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HighEndOfTheLow's Softie Bommie


HighEndOfTheLow

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HighEndOfTheLow

Current Full Tank shots:

post-71329-0-60009100-1425932502.jpg

(10th March 2015)

Equipment

Glassware : Aquaone AquaNano 60, All in one style tank no sump (100ltrs, 40cm x 60cm x 47cm)

Flow: Flow from all in one back, Sicce Xstream Powerhead for additional flow

Filtration: The Aquaone AquaNano is an all in one style tank with a generous layout in the back, which will hold various bits of kit to hopefully give this tank the best option to flourish,

Current arrangement is:-

Chamber 1 water in, 150 watt Heater.

Chamber 2 Innovative Marine MiniMaxi Reactor.

Chamber 3 Empty. (was going to have a tunze 9001 however I think this space maybe too small)

Chamber 4 Cheato lit externally lit by Innovative Marine Magnafuge.

Chamber 5 Empty (built in Media tray is in the way and a PITA to remove)

Chamber 6 Return pump (Aquaone Moray 420 (700 l/ph may upgrade in the future) Tunze ATO 5017

Skimmer: If we require a skimmer it will likely be a new style Tunze 9001 if i can make it fit failing that it will have to be something ultra slim like a MAME skimmer

Reactor: Innovative Marine MiniMaxi Fludizing Reactor which will ether contain phosphate remover or biopearls,

Heater: 150 watt Aquaone Heater

Refugium: largish handful of cheato lit by a Innovative Marine Magnafuge light

Return pump: Moray 420 (700 ltr per hour) however it may need upgrading.

There may also be space for rock or sipporax or similar additional media

Lighting: Ecotech Radion XR15W Pro overkill but nothing but the best here

Livestock Fish: Spotted Mandarin (Synchiropus picturatus) (please see note at bottom of page) , with a few other fish options in mind.

Livestock Inverts: Possibly something like a periclimenes Sp Shrimp and a pompom crab

Livestock Coral: Soft corals only my other half has been strictly informed no fuzzy sticks!

Obligatory Mandarin notice : Please note that we are experenced reef keepers and have successfully kept mandarin for a number of years without issue, this current specimen is 2 years old in our keep, is fat and healthy, feeds on a variety of frozen food and also has regular sumpliments of pods.

Definition Bommie noun:
  1. (Australian) an outcrop of coral reef, often resembling a column, that is higher than the surrounding platform of reef and which may be partially exposed at low tide

 

 

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HighEndOfTheLow

So this tank has been long overdue and been in the process for a month or so but no tank thread was put up until she was wet so heres a few photos from the past month or so:

 

Equipment:

IM MiniMaxi Reactor

post-71329-0-19444500-1425537951_thumb.jpg

post-71329-0-85472300-1425537958_thumb.jpg

 

IM Magnafuge light

post-71329-0-38349600-1425538063_thumb.jpg

post-71329-0-39404300-1425538071_thumb.jpg

 

Radion XR15W Pro

post-71329-0-94798700-1425538162_thumb.jpg

 

Sand

post-71329-0-37581500-1425538104_thumb.jpg

post-71329-0-45572200-1425538111_thumb.jpg

 

We chose this sand after recommendation from the LFS , its a touch fine so time will tell how this sand holds up,

 

We had a bit of a back log with the tank order so had to wait 3 weeks for it to come back into stock but in the meanwhile Liz and I (luke) spent our time dryscaping the rock

 

post-71329-0-79409500-1425538292_thumb.jpg

 

The tank then arrived last week

post-71329-0-09496700-1425538313_thumb.jpg

post-71329-0-58169300-1425538459_thumb.jpg

 

And on the 3rd March 2015 we moved the old pico to the opposite wall (still running while we wait for the new tank to be 100% cured etc)

 

set the new tank up and cured it

 

post-71329-0-16668400-1425538428_thumb.jpg

post-71329-0-40470200-1425538422_thumb.jpg

(water is still a touch cloudy at this point)

 

Thats thats pretty much where we are up to.

 

 

 

 

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HighEndOfTheLow

Hi Simplicity,

 

Thanks for the comment. The AquaNanos are nicely built with good filtration potential.

 

Im in two minds as to what to put in the IM reactor, we were initially going with biopearls but with no skimmer (im waiting for confirmation of skimmer size) im now thinking phosphate remover maybe and then have a small bag of active carbon as well.

 

I have a few empty chambers that im contemplating putting some small rubble or similar.

 

I'll probably get the water parameters checked some time this weekend. Im not sure what cycle if any it will have as it was cooked then dry stored, then its been seeding in a bucket for a few weeks and we've been adding zeobak into tank as well (former zeohead)

 

Liz has started thinking about potential coral for the tank its softie only but any suggestions?

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I don't think I quite understand why the manufacturer decided to put in all those baffles. the raceway seems an inefficient use of space

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HighEndOfTheLow

Hi supernip

 

The tank is by design a freshwater tank if it helps as standard it comes with 2 x floam blocks 2 x ceramics in bags plus 2 x inserts plus return pump and heater....but yes your right id had rather they lost a secton or 2 and spread the space out a bit.

 

But hey ho live with what we got ay?

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HighEndOfTheLow

ok so i had my LFS do a quick Ammonia and Nitrite test on the tank (as I dont own these kits) and both came up as zero's which is a good sign, I will do a phosphate and nitrate test later on this afternoon.

 

With the rock already been cooked before it was dry stored, most of it had been in a bucket of old tank water for a week or two prior to the tank was set up and the addition of Zeobak im not sure how much of a cycle there will be.

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HighEndOfTheLow

ok so erm wow just did the first tests on the tank

Ammonia = 0
Nitrite = 0
Nitrate = 2
Phosphates = off the chart on my phosphorous Hanna Checker flashing 200.

Not sure what to do with that really, ive never had phosphates reading so high, I can only imagine its come from the sand,

Im tempted to leave it for a few days and retest the phosphates and nitrates or would people suggest I chuck in some rowaphos into the currently empty fluidising reactor? (its a couple of years old but been kept air tight i cant really think what could go wrong with it) or some biopearls? (however i have no skimmer so im not sure how helpfull these will be)

i tend to let tanks "do their thing" for the first week or two but then ive never had phosphates that bad.
but i can do a large ish water change is recommended ( TDS = 0 as the tank downstairs is a SPS tank)

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HighEndOfTheLow

post-71329-0-60009100-1425932502_thumb.jpg

 

Cycling along nicely, I chose against putting rowaphos, i'm going to hold out to get some "cleaner" media, I looked at the tub and vivid memories of how much of a PIG that it was.

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HighEndOfTheLow

Ok so i've just hooked up the Tunze 5017 ATO off, just need to run some R.O to top the reservoir up and it should be good to go.

we also nipped to my friends LFS in stafford and got him to run a phosphate and nitrate test on this tank

 

Oddly he got nitrates of 2 (same as what i got) but he got virtually no phosphate reading, so i'm going to re run the Hanna later on today just to see what we get,

to be fair the tank is looking reasonably clear, bit of diatoms on the sand but actually nothing horrendous so maybe it was just a false reading on my part!

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HighEndOfTheLow

put that Radion over the tank in its final place its currently set to only about 30-40% (its set to 60% with acclimatisation mode) but i like that it auto fades etc and switches off, the blues are a bit too "blue" for too long, and we will put it on an extended photo period (as we are up around 6 ish but the lights done start until 9 so i like to see a bit of light in the morning.)

 

Also re tested the phosphates and got a MUCH better reading on the phosphates 0.16 ppm much better reading then off the chart, I guess I must have just done a miss test.

 

we still plan on putting in some form of anti phosphate media in the tank due to the likelihood of high phosphates due to the frozen food for the mandarin.

 

I also brought 100ml of pods for the tank from a non sponsor, not the cheapest not the most expensive however we have used them in the past and been happy, unlike some other companies we've used. this should give a good boost and seed the rock / cheato etc.

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HighEndOfTheLow

Pods arrived yesterday but thankfully still alive etc added the "100ml" of pods (to be fair its small volume but pretty dense in pod numbers) so hopefully that will kick start a viable culture. I may get another few bottles from else where to try and add some diversity these pods were mostly orange and small 0.1-0.3mm in size.

 

With a small proportion which were grey.

 

I think these are typically colder water sp so we'll see.

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HighEndOfTheLow

Ok so we moved over a few pieces of coral (to be honest there's very little in liz's old pico) to the new tank there is a twin toadstool leather rock a small-medium Kenya Tree/Colt Coral and a torch coral (its amazing how resilient torches actually are).

 

everything looking healthy etc.

 

We also brought a Tunze Care magnet Nano for this tank, like the Tunze Care magnet long we have for the tank downstairs its epic, its the perfect size and ratio for the AN60.

 

We also may have solved our Skimmer issue,

TMC have JUST (within days) released a new Nano skimmer which looks like it would be perfect for the job size wise, to add to it, we can get one at virtually trade thanks to mates rates.

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HighEndOfTheLow

Ok so a few things have changed in the past few days since our last update

 

We ended up picking the TMC Skimmer and i must say its doing a very good job and skimming well after 2-3 days,

We moved a few CUC over and the main star of the tank our spotted mandarin,

 

heres a quick video the glass is a touch dirty but you get the idea.we also need to decide what we are putting in the fluidizing reactor, probably some form of anti phosphate media.


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HighEndOfTheLow

Well we went to an lfs and liz went a bit nuts on the frag bins.

She picked up the following:

Bright Green mushroom
"Furry" brown/purple mushroom
Frag with 2 ricordia yumas on (pink and green)
And a small colt frag (different form to the kenya)

We also cleaned the skimmer for the first time

 

dc35c35cf16045e081f1f898441ac7e1.jpg

 

Tested nitrate at zero (woop woop)

Phosphates coming in at 0.14 (coming in at 46 on the hanna phosphorus checker)

Need to find some anti phosphate media to stick in the reactor but when we went the lfs they only had an iron based media which I didnt really want to use.

 

we'll try and get some photos of the stock tomorrow.

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HighEndOfTheLow

Nipped to a small lfs and picked up seachem phosguard to put in the minimaxi reactor.



We put about 45-50ml of phosguard (rinsed) and also about 1 heaped tablespoon of kz active carbon (rinsed) in the mini maxi.

I know dont typically mix them but its such a small amount and with the tank having higher the average phosphates due to the heavy ish feeding we will be replacing the phosphate media probably as quickly as the carbon.


Its tumbling nice enough in the reactor.

 

We also added a further 4 blackfoot's and a lone scarlet hermit crab I found in the 195ltr,

 

9495b2d6efb6eddadb49f9b8a216cf88.jpg

Purple /brown fuzzy shroom
c5561c162c8aaf583f07f28ca3ce402f.jpg
Bright green shrooms
f23a14ca43439b4563a0857267e26447.jpg
Pink and green ricordia yuma (1 of 2)
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Kenya
92d32ba096684855a779b7ed6ff1bbe9.jpg
Daisy polyp
98e3abdba0cfacb85bea3ff0dedb3071.jpg
Wierd colt
d02fc975ff42d2b740b177d304995037.jpg
Toadstool leathers
c4e8d021bc492664237c61e934793132.jpg
Torch
12e6e5deaa6ee6bc8e697c443bf5468a.jpg
Mandarin
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