dangsy Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 Well, I've tried to chronicle what I've done with my BC but I suck with tanking pictures and remembering to take pictures....but here goes! My friends had been pressuring me to do a saltwater tank for a while, one has a 65g tank and another has a 30g tank. I definitely don't have as much space or capital as they do for a huge saltwater tank so I decided on a nano. I did some research and the 2 threads that helped me the most were... 1) http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...=97202&st=0 2) http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...threadid=915714 The only down side to this tank was the LED nightlights. They had both blown out but a quick call to Oceanic and I had 4 replacement LEDs in the mail to me and all arrived within a week. (Wow great customer service) So I picked up the tank and just had to take pics of it with water in it...sorry to bore you all with stuff uou've seen already but I like my tank =P Empty w/o lights Empty with Actinics and Daylights! Later that day I went to Walmart to buy some Distilled water to add in...I wish I had bought some water at my LFS but...being a newbie I was kinda hesitant about working their water thingy...I didn't want to overfill my container and get water everywhere...but now I'm good =D With water! Being the cheap ass I am I waited a few days to find some Live Rock from anyone on Craigslist again, I didn't feel like paying the $6+ dollars per lb or the $29873489724+ per lb online... So eventually I found a guy downgrading from a 150gal tank to a 75g, he sold be some of his rock for $1 lbs! Live rock in a bucket! Placing them in... Trying to some how do a decent looking Aquascape my first time... Cloudy... I notice some mini snail hitchhikers! As the dust settles... I also toss in some live rock rubble in chamber 2 and 1 So I get a decent (I think it is atleast =D ) aquascape and I've been waiting a while as I try to find some live sand from Craigslist also...after a few days with no takers I take the bullet and buy a bag for $20 at my LFS. I pour in the live sand and totally screw my aquascape up I redo and .... I realize that a good majority of my Live Rock is underneath the sand and it would have been totally useless to have live rock there anyways. So I run out and buy some Base rock at $2 a lb to use under the sand. About this time I notice some Hitchhikers Minifeather dusters! Yellow Bristleworm Black-Red Bristleworm Amphipod! Amphipods all over the rock! After I get over all my Hitchhikers I decide to do some mods. Of course the first and easiest mod is increasing the water flow from chamber 1 - 2 Easy! I'd add more but i've posted too many pics already =( Link to comment
Lalani Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 Nice start! Looks like some good rock, since you're seeing so much life on it already. Link to comment
dangsy Posted April 7, 2008 Author Share Posted April 7, 2008 Thanks Lalani! Now I can add more pics =) Mod number 2 - make a fuge! I carefully scraped off the paint on the back exposing the second chamber to grow some chaeto. I then built an acrylic enclosure for my 9w puck light thing to attach it via velcro. Scraping carefully... Done! the enclosure! With in the enclosure with velcro Attached to the back of the tank! I later put tinfoil to use as a reflector which pretty much blocks out most light and directs it towards the chaeto. Chambers before the chaeto Tossed the chaeto in the second chamber Later on I found that the light was letting off way too much heat and it was killing the cheato that was close to the glass. It had turned white, I guess indicating dead chaeto =( So I kinda devised a new method of light to attach to the back of my tank...I took the lid of a 50 pack CD/DVD spindle and screwed the light into the inside. I cut holes in it for the light cord and spraypainted the thing black and put tin foil in it. Perfect solution! It's now far enough away from the tank that the heat doesn't kill the chaeto and it still gets all the light it needs. I didn't take any pics of this process because it was kind of a spur of the moment inspiration. New light enclosure After all this it's been about a month and after I fixed the chaeto problem my Nitrates immediately dropped to 0 (it had been hanging around 20 due to the dying chaeto). My friend gives me a hermit! the first "real" resident in my new tank. My first Hermit! I go home for the weekend (in college) and come back to see my tank filled with algae =/ I end up scraping it off and getting a small CuC from my friend. Came with: 1xNerite 2xCerith 1xFighting Conch 1xAstrea 1xNassarius Cerith and my Astrea Fighting Conch! My nerite and astrea do a very good job at cleaning the algae from my rocks, you can see the white parts vs the green =D A day or two later I'm missing a Cerith and I see a bristleworm eating my Nerite =/ RIP Nerite =( Now just today I added 2 more inhabitants to my tank an Purple Pseudochromis and a peppermint shrimp Both of them acclimating My gf quickly named it pinky..so here's pinky peaking out of his/her hiding place and the peppermint shrimp she named pip-i as in pipi longstocking More to come if I do anything else! Thanks for reading, sorry for all the senseless pics! Link to comment
dangsy Posted April 13, 2008 Author Share Posted April 13, 2008 It's been about a week or so now...I've been feeding my shrimp and fish some frozen foods. I bought a Marine delight with Mysis, Brine, squid and other stuff. The shrimp looooves it, and will jump up and attach itself to my baster =D My pseudochromis is also getting use to the baster and will pretty much nip at it til i shoot some food out! My problem so far is that even 1/8th of a cube seems too much. I'll try 1/16th later but I don't think I can even cut the cubes that small. On a side note I've been trying to grow brine shrimp out. So far it's going very well and the shrimp are going on its way to growing out....I might add 2x Percs...but I'd probably be overstocking =( Link to comment
dtfleming Posted April 13, 2008 Share Posted April 13, 2008 yea two percs would be too much. STOCK slowly. a small goby would be cool. Link to comment
dangsy Posted April 14, 2008 Author Share Posted April 14, 2008 Do you have any suggestions for an active fun goby =D? Link to comment
airangel Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 Yellow clown gobies are cool....small lil buggers....and the yellow would look nice in your tank with the shrimp and pseudo. Hey I'm partial to the YCG, I've got 2 in my 24gAP. Good luck whatever you decide (I'm looking for fish #3 myself) Wow, your cycled musta breezed on by.....I didnt add a thing for other a month and then some! LOL Link to comment
lakshwadeep Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 Anything from the Trimma, Eviota, Gobiodon (clown gobies), or Elacatinus (neon gobies) genus would be fine (the order I listed is smallest-1"- to largest-2"-). Link to comment
rotarymagic Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 Anything from the Trimma, Eviota, Gobiodon (clown gobies), or Elacatinus (neon gobies) genus would be fine (the order I listed is smallest-1"- to largest-2"-). So its a good idea to remove the filter/carbon insert in chamber 1 and just stuff that area with rubble? I'm thinking about stuffing chamber one and two with rubble and doing a fuge in chamber 2 as well... I already have some rubble in chamber two and pulled all the bioballs out. I had to use the bottom plate though instead of the normal trickle plate so I could run a purigen pad and make sure water contact all parts of the purigen. I may end up moving that purigen into chamber 3 on my BC14. I'm gonna add the hydro wavemaker end to the outflow, and maybe pull the mechanical/carbon insert out in chamber 1. What are the advantages of a maxijet 900 vs stock pump and should the blue sponge be left in chamber 3? Thanks in advance. Link to comment
dangsy Posted April 14, 2008 Author Share Posted April 14, 2008 So its a good idea to remove the filter/carbon insert in chamber 1 and just stuff that area with rubble? I'm thinking about stuffing chamber one and two with rubble and doing a fuge in chamber 2 as well... I already have some rubble in chamber two and pulled all the bioballs out. I had to use the bottom plate though instead of the normal trickle plate so I could run a purigen pad and make sure water contact all parts of the purigen. I may end up moving that purigen into chamber 3 on my BC14. I'm gonna add the hydro wavemaker end to the outflow, and maybe pull the mechanical/carbon insert out in chamber 1. What are the advantages of a maxijet 900 vs stock pump and should the blue sponge be left in chamber 3? Thanks in advance. I've given it a little thought and after reading a bunch of posts many people start off using the Filter/Carbon and then realize that they are unable to maintain 0 nitrates due to the filter trapping debris. So I started without the filter. You mentioned also putting purigen in chamber 3, I'm not sure about the BC14 but in the 8 I don't seem to get very much flow near the top of my third chamber, I feel that since the pump is in the bottom of chamber 3 it just sucks directly from the chamber 2 opening. So I placed the purigen pad where the filter/carbon would have been. As for the pump, I upgraded to the minijet 606, the maxijet is definitely too big for the 8 but would probably be a good upgrade for a 14. The main advantage would be increased water flow to eliminate dead spots. I might suggest also that you don't buy sand that's too fine. My sand ended up being too fine and even the minijet will eventually make a small crevice on the bottom left of my tank. Yellow clown gobies are cool....small lil buggers....and the yellow would look nice in your tank with the shrimp and pseudo. Hey I'm partial to the YCG, I've got 2 in my 24gAP. Good luck whatever you decide (I'm looking for fish #3 myself) Wow, your cycled musta breezed on by.....I didnt add a thing for other a month and then some! LOL Yep my cycle went by pretty quickly, I got my LR from an established tank off of Craiglist and he ended up giving me about 3gals of his tank water which helped the cycle along. I would have stocked sooner if I had found out about my chaeto! Link to comment
rotarymagic Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 So basically you put the purigen in chamber 1? did you do some trimming to the plastic where chamber 1 pours into chamber 2? Did you remove the bottom plastic grate in chamber 1 that sections off the bottom intake from the rest of the chamber? I need to put my heater in there, but it doesn't seem like any of the suction cups want to grab anything and the heater sits too high unless i remove that plastic grate at the bottom of chamber 1. Link to comment
lakshwadeep Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 I forgot to note that your pseudochromis (P. porphyreus) will get aggressive with other fish and harass smaller ones to death. You will have to remove it if you want peaceful fish (as in most gobies) http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-02/hcs3/index.php Link to comment
dangsy Posted April 17, 2008 Author Share Posted April 17, 2008 I forgot to note that your pseudochromis (P. porphyreus) will get aggressive with other fish and harass smaller ones to death. You will have to remove it if you want peaceful fish (as in most gobies)http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-02/hcs3/index.php ahhh, thanks for letting me know that...my chromis is pretty feisty now that you mention it. Sometimes while i'm feeding it'll nip at my peppermint shrimp to drive it away....I make sure to send a squirt to the shrimp though. Any ideas for an appropriately aggressive fish to join my chromis? That article you linked made me think about adding another chromis and praying they pair up! ideas? So basically you put the purigen in chamber 1? did you do some trimming to the plastic where chamber 1 pours into chamber 2? Did you remove the bottom plastic grate in chamber 1 that sections off the bottom intake from the rest of the chamber? I need to put my heater in there, but it doesn't seem like any of the suction cups want to grab anything and the heater sits too high unless i remove that plastic grate at the bottom of chamber 1. Yep purigen in chamber 1 as well as the heater with some LR rubble filling the empty space, I did the trim from chamber 1->2 to increase flow. I didn't take the grate out of chamber 1 or 2. My heater sticks perfectly to the back of the chamber, maybe give that one a shot? as for the length of the heater...I don't know what to say, mine isn't that long so it fits perfectly and my temps are steady at 78. good luck! Link to comment
dangsy Posted April 21, 2008 Author Share Posted April 21, 2008 Thinking of adding a tailspot blenny! thoughts? Link to comment
dangsy Posted May 4, 2008 Author Share Posted May 4, 2008 Update! So far my tank has been doing well...haven't added any more snails even though I had meant to (waiting on friends for a mass order). I also hadn't put in anymore fish like I had wanted to, was thinking of a tailspot or some kind of blenny, rockwalker type fish, but never got around to it. So my birthday is coming up in a week and my friend buys me an early birthday present! a cleaner shrimp! He looks reallllly cool and is pretty active, though I've yet to catch him clean the pseudochromis yet. Also, on the same day that I added the cleaner shrimp my peppermint shrimp decides to leave his molted shell out in the open, first time I've ever seen it! Looks like a zerg alien type thing =) On another note, my pseudochromis has been acting funny...it looks like he has white cut marks on his back and underside, maybe it scratched up along some rocks? but I caught him kinda scratching himself on rock edges...what could that mean? Link to comment
TriGa22 Posted May 26, 2008 Share Posted May 26, 2008 How did you cut through the chamber? I tried with an exacto knife and it didnt work. Link to comment
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