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lakshwadeep's ADA 60-F


lakshwadeep

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After going from Oklahoma City to Salt Lake City for graduate school, I came back over the Christmas holiday to see my tank and nano gobies were doing okay in autopilot (except for a Caulerpa outbreak) under my dad's supervision. However, that made me catch the reefkeeping bug again, and I've decided to have a "simple" tank.

 

Another thing that pushed me was visiting Live Rock n Reef, a LFS that's part of a Florida aquaculture company. They had some really nice rock with small brain corals and lots of macroalgae like Halimeda, but I always prefer Indo-Pacific rock.

http://www.liverocknreef.com

 

Equipment:

ADA 60-F (8.6 gallons)

AI Sol Blue (I bought this before the tank, so it's overkill, but I can always upgrade, right?!)

Vortech mp10 (also overkill; waiting to meet a local seller)

 

Livestock (anticipated):

Some Eviota gobies if any fish

Fungia

plating Montipora

Some hardy type of branching SPS, likely Seriatopora or Pocillopora

macroalgae (hopefully lots of hitchhikers and possibly some Pencillus and Halymenia)

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Got my tank today! It is pretty shallow, so I'm having some angst about whether I should have gotten the taller 60-P... But, it's already here, and my light and major equipment should be coming in. Interestingly, I found amazon.com has some good prices on things like heaters and maxijet pumps. But, they didn't have some things like ESV salt.

 

On Saturday, I'll be getting the mp10 from the local seller. He was a little irritating in not giving me the address (kept writing "yeah!" in every text message), making me waste my Sunday afternoon. Luckily, in my frustration I found they had posted an older ad from January (google cache ftw!), where the seller was offering at a lower price (and now was selling me the vortech for the same price he bought it). So, I decided to ask if I can get the lower price, and he at least went halfway. No wonder people like the less hassle of buying new; but I'm a sucker for bargains...

 

To do: jerry-rig some lighting mount, get refractometer calibration solution, test kits (will first ask my parents to send my old kits; they never test the water, lol), live rock, sand, food, freshwater, mixing bucket, CUC, corals, and fish...

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Deleted User 4

Lolol. I agree, the 60p is more worth it considering it being 9 more gallons with only $30 more.

Also, there are too many 60-fs on here now ahah. Need some more 60-p members!! :)

 

How are you going to hang the ai sol?

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I'll hang it from some support. Right now, I might just use some wood and string since the tank will be on my desk next to a shelf. The main thing I need is an easy way to raise/lower it since it's likely to bleach many corals. I really wish I could make something like this, but I'm having a hard time finding the parts.

 

lampe-suspension-design-halogene-reglabl

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Lolol. I agree, the 60p is more worth it considering it being 9 more gallons with only $30 more.

Also, there are too many 60-fs on here now ahah. Need some more 60-p members!! :)

 

How are you going to hang the ai sol?

 

With all the new 60F's we could start a club lol

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Deleted User 4

I'll hang it from some support. Right now, I might just use some wood and string since the tank will be on my desk next to a shelf. The main thing I need is an easy way to raise/lower it since it's likely to bleach many corals. I really wish I could make something like this, but I'm having a hard time finding the parts.

 

lampe-suspension-design-halogene-reglabl

 

You should check out blueprntguy's diy hanging mounts made with acrylic parts...though don't know if it'll work on an ai sol...unit much smaller.

 

With all the new 60F's we could start a club lol

 

True....lol.

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It's alive! I couldn't help waiting so I bought some rock from my LFS along with the vortech (not shown). I hope there are lots of hitchhikers!

 

file-2-1.jpg

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Deleted User 4

Lol. You should get the hydor in-line heater to get it out of display. Keep clean in other words.

Also, are you going to add a canister filter? With lily pipes like Rehype's ada?

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I thought about it, but I don't want any external equipment (= more maintenance). The neo-therm is the most unobtrusive heater I could find.

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More pics. The rock has a lot of Halimeda growth, with some sponges. There are quite a few large bivalves, and it seems all of them are still alive.

 

file-3-1.jpg

 

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with AI sol (pointed sideways; LEDs appear to be worse than T5s when it comes to auto color balance)

file-14-1.jpg

 

file-13-1.jpg

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That is definately GOM farmed rock. It is crazy with bivalves and sponges. That red stuff that lays flat and is smooth to the touch is more primatice then sponges. When picking up some of this live rock from the water, I was squirted in the face by a small clam. Once I realized it was finished and that I was not blind, I burst out laughing almost drooping the rock as I was three steps above the ground on a ladder. I receive this live rock in 200 lb shipments. It is uncured and theryfore is crammed with biodiversity. I have 2000 gallon systems that absorb this large nutrient influx. From my experiences the Halmenia has been difficult to cultivate. I normally remove it 100%. Compost your tomatoes. I have used both direct sunlight and MH at 6500K. One thing that I noted on your pictures is the extreme amount of coralline algae. It even covered Halmenia surfaces.

I have much experience with GOM live rock curating. I will start a thread on my sponsor subforum, please join to describe your successes and failures. I will discuss mine as well. We will develope good husbandry skills for the beautiful eco system that we maintain in our personnel tanks.

 

http://marineplantbook.com/

For macro info, this is the best reference book I have used.

 

http://www.gulf-view.com/

Dale, collects the rock that I curate. He started 25 years ago. Both he and TBSW are the oldest and most reputable live rock farmers in Florida. You should be able to identify your diversity using his links.

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IME, Halymenia is actually hard to control, not difficult to grow. As long as the calcium/alkalinity levels are good (and there is decent lighting), it can spread quickly.

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  • 2 months later...
lakshwadeep

I should be getting an update this weekend. I haven't added anything after the rock, primarily because I was busy with my first year in graduate school and pretty disheartened to find a couple of aiptasia in the rock. For a while I seriously thought about throwing it all out and starting afresh. There have been the common algae blooms, but now the tank seems to be settling down.

 

Luckily, I got into my first choice thesis lab, focusing on marine natural products chemistry (natural products are biologically derived chemicals often used in drug discovery). My advisor even asked if I could help set up a saltwater aquarium since they just moved to a new building! I could hardly hold back my enthusiasm thinking of all the plans. But in the back of my mind, I kept thinking this needs to be idiot-proof and automated as much as possible since I would most likely have to take care of it.

 

Things to do:

Make light stand (currently it's sitting sideways and exactly as long as the width of the tank).

Kill aiptasia (they seem to all be hiding, and I know I saw a fairly large one lurking in a hole).

Get CUC (hopefully no escapees) and eventually some corals.

I am thinking about fish, but I might forgo or just get one tiny goby and see if it can survive on pods for multiple days. In that case, I will probably go with a lot of macroalgae to generate more food.

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  • 2 weeks later...
lakshwadeep

Thanks.

 

Yesterday I went to a different LFS to get a better selection (Live Rock n Reef is pretty spare livestock-wise), and I found a nice place called Fish 4 U. They had some great display tanks with large coral colonies. I got a small CUC of three ceriths, three nerites, and a small emerald crab, all of which were very reasonably priced.

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Live n reef has a ton of life on it. Some of the rock I have in my tank is from them. It had sponges, corals, mantis shrimp, macro algae, crab, tunicates and probably missing one more thing. Lol

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Arkayology

Ya, that is some great looking LR. Anything undesirable come in on it other than the aiptasia?

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lakshwadeep

There is some Caulerpa serrulata, and probably the cotton candy algae some people consider a pest.

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
lakshwadeep

Okay, I need to clean up the tank and get some pics. I've been really busy working (I kind of shut down after working 9-10 hours). So, today I finally got around to buying more freshwater. The caulerpa and other algae are slowly taking over.

 

At the store, I made my first semi-impulse buy for this tank since it looked so boring: a little black ray shrimp goby (Stonogobiops nematodes). I would have gotten a candy cane pistol shrimp (Alpheus randalli), but the LFS employee couldn't find any.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Finally cleaned the tank, but it's cloudy. I'll take some pics tomorrow.

 

In the mean time, the shrimp goby is doing fine and has actually made its "burrow" near the top of my rock (there are some big tunnels even though it's just one rock. I still am thinking about whether I should get the 60 P. This tank is on my desk so it's far from eye level, and looking from the surface gets old after a while.

 

This post is mainly to note that I got two sexy shrimp today!

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