paneubert Posted December 23, 2010 Share Posted December 23, 2010 (edited) **As of 3-30-11** Started with an Aquapod 24G, then moved to a 54G Corner, now this 40G Breeder. Here are the specs. I will update this when things change. Tank: 40 Gallon Breeder Lighting: 36 inch/ 4 Bulb TEK Light. FRONTATI Purple Plus / Nice bright purple light with a lot of white mixed in.Giesemann Actinic + / Looks blue, which makes sense since it is a 60/40 split of blue and actinic.Giesemann Actinic + / Looks blue, which makes sense since it is a 60/40 split of blue and actinic.ATI True Actinic 03 / The only true actinic I have in there.BACK Filtration: Two BRS Reactors. One with Bio-Pellets. One with Carbon. Carbon in reactor (just sort of pour some in by eye). Probably about 1.5 to 2 cups. Replace every 2 weeks with fresh carbon. About 60 pounds of rock total..... Older rock consists of a few huge boulders and some smaller flat rocks from previous tanks - total there is about 40 pounds. 15 pounds of rock are Bulk Reef Supply "ReefSaver" and were added 2-7-11. About 5 pounds of "lace" rock added on 3-7-11. Sand..... 10 pounds of random crushed coral that is extra crushed. So no issues with it collecting crap like normal crushed coral. White color. About 3 pounds of black/white CaribSea Live Sand from the old tank. Flow.... Hydor Koralia 1 (400 gph). Hydor Koralia 2 (600 gph). Potentially up to 700 gph from the Mag7 split in to two returns....one from each reactor. Consists of a 5/8 inch SprayBar Output from the carbon and a 1/2 inch normal tube return from the Bio-Pellets. Output from the Maxijet 1200 on the skimmer. (295 gph). Skimmer.... AquaC Remora Skimmer with a Maxijet 1200. Heat: 150W Ebo Jager Clean Up Crew: Not sure since I keep switching tanks and some of my snails are tiny. So whatever came over from the old tank is what I have. Plus.....I added a Quick Crew rated for a 20 Long to this tank. So I know I at least have those.... Just picked a random crew since I do still have some of the old crew kickin' it from the old tanks and a 20L crew seemed about right. 4 Large & 4 Small/Medium Nerites. 7 Nassarius 11 normal size Florida Ceriths 2123121212 Dwarf Ceriths since ReefCleaners sends whatever they can fit in their hand I think.... 1 Peppermint Shrimp. 3-5 hermits. Mostly Blue Leg. 1 confirmed big Emerald Crab. Might be another in there that I have not seen in a while. Fish: This tank seems to be going towards the damsel family... Female Maroon clown. Little SixLine Wrasse. 3 Green/Blue Chromis because the wife wants something that schools. 3 Blue/Yellow "Scott's" Damsels because the wife wants something that schools...again. 2 Awesome looking "Talbot's" Damsels. I like these ones. Great colors. Coral: Finally up to an amount where I do not want to list them all out. Never thought that would happen... A ton of LPS....frogspawn, torch, hammer. Blasto Mushrooms Toadstool Galaxea/Tooth Ricordea Duncans Sun Coral Etc... Edited November 7, 2011 by paneubert Quote Link to comment
paneubert Posted December 24, 2010 Author Share Posted December 24, 2010 Picked up some frags of Hammer from a guy in Seattle. One chunk is about 12-15 heads and the other one broke while we were bagging it. That second one is probably...10 heads split between the 2 pieces it broke into. He has an entire 40 Breeder that is *ALL* hammer coral....... with only a little bit of Xenia and mushrooms fighting for light around the edges. I am not kidding. I almost asked if I could take a picture because it was so crazy. I got probably.......20-25 heads....and that only cleared out maybe.......2 percent of what he had? He started with 12 heads and has been fragging it for years. He just puts the frags in acrylic tubes/stands around his tank and they then spread again. He said he sells about once a year, trades in to the LFS every once in a while, and by the next year he is 100% full again. I can only hope the ones I bought grow that fast for me. Anyway, here they are all super pissed off and retracted. But you can get a sense of size. **Bigger frag** **Bigger frag** **Smaller/2 piece frag** **Smaller/2 piece frag** **Top Down Showing Both** **Top Down Showing Both** Quote Link to comment
paneubert Posted January 4, 2011 Author Share Posted January 4, 2011 (edited) Guess I forgot to post when I transfered everything over to the new tank. It all went pretty well and things looked good for the first few days. I had my rock out of water for less than 45 seconds and I used 100% old tank water to fill the 40B. Used about half and half old versus half new sand and the old sand I used was gently washed in old tank water before I put it in the new tank. Even tossed in some instant cycle/bacteria stuff. Tank was never really cloudy since I had heavily washed the new sand and had somewhat washed the old. Tests all read fine across the board day after day. But now comes the bad news.... Looks like the universe has decided I do not need those Domino Damsels after all. Probably just from the stress of being moved.....they all suddenly were covered in ich. The other fish all look perfect. I noticed before work, came home with a plan to treat them and found one already dead and stuck to a koralia and 2 missing totally. The remaining 2 swimming around with no signs of ich. The 2 left still eat and swim normal and my other fish still seem immune. So now I am treating the display with herbana since there is no way I want to tear the tank apart trying to catch and quarantine the damsels. Not to mention I do not have the space to set up a QT tank that could handle all my fish..... I started to dose last night and the corals did a short period of being pissed off. They then opened back up for the most part. The snails seem ok......the turbo actually seems to be moving more than normal. I have not seen my shrimp at all since I dosed and of the other snails I could find, one was flipped upside down but still moving when I touched him. I flipped him back to normal this morning before work. We will see how things look when I get home from work today. It is supposed to be reef safe, but I had to take out all my carbon, GFO, Purigen, etc..... So I hope the stunned look on my corals and snails was just from some weird stuff being thrown in a tank that until now was pretty heavily filtered chemically. Edited January 4, 2011 by paneubert Quote Link to comment
paneubert Posted January 5, 2011 Author Share Posted January 5, 2011 (edited) I just got home from work and found 2 more damsel bodies. So I am now missing 2 and none are left swimming or coming out to eat dinner. So there ya go.......no more Damsel issue But 2 bodies decaying....somewhere. I took a measurement and all my levels are still good though......except my salinity which was way high........so how did I go from way low (it was low right when I set up the tank) to way high (today)? I have done normal top off's with RO/DI and did one water change with water that matched the tank...I have no clue.....so yeah. I took out about 2 gallons and replaced it wilth RO/DI. That brought it down to right where I like to keep it. I think tomorrow I will lower it some more since lower salinity is supposed to mean less parasites. I hear that is one reason fish places keep their tanks low. I really need to figure out how it keeps getting so weird though.....it only stresses the fish more..... Edited January 5, 2011 by paneubert Quote Link to comment
paneubert Posted January 5, 2011 Author Share Posted January 5, 2011 (edited) QT tank is in my future. Coral Beauty has a bit of ich on her face and the clowns just look dull colored..... Good thing there is a Petco dollar per gallon sale...... Only fish left in the tank should be easy to catch......I hope. And this way I can stop ####### off corals and inverts with this herbal stuff I have been adding. Also it will be nice to leave the tank without a host for 8 weeks so I can rest assured that it will not come back easily. Edited January 5, 2011 by paneubert Quote Link to comment
paneubert Posted January 6, 2011 Author Share Posted January 6, 2011 QT tank I just set up. Here it is.... 10G Tank - 10 bucks. Cheap filter with nothing in it for now - 20 bucks. It will have carbon and maybe some Purigen when it is time to get rid of the meds in the water. Filter will stay full of chemical filtration for the remaining 6-8 weeks after the meds are done being dosed. Cheap heater - 20 bucks. Auto set to 78 degrees. No need to ever change the temp. Three plastic thingies for them to hide in from the dollar store - 1 dollar. Hardest part was catching all the fish. The Coral Beauty scratched the hell out of one eye and now it is all clouded over... P.S. Fish in there are a freshwater Molly that I converted to salt, a mated pair of Maroon Clowns, and a Coral Beauty. So one big fish, 2 average size fish, and one small fish in a 10G. I think they will be fine. P.S. Dosing with Cupramine. Sounds like the best option since it is less stress on the fish but still uses copper. Also claims to be easy to remove if you run carbon. Quote Link to comment
paneubert Posted January 7, 2011 Author Share Posted January 7, 2011 Added a few pounds of lace rock to the QT tank since it was cheap and easy. Good place for some sort of bio-filter to grow and a place for the fish to hide that is more natural looking. I figure the tank is already full of copper.....no worries with adding lace rock even if it leaches some sort of metals into the water......the tank is already a dead zone based on just the copper Quote Link to comment
juvance Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 You should put a light over the QT tank, and put some zoanthids in there. I'm sure your maroons wouldn't mind. Quote Link to comment
paneubert Posted January 8, 2011 Author Share Posted January 8, 2011 And...........the little male clown is dead. I am sad. I was going to do a 50% water change last night because the water looked a little cloudy.....but waited till this morning so my water would heat up first (I had left it in my car on accident). Woke up and he was dead. So now I did my 50% change and the female is covered in ich....out of nowhere.......after being in the QT with meds for 3 days.......after not showing anything wring this entire time....what the hell? So now if the female dies then I will essentially have no fish left. Just the molly. Although it would allow me to start fresh and pick my fish wisely......it still is ####ty that I would have lost so much money in fish..... Edit: I guess I forgot to post that the Coral Beauty died a day or two ago. So it really is down to the female Maroon and the Molly. Quote Link to comment
24nanoguy Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 Updates????? Whats been happening since you had the issues? I want to see more pics of the lights...... Quote Link to comment
paneubert Posted January 10, 2011 Author Share Posted January 10, 2011 (edited) The tank is just sitting "fallow" now for 6-8 weeks while I wait for the ich to die off without a host. The female Maroon Clown is in the QT tank and she is actually looking a lot better. We had that scare yesterday when we lost the male and the female showed some ich (she had been clean up till then). But after that came and went she started to be really hungry. She had not eaten at all in the QT tank before today. Now she is eating pretty much every pellet I drop in. I had not been feeding pellets even in my main tank, but I had some from a while back. I had tried to feed her (and the male when he was alive) my standard mix of frozen soaked in garlic but she had no interest.......go figure. But when I got desperate and tried some pellets she went crazy.....ohh well. I am glad I have her eating. In other news, my pink torch coral seem to be bleaching out all of its color......not melting or retracting tentacles at all.....just......loosing all color. Looks happy otherwise.....so that is weird. I tried to move it to a spot with less light but I feel like it just went from under one BoostLED bulb to another. We will see though. I will try to take a new full tank shot in a few minutes here since I have added a bit more coral. Actually, my lights just cut off for the night.....so tomorrow will be some photos after work. Edited January 10, 2011 by paneubert Quote Link to comment
24nanoguy Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 Well it sounds like its coming around anyway. Glad she is eating! Ya more pics of your lights, I'm getting real close to having water in my tank, and just have to find fixtures for my Boostled's..... Check my thread!! Quote Link to comment
paneubert Posted January 10, 2011 Author Share Posted January 10, 2011 Ohh I have been. I think I am subscribed to it and get an email when people post to it. Talk about stalker..... I will be sure to take some photos tomorrow. I am really wondering about the pink torch now that it is slightly retracted for the night. I can see some of the original color down closer to where the polyps enter the skeleton....so I know I am not just going crazy and seeing things....it really did seem to lose color. Maybe the zooxanthellae in it just died? Slightly concerning... Quote Link to comment
24nanoguy Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 Yeah it's weird how everything went south so quick. Hope it gets better soon! Quote Link to comment
BoostLED Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 (edited) Sorry to hear about your losses paneubert. I'm sure your tank will bounce back quickly! Edited January 10, 2011 by BoostLED Quote Link to comment
paneubert Posted January 11, 2011 Author Share Posted January 11, 2011 Sorry to hear about your losses paneubert. I'm sure your tank will bounce back quickly! Thanks BoostLED! I promised some new photos....and here they are. None of these are adjusted or corrected (or even cropped) at all. Direct from the old school Canon Rebel Digital SLR to Photobucket..... Looking down the long end right to left.... Full tank..... More focused up at bulbs... Top Down.....pretty much centered in the tank.... Quote Link to comment
paneubert Posted January 11, 2011 Author Share Posted January 11, 2011 (edited) I might be building a hanging light fixture with these BoostLED bulbs sometime soon. Having the bulbs clipped to the back rim is ok....but it pretty much means they have to be angled somewhat and I cannot light the back quarter of the tank at all due to the angle of the clips. If I throw something simple together that will let me hang them right over the center of the tank....I feel like it will blend the light a lot more. Just something simple. Probably 2 vertical poles with a cross bar that I can either loop the cords over, or clip the clips to. Either that or I might mount a shelf onto the wall and then clip the clips to that so that they can extend over the tank instead of clip to the rim. If I do that then I am not sure if I will stick with the same fixtures since they look sort of.......lame Edited January 11, 2011 by paneubert Quote Link to comment
nebthet Posted January 11, 2011 Share Posted January 11, 2011 Take a look at page 1 of my 20L thread if you would like some cheap ideas for hanging them over your tank. The only difference you could do to what mine is is hand a pole across the area and then hang the lights from the pole. It is the little link in my signature for my thread. I love the looks of your tank by the way.. very nice.. Quote Link to comment
systemtool Posted January 11, 2011 Share Posted January 11, 2011 Could you buy a track-light type fixture and hang it over the tank? that way you could point each light where you need it. Quote Link to comment
paneubert Posted January 11, 2011 Author Share Posted January 11, 2011 nebthet....thanks for the kind words and the suggestion on a lighting method. I think I have actually looked at your build before. But checking it out again would probably be smart since I am now working with a rectangle instead of a corner/bowfront. systemtool....I could probably do a track. That *would* keep it clean looking and it would let me do angles other than straight up and down. Hard choice! We are actually going to be hanging a pendant light in our living room to illuminate a dark corner by our sofa. I will probably get some inspiration from that trip.....and apply it to the tank. I am in no real hurry since all my corals seem fairly happy other than the pink torch.... Quote Link to comment
juvance Posted January 15, 2011 Share Posted January 15, 2011 I can't get over how much hammer coral you have in there now! It's awesome. Quote Link to comment
paneubert Posted January 17, 2011 Author Share Posted January 17, 2011 So.....I do not seem to post any updates regularly. Probably because the 40 is just sitting fallow until the ich is gone. Not much has changed in the tank except I added a JBJ A.T.O. today. It actually was a lot easier to get it all set up than I though it would be. I decided to just run with one float switch instead of trying to work out what sort of reservoir to use that would allow me to easily attach the second float in it. So I just put the one switch in my main display and will make sure I do not let the reservoir run dry/burn out the "Tom's Aqua Lifter" that I got to power the ATO. For the reservoir I am using one of the classic looking 5G water cooler jugs that is a clear blue plastic, and has the narrow neck/opening. I already was using it for holding my top off water. So all that changed is I now have it under my stand and I have a tube running in to it. I weighted down my tubing by super gluing a frag plug to the end. That made sure that the intake tubing stays at the bottom of the jug. As for the float switch, it is just clipped to the back right corner of my display tank. I was able to get it to clip at a height that actually worked for where I want it to trigger the flow. Overall I am really happy with how it has worked out! I guess we will see how it works long term. I am sure I will post here if my tank floods Quote Link to comment
24nanoguy Posted January 17, 2011 Share Posted January 17, 2011 Exactly how I'm goin to run mine. Sorta, I may do mode B so I can set a "min" and a "max" level. Have you been doing daily water changes to combat the ich Quote Link to comment
paneubert Posted January 17, 2011 Author Share Posted January 17, 2011 Exactly how I'm goin to run mine. Sorta, I may do mode B so I can set a "min" and a "max" level. Have you been doing daily water changes to combat the ich I debated the min and max....but turns out that all I care about the max so it does not flood my display. Playing around to get two switches to be really close to the same level seemed like a waste of my time. I have actually done LESS water changes on the main tank than normal since there is no bio-load in there besides the snails and shrimp. I usually do 5G every weekend....but I am now thinking I will do 5g every two weekends. The ich is not going to go away any faster by changing more water....so I consider the fallow time to be a vacation for me I still check the tank all the time to make sure the corals are happy, but I am not as concerned with the water changes. As for the QT tank......I have been doing 5G out of the 10G volume about every 3 or 4 days. Not an exact schedule, but about 3 or 4 days is about the limit I want to let it sit without pulling out some nitrate. Quote Link to comment
paneubert Posted January 17, 2011 Author Share Posted January 17, 2011 Ohh and P.S..... I decided to see what happens if I dose 2 caps of Purple Up into my 5G of fresh water. I know, I know.... Purple Up is lame. But I literally have a bottle from YEARS and YEARS ago that is still half full. It seems like even the purists who say that any of the liquid Aragonite supplements are a waste and screw your Ph and actually LOWER calcium sometimes do admit that if you let it dissolve into a large volume of water before it is added to the main tank then it does not screw with Ph or precipitate as much when it interacts with the already calcium saturated salt water in your display. So we will see. I figure the worst it can do is change my calcium level slightly lower or higher. I am ok messing with my tank on such a small scale because I can easily fix it if it goes badly. Quote Link to comment
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