2013

February 2013

March 2013

Current Stock list (1-27-2013)

The fish:

2 occy clowns, mated once a long time ago and never again

1 blue damsel, first fish my wife and i every bought

1 hippo tang, holding onto this guy while my friend moves downstate and sets up his new tank....taking much longer than promised.

The coral:

SPS

Green Pavona Maldensis

Red cap

Orange digi

Orange setosa

Zoas & Palys

Dragon eye zoas

Mohawk palys

Woodstock Palys

Tubbs blue

Happy People Eaters

Captain America

Nuke Green

Purple Death

Miami Vice zoas

Sonny D's

Star Gates

Chong Bongs

Blue Hornets

Pink Rimmed People eaters

Goochster palys

Green/brown protopaly

LPS

Green hammer

Tyree Mystic Grape Favia

Raptors Peace Coral

Bryans Baby Breath Favia

Acan Lords x 5

Soft/Shrooms

Rics/shrooms/rodactis

Neon Green Toadstool

Pulsing Xenia

Cabbage leather

The equipment:

MP10es

Eshopps PSK 75 skimmer

Wave Point 4x24 watt T5 HO retro

Via Aqua Ti 200 watt heater w/remote

Toms digital thermometer <--dropped in tank

Melevs 150 GPD boosted ro/di system

 

Ive had a log running for a few months on another site, but it largely flies under the radar. Im hoping to learn more here, and get help as needed

[TristanC]

That's a pretty cool rock scape you have going there! I look forward to seeing you make this one better than ever

[Arkayology]

Nice tank, but it has been up for since 2009 and it has so few corals! You have much more restraint than I do sir.

[--chris--]

That's a pretty cool rock scape you have going there! I look forward to seeing you make this one better than ever

Thanks! Nothin but rod, epoxy and 3 pieces of rock.

 

The rock was built for a 20L i had setup, so as you can imagine....its shorter than i would like for this tank. But, its pest free and it replaced rock that wasnt lol. Also it was free, so that sealed the deal Ive been keeping my eyes peeled for the perfect piece(s) of rock that i could add to make it taller, but i have not found any yet.

 

 

Nice tank, but it has been up for since 2009 and it has so few corals! You have much more restraint than I do sir.

 

Ha! If you notice in the 2009 pic I had quite a few softies....well ive had some problems with water quality and chem warfare so i lost most of that over 2 years. Then my wife wanted to focus on getting th occy pair to spawn again, so water quality took another hit. And for about a year it ran sans skimmer because it flooded the kitchen. I lost all faith in its ability to keep water IN the tank.

 

After all that, i decided it was best to just start over. I had a 20 long running with this rock, and 20lbs of bew sand. I drained all the water out, scrubbed it top to bottom outside with a hose and put it back together with 90% new water. That was June of 2012, and ever since ive been working on getting the tank ready for sps/lps.

 

Some tests from last night:

 

No3: 0

alk: 7 dkh

temp: 76.3-80.1 <---too large of a swing?

pH: 8.0-8.1

 

Anyone know if cal/mag/p04 tests can get old and not work properly? I have those tests, but dont trust the results because i opened them about 1.5 years ago.

[--chris--]

I'm having some trouble with the road I just picked up. they appear pinched in the middle of the polyps, and both mini colonists are closed up. my zoas that have been in there for awhile are ok, just the new ones are loaded off.

 

the sps I picked up are doing ok, not great but not bad either. polyp extension isn't great, but there is polyp extension.

 

the cyano seems to be getting under control, but it might be too soon to say....

[--chris--]

Camera phone pics incoming (sorry, i lost my P&S camera)...

 

This is the palys ive had in there since august. The two new heads in the lower left corner of the plug are new since last week! Looks like its settling in finally.

 

 

 

Newest FTS

 

 

If you notice, the cyano is 100% gone Im up to 3 ml's a day of vodka and 1 capful of MB7....im almost out. Im going to let it run out and see if there is a difference. There is still some fading patches of very short GHA, but most of it has turned translucent or is about too. The rock is cleaning up nicely!

 

Note: Sandy is new. My wife picked it out, you cant say no...ya know?

[--chris--]

Picked up the 225 bucket of Salinity tonight, from what ive been seeing looks like a solid salt.

 

Also might be getting a nice something something from sea dwelling next week. Possibly.

[Builder Anthony]

Lol u must be a giant 225 bucket of salt is to heavy for me

[--chris--]

Lmao, no giant here. Just 5'9 with long arms, I guess tht limits the actual amount of lifting I have to do

 

If you read the first post, you can see I've had quite the collection of tanks....which isn't always a good thing. I'm working on something again. Someone tell me not to do it and ill sell it when I'm done putting it together lol.

[--chris--]

First time doing taped seams. Yes, thats duct tape. No, i wouldnt use it again. 10"³

 

 

 

Ill be trimming it with some nice extruded plastic i picked up. Thats tomorrow or whenever i get time.

[--chris--]

I had a lot of free time at work today...

 

[--chris--]

Ordered some goodys for the 27 gallon as well

 

 

Blue actinic lighting on the way....

[--chris--]

 

Glass top made from 1/4" and a HOB filter i had layign around here....

[--chris--]

Got the LED's setup in my T5 Retro. Quite the disappointment.

 

T5

 

T5 & LED

 

LED only

 

 

For $40 i think i could have done better. The only upside to these is i get some good "glow" from certain things...but no added benefit with the T5's on.

 

 

 

The tanks a bit messy, im gearing up for a water change and because of that ive got detrius blowing around waiting to settle before getting vacuumed out.

 

I ordered the following Zoas and Palys!

 

Happy PE
Captain America
Purple Hornets
Nuke green
Purple death
Tubbs blue

 

 

And im working with a local guy on getting twice this much in a few weeks!

[--chris--]

I was going over some posts from last Janurary, and it looks like those pink/black palys above were 4 polyps with a baby! That pic above is about one year of growth...wow! Wish i would have taken pics :/ Id say i have almost 20 polyps now.

[--chris--]

I come home last night from work, and my tank has a funny pile of bubbles on the surface and my skimmer is going nuts.

 

I think i had two seperate issues. The first, i moved the MP10 recently to try and get more flow towards the bottom half of the tank. That part worked, unforutnetly it also created the perfect conditions for it to create a tiny vortex and suck air in when it ramped up to 100% occasionaly. This would create micro bubbles, and thus...the pile of bubbles. I turned my tank into a skimmer with my MP10.

 

The second problem (the skimmer), im not sure what happened there. It was foaming like crazy for about 4 hours after i got home, and who knows how long before then. It finally settled down last night around 9:30 pm. Weird.

[--chris--]

Got some more polyps tonight (I traded a 50 lph air pump to a clown breeder, he gave me a platinum clown. I traded the clown to a friend who lives near by, and he gave me...)!

 

Gob stoppers (30+ polyps)

Tiger Tails (20+ polyps)

King midas (2 frags, one 5-6 and one 10+)

Pink palys (15+)

and a small patch of GSP

 

Im going to have to frag up the gob stoppers and the tiger tails to make them look right on my small rock. Im going to try and hide the frags behind the rock...ill see how it goes.

 

I also broke my orange cap accidentally, so I made two frags of that and glued them on some rubble. I also had 3 digi sticks glued near each other...i kept the largest and glued the other two on some rubble...all that will be going behind the rock as well.

[--chris--]

Pic update and logging some params.

 

s.g.: 1.025

alk: 9.6 dkh

temp: 78.6

cal: 360

mag: 1140

 

"Pink palys" and what i called "almost keds" at first...but they appear to be something else, better!

 

 

"king midas" but they are a bit too green for that. Great color regardless...or maybe these are baby king midas and the color will come later?

 

 

Gob stoppers & brown palys

 

 

Name? Gold/brown paly

 

 

GSP...before it spreads

 

 

Im going to let the new stuff settle in for a few weeks. Then ill pick the better sections out and carve up the rocks into smaller pieces to fit my small rock work better. Whatever is left over will become frags.

 

 

And this is the same as the "pink palys" above, but ive had these for a year. This is todays pic.

[--chris--]

Thought i would share this. I get this every day from this HOB eshopps skimmer. Its the 75 gallon rated version. I dont feed heavy either, coral frenzy 1-2x a week and frozen brine or frozen worms 2x/week with pellet 3-4x a week.

 

 

When i got into 3.5-4 ml's a day of vodka daily is when i started getting a full cup everyday.

 

Also, interesting note about MB7. I ran out last week, figured i would keep dosing vodka without the MB7 and see if i need it. Definitely need it.

 

I kept dosing 3.5 ml/day, and within 3 days i started getting a progressively worse cloudiness in the tank. I skipped one days worth of vodka, and the next day the tank was crystal clear. I picked up MB7 yesterday, dosed it and 4 ml of vodka today and yesterday...no cloudiness.

 

So in my case, MB7 is really a key piece to my nutrient export program.

[--chris--]

Ive got these tanks for sale, if anyone nearby (SE Michigan) wants them PM me.

 

 

They are 26.75*17.75*8.5". Made from 3/8" glass, all non-tempered and BEEFY!

[--chris--]

Ive got these tanks for sale, if anyone nearby (SE Michigan) wants them PM me.

 

 

They are 26.75*17.75*8.5". Made from 3/8" glass, all non-tempered and BEEFY!

 

I sold/traded one these tanks for 5-6 heads of tryee mystic grape, 5-6 heads of bryans baby favia and 6 heads of Raptors peace coral. This is all coming from the same guy i have my big group of zoas and palys coming from, which will all be hear Saturday!

 

In other news, my DI resin is already shot I made all of 50 gallons with it. I think i have to blame the initial blast of high TDS water that comes off the membrane when i start it up (usually around 150). Ill have to put a "T" and a ball valve in the DI line to redirect the first few gallons. Hopefully that will be enough to make my DI last longer than 50 gallons. The Membrane is kicking butt however...taking 650 TDS down to 11 TDS. The DI (if anyone cares) is taking the 11 down to 1. I couldn't get it to hit zero though.

[--chris--]

Got some new stuff They were put in last night, on the "acclimation rack" where they will stay for awhile. The only polyps are are open right now are the woodstocks, but you can see the colors in the favias so ill post them as well!

 

From left to right: Bryans baby breath, Raptors Peace coral, Tyree Mystic Grape

 

 

The woodstock (1+1 baby):

 

 

On top of those, i also got:

 

Nuke greens

Purple deaths

Tubbs blue

Captain America

Happy People eater

 

Pics to come later if they open up today..

 

edit: I went on a buying/trading spree i guess. Totally forgot im getting these till i got a text just now lol.

 

Miami Vice zoas, Sonny D's, star gates, chong bongs, blue hornets and some pink rimmed people eaters.

 

This sundays water params:

s.g: 1.025

temp: ? <---need to get a new digital thermometer

Po4: 0

No3: 0

Cal: 350

Alk: 9.3 DKH

[--chris--]

Gob stoppers & brown palys

 

 

I used my wifes Iphone last night to try and get better pics of the tank. After using it, i must say i was pretty let down by my droid! The above pic was with my droid. The pic below this was with the Iphone.

 

 

Neither one touched up. The Iphone takes much truer pics/clearer colors.

 

[--chris--]

Newest FTS. I glued down all my new frags tonight (which is why everything looks pissed), except for the extras in the the right hand side...still need to hack up two of those and trade the rest away.

 

[MGDMIRAGE]

Looking better, however why are those tiny shallow tanks using such thick glass? even 1/4" is overkill for such shallowness.