Nic's CadLight 45 Gallon Shallow Reef - New Pictures!

[Alex B]

No no it was just running to make sure it operated correctly. There was no media in it. I assure you I'm listening to you regarding being at NSW first. I just wanted to make sure I had it put together correctly and everything operated correctly, which is how I discovered the electrical issue.

 

Ok cool! I thought you had started everything...lol...I was like "Ohhh no"

 

In that case I'm not sure what's giving you issues. I would start doing water changes to lower the levels and go from there.

[Nic]

Haha I was like, "damn, he thinks I'm ignoring every word he says." I sincerely appreciate both you and Nano helping me with things. I've kept two reefs thus far in my career, both had a stick or two. They didn't die, but they didn't do alot else either, so I need the help and I wouldn't disrespect you by asking for your help and then ignoring you. The way I see it, thats a lot of money to waste (not to mention the pity of losing beautiful, rare animals) just so I can have crayola colored sticks. I need to read more. I understand the concept, I generally understand what to do but luckily I'm blessed with high parameters so I can take my time and not rush into it and absorb as much as possible. I'm hoping these bumps in the road just help me with my overall knowledge. Given, I may sing a different tune two weeks from now and I haven't solved the RTN issue and my parameters aren't coming down. haha

 

So I came home, I'm dipping the two with RTN. I honestly think they're unrelated. One was from the Vivid shipment that was being buffeted by the MP40 and it only had one branch with RTN, the other was from Cultivated Reef which arrived yesterday so it may just be stress from shipping and acclimation. It has three of four branches with RTN. Curious enough, like the other one that RTN'd last week, they're both Green Acros with a more delicate looking skin than many of the others sitting in the rack.

[Nic]

Done a lot of work tonight trying to stop this STN/RTN business. Hoping for the best. Quite a few of the corals are doing well, however. Here's the latest test results. Everything is going down except Magnesium, which jumps all over the place day to day.

 

Salinity: 1.026

PH: 8.0

Ammonia: 0

Nitrite: 0

Nitrate: 0

PO4: ≤ 0.25

Calcium: 465

Alkalinity: 11.8

Magnesium: 1620

 

Photos from above the tank

 

Full Tank

 

Acro sp. from Vivid Aquarium

 

LiveAquaria Diver's Den Acro sp.

 

Tridacna Maxima from LFS, Goniopora from UC

 

Tridacna Deresa

 

Acro sp. from Vivid Aquarium

 

Tabling Strawberry Shortcake from Vivid Aquarium

 

Cultivated Reef Flame On, Unique Corals Green Planet, UC Red PlanetAcro sp. from Vivid (L to R)

 

Acro sp. from Vivid Aquariums, Sunset Millepora from Vivid, Acro sp. from UC, Gold Torch from LFS

 

Frag of LiveAquaria Diver's Den Acro sp., Alveopora from UC

[/img]

 

Blue Panther Acropora from UC

 

Hammer Coral from LFS, Zoanthids from LFS

[4x5]

Get your Alk and Cal to the levels you want (slowly) and then worry about your Mag. Nice clams and Acros.

[Nic]

Get your Alk and Cal to the levels you want (slowly) and then worry about your Mag. Nice clams and Acros.

 

Thanks! Doing five gallon water changes a day until I get to NSW. It's SLOWLY getting there. And I mean crawling.

[Nic]

what is the superglue on the tip intended to do, ive never heard of that before

 

Hey Spankythepyro, I forgot to respond to your question. Take a look at this link:

 

How to Stop Tissue Necrosis on Your SPS

 

A lot of people either use the superglue method or when things are desperate, frag off the remaining portion that still has healthy tissue. The easiest way to understand the superglue method, I think, is enumerated in that link. Think of it as being similar to a forest fire. Firefighters will intentionally light small lines of fires in advance of the forest fire itself in order to burn off a line of brush and trees thereby stopping the forest fire once it reaches the area that has already burned. Similarly, gluing the areas around the line where the tissue is gone and where it is advancing holds the effected tissue in place, hopefully, giving the coral enough time to being healing itself.

 

I think you'll find through a forum search regarding tissue necrosis, that a lot of people on NR also use this method.

[Nic]

I just wanted to make a note that BRS is sending me a new pump one day after I came to them regarding the electrical issue. Two thumbs up.

[Nic]

Doser came in today. I met up with my buddy who does a lot of woodworking and we went to Lowe's to price out the materials for the stand I'm building later this month. The plans are based on Urbanek's 250 stand and will incorporate added length, a shelf for supplies and a control panel for all of the equipment. In the meantime I set up a shelf in what little space remained of the cad stand and will have the doser sitting just above the return chamber in the sump. Did my nightly 5 gallon water change. Happy to say all the frags that were fine and not suffering from RTN/STN yesterday are doing just fine today. The ones suffering from RTN were not helped by the tea tree oil or the superglue so I began fragging off effected areas and putting unaffected areas back on frag plugs. Pictures below:

 

Doser and accoutrement

 

Shelf

 

Shelf with doser

 

Only complaint I have with Pacific Sun USA and the doser is that I asked for the black one, not the white but at this point, I'm happy the white one.

[Nic]

Did quite a bit last night to the tank. Of course, started out with my usual 5 gallon water change which I also did today. All of the frags and colonies that did not start experiencing RTN/STN originally are all coloring up and doing well in their new epoxied locations. Of the three that did experience RTN/STN, two of them were fragged down and they appear to be donezo, the third was superglued and looks to be coming out of it just fine. All areas of RTN were stopped and it's even begun coloring up to a nice shade of neon green.

 

I wired up the doser, connected the ATO and float valve, and tidied up the wiring using two 15 amp heavy duty drop chords. My buddy who is helping me with the stand in the next few weeks works for dominion power and does repairs and maintenance to large transformers. He inspected my drop chords and how I had everything connected and his only qualm was that I needed to add up the total wattage of the equipment in each power strip to insure I'm not surpassing the maximum wattage allowed. I added the grounding probes, one to the DT and one to the sump. I attempted to load the software for my doser to my MacBook only to come to find that even though it states on the box that it is compatible with Apple products, they have not yet released the program for Apple products. So I then attempted to load it to my cheap Wibdows based laptop only to find that it doesn't have BlueTooth capability. I sent an email inquiring about the Apple software and expressing my unhappiness that the box advertises Apple capability when it is not yet made for Macs. I loaded BootCamp onto the MacBook and was finally able to use the program. I also discovered that my CadLights PLS 100 skimmer is continuing to periodically flood, dumping nasty skimmate back into the sump and then going nuts for several hours because of that. After looking up the issue on NR and RC I found that a lot of other people are having the same issue. I took the intake off the skimmer and used a small drill but to drill out the hole for the air intake. It seems that it was continuously being clogged. Ever since doing that I haven't had an issue with it spouting off like Old Faithful inside of my stand.

 

 

My parameters are as follows:

 

Calcium: 430

Alkalinity: 11.9

Magnesium: 1590

 

The calcium continues to come down but neither the alkalinity nor the magnesium appear to be following suit. Alex and Christine, should I begin preparing to dose calcium utilizing my doser or should I wait until the other parameters come down? If the calcium gets to the levels it should be at should I stop doing water changes or continue to do water changes but dose for the calcium?

 

Lastly, I scored a fish that I have been wanting for a couple of years now. I got an email notification that LiveAquaria had a medium sized Dwarf Golden Angelfish in stock. I have been reading on them for quite a while and it seems that most people get one, it refuses to eat prepared foods but is able to stay fat and happy off live rock for around a year and then suddenly takes prepared foods. They also appear to be reasonably safe with coral, occasionally nibbling at softies and clams but usually not causing severe damage. With that being known, I decided to give it a go. It'll be about another week before it arrives.

 

[Nic]

Only had time to check one parameter today and that was alkalinity. It looks like the daily five gallon water changes are finally starting to take serious effect. Alkalinity today was 10.9 dKH. That's a full 1.0 dKH lower from yesterday. Calcium was near NSW last night, so I'll be checking full parameters BEFORE doing a water change tomorrow. I'll begin dosing Calcium once that arrives at NSW and continuing the water changes for alkalinity and magnesium. Can anyone advise if that is the correct thing to do? If not, what's the best option?

[TEETEE562]

Nice tank u got there bud. Digging the bare tank

[4x5]

Before you dose you need to figure out how much your system is using per day. But before you figure that out I'd suggest getting the the parameters to where you want them. Once they are there, test after a day or two and see how much the values have dropped. If you wait 2 days then divide the results by 2 and you'll know you're daily usage.

 

Then use this: http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html - it makes calculating how much of a specific product you need based on water volume and usage.

[Nic]

Before you dose you need to figure out how much your system is using per day. But before you figure that out I'd suggest getting the the parameters to where you want them. Once they are there, test after a day or two and see how much the values have dropped. If you wait 2 days then divide the results by 2 and you'll know you're daily usage.Then use this: http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html'>http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html - it makes calculating how much of a specific product you need based on water volume and usage.

 

Thanks 4x5. Any recommendations as to what I should do about my calcium? It seems to be falling after each change at a much greater rate than either magnesium or alkalinity. Will this just level off as it approaches NSW? (I assume it would as you are still introducing calcium while removing more)

Nice tank u got there bud. Digging the bare tank

 

Thanks! I enjoy the BB both aesthetically and for its utilitarian purpose. Unlike my previous tanks with sand beds you can easily see any accumulation of detritus and either reposition a pump to stir it up or use a turkey baster to get it into the water column and remove it mechanically. Only problem I've had with it is if any water falls down the side of the tank it tends to pool under the glass a bit which you can see through the bottom. Overall really happy with how it allows you to control waste buildup.

[4x5]

If your Cal starts dipping below what you want you can always manually dose that to keep it stable for the time being. It shouldn't dip too much per day at this phase of your tank.

[NanoTopia]

Calcium: 430

Alkalinity: 11.9

Magnesium: 1590

 

Hi Nic,

 

In an ultra low nutrient tank, the above parameters will eventually STN corals and precipitation is more likely. I really suggest the following parameters:

 

Calcium: 410ppm

Alkalinity: 7-7.5dKH

Magnesium: 1300ppm

 

 

[nismo_sky32]

Love the tank and beautiful angel. I think this will be the one I go with when I eventually upgrade. Any quality issues with the tank or stand?

[Nic]

 

Hi Nic,

 

In an ultra low nutrient tank, the above parameters will eventually STN corals and precipitation is more likely. I really suggest the following parameters:

 

Calcium: 410ppm

Alkalinity: 7-7.5dKH

Magnesium: 1300ppm

 

 

Thanks Christine. I'm slowly working my way down to NSW. I'm doing a 5 gallon water change nightly and it seems to be having the most effect on my calcium, thus far, however, everything is slowly lowering. I haven't started zeo yet and the reactor is just sitting idly by the tank until I get there. Hopefully within the next month or so, the parameters will be right where I need them to get started. I've been lurking on the ZEOvit forums and reading the ZEOvit guide over and over so I can try to have at least some reflexive knowledge once I get started.

 

Some updates for tonight. I got a mini colony of Strawberry Shortcake and a mini colony of Hoeksemai from Ken at reef corner.com. I cannot recommend him highly enough. He's emailed back and forth win me personally over 65 times and set aside corals off his website a good week in advance of me purchasing them. Both corals were packaged exceptionally well using a heat seal bag and oxygen. They arrived with full PE in the bag and are coloring beautifully already with full PE on the egg crate at the bottom of my tank.

 

The Dwarf Golden Angel arrived, floated the bag for 30 minutes and did a drip acclimate for an hour. Unfortunately, I do not have the room for a quarantine tank of any suitable size in my apartment and have to take a chance anytime I add a fish but he looked very healthy in the bucket and seems to be doing just fine thus far. When I added him the yellow tang went nuts and went straight for him, attacking him for a good twenty minutes. I finally decided to net the tang and stick him in the sump for timeout. Might keep him there for a couple of days just to give the angel some time to acclimate. I've read tangs can be territorial like this and his reaction wasn't completely unforeseen. Hopefully when I reintroduce him it will be a long enough separation to calm him down and allow the angel to get settled and be more able to accept a little harassing for a few days.

 

Love the tank and beautiful angel. I think this will be the one I go with when I eventually upgrade. Any quality issues with the tank or stand?

Thanks Nismo! I love the tank's dimensions and the quality of the build is solid, however there are several things to consider when going with this tank and I actually just discussed them via pm with Lawnman. The tank is solidly built and in have few complaints in that regard. The plumbing is metric which makes for a headache though I've seen on another person's build they were able to find a PVC connector metric to standard. I also saw someone else was able to find a standard size bulkhead that they were able to fit and the made their own plumbing. I went with the plumbing provided and it serves it's purpose. I may try to find that bulkhead size and convert my plumbing when I build the new stand.

 

And now to the stand. The thing is crap. It comes in a million pieces and the instructions are in Chinese. I damaged several places when putting I together but it is surprisingly stout for a particle board stand. There is very little room for anything other than the sump and DIY'ing shelving is a pain but possible. Law man went with Cad's pre built piano finish stands which I highly recommend over this one. I'm going to start constructing a new stand based loosely off of Urbanek's 250 stand and I'll likely rebuild my plumbing then.

 

Cad's customer support is okay. Sometimes it's hard to get them to respond to inquiries but with a little persistence, it's possible. They neglected to send a few pieces of my plumbing with the kit and after a little back and forth I was able to get the piece, though it had to pay for it. All in all, the quality and unique dimensions of the tank trump the issues I enumerated and I have enjoyed having the tank. I would certainly recommend it despite the long nights and scaring the dog with loud curse laden yelling while putting the stand together.

[cindyp]

gorgeous tank! i'm so envious!

and it looks great bare bottom too.

i toyed with the idea for my new cadlights

8g, but wound up doing a shallow sand bed.

[4x5]

Pictures of the new corals?

[Nic]

Pictures of the new corals?

 

 

I'll get you some great iPhone 5c Cracked Screen Exclusive "macro shots" this evening. At some point, probably a long time from now, I'll stop purchasing corals and actually save and buy a DSLR camera.

 

 

gorgeous tank! i'm so envious!

and it looks great bare bottom too.

i toyed with the idea for my new cadlights

8g, but wound up doing a shallow sand bed.

 

 

 

Thanks cindy! I truly appreciate the compliments. I guess I need to invest in a better camera. Whats the use in having a beautiful tank if you can't properly photograph it to show its progress? Am I right or just looking for a new reason to spend money? Haha I think my wife would choose the latter.

 

I actually had a piece of starboard cut to size for the bottom of the tank. Its a bright white piece of plastic that is used in boats. Its supposedly completely resistant to salt water and doesn't leach chemicals. I decided not to put it down because I've only seen people discuss its use in a reef tank hypothetically, I never could find anyone who actually did it and I am not about to be the guinea pig for that little experiment.

 

Only issue I've found with the BB is water pooling under the bottom of the tank on occasion.

[acrab78]

Did quite a bit last night to the tank. Of course, started out with my usual 5 gallon water change which I also did today. All of the frags and colonies that did not start experiencing RTN/STN originally are all coloring up and doing well in their new epoxied locations. Of the three that did experience RTN/STN, two of them were fragged down and they appear to be donezo, the third was superglued and looks to be coming out of it just fine. All areas of RTN were stopped and it's even begun coloring up to a nice shade of neon green.

 

I wired up the doser, connected the ATO and float valve, and tidied up the wiring using two 15 amp heavy duty drop chords. My buddy who is helping me with the stand in the next few weeks works for dominion power and does repairs and maintenance to large transformers. He inspected my drop chords and how I had everything connected and his only qualm was that I needed to add up the total wattage of the equipment in each power strip to insure I'm not surpassing the maximum wattage allowed. I added the grounding probes, one to the DT and one to the sump. I attempted to load the software for my doser to my MacBook only to come to find that even though it states on the box that it is compatible with Apple products, they have not yet released the program for Apple products. So I then attempted to load it to my cheap Wibdows based laptop only to find that it doesn't have BlueTooth capability. I sent an email inquiring about the Apple software and expressing my unhappiness that the box advertises Apple capability when it is not yet made for Macs. I loaded BootCamp onto the MacBook and was finally able to use the program. I also discovered that my CadLights PLS 100 skimmer is continuing to periodically flood, dumping nasty skimmate back into the sump and then going nuts for several hours because of that. After looking up the issue on NR and RC I found that a lot of other people are having the same issue. I took the intake off the skimmer and used a small drill but to drill out the hole for the air intake. It seems that it was continuously being clogged. Ever since doing that I haven't had an issue with it spouting off like Old Faithful inside of my stand.

 

 

My parameters are as follows:

 

Calcium: 430

Alkalinity: 11.9

Magnesium: 1590

 

The calcium continues to come down but neither the alkalinity nor the magnesium appear to be following suit. Alex and Christine, should I begin preparing to dose calcium utilizing my doser or should I wait until the other parameters come down? If the calcium gets to the levels it should be at should I stop doing water changes or continue to do water changes but dose for the calcium?

 

Lastly, I scored a fish that I have been wanting for a couple of years now. I got an email notification that LiveAquaria had a medium sized Dwarf Golden Angelfish in stock. I have been reading on them for quite a while and it seems that most people get one, it refuses to eat prepared foods but is able to stay fat and happy off live rock for around a year and then suddenly takes prepared foods. They also appear to be reasonably safe with coral, occasionally nibbling at softies and clams but usually not causing severe damage. With that being known, I decided to give it a go. It'll be about another week before it arrives.

 

Sweet feesh....

 

Not even mine and I cant wait till it comes in... hahaha

[Nic]

Thought I'd go ahead and post these up. Greg at Cultivated Reef found an awesome Cali tort and fragged a double size frag of Oregon tort which should be arriving today. Greg has been awesome to work with and has answered all of my questions and provided me with some pretty amazing looking frags.

 

Cali tort

 

 

Oregon tort

 

[4x5]

Baller alert.

[Nic]

Sweet feesh....

 

Not even mine and I cant wait till it comes in... hahaha

 

He came in yesterday. Pretty shy thus far. Seems to enjoy chasing my Pygmy Angel every now and then but he's so tiny that he darts into a crevice that the Golden can't fit through. Its actually a funny little relationship they have going on. The Pygmy seems to be oblivious of the Golden, every now and then the Golden chases the Pygmy halfheartedly and last night they slept in the same crevice side by side. Woke up this morning, they were back to halfheartedly chasing each other haha. I'll try to get a picture tonight but he really is shy.

 

Baller alert.

 

*Baller on a budget (And the wife said the budget is up)

[TEETEE562]

Dam golden angel... Remember to take pictures. I love dwarf angels, i have like two: potter and flame. Yeah man you shouldnt worry too much, my potter angel didnt accept any prepared food for up to 4 months and just fed off the liverocks. Now she eating everything