14G Biocube - Now with LEDs and a fuge

[dhraakoxr]

Well I finally got back into this whole reef thing after 4 years without a tank and here I am so far:

 

The tank and LR setup (3 days old)

 

 

 

Hitch hikers! Turns out they are bad crabs but I'd thought I show em off. I have five live crabs and three dead ones so far.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My attempt to catch some tonight:

 

 

 

Hopefully they'll be attracted to the shrimp bate in there. I was browsing some post here about someone catching a mantis shrimp this way and I'd thought I'd try it with some crabs.

 

Hope you like the setup!

[lajz9]

Best of luck! Traps didn't work for me. I had to pull the rock out and coerce the crabs out to get mine, he was about 2" wide though. Good luck!

 

Aquascaping looks great! Nice looking rock.

[uwwmatt]

Wow that is a lot of hitchhiking crabs for such a small amount of live rock. If you catch them see if someone with a sump wants them.

 

What are your stocking plans?

[dhraakoxr]

yeah the trap totally didn't work.. ahh well

 

I REALLY don't want to try to slowly pick at those buggers to try and get em but I may have to. Either that or I'll get lucky and they'll keep dieing. They most likely wont happen though.

 

As for stock:

 

I'd like Ricordea and some Zoas a clown fish etc. Then of course there will be the usual snails and hermits etc.

[dhraakoxr]

Took a few more pics:

 

 

 

Not sure what it is but there are a bunch of them throughout the tank .. maybe a sponge i donno .. I'll look around and see what I can find.

 

 

 

A molted crab shell .. so hairy.

 

The brown algae is nicely growing in so it looks like the cycle is progressing well.

 

I checked out my NO2 and NH3/4 today. The NO2 is fairly low but the NH3/4 is high so I guess I'm on the starting point of the cycle.

[dhraakoxr]

Well I got rid of 4 Xanthid crabs and I thought to my self .. AWESOME .. all the crabs are gone... but no ohhh no.. I found one more baby Xanthid crab .. and then I found a blue Porcelain Crab AND then I found two weird crabs with huge long antennas AND then I found some big black hairy crab .. MAN crab city I swear.

 

Some more pics:

 

 

 

Left is the weird un-id'd crab with the antennas and on the right in the hole is a blue coloured Porcelain Crab .. when it was crawling around it was filter feeding .. really neat to watch .. this one I'll leave in the tank.

 

 

 

Some Black Brown Crab .. You can't tell from the picture but it's a big one.

 

 

 

Small random snail in the dark purple algae.

 

 

 

I living Oyster/Scallope or whatever on the left and if you look to the top right you can see one of those blue things that are in random places around my rocks. A sponge perhaps?

 

Water specs so far: NH3/NH4 was measured at 0.5 and my Nitrites were 0.02.

[marinebiologist]

Looks good!!! I wisilh icould do my rock scape as good as you. LOL

[uwwmatt]

I think thats kind of cool to find all of those things, even if they are bad. In the last 10 pounds of live rock I bought the only thing on it was Aiptasia.

[dhraakoxr]

Looks good!!! I wisilh icould do my rock scape as good as you. LOL

 

Thanks!

 

As for the rock .. yeah I guess it's nice finding this much stuff but MAN .. I mean I have to at some point get rid of a majority of all those crabs unless I can prove they are fish/coral safe ... the tank currently has its moon lights on and I looked in there again at the crabs etc .. I found ANOTHER damn crab .. this one has like red/orange eyes and a smooth body. It was chilling in a hole through that rock with all the other crabs on it.

 

I also saw some clear 3mmish thick worm with two clear antennas making its way out of a rock but it went back in real quick when it saw me.

 

I pretty much never want to touch my live rock again lol

[dhraakoxr]

Annd one less.

 

 

 

I think was the big "black" one I mentioned earlier .. HOPEFULLY it is ugh

[dhraakoxr]

ok, that "wierd" crab with the antenna was another Porcelain crab. I have two of em. I also found a small purple crab with white "toes" tonight. I like that one but I do not know what it is. I have a few pictures but they arn't very clear. I'll try again another day.

[subielover]

I have never seen someone with so many crabs in this little amount of rock. How many have you found now?

[Phishman80]

Porcelian crabs are reef safe from what I know about them actually safer then the emeralds. That worm may a bristle or fire worm so dont touch it or u r gonna get those painfull bristles in ur fingers which r venomous..Been there n done that too many times...lol

[dhraakoxr]

haha yeah I've been lucky enough to stay away from such worms. I've also seen a few peanut worms and a Vermetid and a Creoland Isopod which I have since seen floating around dead (lucky).

 

As for overall crab amount:

 

6 Xanthid (Found another last night)

2 Porcelain

1 Random Purple One

1 "Other"

 

I've removed 4 Xanthids so far and one small one will have to stay since I can't get at it ever and I just found another large one last night that I didn't feel like catching. So I'll work on that one another day.

 

I found something else weird last night. I'll have to see if I can see what it actually is during night again. There is something in my rock that when I get close to it or shine a light on it it sucks back into its cave but covers the hole of its cave with something that almost looks like a small piece of rock. Behind the rock I can see some movement but I cannot tell what it is. Crazy stuff I say.. crazy.

[dhraakoxr]

k so yeah .. I was totally not giving the proper NH4/NH3 values ... I was only giving the NH4 value which is useless .. I need to give you the NH3 value or Ammonia .. noob .. I know I know

 

ANYWAYS

 

these were the params today

 

PH: 8.2

Temp of water sample: ~24C

NH3! : ~0.04

NO2: 0.02 (always been that)

N03: 2.5-3.

 

The NH3 is still a little high I suppose .. I REALLY want to get some CUC in my tank as the algae is starting to grow like no ones business. Mind you on the happy side the brown algae has stopped growing and has been replaced by happy looking green algae of a pretty form. When I do get a CUC in there they'll be fatter than I feel after I eat at McDonalds. YAH!

[dhraakoxr]

A small update.

 

I checked the water a few more times and it is still doing its peaks and valleys. Everything has decreased and the only thing with anything above zero is the ammonia .. which will filter into Nitrites/ates etc.

 

In the mean time I through in a few snails to clean up some algae and they've done a splendid job. Actually I only have two algae eating snails, a Trochus and a Nerite snail. I did this to keep the number limited since I'd like to keep the tank somewhat minimal in stock for the first while. What I can't believe though is how well that Nerite has destroyed the algae on the back of the tank. The whole back was covered in one form of algae or another and now it is just has sparse area here and there. Surprised me a lot actually of how well that snail is doing. The Trochus is only staying on the rocks and well .. his work ethics and not as good as the Nerite's.

 

A have a few Nassarius snails in there as well that have been doing there job eating mounds of crab crap (maybe) that has accumulated over the first 3 weeks of this tanks life. Actually, the Nassarius snails have done so well that they thought it prudent to lay egg sacks all over one side of my tank. I'm not sure if I should just leave them for awhile or get rid of them .. I'll figure it out eventually.

 

Ohh and as for the crabs I have not seen any additional rock crabs surface so I am happy about that. The only thing I have seen is those three Porcelain crabs which I enjoy watching.

[dhraakoxr]

Ok well it's been a long long while and I have aplenty of rics and zoas and a GSP to show some pics of:

 

Ric:

 

 

Lunar Eclipse I do believe:

 

 

Have not Id's these:

 

 

GSP which just fell off from its place .. I put it back later but didn't take another pic:

 

 

Pink Sparkle Zoas:

 

 

Fire n Ice .. a little closed off/inverted due to me bumping the tank whoops:

 

 

Not sure what these are yet:

 

 

New ric I just added:

 

 

Blow Pop Zoas:

 

 

I really want to figure out the whole lighting thing. I mean I am restricted to PC/MH if I want to keep my canopy but I know these zoa's could be more pretty ... do you think the nano-tuners extra PC ballast would help at all?

 

I have some cool looking Macro algae as well in my tank:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And these little white things which are all over my tank .. I'll have to figure out what they are:

 

 

 

EDIT: I found out these are Nerite eggs .. not sure how since I only have one nertite in my tank but you know.. whatever.. I say it's a hermaphrodite Nerite.

[deepdvnarq]

And these little white things which are all over my tank .. I'll have to figure out what they are:

 

 

 

EDIT: I found out these are Nerite eggs .. not sure how since I only have one nertite in my tank but you know.. whatever.. I say it's a hermaphrodite Nerite.

 

they could also be baby clams. i had the same things in my 2 tanks and they formed 6 months before i even had nerites. also i'm not talking about that nice looking clams. these grow to only abour 1/4 inch to 3/4 inch and dwell in the sand bed. i did have planty of those that i boughgt off of ebay as a little experiment.

[dhraakoxr]

they could also be baby clams. i had the same things in my 2 tanks and they formed 6 months before i even had nerites. also i'm not talking about that nice looking clams. these grow to only abour 1/4 inch to 3/4 inch and dwell in the sand bed. i did have planty of those that i boughgt off of ebay as a little experiment.

 

Cool, thanks for the input. So far they just exist as the pictures show .. not much new has happened with them.

 

The tank has been progressing nicely. The zoo's are growing very very well and the algae is shifting around and going through its cycles. I now have many other sorts of macro algae springs up here and there.

 

I've just gotten my LEDs in so I'm in the process of making an LED setup for the canopy. I'm hoping I can make it work with the stock canopy. It looks like I can from basic measurements.. but until I get the heatsink in and mount it all up i won't know for sure.

 

I'm looking forward to all the extra light though.

[dhraakoxr]

Well the LEDs are long long done with great results (see the link in my sig) and I've moved on to making a fuge as I BADLY need one .. the algae has run rampant regardless of my best measures at removing it and it's frankly just ####### me off. So, I went back into milling through the forums looking for all those BC mods (thanks for all the info!) and got underway. I'm kinda cheap so I went the cheaper route and re-used one of the stock PC lights and the stock PC reflective piece that held the old moon lights. I got a piece of plexiglass type stuff and some nuts/bolts and went to work. I used velcro to stick it to the back of the tank after scrapping off the paint and am pretty happy with the results. There is a good amount of light that escapes from the unit but I don't think it'll effect night time inside the tank too much (and I can fix it although I appreciate the fact that heat can escape this way). It was a pita to get the fuge setup right but I eventually did and was happy with the amount of water I was able to keep in there with the filter floss etc.. ANYWAYS, I'll let the pics do the rest of the talking:

 

Picture of the unit mounted and on:

 

 

Unit on:

 

 

Unit off:

 

 

Backside:

 

 

Initial Fuge Setup:

 

You'll notice that the water level is rather low and the macro would have no real chance to grow in this setup. I still had the stock chamber divider in there with some rubble on top .. this had to change.

 

 

 

Final Fuge Setup:

 

I removed the separator and through my chemi-pure at the bottom followed by an egg crate weighed down by a few rocks, then the macro, then a filter floss support fixture (egg-crate) and the filter floss. As you can plainly see the water level is WAY higher and is past the filter floss. This configuration gave the macro much needed growing room. Note: Like 80 percent of the ideas here came from other members on this board so thanks a bunch!

 

 

 

Picture of what I'm trying to combat:

 

 

[dhraakoxr]

 

 

Got his guy in there ... see if he'll help out as well. So far the progress of the display areas algae dieing has been super super slow.. it just looks like the algae stopped growing completely on the top rock but still exists on the bottom rocks. Generally, the hair algae does not grow anymore but it doesn't die either so I don't really know what to do there. The stuff on the bottom rocks is really hard to pick off to so I'm hoping that Molly does something to it eventually.

 

Ohh I also adjusted my light cycle about a few weeks back so hopefully I get some gains out of that as well.

[dhraakoxr]

Ok so a lot of my progression with LEDs was covered in my LED thread but I'm just going to focus on this build thread instead so I can centralize everything.

 

I'll keep it going by showing a few progression pics and some other random pics showing off changes/colouration.

 

From the humble begins with PC lighting:

 

 

 

To LEDs (notice the change in the shroom sizes heh):

 

 

[dhraakoxr]

Some random closeups:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There has also been changes in the shrooms over time with the LEDs:

 

Original (month I installed the LEDs):

 

 

 

To now today around 6 months later:

 

 

 

My first adventure with SPS .. testing growth capabilities with my LEDs:

 

 

 

To this in 3-4 months:

 

 

 

I have a bunch of other SPS but it is absolutely impossible to get decent pics of them in the back of my tank with my camera. I have a large number of frags back there but it is very very hard to catalog them and their growth plus I am dealing with a nasty salt issue. So I figure once my Mg and dKH are once again stable and normal I will again see decent growth/colouration and I will update this with more pics.

 

The other SPS types I have are: Joker encrusting, a purple haze monti, a tri tip, my original green stag another green random acro and a plate monti.

[dhraakoxr]

Plate Monti:

 

 

 

This coral has actually grown quite a lot since I've bought it and is surprizing me since my water conditions are not ideal chemically. But hey I'm not complaining .

 

My water about 2 weeks ago measured out at:

 

MG: 1700+

dKH: 5.5

Calc: 480+

 

Needless to say I wasn't happy with that and since I was doing weekly water changes I looked to a current fresh salt batch to see what was going on. That resulted in:

 

MG: 1800

dKH: 5

Calc: 450

 

I found the cause of my issue and luckily since I had JUST finished that bag of salt I went out and bought some RBS to try that out.

 

A fresh batch of that stuff mixed with 1/3 old brand salt water gave me:

 

MG: 1500

dKH: 7.5

Calc: 450

 

I mixed the stuff together to help minimize the shock to my tank. With a full batch of RBS the MG will drop a bit and the alk will increase I'd imagine to 8-8.5.

 

I've already noticed a large positive change my corals (tri tip actually getting blue tips) since I've been adding this new salt water.

 

Hopefully, when everything is said and done and adjusted, and I figure out just how damn bright or dim I need to set the LEDs, I'll I get some steller SPS colours. Time will tell.. I'm sure I'll need to up the alk a bit when it's all stable but I'll burn that bush when it comes.

[dhraakoxr]

One thing I did realize about the LED intensity and coral colour is that I realized that the "dark" sides of the SPS are actually the same colour you get when under MH. Therefore, my LEDs were traditionally WAY to bright for the species I have. I just kind of realized that because I remember my green stag frags being yellow (tissue) on their "dark" side and white with green polyps on their lit side. When I sold them to the LFS their tissue turned yellow everywhere within 2 weeks. My green slimer is currently greenish on it's "dark" side and my lighter on the lit side. SO I am currently running a total of ~600ma across my blues/RB's and ~250ma on my whites. So far everything is still growing so we'll see what happens to colour. My purple haze is ultra blue and beautiful regardless of the light intensity I've set (although it was dieing when I ran 3A and is now recovering) so I'm happy about that. Due to the # of LEDs I have I have awesome coverage and am able to adjust the intensity without sacrificing coverage which is a plus.