gobbly Posted March 6, 2010 Share Posted March 6, 2010 Day 1 Well, figured I would share my experience with my new reef as I go. This is a 20 gallon long glass tank. Currently it's using: 2x31w T5 lights. 10k and atinic. 150w Jager heater. 2.5' Protein skimmer. Fed by a PowerHead brand 402, and quad diaphragm air pump. 2 Maxi-Jet 1000 power heads. today I added: 20 lbs dry sand, and 5 lbs ls (pulled from display tank at lfs). 24 lbs lr. Mix of tonga, fiji, and bali. 2 Red Leg Reef Crab's. 2 Nassarius snails. Levels at 6:00pm 1/16/10: Temperature - 81f PH - 8.0 Amonia - 0.35 ppm Nitrite - 0.25 ppm Nitrate - 5 ppm SG: .022 Levels at 12:00am 1/17/10: Temperature - 81f PH - 8.0 Ammonia - 0.50 ppm Nitrite - 1.00 ppm Nitrate - 10 ppm SG: .022 Pictures (Click for much higher res!): This is the whole tank, and skimmer. I had to do some cement repairs on the skimmer, so keeping it in a bucket till I am sure it's going to stay dry. A close look at the left side of the tank. A close look at the center of the tank. A close look at the right side of the tank. A full shot of the tank, diagonal from the left side. A full shot from the left corner. Full length from the left side. Diagonal shot of the tank, diagonal from the right side. Full length from the right side. I'll keep this updated daily till it's cycled, and then probly weekly or monthly, and as things change! Link to comment
violinist Posted March 6, 2010 Share Posted March 6, 2010 Longest first post ever. That's some great looking rock! Save me the search and just say what kind it is? Link to comment
OClownsandNanos Posted March 6, 2010 Share Posted March 6, 2010 Longest first post ever. That's some great looking rock! Save me the search and just say what kind it is? +1 Awesome rock and rockwork. Don't worry about the clown w/o the nem - if he's tank raised, he's probably never even seen a nem. I'm wondering about the 2 x 31w T5s -- seems kinda low light for SPS, even in a 12" deep tank. How's your staghorn doing? Link to comment
latteslave Posted March 6, 2010 Share Posted March 6, 2010 I got about 3 days down until I realized HOW LONG THIS POST IS... What I can say is I really like the rock! and the scape! Think I am going to re-read the post, I was worried when I saw how much you put in within the first two weeks, but now it's coming on two months so I will be following. Would love it if you added your 20L to the 20L owners thread (link in sig below) Link to comment
gobbly Posted March 6, 2010 Author Share Posted March 6, 2010 I apologize, I actually posted each day as a separate post, but it combined them all into one big post... If it lets me edit it I think I'll try to split it back up so it's not so freaking long, lol. It's kinda a mix of rock. My lfs said that in all they had bali, tonga, and fiji, as well as a few shipments which he wasn't sure on. I just picked pieces I thought would work well with the tank. From my experience in the past I think a lot of it is tonga, and from looking at pics online the other pieces might be bali (seems to be sold as nano rock?). On the staghorn (better pics of him to come), I suspect it's enough. So far he is doing fine. He's within 4-5" of the light, so I don't think he'll have trouble. He'd been at the lfs since I set my tank up, and they had him under similar lighting, but a little deeper than I have him. Anyway, I have a really good relationship with the lfs, so if it looked like he needed more than I was getting him I'd just go trade them for some other frag I'll keep the post updated with how he's doing though if you're curious once I split this up into separate posts, I'll post the last one, which has a ton more pics I took today, along with some close-up's. Link to comment
gobbly Posted March 7, 2010 Author Share Posted March 7, 2010 Day 2 Got another piece of rock to block water flow int he corner (the sand was getting cleared to the glass), for a total of 25 lbs. I also got two blue legged hermit crabs. All seem to be doing well. That's it for life till it is done cycling. As soon as I added the two new crabs, one of the crabs I added yesterday booted one of the new ones out and stole his shell, lol. The new one picked up the shell left by the one who stole his, and seems quite happy, and it's a much better size for him. Levels at 10:00am: Temperature - 81f PH - 7.9 Ammonia - 0.50 ppm Nitrite - 1.00 ppm Nitrate - 10.0 ppm SG - .023 (This is where I'd like to keep it from here on out) Pictures (Click for larger version): Left side of tank. Right side of tank. Full tank. Tank from corner. Hermit crabs. Link to comment
gobbly Posted March 7, 2010 Author Share Posted March 7, 2010 Day 3 Levels at 10:00am: Temperature - 81f PH - 7.8 Ammonia - 0.40 ppm Nitrite - 1.00 ppm Nitrate - 20.0 ppm SG - .023 Levels at 10:00pm: Temperature - 81f PH - 7.9 Ammonia - 0.25 ppm Nitrite - 1.00 ppm Nitrate - 20.0 ppm SG - .023 Not going to post more pics till I get fish. Day 4 Levels at Noon: Temperature - 81f PH - 7.8 Ammonia - 0.00 ppm Nitrite - 1.00 ppm Nitrate - 20.0 ppm SG - .022 Levels at 10:00am: Temperature - 81f PH - 8.0 Ammonia - 0.00 ppm Nitrite - 1.00 ppm Nitrate - 20.0 ppm SG - .023 Day 5 So yesterday I bought more hermit's, red reef, for a total of 6. I also got 2 Astrae snails, and a conch. I plan on adding 2 cleaner shrimp and another 2 small (possibly another conch) the day after tomorrow. Two days after that, if everything is looking good, I'll probably add 2-3 very small fish, thinking a goby, blenny, and small wrasse. I also might get a porcelain crab somewhere in there... Levels at 10:00am: Temperature - 81f PH - 7.8 Ammonia - 0.00 ppm Nitrite - 0.50 ppm Nitrate - 20.0 ppm SG - .023 Levels at 10:00pm: Temperature - 81f PH - 7.8 Ammonia - 0.00 ppm Nitrite - 0.25 ppm Nitrate - 15.0 ppm SG - .023 Day 6 I added a 6-line wrasse, 2 very small cleaner shrimp, a very small pom-pom crab, 5 nassarius snails (d'oh, might have gone overboard), and 2 Astrae snails. Everything seems very happy, and the little six line is in heaven with all the little crusties to munch! Levels @ 10am Temp - 81f PH - 7.8 Ammonia - 0 Nitrite - 0 Nitrate - 15 ppm SG - 1.023 Levels @ 10pm Temp - 81f PH - 7.8 Ammonia - 0 Nitrite - 0 Nitrate - 15 ppm SG - 1.022 Day 7 Everything's doing pretty well, and seems very happy Levels @ 10am PH - 7.8 Temp - 81f Ammonia - 0 Nitrite - 0 Nitrate - 10 ppm SG - 1.022 Levels @ 10pm Temp - 81f PH - 7.9 Ammonia - 0 Nitrite - 0 Nitrate - 10 ppm SG - 1.022 Day 8 I went and got a test kit today for calcium, hardness, and phosphate. Everything is looking ok, so going to get a few frags of some hearty stuff tomorrow, see how it does. Levels @ 10am Temp - 81f PH - 7.8 Ammonia - 0 Nitrite - 0 Nitrate - 10 ppm SG - 1.022 CA - 340 ppm KH - 135 ppm PO - 0 Day 9 Added 2 mushroom rocks, a zoa rock, and a green star polyp. One mushroom detached, so I attached it to a rock with a piece of monophiliment line, and it split on it, one half attached to a piece of my rock, the other stayed on the frag I tied him to. I also added a small poreclain crab, and a coco duster. I will probly let these stew for a few months. Give everything time to settle nicely, and do some saving for some exotic stuff Levels @ 10am Temp - 81f PH - 7.8 Ammonia - 0 Nitrite - 0 Nitrate - 5 ppm CA - 360 KH - 143.3 PO - 0 SG - 1.022 Day 11 Got some PH buffer, and pushed up my PH. Hopefully I can keep it around there. All the critters are doing well Levels @ 10am Temp - 81f PH - 8.4 Ammonia - 0 Nitrite - 0 Nitrate - 5 ppm CA - 360 KH - 196.9 PO - .5 ppm GH - 1.022 Link to comment
gobbly Posted March 7, 2010 Author Share Posted March 7, 2010 Day 14 Yesterday I got a very small tank raised clown fish. Normally I've not been a big fan of keeping a clown without an anemone, but my 4 year old niece is so excited about the tank and begged me to get a clown. I also have been putting a very small amount of phyto-feast in (1/4 recommended minimum dosage), and 5-10 mysis shrimp for the clown. I'm leaving the skimmer off for 4-6 hours after adding the phyto-fast. The skimmer I have is what I used to use on my 80 gallon, but I'm running it with much less flow than I used to on the 4 times larger tank. I worry that it might be a little too effective for my filter feeders. hmmm... Levels @ 10am Temp - 81f PH - 8.2 Ammonia - 0 Nitrite - 0 Nitrate - 10 ppm CA - 360 KH - 196.9 PO - 0-.5? (can't quite tell which...) SG - 1.022 Full Tank Shot: Left Side: Center: Right Side: Clown Fish: 6-Lined Wrasse: Day 19 Levels @ 5:00pm Temp - 81f PH - 8.3 Ammonia - 0 Nitrite - 0 Nitrate - 5 ppm CA - 380 KH - 179 PO - 0 ppm SG - 1.022 Link to comment
gobbly Posted March 8, 2010 Author Share Posted March 8, 2010 Day 30 So I added a sump. DIY. I made a 'fuge chamber, with an area for some mangroves, and around 10-15 lbs of densely stacked rock. I used something called reef mud for the lower 3" of the mangrove area substrate, however I think it dumped a bunch of silicates or something in my water. I didn't get a spike in nitrate or phosphate, but I certainly had cloudy water for a few days and the following two weeks I got a bunch of brown filamentous algae which died after a week or so, and some red slime algae which my snails don't seem to like. The brown stuff died pretty fast, and it's just a matter of it clearing off the rock. The red stuff seems to be sticking around, so I've upped my WC's and hope it resolves itself. It's only on the gravel, so at least that's good Link to comment
gobbly Posted March 8, 2010 Author Share Posted March 8, 2010 Day 45 Had some sort of issue with my featherduster, which I posted about, and seems to have resolved itself. I suspect a water quality issue, but couldn't find anything on testing. Oh well. He's recovering and seems to be happy again, and is growing instead of shrinking. I also got a small tailspot blenny, which completes the fish inhabitants. I'd probly even take the clown back if my niece wasn't so attached to it (feel sorry for the guy being without a nem). And to round it out I also got a small blue staghorn frag. He came mounted on a base much larger than the frag, and I ended up breaking him off. I wanted to glue him to some of my rock work, which I couldn't remove from the tank. At the suggestion of a few fellow posters I tried gel super-glue, smeared it all over the two surfaces and smashed them together as fast as I could. However the moment the glue touched the water it would get a film and go milky, and not bond to anything really. I held it in place for a few min, till it went hard, and it's still upright, but even a hermit walking over it made it almost fall (it was wobbling back and forth the whole time he was on it, and only half his legs were even touching it). I can imagine this glue would be great if I could get both pieces out of water, but it's definitely not working for me under water. Anyway, I'll probly go to the LFS tomorrow and just get a small tube of cement and secure it better to the rock where it's at. This is the last I'll probly add to the tank for at least a month or two. Mainly for depletion of my initial budget, and also because I'd like to just let what I have stew for a month or so before I decide what else I'd like to add I tried to take good pics, but I can't figure out how to take good close up pics through the water with this digital camera. Probly going to put together a post in the next few days to see if anyone has any experience/advice with my camera. I apologize for the blurryness. I almost forgot, yesterday I also upped the flow quite a bit. Till then I had 2 Maxi-Jet 1000's blowing from the corners into the front glass. After adding the staghorn I realized I really needed a lot more flow through the upper area of the tank, so I now have a Maxi-Jet 500 and a Powerhead 201 blowing at each other from opposite ends just above the rock. This seems to be perfect flow for what I had planned on putting in the upper half of the tank, and surprisingly didn't change the flow in the lower half of the tank, which is good because I think I had it about perfect for the shrooms, polyps, and duster. I'm a little concerned that I haven't seen my porcelain crab for a week, but he never came out much to begin with. I'd normally only see him once every 2-4 days, I'd have to search him out and often he'd be tucked away in back with his scoops in the flow. I'll keep up hopes that he's just found some good out of sight places to do his thing, but if I don't see him for another week I'll probably replace him. I'm thinking whatever was bothering the duster might have gotten him since they both have similar feeding mechanisms/diets, and and I haven't seen him since all that started with the duster. On the opposite end, I think my pompom crab is finally getting comfortable. This last week he's actually come out in the day, and not darted back out of sight when a fish or crab pass. I haven't even had to look for him once the last week. Link to comment
gobbly Posted March 8, 2010 Author Share Posted March 8, 2010 Day 48 So I decided I really should get an RO/DI unit, going to the lfs once a week gets kinda expensive So I went ahead and got another porcelain crab. He's very nice looking, his undersides are the deepest royal purple I've ever seen on them. He's also about twice the size of my old one, so I am hoping he will be less timid and come out more. I also got a piece of plating monti. I've been wanting to get one, and they've had a yellow one at the lfs for a few weeks. It didn't look all that great though, and they keep marking it down. So anyway, I asked them about it, and the lady there said she'd frag some off their pink monti (I think it looks peach but whatever ) in their display tank if I wanted. Got a decent sized piece, and she practically gave it to me. I also got a few plugs and some cement, and properly mounted the monti and the staghorn I got last week. So they are now in their permanent homes, and the stag is probly happy, this new spot gives him a lot more light exposure I'll try to get pics in the next day or two, but I'm going to wait to see if I get some responses on the post I made about my camera. I really would like to get the pic quality up before I post anymore. Link to comment
gobbly Posted March 8, 2010 Author Share Posted March 8, 2010 As promised, I took a bunch more pics, and tried to get some better close-up's. It's still not great. I can't figure out how to manually focus the thing, which I think would resolve a lot of my issues, but I got a tripod, and figured out how to configure the micro, super micro, ISO, and shutter speed, so at least I could take something passable (though I doubt I am using the ideal settings). Hopefully my pics keep getting better as I get more used to the camera and how the settings effect my pictures Link to comment
gobbly Posted March 9, 2010 Author Share Posted March 9, 2010 Day 51 Everything is looking good! PH - 7.9 AM - 0 ITE - 0 ATE - 0 KH - 179 CA - 420 PO - 0 First time I've not had any nitrate or phosphate! W00t! I have a lot of trouble keeping the PH up. I got some buffer, but when I tried it I started with 1/4 of the recommended dosage, and it jumped up to 9.8 in about 10 seconds. With what I have in there now I really don't want to risk something like that, so I have just been leaving it at 7.9... I'm also starting to think I should be feeding something like oyster eggs or something for the sps... I'm feeding the fish with mysis, and that has always been fine for my lps, but I'm starting to think that it's too large for the sps to eat. I did some research on coral nitrogen sources and the effects on their biology, and it seems that relying 100% on fish poop is not ideal... Link to comment
gobbly Posted March 28, 2010 Author Share Posted March 28, 2010 Day 76 Been a while since I posted an update. Since my last post I lost a skunk cleaner shrimp. No idea what happened to him. They were getting plenty of food (I started giving the shrimp a large shrimp pellet each feeding and it would keep them busy for nearly an hour), and my water parameters haven't fluctuated at all. Everything else is doing fine, even my coco worm which has a significant reaction to even minute water quality fluctuations. I didn't find a body either, which is very odd, considering that every time they molt the skin is up against a powerhead the next morning. I'm wondering if maybe there was a little settling of rocks or something that might have pinned him where I can't see or something. Anyway, it's been over a week since I last saw him, and didn't get a spike in levels. I doubt it had anything to do with losing him, but I started adding iodine to my tank. My hermits have been molting very regularly (every 2-3 weeks), and my shrimp had been molting about that frequently as well, but in the last month or so I noticed nothing really has molted. I got everything really small, so the frequency of molting is probably just because they are growing faster at this size but either way, I figure that much molting is probably taxing my iodine. I also added 3 very small nerite snails, the designs on their shells just looked too cool to pass up. They also seem to be able to get to places my astrae can't reach. So far they are doing a great job. Something interesting, one of them will dig about 1/2" to 1" down in my substrate, on the glass, so that layer of algae on the front glass just below the substrate levels, he is going to town on it. I'd never seen them do that at the LFS, and the staff at the LFS said they can't recall seeing it either, but I'm certainly not complaining Since I lost the skunk cleaner, and have always wanted to get a few sexy shrimp, I went ahead and got one (one was all the LFS had). I plan on picking up another 2 or maybe 3 when they get more. The first night the sexy shrimp climbed into my overflow because I found him the next morning in my 'fuge. He's back in the display now, but haven't seen him since I put him back. I hope that adding another 2 or 3 will reduce the timidness, and they will come out. I also got another frag of some plating monti. This one is a dark green. It's another piece I have been watching at the LFS for a few months. Had grown from a corner, so it's not an ideal shape (45 degree angle), but the price was very good, and he had recovered very well at the LFS over this time (he was receding slightly when they first put him out). My hope is that in the flow I have him in that he'll curl out a bit and the shape will start to look more natural. His polyps are doing very well, and extend further than my other monti. The last addition was a galaxia coral. Ever since I first saw a galaxia I really liked them. Not only do they look good, but they are fairly active, and I've always had fun watching them at the LFS. Anyway, I had a spot in mind, I just needed to get one big enough that it didn't fall through the spot I had in mind (it's kinda a crevice that he would lay on top of). Got one, got him home. This thing is DELICATE. In fact, I don't think I've handled a more delicate coral, and I worked at an LFS for 5 years. Got him positioned with minimal damage, little sloughing on the sweepers, but not much at all. The flow he was in was pretty hefty, and I've since found out that in hefty flow this guys sweepers turn into troops on the march, and a plating monti 6" or so away came under attack. Luckily I was watching pretty close, and moved him before he got more than 6 stings in on the monti (who is recovering nicely, give him a week and you won't even know he was stung). Man, talk about aggressive, was not expecting that. So I moved him. I have a standalone rock in the front corner which he fit on top of perfectly, and the flow pulls his sweepers into the front corner of the tank which is great, nothing anywhere nearby. So finding the right spot was a relief, I originally thought I might have to take him back. After the second move (and a little more damage to him from being manhandled again), he again sloughed off some sweepers. These proceeded to float around, and before I could get them, several had stuck onto other critters. One landed on the other monti, the new one, left a small burn mark, but not too bad, and other than discoloring a 1mm spot on his side, didn't do too much dmg. Another landed on a colony of GSP, and stung one polyp pretty bad. Not sure if he'll make it, but it's a grove of many many polyps growing more than a few new a week (soon I will have to start trimming it back), so no issue there. The last sloughed sweeper to land on something landed on a large mushroom. The shroom quickly curled up around the piece and there was no way I could get it out or anything. He stayed curled up around it for 2 days. Today he has started to open up, and by started I mean just barely. He really looks like he's in pain, and the sweeper seems to have practically burned a hole right through him. Being a mushroom, I am thinking, given enough time, that he will bounce back (he's large, and has been sending out babies like crazy over the last month). But man, he really was hurt. If I were to compare it to a person I might say he looks like someone cut off his legs and cauterized it in a forest fire All that said, he's been in his final position now for 3-4 days, he hasn't sloughed off any sweepers in 2-3 days, and seems to be settling in. My hope is that now that he's placed and won't be handled for a long time, I won't see any more trouble from him or his errant tissues At the risk of writing a small novella... I also upgraded my lights, or more specifically, am waiting on my upgrade to arrive I currently have a 30" dual t5 fixture with an actinic and 10k. My two favorite variety of corals are monti's and acro's, and I had hoped that this light would be enough for them if I had the corals placed very close to the surface (3-4" max distance from light). The monti's do ok under the T5's, and the acro seems to be surviving just fine, but he's really not growing and his color has never really returned properly since I got him home. I also have always been a fan of the lighting from MH's compared to florescents. So I decided to upgrade, and since I also am planning on upgrading to a 24" high tank in the next 4-5 months, I wanted something I could move with the upgrade. I went with a 250w MH pendant. I plan on hanging it 3' above the tank and starting out with a low photo-period, maybe a couple hours to start and add an hour a day (or maybe week, will have to see how they respond). This would be along with my normal T5 schedule. Once I get the MH up to 6-8 hrs a day I plan on moving it down to 2.5' then 2', basically keep going down till I am at a min of 1.5'. I also plan on screening it if 2.5' is burning things. Once I'm to a normal MH schedule I plan on pulling the t5's up to the height of the MH (so I'm not lighting the top of a fixture ). Last, but not least, since I passed 60 days, and have been able to keep 'ate and phos to near undetectable levels (40-50% water changes a week has been paying off), I started leaving the blinds open in front of the tank. It has been getting incredible natural morning light. I've been doing this now for about a week, and no increases in algae at all. unfortunately it's an east facing window, so from sun-up to around 10am it gets incredible direct sunlight, but after around 10am the sun moves over the eve of my house so no chance of going to primarily natural light I am going to wait till the new light gets here to take pictures, so till then you'll just have to be patient and content with my words Link to comment
gobbly Posted April 15, 2010 Author Share Posted April 15, 2010 Day 93 So, since my last update I added a 250w MH to my system, and pulled the T5's up about 8" higher than they used to be. Since it's only a 12" tank I started with the MH 30" above the tank, and moved it down 1-2" every two days. As of today I'm at 15", and everything looks ok. Probably going to keep it here for 4-7 days and move it down to 14". Not sure if I want to go lower than that. It would cut out overspill, but it's an awful lot of light for this size tank. Probably depend on how things respond. I also added some sort of acro (at least I'm pretty sure it is, the lfs guy thought it was, but actually didn't know a lot about it). Supposed to get more uniformly green under the polyps, but we'll see. He seems very happy where he is, and basks in all the light. If you look at the last set of pictures you'll notice I swapped out a maxi-jet 500 for a koralia nano. The MJ had fallen 1/2" and the stream was in a crevice which sent it up the side of the staghorn and when I got up in the morning had completely cleared the left side of tissue. I decided to try out a propeller driven powerhead, ordered a koralia nano, and replaced the maxi-jet 500. The staghorn has grown about 1/2 of the way back, but still looks pretty bad. The part that wasn't effected though started growing as soon as the MH went over the tank (he wasn't growing under the T5's, and was a primary motivator for upgrading my lights). His polyps are extending twice as far as they used to. I'm hoping that he recovers the rest of the way quickly and picks up speed on his growth (he's at about 1/16" of new growth since I got him! lol). After trying out the koralia nano, and finding that since the evolutions came out the regular nano's are dirt cheap ($14-$15), I went ahead and ordered 3 more to replace all of my current powerheads (I might keep one of my old ones to get more flow in the rear of the rock, not sure yet). This should cut down on my power usage/heat slightly, and everything in the tank seems to like the propeller flow much more than deflected concentrated flow. They should arrive in a few more days. Everything else seems to be growing quite well! I gave up on all the manual settings for my camera, and just tried the tripod, auto settings, and double micro setting. I am really impressed at how they came out. The tank itself is kinda old (I bred African cichlids in it more than 15 years ago) and just holding me through till I have space for its upgrade, so the marks on the glass show up, but some of the pics I got are really showing fine detail. Look at the coco worm ones, you can easily see the Celia on the sides of the feathers. Much better pictures than I've been able to get in the past. Can't wait till Aug/Sept when I can start parting my new system together, a new tank will help the picture quality a lot. And without further adieu, on with the pics! Polyps and Six-Line Polyps and Coco Worm Green Monti Green Monti Blue Staghorn Main Star Polyp Field Mushroom Cluster Mother Mushroom Star Polyp Wall Galaxia and Six-Line Galaxia Orange Monti New Acro (Don't know name) New Acro (Don't know name) New Acro (Don't know name) New Acro (Don't know name) New Acro (Don't know name) Skunk Cleaner Shrimp and Zoa's Clown checking out my camera Six-Line Tailspot Blenny Coco Worm Close-Up Coco Worm Hermit Hermit Right Side Shot Left Side Shot Left Front Shot Right Front Shot Full Tank Shot Whole Setup Shot Link to comment
EliPhant Posted April 15, 2010 Share Posted April 15, 2010 are you going to keep that t5 light fixture there blocking the mh? might as well take the t5's off imo Link to comment
MGDMIRAGE Posted April 15, 2010 Share Posted April 15, 2010 By far one of thee most in depth journals i have ever seen, very good work. At first i thought you moved way too fast adding the livestock but you really kept up with the testing and stayed on top of everything. Your rockwork looks great and I look forward to future updates Link to comment
gobbly Posted April 15, 2010 Author Share Posted April 15, 2010 are you going to keep that t5 light fixture there blocking the mh? might as well take the t5's off imo short answer no. Long answer, the MH started 30" up (way too high for the t5's), and I've been acclimating it down. I'm going to wait and see how low I end up with the MH before I decide how the T5's are going to go. If I don't end up with the MH low enough I will build a new rim to eliminate overspill and have the MH and T5's at the same height. As it stands now, with the placement of corals, the T5's aren't really blocking their light, right now it just softens the light on the front gravel a little. Keep in mind it's a 250w over a 12" tank, so it's overlit anyway. Link to comment
gobbly Posted April 15, 2010 Author Share Posted April 15, 2010 By far one of thee most in depth journals i have ever seen, very good work. At first i thought you moved way too fast adding the livestock but you really kept up with the testing and stayed on top of everything. Your rockwork looks great and I look forward to future updates Thanks a bunch! Though this is my first tank in 15 years, I worked at an LFS for 5 years specializing in cichlids and reef systems, so though some of my info was a little outdated, I have a lot of experience with keeping systems in general. I certainly did stock a little faster than I would recommend (I got the bug bad, and needed to see stuff moving!), but I was careful with testing, and watch my tank like a hawk. That said, I have lost 3 hermit crabs and a skunk cleaner shrimp, and I'm fairly certain they just weren't finding enough food, so can't say the speed I went at was perfect, but my looses have been minimal, and I have a lot of evidence that everything is quite happy at this point Link to comment
gobbly Posted April 15, 2010 Author Share Posted April 15, 2010 Oh, I also forgot to mention: Our neighborhood has always had issues with power. At least 4-5 times a year we lose it for more than an an hour, and two years ago we lost power for over 36 hours. So when our power went out the first time after setting up the tank, hooked a pump up to my PC UPS (which seems to run a koralia nano for about 2 hours), and went out to get a generator. I ended up getting an All Power 2 stroke 1000w. By the time I got back home with it our power was back on, but since the noise rating on it is the same as pretty much everything else in the price range, and I got a really good deal (almost 1/2 the best price I could find online), I kept it. Sure enough, 7 days later our power went out again, and I got a chance to fire the thing up. I have to say I am happy with it. It's perfectly capable of running my entire system. It pulled 3 amps without the lights, and the lights pull just over 3 amps, with the generator pushing 7. My only complaint is the noise, but it's actually more quiet than other generators I have seen at campgrounds. I think I might build an insulated dog house for it to see if I can cut down on the noise at all. Link to comment
gobbly Posted April 15, 2010 Author Share Posted April 15, 2010 So after looking at him longer last night, I started thinking that the unknown acro I got was actually a monti, and after looking up pictures online, the closest things I can find to it are montipora spongodes and montipora digitata. The latter could be on the money because the guy I got it from said that with more stable systems than their displays it's supposed to get more uniformly green. If anyone know's what it actually is from my pics let me know And I took a few pics of critters I hadn't had an opportunity to take pics of. Still trying to get a few shots of my pom-pom crab and sexy shrimp, but they are very elusive when the halide is on. Conch Conch Porcelain Crab Porcelain Crab Link to comment
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