jimbonds Posted December 31, 2015 Share Posted December 31, 2015 Welcome to the Bonds Reef. It's a 29 gallon Oceanic Biocube HQI that's been up for about 6 months. Before I post the first picture I'd like to give a big thanks to my brother-in-law, Aaron, and my father-in-law, Mike, for providing the tank/stand, a whole lot of coral, and the knowledge that comes with a master's degree in marine biology and 30+ years of experience in reefing. For a quick overview... Equipment Kessil A160WE Tuna Blue MJ1200 pump Koralia Hydor Nano power head Cobalt Aquatics Neo-Therm 150W heater Apex controller Neptune DOS dosing pumps Filtration Sera Marin PS130 skimmer Filter floss Bag w/ Matrix and Phosguard Sponge Corals Gold Hammer Green Octospawn Gold striped Torch Assorted Acans Dracula's Blood Chalice Hollywood Stunner Caulastrea Duncans Seriatapora Stylophora Pistillata Pavona Pavona Pavona Cactus Green Montipora Capricornis Lavendar Lepastrea Porites Rus Asorted Zoanthids Green Star Polyps Kenya Tree Clove Polyps Palythoas Fish Royal Gramma Yellow Watchman Goby 2x Clowns Inverts Haitian Anemone Tiger Pistol Shrimp Red and blue legged hermits 2x Trochus 2x Cerith 1x Astrea Link to comment
jimbonds Posted December 31, 2015 Author Share Posted December 31, 2015 As an engineer by trade, I'm more of a tech person so let's start out with the hardware. The scape is lit by a Kessil A160WE Tuna Blue. The spectrums and shimmer of this light simply can't be beat. Water movement is by an MJ1200 for recirculation through the back chambers and a Koralia Hydor Nano. A Cobalt Aquatics Neo-Therm 150W heater reminds the fish that I could cook them if they miss behave. And then there's the Apex. The specific type of engineering I do is called Control Systems Engineering. So I'm big on control. The funny thing is that in my industry I'm designing control systems to automate pumps, heaters, meters, valves, temp probes, BS&W sensors... sound familiar? We use something called a PLC, Programmable Logic Controler, which is basically just a logic processor with a bunch of inputs and outputs. I would have used one for my aquarium until I discovered that Neptune Systems built one just for this purpose and it has a nifty cloud based web interface! Last but not least, you can see in the pic my new toy, the DOS. It's fantastic, I love it, it's changed my life, and it was worth every penny. Both my wife and I travel up to 50% so having to dose the tank by hand every morning was becoming problematic. Link to comment
jimbonds Posted December 31, 2015 Author Share Posted December 31, 2015 Let's get filtration out of the way so we can get to the fun stuff. Like most AIO aquariums, the Biocube has 3 chambers in back. I have a Sera Marin PS130 protein skimmer in the first. Unless I'm completely inept or this thing has a ridiculously long break-in period, it sucks and has to go. In chamber 2 there's a tray with filter floss and a bag with Matrix and Phosguard beneath it. Inbetween chamber 2 and 3 is a sponge, and that completes the filtration. Pretty simply but it does the job. CORALS!!! This is a mixed reef. For LPS I have three types of Euphillia: Gold Hammer, Green Octospawn, Gold Striped Torch. There are five different types of Acans, a Dracula's Blood Chalice and Hollywood Stunner, three heads of Caulastrea, and two heads of Duncans. SPS include Seriatapora (birdsnest), Stylophora Pistillata, Pavona Pavona, Pavona Cactus, green Montipora Capricornis, lavendar Lepastrea, and Porites Rus. For softies we have several different Zoanthid colonies, green Star Polyps, Kenya Tree, Clove Polyps, and Palythoas. ... Link to comment
Sunar357 Posted December 31, 2015 Share Posted December 31, 2015 Looks good! Love those yellow zoas! Link to comment
jimbonds Posted December 31, 2015 Author Share Posted December 31, 2015 And now we can get to critters. There are two clowns, a Royal Gramma, and a Yellow Watchman Goby who's paired up with a Tiger Pistol Shrimp. That bastard is a murderer. Within two days of adding him he ate one of my peppermint shrimp and left the other out front of his house as a warning. He's been in for about a month and is starting to calm down. It helps that I feed him from a turkey baster. Of course I have the standard hermits and snails. Last but not least is the Haitian Anemone. If you haven't seen one, Google it. I was going to go for the standard RBTA but when I saw this glowing guy with his purple tips I bought him on the spot. It helped that he was only $20! Looks good! Love those yellow zoas! Thanks! I picked them up at Pacific East Aquaculture. Took a day trip out there when my bro-in-law was in town visiting us for the holidays. It's hard to show in the picture but they look like gold ore coming straight out of the ground. Link to comment
Sunar357 Posted December 31, 2015 Share Posted December 31, 2015 Condys are cool nems they just tend to eat fish at times. Link to comment
jimbonds Posted January 1, 2016 Author Share Posted January 1, 2016 Condys are cool nems they just tend to eat fish at times. Damn, I didn't know that. I also didn't know that they usually don't host clowns or that they move a lot. I found this guy bear hugging my caulastrea the other morning. Link to comment
Ephemeral Posted January 4, 2016 Share Posted January 4, 2016 Looks great! How do you like the skimmer? How is your Haitian Anemone? Does it roam? Link to comment
jimbonds Posted January 5, 2016 Author Share Posted January 5, 2016 Looks great! How do you like the skimmer? How is your Haitian Anemone? Does it roam? Thanks for the compliment! It's moved a bit but not too much. It seems to be looking for a place it likes. It's settled in 3 places so far. I'm hoping it picks a spot and chills for a while so I can adjust corals. I'm not sure on the skimmer yet. When I open the air intake all the way, as others have suggested, it's very loud and doesn't really create any extra bubbles. So I pinched it down just to the point where it is quieter. The manufacturer has said, and I've thought the same thing, that I'm not getting a full neck worth of bubbles because my bioload is so small. So time will tell I guess. But I will say this, every time I empty the collection cup the water is darker and I have actual bio debris floating around so it seems to be doing something. Link to comment
Eco Marine Reef Posted January 5, 2016 Share Posted January 5, 2016 Beautiful little nano, I think you need more coral Is that skimmer a true pinwheel skimmer? With a low bioload, yes you may see less foam in the collection cup. However, you still should have large bubble factory in the body of the skimmer. Link to comment
jimbonds Posted January 5, 2016 Author Share Posted January 5, 2016 Beautiful little nano, I think you need more coral Is that skimmer a true pinwheel skimmer? With a low bioload, yes you may see less foam in the collection cup. However, you still should have large bubble factory in the body of the skimmer. HA... yeah, I think I'll let my coral grow out for a while. Skimmer is not a pinwheel. Typical impeller. Reached out to the manufacturer and they gave me some tips on tuning it. None of it helped. But I see videos online of the thing working great so who knows. Right now I'm thinking of getting a Tunze 9001 and sticking it in chamber 2. An ATO should take care of any water level issues. Link to comment
Eco Marine Reef Posted January 6, 2016 Share Posted January 6, 2016 Well gee dangit, pinwheel is the way to go on that nano. I definitely agree a Tunze 9001 would be awesome. You could always revert back to the wood air stone . Things are looking great and growing well for you, so continue what you are doing. Link to comment
jimbonds Posted January 6, 2016 Author Share Posted January 6, 2016 Well gee dangit, pinwheel is the way to go on that nano. I definitely agree a Tunze 9001 would be awesome. You could always revert back to the wood air stone . Things are looking great and growing well for you, so continue what you are doing. Yeah, that wood air stone is going in my 1 gallon cookie jar pico. I found a PAR30 bulb that is perfect and a jar that is perfect. All I need is some live sand and a tonga branch. Then I'll have a mini reef in my office at work! Stupid gold striped torch stung one of my Acans pretty bad. It's currently in the ICU. Hope it survives. What was funny is that the Acan had the tip of the sweeper tentacle in its mouth as if it was trying to eat it. Let the coral gladiatorial championships begin! Link to comment
charnelhouse Posted January 6, 2016 Share Posted January 6, 2016 Loving the Panduit for cable management. It's embarrassing that I'm a sparky and my cabling looks like crap. I need to fix it. At least right now it's hiding behind stacks of filter floss... lol. Link to comment
jimbonds Posted January 9, 2016 Author Share Posted January 9, 2016 Loving the Panduit for cable management. It's embarrassing that I'm a sparky and my cabling looks like crap. I need to fix it. At least right now it's hiding behind stacks of filter floss... lol. LOL, I hear you. My stand was a mess of cables until I decided where I wanted to mount everything and how I wanted to run the wires. I just jacked some scraps from work but I definitely feel like it is the best cable management for applications like this. Link to comment
jimbonds Posted March 8, 2016 Author Share Posted March 8, 2016 So my nem moved around too much and eventually I found him hugging my acro and lavender leptastrea. The acro is not really pretty but that lavender leptastrea is awesome so I couldn't have that ish. I returned the Haitian nem but the acro is receding. I thought that was just because of the nem but then one of my gold zoa polyps died around the same time my monti started to brown. I chocked that up to me playing with my light and setting it too high. I dropped my Kessil from 75% at the peak down to 60% and the monti has come back in force but my gold zoa's and the acro still aren't looking happy. Finally I check all my params and would you believe it if I told you my friggin NO3 was up to 5ppm?!?!?! WTF is that? I don't think my crappy Sera Marin skimmer is up to the task of dealing with my coral feeding and I'm finding that detritus is settling in my chambers. So tonight I'll do a 1/3 (10gal) water change and I'll vacuum out the chambers. I'm also going to put the original Oceanic skimmer back in and run two skimmers until I can get something better. Was thinking about the Tunze 9001 but I need to make sure it will fit with my Kessil Gooseneck before I fork over $100. Link to comment
jimbonds Posted March 8, 2016 Author Share Posted March 8, 2016 Loving the Panduit for cable management. It's embarrassing that I'm a sparky and my cabling looks like crap. I need to fix it. At least right now it's hiding behind stacks of filter floss... lol. Yeah, the Panduit is what we use in our enclosures and I really like it for ease of access and general aesthetics so I jacked some scraps from work. Best call ever. I hate cable messes and mine was a rat's nest until I did that. It also helps to keep data and VAC lines from running parallel which can kill you when you're dealing with unshielded probe wires (as I'm sure you already know.) Link to comment
Orangutran Posted May 17, 2016 Share Posted May 17, 2016 Yeah, that wood air stone is going in my 1 gallon cookie jar pico. I found a PAR30 bulb that is perfect and a jar that is perfect. All I need is some live sand and a tonga branch. Then I'll have a mini reef in my office at work! An office mini reef? Any progress on that??? Btw, nice build so far!! Now that I have a 29 (12x30), I realize why people like deeper tanks! Unfortunately, I don't have the space in my house for anything deeper… How did you get the nem out? Link to comment
jimbonds Posted May 17, 2016 Author Share Posted May 17, 2016 An office mini reef? Any progress on that??? Btw, nice build so far!! Now that I have a 29 (12x30), I realize why people like deeper tanks! Unfortunately, I don't have the space in my house for anything deeper… How did you get the nem out? I pestered it with my fingers a bit until it decided to move. When it moved to a smoother part of the rock where the foot was exposed, I used a credit card to gently, very gently, pry up the foot. Then I put him in a container and took him to my LFS to be re-homed. I actually abandoned the pico tank for the office. I'm building a 100 gallon reef into the wall at my home and when complete the 29 gallon bio-cube will come to work as a softie only tank. I'm looking at having this done early next year. Link to comment
Orangutran Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 I pestered it with my fingers a bit until it decided to move. When it moved to a smoother part of the rock where the foot was exposed, I used a credit card to gently, very gently, pry up the foot. Then I put him in a container and took him to my LFS to be re-homed. I actually abandoned the pico tank for the office. I'm building a 100 gallon reef into the wall at my home and when complete the 29 gallon bio-cube will come to work as a softie only tank. I'm looking at having this done early next year. How long did the whole anemone export process take? One day, I will have to do the same to my BTA, or sell the whole rock with corals on it. Nice upgrade!! Let the fun begin! Link to comment
jimbonds Posted May 18, 2016 Author Share Posted May 18, 2016 How long did the whole anemone export process take? One day, I will have to do the same to my BTA, or sell the whole rock with corals on it. Nice upgrade!! Let the fun begin! I irritated him which took only a minute and then in a few hours I came back and he was on the move at which point it took maybe 5 min to safely get him out of my tank. Link to comment
jimbonds Posted September 20, 2016 Author Share Posted September 20, 2016 It's been a long time since I've updated this thread, and with good reason. Things look mighty different now and I'll soon have pictures to show it. I ran into an issue which first showed itself as browning of my monti cap. Then my precious gold zoas started slowly dying, one polyp at a time. I couldn't figure it out. Everything else seemed to be doing so well and all of my parameters were in check. Then I finally realized my monti hadn't just browned, it had died. Then one coral after another began to slowly whither away. SPS, LPS, softies, they all started packing their bags. It was a tragic 4 months before I had it all narrowed down. The problem was there were multiple problems. My light was too low, slowly starving the corals NO3 and PO4 were 0 ppm (confirmed by a Hanna ULR Phosphorous kit) Iodine and Strontium were undetectable The light part is obvious but it took me a while to figure out where it should be. I haven't really found much by way of advise or experience for the Kessil A160. Since it is similar in performance to the Radion XR15, I took a look at one of my brother-in-law's tanks which has similar dimensions and uses an XR15. I then gradually changed my lighting curves to match his. When people say they have 0 nitrates and phosphates what they usually mean is that the levels are so low they are undetectable by conventional kits. When I say I had 0 I mean I stripped my water column. Minimal feeding combined with over skimming, heavy media use, and large water changes saw to that. Of course I didn't believe I actually stripped all of the nutrients out until I got ultra low resolution kits to confirm it. All marine life needs phosphorous. Corals can get carbon from the byproducts of photosynthesis but they still need nitrogen and while one source is heterotrophic feeding (which isn't possible if you aren't feeding much) the other source is NH3/NH4+, NO2, and NO3 taken in directly from the water column (of course that isn't possible if you've stripped the column, duh). So, in a nut shell, true 0ppm NO3 and PO4 == BAD. Likewise, I think I stripped out the Iodine and Strontium with heavy skimming and activated carbon use. I never would have believed that until I got some kits and took a look (whoa, test kits? What a novel idea, knowing what things look like in your water and all). Iodine is important to corals but dangerous to dose. Strontium is critical to corals. I'm not sure the reasoning for this is fully understood in the marine biology community, but it sure seems evident that Sr is important. So again, 0 ppm I and Sr == BAD. And if all that wasn't bad enough, marine ich came on on something. Who knew ich could come in encrusted on the shell of an invert or on a frag plug? Yeah, clearly not me. Suffice it to say I very quickly became an expert at trapping and treating fish. Poor Royal Gramma couldn't be saved, RIP, but the other fishies were salvaged. I'd just finished treating my neighbor's fish for ich so fortunately I'd already learned how to do it and still had my hospital all set up. In went the fish for an 8 week hyposalinity bath. It took another 4 weeks to gradually bring them back to full salinity so that gave my display tank a full 3 months running fallow. Bye bye marine ich, you grody little bastards. On the upside, having almost no coral and absolutely no fish made it real easy to do some re-scaping. Now I've got some of my corals (those that were rescued by my neighbor's tank) and my fish back in the DT and everything is jammin'. I'm feeding more, my skimmer is out, I use 2 Tbsp of Matrix for 24hrs once a week in a bag in my inTank media basket (best thing ever!), and only use Phosguard if my PO4 rises above 0.03ppm. I'm also very carefully dosing iodine and strontium. Picks to come soon! Link to comment
Orangutran Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 Sorry to hear. Lesson learned. Hope things are on the rebound, and lets see some new pics! This makes me wanna throw in more food when I get home tonight. If you remember, I had low nutrients too... Btw, was your gramma aggressive? I'm thinking of getting one, but afraid it would fight my wrasse for all the caves. Link to comment
jimbonds Posted October 21, 2016 Author Share Posted October 21, 2016 Sorry to hear. Lesson learned. Hope things are on the rebound, and lets see some new pics! This makes me wanna throw in more food when I get home tonight. If you remember, I had low nutrients too... Btw, was your gramma aggressive? I'm thinking of getting one, but afraid it would fight my wrasse for all the caves. He was defensive over his cave. There were many but he chose one is specific. All he'd do is move a little out into the open and open his mouth real wide but he never attacked. Actually, what killed my gramma was the clowns. I put an egg crate partition in the hospital tank as soon as I realized that the clowns were beating him up, but he kept getting through it. I even gave him pvc pipes to hide in but he just kept finding his way to the clowns and eventually they messed him up so bad he died. Link to comment
Orangutran Posted October 21, 2016 Share Posted October 21, 2016 He was defensive over his cave. There were many but he chose one is specific. All he'd do is move a little out into the open and open his mouth real wide but he never attacked. Actually, what killed my gramma was the clowns. I put an egg crate partition in the hospital tank as soon as I realized that the clowns were beating him up, but he kept getting through it. I even gave him pvc pipes to hide in but he just kept finding his way to the clowns and eventually they messed him up so bad he died. Poor guy!! I'm glad I asked you, because my clowns are aggressive too. They killed my chromis' and now harassing my neon goby. So definitely can't get a gramma, if it cannot defend itself. And here I thought the gramma would be the aggressor… Do you ever feel like you wanna get rid of your clowns? I do at times! lol Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.