Biggen's IM 10 Build - New corals added!

[Biggen]

Nothing that I love more than LPS and Zoa's !!! Awesome pick ups

I think that is the direction I want to travel. Id like to get more acans and zoas and let them take over.

 

ha Nice. I ordered 3x from reef.junkies and they have worked well. Pretty cheap.

 

Ill check them out. I was looking at the clear corner frag rack from reefcleaners.com. But regardless I need one. Especially in the future when its time to frag a few of these guys.

 

Really nice frags, how much was the shipping from Aquasd?

Well shipping sucks since its next day air from California. It was $40 shipping for everything. But the average cost of each frag came to around $15 even with shipping. Some of the Zoas I got for practically nothing from their eBay auction. Considering my LFS sells boreing no colored Zoas for $29.99 and Acans for $39.99+, Id say it was a good deal. The key is to get a lot from them if you order to make up for the shipping fee and get the average cost down per frag. Winning a a single Zoa for $5.00 in their auction is useless if thats the only coral you buy. It will end up costing $45.00 with shipping which would not be a good deal.

[asting]

Ill check them out. I was looking at the clear corner frag rack from reefcleaners.com. But regardless I need one. Especially in the future when its time to frag a few of these guys.

 

Here's the seller I got mine from:

 

http://stores.ebay.com/jaxracks123/

 

Super cheap, and have worked well.

 

 

I hear you on the shipping. I got 50 frags in my first order haha. 16 just from saltcritters (free shipping though).

[Biggen]

Having a small issue with my Tunze 3155 ATO. It slightly overfills at night only. During the day, the water level is constantly kept at the bottom of the black light sensor. I keep the sensor package in the return pump chamber. I also attached an airline valve to the fill line hose like Teeny suggested so as to retrict the outflow and not overflow our small tanks when the pump is activated. This has been working fine since I setup the tank a month and a half ago.

 

But when I wake up in the morning, every morning, the black light sensor is submerged and the backup overfill float switch has floated halfway up its shaft.

 

So I dont get it. It has done this since day 1 and im finally trying to figure this out, The room my tank is in is fairly dark. I wonder if the light sensor needs more ambient light available for it to function properly than Im giving it. I run my moonlights on my Minitide at only .1%. I guess I could up it a bit everyday to a max of 1-2% and see if it would provide enough light.

 

Any thoughts?

[Biggen]

Removed my 12th Gorilla crab today. Man, I knew I'd get some bad hitchhikers, but I didn't realize I'd get this MANY of them. I only ordered 8lbs of rock too. I spend about 30 minutes a day peaking into every hole I can with a flashlight getting rid of these bastards. I can't imagine hunting down all these guys in a large tank with 50lbs+ of rock. I'd have to quit my job as it would take too much time.

 

If I did it all over again with Tampa Bay Saltwater rock, I'd check each and every rock a lot closer with a flashlight before putting them into the tank. I could have reduced their population a lot easier and quicker had I done that I didn't check them at all and I just plopped them in. Lesson learned I suppose.

[asting]

Reverse light cycle a chaeto refugium? That should give enough light. Or put it on a timer. Your evap when the lights are off cannot be that great.

[Slowtwitch]

Removed my 12th Gorilla crab today. Man, I knew I'd get some bad hitchhikers, but I didn't realize I'd get this MANY of them. I only ordered 8lbs of rock too. I spend about 30 minutes a day peaking into every hole I can with a flashlight getting rid of these bastards. I can't imagine hunting down all these guys in a large tank with 50lbs+ of rock. I'd have to quit my job as it would take too much time.

 

If I did it all over again with Tampa Bay Saltwater rock, I'd check each and every rock a lot closer with a flashlight before putting them into the tank. I could have reduced their population a lot easier and quicker had I done that I didn't check them at all and I just plopped them in. Lesson learned I suppose.

I quick freshwater dip sends them scurrying

[Biggen]

Reverse light cycle a chaeto refugium? That should give enough light. Or put it on a timer. Your evap when the lights are off cannot be that great.

Those are good ideas. Especially the timer. But it has to be a mechanical issue im thinking. It works just fine all day long. I was home today and listened for it when it came on and it functioned fine. I dont get it unless the sensor needs more light.

 

I quick freshwater dip sends them scurrying

Yeah I was concerened I'd lose all the little critters I paid extra for doing that. Id just look them over much more carefully next time.

[Biggen]

I was supposed to get another shipment of corals in today but Fedex screwed the pooch and they arent going to make it till tomorrow. Really bummed about that but the seller says he will make it right if they are DOA.

 

Been playing around with my wife's DSLR and am able to take a bit better pictures than my cell phone. Ill be doing a picture dump in thr upcoming days to try and better catalog my progress.

[Biggen]

Wanted to do a quick update on the tank. Everything is going well. The coral shipment I got in two weeks ago was delayed and I got it 2nd day instead of next day. So, I had two beautiful chalice frags I purchased completely destroyed from that shipment. I also have a favite I'm watching closely that also came in that shipment. It has a slightly bleached edge. The acans in that shipment survived, however, and are looking great. Acans are one tough coral I have come to find out.

 

Still having issues with my Tunze ATO overfilling slightly even with an airline ball valve choking down the output. Not sure what to do about this The overfill isn't much. It isn't even raising the float sensor enough to trip the unit. It is just overfilling to the point where the IR sensor is submerged. It doesn't do this on a predictable basis so it's hard to troubleshoot.

 

Tank is more or less on autopilot now. Doing water changes once a week while also changing carbon and media pads at the same time. Hanna Alk checker says I'm at 8.9 Alk so I have no plans to begin dosing yet. The Hanna Phosphate checker does show my phosphates are high. Like around .29PPM if I can believe the reading. I may begin running GFO sporadically to reduce those numbers.

 

Plan to let the tank continue and mature.

 

[teenyreef]

Sorry to hear about the chalices! I've stopped ordering corals this time of year, it's just to hard to rely on overnight shipping during the holiday rush

 

The rest of the new corals look great, though! Acans are very tough, I wouldn't hesitate to ship them second day as long as the water doesn't get too cold.

[Biggen]

I decided to start running GFO since my PO4 levels were around .3PPM according to my Hanna checker. I used 1/2 tsp and put it in a media bag. Just performed a Phosphate test and Im down to .21PPM after about 3 days of running the GFO. Thats a ~30% reduction which is pretty damn good for just a few days.

 

Plan on doing my weekly water change on Monday and Ill replace the GFO with a fresh 1/2 tsp. From what ive read, 1/2 tsp for 10g of water is a really low amount of GFO to run, but I have results that it IS working. It will probably become exhausted much more sooner just because of the sheer amount of PO4 my tank has is it however.

[Biggen]

Did a water change last night and tested for phosphates and nitrates before the change. Phosphates are down to .16 PPM and nitrates where somewhere above 20 but below 50.

 

It amazing how only a 1/2 tsp can reduce PO4 by half in less than a week. By mid week, phosphate levels should be more in line with what they should be. My nitrates are high however. I decided to begin dosing vinegar to combat that. I have a Eshopps Nano skimmer and dosing pump on order. Hope to get everything in and setup at the end of the week. Ill track my nitrate levels in this thread to see the change it has.

[Biggen]

Added an Eshopps Nano Skimmer today:

 

 

I'm not sold on having to offset the light mount to the right in order to fit the skimmer into the middle chamber. It's also a bit noisy. Not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but I'll probably end up setting up a timer on the controller for it and running it at night only.

 

I'm getting quite a lot of micro bubbles put into the display, but it's also not close to being broken in yet so I'd say that is normal. Hopefully, that will settle down over the course of the next few days.

 

I'm not sure how effective running a skimmer will be for my tank to begin with as I change out my GAC every week with water changes and I only have two fish currently. I mainly purchased it since I'm going to begin carbon dosing. I'm not sure I'd mess with having another piece of equipment in such a small tank if I were doing fish only.

[Biggen]

So I thought I was being smart by removing the black sponge from the skimmer. Figured it was just a nitrate trap. Well it may still very well be, but its required from what I can tell. Not only does it cut down on microbubbles spillng into the display, it also creates a kind of "back pressure" that helps force bubbles into the throat of the collection cup.

 

So ill let it break in over the next few days. Will have to play with the level of the skimmer to find the darker, dryer, and stinkier skimmate.

 

Im not normally a fan of this type of skimmer where you have to move the whole skimmer body itself up or down to tune it in. But these are the sacrafices we make for running a nano tank.

[teenyreef]

I spent some time moving mine up and down, and finally ended up with it set where the bottom of the cup is just under the top edge of the tank. I haven't moved it in a couple weeks now, though, so I don't mind having to move the whole body any more.

[Biggen]

The skimmer is working a bit better now and creating some dry frothy skimmate. Its still clear but dry at the level I have the skimmer adjusted at. Im still in the breakin period and getting some microbubbles in the display but its not too bad. I will say that the skimmer is easily the loudest piece of equipment I have on the tank. The Mini Tide fan was the loudest before this skimmer was added. Id estimate that the skimmer is at least twice as loud as the Mini Tide fan. Im not sure if its venturi noise from air being drawn into the pump or just vibration noise of the skimmer body/pump contacting with the tank side.

 

If I had this tank in a bedroom with this skimmer, Id not be happy with the level of noise and would return it in a heartbeat. Being in my living room, it's drowned out by everything else so its not an issue here. It may be something I run at night only anyway. I havent decided yet...

 

Did a water change today and PO4 had climbed back up to ~.19 PPM despite still running GFO and even changing it out last week with a fresh 1/2 tsp. I went ahead and changed it out again but went with a full tsp this time. Hopefully this will knock it down. Nitrates are 20+ PPM.

 

I have a BRS doser on order and will begin vinegar dosing as soon as I get it in next week. That should also help with PO4.

[teenyreef]

Have you tried turning the pump upside down like I did? Mine is almost completely silent after doing that, and it was super noisy before.

[Biggen]

Have you tried turning the pump upside down like I did? Mine is almost completely silent after doing that, and it was super noisy before.

 

I have not tried this yet. I may play with this tomorrow to see if it has any effect. As I said, it's not bad in my living room as there is already noise from the refrigerator, tv, people talking, etc...

 

I've been working with Tunze to find out why my ATO keep overfilling my tank. Tunze was nice enough to send me totally new unit in order to see if that fixed the problem. Well, it didn't... However, after nearly two months of having overflow issues, I finally found the cause this afternoon as I was working on the tank. I noticed one of my large limpet snails that came as hitchikers on my TBS live rock move across the overflow grate. His body blocked about two of the grate holes where water couldn't go through them. When that happened, immediately, the water level in the return pump chamber dropped which is where the sensor package for the Tunze ATO is located. This triggered the ATO to turn on thinking tank water level had dropped. Of course, as soon as the snail moved on, the water level came back up in the return pump chamber, but now the tank was overfilled. I can reproduce this easily by simply blocking two grate holes with my fingers which is about the size of the large limpet. The remaining overflow grate holes just aren't large enough to handle the additional water volume needing to flow through them which causes the return pump chamber to drop.

 

So I guess the solution is to remove the large limpets. I have two large nerites as well that could also cause a blockage. God forbid if all of them got together for party and moved to the overflow at the same time. It would guarantee I'd have water on the floor due to a tank overfill flood!

[Biggen]

Have you tried turning the pump upside down like I did? Mine is almost completely silent after doing that, and it was super noisy before.

 

I was eating breakfast this morning at our dining room table which is located next to the tank. As I was listening to this skimmer, I finally had to turn it off. The noise was too much!

 

So, I took your advice and dug it out of the middle chamber, flipped the pump around (after making sure nothing had come loose or broken on the pump) so the venturi tube is now facing up, and re-inserted it back into the middle chamber. Turned it back on and noticed that the noise level was down dramatically! Now, I just need to figure out the height again in order to get a dryer skimmate.

 

Thanks for the tip, Teenyreef.

[Biggen]

I started vinegar dosing yesterday using some new toys I got in the mail from BRS:

 

 

Decided to just build my own dosing container using one of those glass fliplock storage containers that BRS sells. It makes for a nice clean installation.

 

The dosing pump from BRS is advertised to dose at 1.1ml/min but it is actually closer to 1.9ml/min after calibration. My nitrates are well above 20ppm so I figured I'd give this a go. My hope is it will also combat PO4 enough as well.

 

My starting dose will be 1ml/day for 7 days. I'll spread the dose over 4 hours and it will be during the daytime from 6am - 6pm. In a week, I'll check nitrates and then, if needed, up the dose another .5ml per week.

 

[SURVEYMAN46123]

Very nice! Following along.

 

How do you like your Tunze ATO?

[teenyreef]

 

I was eating breakfast this morning at our dining room table which is located next to the tank. As I was listening to this skimmer, I finally had to turn it off. The noise was too much!

 

So, I took your advice and dug it out of the middle chamber, flipped the pump around (after making sure nothing had come loose or broken on the pump) so the venturi tube is now facing up, and re-inserted it back into the middle chamber. Turned it back on and noticed that the noise level was down dramatically! Now, I just need to figure out the height again in order to get a dryer skimmate.

 

Thanks for the tip, Teenyreef.

I'm glad it worked! I don't know why they do it the other way but it's been working great ever since I flipped it around. One other thing I just figured out, if the sponge gets too dirty the skimmer starts bubbling more and has to be moved higher. So it's a good signal to clean the sponge.

[Biggen]

Very nice! Following along.

 

How do you like your Tunze ATO?

Thanks!

 

I like the ATO, but it doesnt like large snails as mentioned. I ended up putting it on a timer so it only runs during the day when snails are least active.

 

I should just remove the large buggers but Im attached to them now!

[RIP Sebastian]

Clams can help with nitrates and phosphates, too! That's one of the reasons I got mine. I named him Eric "Clam"-ton.

[KamDesai]

Really love this build! Thinking about building out another nano after a 10 year hiatus and this wife approved furniture build has me excited. Any updates? Would love to see what’s going on with it now.