First reef tank - Fluval Spec V

[spaceheater]

Hello everyone,

 

I'm in the process of starting my first reef tank. I have been keeping freshwater fish for a bit but wanted to branch out and have always drooled all over my keyboard looking at pictures of nano reefs. I'm currently a graduate student, so space limited. I already have a planted Spec, so wanted to do the reef in a matching tank. I figured it would create an interesting dichotomy and the two look awesome back to back IMHO.

 

Anyway, here's what I've got so far:

 

Fluval Spec V (duh)

stock light

stock pump

AC 30 for refugium

Deep Blue 30W heater

5 lbs. live sand

~5 lbs fossil coral

 

The AC30 I got was obviously a return and was cracked and missing pieces, so I'll have to exchange that in the next couple of days. Also, I'm planning on getting about 5 lbs of smaller live rock pieces to build up the tank and add to the refugium in the next couple days.

 

Questions (you knew they were coming...)

1) Right now I have the stock carbon and bio inserts in the filter sponge. In my FW I cut the center divider out and filled the entire thing with bio media. Should I do this for the reef tank as well?

 

2) Am I right to assume that the sand/refugium/liverock will need to be fed with ammonia after cycling and before adding livestock? It'll probably be a couple weeks before I upgrade the lights and start adding corals.

 

3) How do you like the current layout? I tried several and this was by far my favorite, but if you've got some suggestions I'd really like to hear them before I fill it.

 

4) Can I use my FW test kit on this tank? I'm specifically thinking of the ammonia test.

 

Right now I'm working on figuring out lighting, but I'm leaning toward upgrading the stock light fixture to keep the symmetry. Also, the heater I have pushes the temp up to ~90, so I'm in the process of building an uc (homebrew Arduino) based lighting and heater controller, and I'm going to bring out an extra output just in case I want to add an ATO in the future. I am a physics student, so this sort of thing is right up my alley.

 

 

[Kijho]

Let me be the first to welcome you to the Spec V club!

 

 

Questions (you knew they were coming...)

 

1) Right now I have the stock carbon and bio inserts in the filter sponge. In my FW I cut the center divider out and filled the entire thing with bio media. Should I do this for the reef tank as well?

Your filter is somewhat pointless right now during your cycle. Eventually you're gonna wanna get rid of that sponge. I learned the hard way - it houses a sh*t ton of bad stuff. After a while it turns brown. Really gross. Also - get rid of the carbin and bio balls. Chemipure Elite and Purigen. Put them in a media rack with some floss at the top! Check out many other Spec V owner's for this. Nanoclown, Ninjamyst, and Cswan.

 

2) Am I right to assume that the sand/refugium/liverock will need to be fed with ammonia after cycling and before adding livestock? It'll probably be a couple weeks before I upgrade the lights and start adding corals.

If you don't have any source for decaying matter right now (IE. not true live rocks) then you'll want to put something. As I've suggested with so many others, a piece of table shrimp works. The more expensive route would be actual ammonia.

 

3) How do you like the current layout? I tried several and this was by far my favorite, but if you've got some suggestions I'd really like to hear them before I fill it.

Looks nice! Don't do what others like though do what you like!

 

4) Can I use my FW test kit on this tank? I'm specifically thinking of the ammonia test.

I've seen Marine and freshwater test kits in stores. I presume ammonia might be the same - but with SW you do test for different things I believe such as calcium and alkalinity. You won't need those two until you really get some corals.. but ammonia/nitrate/nitrate would be needed for the cycle. Also invest in a refractometer.

[spaceheater]

Thanks for the reply Kijho!

 

Sounds like I'll just leave the sponge out for now and look for some eggcrate, chempure and purigen. As far as the live rock, atm I've got OceanDirect live sand from PetSmart as the substrate, but I'll be getting some real live rock this week from the LFS. I also have a 1/2 gallon of pure ammonia from Ace that I use for cleaning and used to cycle both my FW tanks. I figured I'd flood, add the live rock, then do the standard 2-3 ppm ammonia and see how long it takes to drop to 0. I will also get a SW test kit with the rock, just wondering if I could use the FW kit in the meantime. I got a hydrometer when I got the tank, and I've also got a refractometer from homebrewing, just have to dig it out of the closet.

 

Another question: With the stock filter and the AC 30 I didn't think I'd need a powerhead, but I'd like to hear some input. My goal was to keep the tank as clean as possible, but if it's needed I'd rather have a healthy tank than a pretty one.

[ninjamyst]

Most of us upgraded the stock pump to marineland 606. IMO, the 606 itself is enough for most corals.

[spaceheater]

So I ended up flipping the top rock on the left before flooding. I went back and forth for a while, but eventually decided that the taller arch somehow looked less natural. Also this gives me a more stable base to build upward with live rock and frags.

 

After deciding I mixed up 5 gallons of instant ocean and carefully filled. Once everything had settled for a few mins I turned on the pump and I inserted the sponge w/o inserts. I had a lot of nasty debris on the surface, so I'm letting the sponge grab that while I work on making a media basket for the skimmer compartment.

 

I also did a bit more reading and found that the ammonia test kit works for both Sw and FW, so this morning I tested and had 0 ppm. After this I added 0.75 ppm ammonia. Like a FW tank, I'm going to keep this level constant until it drops to 0 in about 12 hours.

 

New question: Where do people get eggcrate for building things in the aguarium?

[NanoClown]

First off,

Welcome to the club!

 

Your aqua-scape is all about your taste, make arches as you see fit. I try to get the most surface area possible out of my rock scape so that I have more room for coral

 

If you are looking for black eggcrate, you can order a large 2'x2' piece from BRS. If not, you can more than likely find white eggcrate at your local Home Depot or Lowes.

[spaceheater]

Thanksfor the tip on the egg crate. Sure enough HomeDepot and Lowes both have it. I'll be using it to build racks for the skimmer and refugium, so white will be fine.

 

I'm working out my lighting plan now, but wanted some advice from the experts. I'm planning on DIY retroing the spec fixture, should be easy enough. So far the rough plan is to mill my own heatsink to fit and add a 60 mm fan to the backside with makeup holes so that the airflow will run: unsupported end -> heatsink -> fan at supported end. I will also be building a cover with LEDs for the refugium on a rev. schedule for growing macroalgae. Part of the reason for this is I often have to leave for 5-10 days at a time for conferences, etc, and would like the refugium to add a bit of stability to the tank if I'm a few days late on water changes.

 

As it stands, I have been looking over RapidLED's website and think I have come up with a good plan:

4x Cree XM-L Cool White (20 W max)

2x Cree XT-E Royal Blue (2 W max)

1x SemiLEDs True Violet UV LED (0.75 W max)

 

Over the Refugium I will have:

2x Cree XP-G2 Neutral White LED (~4 W @350 mA)

 

I plan to use the 350 mA moonlight driver for the refugium. On the display I will have the 4 cool whites on one circuit and the blue and violet on another so that I can have a bit of color balance control as well as a fade out to moonlight fade out to dark effect. I was going to use 2x LPC-35-700 for the display circuits, and have all 3 circuits controlled by the LDD-700HW for PWM control from a micro (custom, programmable w/ PID temp and ATO control).

 

Does this seem like a good lighting plan? I think that the refugium lights are way overkill at ~8 Wpg, but I can dim them way down if need be. Also, since I'm exchanging the AC30 (broken), I might get a Fluval C3 instead, which is basically the same thing but looks a bit nicer aesthetically.

 

What I'm really wanting input on is the display lighting. With this plan I have a max of about 4.5 Wpg in the photosynthetic range. I would like to be able to grow SPS eventually, and from the research I've done this should be more than enough, considering the relatively low height of the light bar above the substrate.

[NanoClown]

If you are into DIY, you should check out NanoBox. they just released their 13 up board that Dave uses in his fixtures. It will give you a very nice full spectrum (using a wide spread of different LED colors) with more than enough light to keep what you would like. All you would need is 2 dimmable drivers, controller / potentiometers, fan/heatsink and a power supply. Im going to go this route when I upgrade in the future

[spaceheater]

Well, after work today I went and exchanged the HOB, but they were out of the AC30, so I ended up with a 50. It was actually $2 cheaper because it had went on sale. I also picked up some egg crate from Lowes and got started on the media racks. On my way home I picked up 2.5 lbs of live rock, one large ~ 2 lb chunk and a couple handfuls of rubble for the refugium and to fill in around the bigger chunks.

Refugium rack, glue, and lubricant:

 

Top view of refugium, the intake is in the pump/heater chamber on the back of the tank:

 

Front view with new rock:

[spaceheater]

Well, by the time I went to bed last night the ammonia had dropped to almost 0. This morning it was definitely 0, so I added 1 ppm ammonia and will see how this goes. While I'm waiting to get my CUC started should I keep adding ammonia? I am avoiding the table shrimp option since I'm very allergic to shellfish and they're evil. Also I'm just not excited about having to throw out the rest of the package to let one shrimp rot in my tank for a few days.

 

On a side note, if anyone in the central NY Ithaca area needs or can put most of an egg crate panel to good use let me know. I'd be willing to trade for a bit of Cheato (especially if it's got pods in it), but really I just don't want to throw it in the dumpster so if you don't have any I'll just give it to you.

 

Finally, does anyone in the central New York area have good recommendations for marine fish stores? The LFS here is pretty limited. I'd also be interested in anyone that sells frags privately in the area.

[spaceheater]

Water parameters test this evening:

 

Ca: 270 ppm

KH: 190 ppm

PO4: 0.25 ppm

NO3: 5.0 ppm

NH4: 0.3 ppm

 

It looks like my biofilter is established! I'm expecting 0 ammonia tomorrow morning, and if so I will only add ~0.25 ppm per day until I get some bioload.

 

Also, I ordered the LEDs from rapidLED and some heatsinks from heatsinkusa. I ended up with:

2x XP-G2 WW

4x XP-G2 NW

2x XP-E B

5x XT-E RB

1x SemiLEDs True Violet

 

The plan right now is to break them up like this:

Refugium:

2x NW

1x RB

Display #1:

2x WW

Display #2:

2x NW

2x RB

Display #3:

2x RB

2x B

1x V

 

My thinking is that I can color balance the warm, neutral, and blue colors to my liking and the needs of the reef, while also going through a sunrise/day/sunset/night cycle using the micro for a cool effect. I'm fully aware that this much lighting is way overkill on a Spec, but they'll all be dimmable, so I don't expect to ever run them all at full power.

 

The other option that I'm considering is moving one WW, one NW, and 1 RB to my freshwater tank and just doing 1 NW and 1 Rb on the refugium. In all honesty this is probably the configuration I'll go for, as that tank has only low to medium light plants but the stock light barely keeps up with them.

[spaceheater]

I didn't get a chance to test this morning due to a mini crisis at work, but I will when I get home. In other news I decided to rescape last night. It was bothering me, I wanted more height in the back corner as well as some free area next to the room side glass. I went through maybe 20 different configs before settling on this one. I'm still not 100% happy, I think I need to get some more LR to build up a bit and fill in. Once it's set I'll glue it in place.

 

[jfduggan]

With a little reef safe glue for rock, you may be able to build it up nice and high in the back. I personally like to get a lot of rock at the back of the tank. That way you could potentially put some higher light corals on almost a plateau on the top, and it further provides shade for low light corals on the side of the rock underneath it. Makes for a really cool contrast. I just can't wait to start my Spec V build in about a month.

[spaceheater]

Well, I tested this evening when I got home, and ammonia is between 0 and 0.25 ppm. I dosed about 1.0 ppm this morning, so things are looking good. Nitrates were between 5 and 10 ppm. I also set up a ghetto ATO using a stand built out of eggcrate and a plastic tonic water bottle (well rinsed of course). Hopefully sometime soon I'll get a chance to get out of town and visit one of the LFS in the area. I might make a day of it and hit the Rochester and Syracuse locations. I'd really like to pick up some live rock, macro, and get started on a CUC.

 

As far as reef glue goes, what brand do people recommend? I heard from a couple people at work with tanks that they just use the loctite superglue gel. Is this ok? Also, one of them said that they use it underwater, just put a pea size spot on one surface and wuickly press the other to it. Has anyone tried this?

[Fishstiks]

I have used the loctite gel and it works pretty good, but I found that either my cuc is super rowdy, or it just doesnt hold as well after a while. I recently started using the BSI gel (ordered off amazon) and I love it. It is thicker, cures faster, and so far, seems to be a better hold. No corals have been knocked off by my disco dancin' turbos. Lol

[spaceheater]

I got to go to one of the semi-LFS (1:15 drive) today. While I was there I picked up another 3.5 lbs of live rock, interesting pieces and completely blanketed in purple coraline algae. I really like the way that they look and wish I'd passed on the white fossil coral. I may just ditch it and buy another couple of large pieces to fill in for it.

 

I also bought an emerald crab, mithrax crab, and a couple of blue legged hermits. I am holding off on snails until I have an algae bloom, but when it happens I think I'm going to go with bumblebees. I really like the way they look and they stay small. I personally think that snails are kind of ugly and the bumblebees are the only ones I have found that I'm actually ok with.

 

I also bought my first coral frags. These are a bit of an experiment to see if they survive... They were on sale and very small, so if they don't make it I won't be too heartbroken. I got a green starburst polyp, an orange/green colony poly and a red mushroom. I glued them in a couple of hours ago and the orange/green has opened but the starburst is still retracted. Hopefully tomorrow morning they decide to come out and show off. I did make kind of a huge boo-boo and glued the mushroom in backwards (chalk it up to the beer I had). Anyway, it's visible but barely, and does get light, so once it grows it'll be fine.

 

Finally, I got a nice big handful of chaeto for the fuge. Before adding anything I did a ~20% water change. When I tested this morning I had:

0-0.1 ppm NH4

>0.25 ppm PO4

5.0 ppm N03

190 dKH

270 ppm Ca

 

I am glad that I bought the 25 gallon size instant ocean, because I'm going to switch to a reef salt. I completely forgot to get any when I was at the store today, but the shop here in town does carry reef salt as well as Ca supplements, so I'll go tomorrow and slowly start bringing the Ca up.

 

My heatsinks arrived today, and the LEDs will be here Monday, so I'll have the new lights in Monday evening. For now I'm going to run them on an old Arduino Uno that I've already got programed with a simple fade in/fade out sketch. In the meantime I'm drawing up the board for a complete system controller that will run lights, heat, ATO, and auto feeders for when I'm away on both tanks. The plan is to have an all-in-one controller for both tanks with a LCD display. I'm still going back and forth between a single rotary encoder and a 12-key capacitive keyboard for the input device, but leaning toward the keyboard so I can default to simple on/off for each tank and the fuge without having to navigate menus. I could do both and have the encoder for temp/light levels and keyboard for navigation and on/off, but that seems a bit clunky IMO. I'm planning on putting both the light build and controller build in the DIY forum in case anyone is curious.

[Kijho]

Nice progress so far mate!

[ashtricks]

Super nice! I am very close to starting my Spec V too! I will be watching closely

[spaceheater]

If anyone's interested I started a thread in the DIY forum for the upgrades project:

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/348556-fluval-spec-v-lighting-heat-ato-and-autofeeder-upgrade/

[spaceheater]

I tested all the parameters this evening:

 

0 ppm NH4

0 ppm NO2

~7.5 ppm NO3

0.25 ppm PO4

340 ppm Ca

~170 ppm KH

 

I'm bringing up Ca slowly, done 2x 10% water changes over the last 2 days. I'll probably do every other day for a while until I get it above 400. I bought a tiny internal filter for mixing water so I can have it on hand.

 

That leads me to my next question: When people say "well aged water" what do they mean? I was thinking of just having the pump going in a bucket with about a gallon of water on hand, but once I get Ca up I'm probably only to be changing about half a gallon a week. Is it OK to keep water for a couple weeks? I was also considering buying a 5 gallon HD bucket and having 2 or 3 gallons if it doesn't go bad. I could keep in in a closet with the lid on and pump running and only have to mix new water every month or so.

[Kijho]

Looking good!!

 

I've never heard of "Well aged water" though. My SW is premixed and I buy it 3L jugs.

[spaceheater]

So I have been neglecting the pictures lately. That's partly because I've been busy and partly because I am no photographer (my only camera is built into my phone).

 

The red mythrix, he spends most of his time hiding in the rocks

 

The emerald, he hangs out in the front making menacing faces at me

 

The red mushroom, you can see what I mean by "gluing it in backwards", but at least it seems happy and healthy

 

The zoas have been open and looking great, but one of my hermit crabs has been picking over their rock all night so they're in hiding

 

Finally the first of the starburst polyps opened this evening. I was getting a bit nervous, but it turns out they were just shy.

 

Anyway, it seems like everything is going well so far. As far as the water is concerned, I think I'm going to get a smaller paint bucket and just make a gallon at a time to have on hand for water changes. It's not exactly hard to mix up with a pump, and it'll give me time to adjust temp/salinity to match the tank.

[spaceheater]

So I know it's been a minute since I updated. The crabs went in without causing even a hint of ammonia. Nitrates were somewhere between 5 and 10 ppm this morning. And...

 

 

I added a Yasha and pistol shrimp a couple days ago. After a bit of hiding the goby and shrimp paired up and now he stands watch over their cave while the shrimp rescapes for me. They actually already moved, apparently they didn't like the first one. Anyway, my yasha is pretty fierce, fending of the hermits that try to get in. He also will come out and patrol the perimeter fairly often. So far I've been feeding them a mix of enriched brine shrimp, mysis and blood worms, but I'm going to start adding pellet food in once a day to get them used to it.

 

Things are going well for the most part with the exception of the red mithrax. He has been terrorizing the other inhabitants. So far he's killed one hermit crab, got in one fight that I witnessed with the emerald, grabbed the Yasha's fin this morning at feeding time and yesterday he ate every single one of my zoa polyps. It's abundantly clear that he has to go. Tonight I took his rock out and dumped him in a bucket with about a half gallon of water I've got mixed up with the little internal filter.

 

I had researched emerald mithrax before purchasing and I didn't read anything about them not being reef and fish safe. When the salesman told me that the red were just a different colored variety I decided to get one of each for variety. Now that I've done some more research I've seen a lot of mixed cases of red being either peaceful or aggressive. Anyway, I learned my lesson with this one

 

Now it's time to decide what to do with him. I'm split between returning him to the LFS with a warning that he is NOT reef or small fish safe and just ending his life. I probably won't have a chance to get to the LFS for a couple weeks, so he'd have to live in the bucket until then. On the other hand I'd probably get a refund and possibly a replacement frag since the guy told me he was for sure compatible with fish and coral.

[spaceheater]

Ok, so I was just just now watching my tank and the emerald walked over and attacked the goby. The pistol shrimp ran him off and clicked a bunch, but I reached in a grabbed him. Now both crabs are in the bucket QT. I'm leaning toward taking them back and asking for a replacement frag. I guess I'll have to count on the hermits to clean up any leftovers and algae.

[spaceheater]

Today I took both crabs back to the semi-LFS they came from. The guy happily took them back after hearing about the coral and goby attacks. While I was there I picked up some new corals. When I got home I rescaped pretty significantly. I wanted to push things back a bit more and create more of a rock ledge look.

 

 

I also had a diatom bloom over the last couple days, so I picked up a nassarius snail (despite my previous objections). I would have bought more than one but that was all that we could find in their tanks.

 

I grabbed a few corals as well, and on one of them I got a hitchhiker. Can anyone help me identify this snail? Is it good or bad? I'm pretty certain it's a nerite, but it has a LOT of blue which I've never seen in a nerite before.