New 20L Mixed Reef Build

[aparker]

I'm impressed - Peppermint shrimp found and nuked that Aiptasia in one day. Any suggestions as to what else they'd like to eat? Definitely want to keep them around in case more nuisance anemones show up. I guess for starters I'll have to buy some pellet food and throw them a couple. I really just need to get a few fish. Eventually I have to introduce nutrients into the tank at some level, so it might as well be via feeding fish.

 

I wish I could decide what fish I want!

 

In the interim, here are the new palys:

 

I like the combination of two different blue morphs growing together....

[nanu-nanu]

Beautiful tank.

I love it!

Makes me wish I didn't get fish, haha

[divecj5]

Looks like things are coming along great with the tank.....you have quite the collection of corals already. How are the SPS doing under the T5s? I'm sure they are doing great.

[aparker]

How are the SPS doing under the T5s? I'm sure they are doing great.

 

I think it is a bit early to tell - they all LOOK perfectly happy. The Echinophora has been putting out sweeper tentacles at night looking for food - Cyclopeeze seems a bit big for it - I'm going to get some phytoplankton and try that. The M. digitata are definitely, visibly growing, especially the ORA green one, and the little blue-tip Acropora seems to be getting bigger as well. Harder to tell with the Birdsnest and the M. capricornis.

 

Certainly the two soft corals (Sinularia finger leather and Anthelia) look great.

[Juanhunglo69]

You got me following now. I am in the process of doing a 30 frameless with a 29 sump and MH lights but have not thought out my plans nowhere as good as you have.

[aparker]

So I finally decided on fish!

 

Received two in the FedEx today - a Randall's shrimp goby Amblyeleotris randalli and a Swissguard Basslet Liopropoma rubre.

 

Also got a nice piece of rock with both Blastomussa and Favia growing on it, and a couple of small mushrooms - an R. yuma and some blueish Actinodiscus.

 

As always, this post is just a tease - pix when everyone is settled in and happy...

[avalanche1201]

Updating again - move is finally over, whatta PITA.

 

Starting to get the infrastructure built in the new apt to put the tank in place. Here is a view of the window from kitchen to living room where the tank will sit. It is wide enough that it will just about fill the space.

 

Some people have dedicated rooms set up behind their aquariums to hold all of the filtration and other equipment required to run them. I have my teeny apt kitchen - here's the back side of the tank window showing the shelf I built for it, and the RO/DI unit I just bolted in place over the sink (need a faucet thread adapter to hook it up):

 

Finally, on the other side of the counter, the fuge-to-be with light and skimmer. I will be gluing baffles into the fuge tomorrow.

 

So why live in an apt that's all carpeted except for the teeny kitchen/fishroom, when I knew I wanted to set up a reef tank? For one, the view is pretty good from here:

(17th floor)

 

Also, it is just 4 miles from work, a perfect distance for enjoyable commuting on my new toy:

(with apologies for the non-reef bandwidth that just consumed)

 

I'll bring the actual display tank back from the old house tomorrow, and take pix of it in place with canopy and overflows done...

 

 

Just started reading this thread and got to hear....ooo how the Pru brings a tear to my eye...havn't seen it in months, how I miss school

 

edit: I may have missed it, but what kind of LR did you order?

[aparker]

OK, so I haven't moved things into their final locations yet, but I got the urge to get the camera out...

 

Here's the Randall's goby:

 

And the Swissguard basslet (you can also see the blue Discosoma below:

 

Both are still a little skittish but getting bolder. Both wolf down Mysis and Cyclops with abandon. The cool thing was finding out that these guys will actively capture and suck down Mysis as well:

 

The Blastomussa, not the Favia. The Blastos look very happy, fat and sassy after eating their fill of little shrimps:

 

Finally, here's a better look at the Favia and the orange Ricordea yuma:

 

Will post a FTS after I rearrange this weekend. Need to do a WC and thin the algae crop in my 'fuge too. Going to rain Sunday, so I suppose I know what I'll be doing then....

[divecj5]

Wow....there are a ton of blastos on that rock. Nice piece.

[aparker]

Current FTS. Colony of GSP will not stay there on the sand, just got it today and set it there for now. Everything else is in a final-feeling location. Moved the Caulastrea over to the right side to free up the left for some new stuff. Still not sure what. Definitely want more SPS in the middle where the light is best. Maybe a Superman Montipora. Also need to get a nice Acanthastrea worked into the budget.

[Deleted User 7]

You should post a video of your tank. I'd love to see what your water movement is looking like! Tank looks amazing!

[peski28]

ok totally off topic and im so sorry but i have to say this. I am so happy that in your thread topic you used the work bucking, hahaha i thought me and my friends are the only people to ever say that. somebody else understands what getting buck bucked means!!

 

Great tank btw, im really digging everything!

[lil'wrasse cool]

Tank looks very nice but whats up with the kitchen how do you cook or do anything in there wow. I could not have that type of setup in the open. sorry to say that but... I like everything hidden even the sump. I think it would take away from the tank to the guests that you have that dont know alot about reefing.

[aparker]

You should post a video of your tank. I'd love to see what your water movement is looking like! Tank looks amazing!

 

Ask and ye shall receive...see if the link below works - I have never uploaded video to photobucket before.

 

http://s177.photobucket.com/albums/w237/al...nt=a2fec93a.flv

 

The water movement is actually "turned down" to some extent in that I have the returns streaming horizontally across the top, such that the strongest currents are only in the top few inches (to make the SPS happy). As you'll see by the way the Anthelia and the Sinularia are moving, though, there's some pretty brisk flow all the way to the bottom.

 

And thanks again for the compliments. i am happy with how it's turned out so far, for sure.

[aparker]

Tank looks very nice but whats up with the kitchen how do you cook or do anything in there wow. I could not have that type of setup in the open. sorry to say that but... I like everything hidden even the sump. I think it would take away from the tank to the guests that you have that dont know alot about reefing.

 

Well fortunately the only person who really ever comes over is my GF, who understands the reef obsession (she is actually a really skilled FW plant aquarist - I will post pix of her tanks here some day). When I want to do a major cooking effort for guests etc we just go to her house.

 

Having the setup in the kitchen has some advantages - for example I can siphon off straight to the sink for water changes. Also makes cleaning up salt creep etc easy. But it does make for a cramped space, no question about it.

 

Hopefully without sounding too jaded and middle aged, I'll point out that eventually you discover that everything in life involves compromise, one way or another...

[lil'wrasse cool]

Thats cool my gf would have my head. But shes always in my kitchen lol....Still a killer setup I really like the wavemakers.

[divecj5]

Awesome video....I always enjoy videos of tanks more than pictures. Although pictures are great, you just can't get the overall feel of the tank from pictures along. Looks like you have lots of great flow in there.

 

Keep up the awesome job on the tank. Look forward to seeing it continue along.

 

Adam

[KoolFish]

Cool - thanks for the confirmation on that. I'm going to order some now. Maybe I can find someone with a fish-only tank who wants to buy the rest of my IO.

 

No problem. I really like this Seachem Reef salt, I do weekly w/c's and have not had to add any Ca. I do find I need to add a little Alk to keep it at 10 dKH but not much.

 

Chris

[Deleted User 7]

Excellent Video! I really love where you've placed everything in there. It'll be unbelievable once the sps starts growing out! Love it. The best 20L I've seen.

[aparker]

Excellent Video! I really love where you've placed everything in there. It'll be unbelievable once the sps starts growing out! Love it. The best 20L I've seen.

 

Thanks, and thanks to divecj5 too - it's great to get feedback on the tank's progress. It is cool to see things starting to fill in a bit. The Birdsnest and Montis are growing visibly - almost every day. It is really cool to see the Birdsnest ramify - those twiggy little branches will contact each other at the tips and fuse back together, so the structure ends up with *loops*, not just bifurcating branches. Wicked cool.

 

After I get back from the trip I'm on now (business, no fun snorkeling this time) I'm going to get after some more zooanthid color morphs, some clove polyps, and a couple more SPS - purple Montipora mollis and a pink Stylophora are going to be needed. Also thinking about another softie for the upper left shady part of the tank - I could use some good suggestions as to something that would like some pretty brisk flow. I like the looks of cabbage leather (forget the genus name) but am not sure it would like being blasted by flow.

[divecj5]

That's awesome about the birdsnest and that type of growth. Do you have any closeup pics of the birdsnest or any progression shots thus far? Glad to hear it's going great bud.

[jnarowe]

Alex,

 

This is Jonathan, Greg's buddy in Poulsbo! Glad to see you are back in and I really like your project. I read the entire thread and have a variety of comments, so I appologize in adnvance if this gets wordy...it's a brain damage thingy.

 

First thing is to commend you on utilizing your kitchen to house your reef equipment. I did see a post criticising that but clearly that person is on the "furniture" side of the hobby and just doesn't understand the art of what you are doing.

 

I also want to let you know that your plants are alive and well in my 70g Tall and some have even made it into Greg's tank. I am not going to fill your thread with any pics unless asked to do so, but I will post links as I feel may be of value to you. Your plants came along with a couple of cool hitch-hiking snails that I really like and have propagated nicely. Often when newcomers enter my home, they think the 70g Tall is a taurarium until they get up close and see a fish dart out from the foliage.

 

Now to your tank...I enjoyed the build process quite a bit. Although most of what I do aquarium-wise is on an extra large scale, I do have a Quiet One plumbed into my water change system that does double duty cycling on and off 4x/day to circulate my salt water holding tank as well as pulling the water out of my sumps when doing a change out. Yesterday one of my reefer buddies was over and asked if I had any problems with it, (I didn't know there were issues) and I told him it has worked flawlessly since my reef started up. I put it in because it was cheap and came with the correct adapters. Seems like yours is working well too.

 

I must say you do have some nads drilling out that tank yourself, and you should be proud of the results. I wonder if the blade cost more than buying a pre-reef built tank though. It is virtually impossibele to get a glass company to drill a tank though and I imagine that's why you did it yourself.

 

As far as plumbing goes, I do have concerns about salt creep and I think that may become an issue going forward. Those Loc-Lines are notorious for it as well as all those plastic hose connectors. Something you might consider when you move the tank to its final position would be to switch to flexible PVC. It comes in Black, white, grey, and I even think blue. Budget comes to mind because it is not cheap, but based on your cranks, I'd say that may not be a major issue. If you want to learn more, let me know and I will fill you in on how it's used and where to get the best price on it. I just don't like all those hoses...makes me nervous!

 

Your video is cool BTW. Nice work.

 

Lighting...nice job on that, but as I am sure you realize now, T5 arrays put out a LOT of heat. I have an 8 x 4' array over my snail grow-out/QT tank and measured the glass at 189F. I had to raise the lamp and put a fan between it and the water.

 

Your sump/fuge is going to cause you problems for sure. What will happen over time is that detritus will collect in the bottom around the rocks, mix wih the sand, etc. and become a nitrate and phophate magent. I know it's commonly thought that sand and rubble/rock in the fuge is a good idea, but unless you vacuum it out on a wekly basis, over time you will run into trouble. And I cannot state this more emphatically, you MUST change out 1/3 of the sand evey six months. While we all believe that the sand is a more "natural" environment in our systems, the fact is these are captive systems that do not have the diversity of animals nor the dilution of billions of gallons of water. The sand will become saturated with PO4 and you will have a tank crash. This is extremely important in nano systems.

 

Not to tick off too many of your fans, but I do want to let them know that $6/lb for live rock is about 3x what the retailer pays for it. Live rock wholesales for between $1.35 and $2.89/lb, and then the LFS kills it and sells it as live rockl...but I digress.

 

Your Ca/alk is out-of-balance. I suggest you check out this chemistry calculator to find the right balance and help you with your dosing. BTW, Driveway Heat is the same thing as Kent Turbo Calcium (AFAIK) so all you need is Driveway Heat, Baking Soda, and Epsom salts to keep your tank in the right spot, and all cheap as can be. I target sal: 1.026; Ca: 420ppm; Alk: 9.0dKh; and Mg: 1450ppm.

 

As far as salts go, everyone has their favorite, which I think is a bad thing. The last batch of Seachem Reef salt I tested was horrible, and so was the Tropic Marin Pro. The last batch of OceanPure Pro was at ca: 375, alk: 9.0, Mg: 1400ppm. Every salt changes batch-to-batch and dont assume because one has a good reputation that it will always measure out the same. They do not and with nanos, this is EXTREMELY important. I test every batch of SW I make, adjust as needed, stir/age, and aerate for one week. And I switch salts because I believe that invariably any one particualr salt will be lacking in some untestable elements, so I like to change it out. Of course, as you may know, I buy 12 - 48 buckets at a time.

 

Getting to your animals:

 

Get rid of any store-bought turbos. They are not fit for your reef and when they kick they will foul that water so fast you will most certainly see some STN. In fact. most snails sold in the hobby are NOT captive reef compatible for a variety of reasons. You can learn more at Project Dibs. I am a founding breeder and have about 10,000 reef appropriate snails in my main system.

 

Also, please get rid of the GSP right now. Throw it in the garbage, give it to a local reef club member that noone likes, or trade it back to the LFS. If I see that GSP in any future pics of your reef, I will start stealling bike parts out of Greg's garage and selling them on eBay, and I may even fly out and snatch your saddle to use on my trainer. You seriously do not want that to take hold in a Nano. Once it's on your rocks, it willl snuff out everything like an invasive weed. GSP=English Ivy...but alas, that is lost on you apartment dwellers!

 

BTW, you can use the wastewater from your RO/DI to water your house plants. It's actually good fertilizer and I store mine and have it on a timer to water my vegetable garden.

 

All crabs and shrimp are scavengers and regardless of what you are told by the people selling them to you, they will taste everything in the tank and eat anything they feel like. The peppermints will eat regular fish food so you do't have to worry about them starving, but because your tank is small, the hermits will cause problems. They are so cute, but they are evil little buggers. All the sand sifting creatures sold in the hobby essentially eat the beneficial benthic life-froms that make sand work well for filtration. That's why I HATE "cleanup crew" refresh packs...it's just marketing so ignore it with all your might.

 

The zoos you picked up are really sweet and such a nice colony. Watch your fish and crabs around them. Adding animals to control algal blooms is not terribly good IMO. Your tank has just gone through a regular cycle it seems and once all the algae is gone, those animals will move on to something else. Lights out for a day is not a bad idea IMO, but if you continue to have nuisance algae issues, I would sugest a one hour "nap" in the middle of the light cycle. Algae is one of he most simplests forms of life on the planet and it takes a long time for it to ramp up photosynthesis. Corals, clams, and anemones all react to light much faster and don't mind a nap. Because you have the T5 array, this should be no problem and your AC Jr. will take care of the switching for you. This IMO, is one of the best methods of controling nuisance algae while trying to determine the source of nutrients making it grow in the first place. Chew on that last line a bit guys.

 

Kudos on your new reef. Corals look great, don't over-populate!

[divecj5]

Don't want to water the thread down at all but just wanted to tell Jonathan what an awesome post that was above. I remember reading some of your great info. on RC as well. LOTS of great take home info. in the above for sure.

[aparker]

Alex,

 

This is Jonathan, Greg's buddy in Poulsbo! Glad to see you are back in and I really like your project. I read the entire thread and have a variety of comments, so I appologize in adnvance if this gets wordy...it's a brain damage thingy.

 

First thing is to commend you on utilizing your kitchen to house your reef equipment. I did see a post criticising

that but clearly that person is on the "furniture" side of the hobby and just doesn't understand the art of what you are doing.

 

Hi Jonathan, long time no email! Re-send your email address and I'll let both you and Greg know the next time I'm in Seattle. Since I'm working for Amgen now it should be at least semi-frequent. I'd love to see your 1000 gal monster!

 

I also want to let you know that your plants are alive and well in my 70g Tall and some have even made it into Greg's tank. I am not going to fill your thread with any pics unless asked to do so, but I will post links as I feel may be of value to you. Your plants came along with a couple of cool hitch-hiking snails that I really like and have propagated nicely. Often when newcomers enter my home, they think the 70g Tall is a taurarium until they get up close and see a fish dart out from the foliage.

 

That's great to know that some of the plants from that old tank are still alive and well in WA! Another person I gave some of the Crypts to (who is now my GF, actually) still has them growing nicely in her tanks too.

 

Now to your tank...I enjoyed the build process quite a bit. Although most of what I do aquarium-wise is on an extra large scale, I do have a Quiet One plumbed into my water change system that does double duty cycling on and off 4x/day to circulate my salt water holding tank as well as pulling the water out of my sumps when doing a change out. Yesterday one of my reefer buddies was over and asked if I had any problems with it, (I didn't know there were issues) and I told him it has worked flawlessly since my reef started up. I put it in because it was cheap and came with the correct adapters. Seems like yours is working well too.

 

Yes, I was a bit concerned when I got the "you get whet you pay for" feedback on the admittedly cheap QO pump (so often it's true), but so far so good for mine as well.

 

I must say you do have some nads drilling out that tank yourself, and you should be proud of the results. I wonder if the blade cost more than buying a pre-reef built tank though. It is virtually impossibele to get a glass company to drill a tank though and I imagine that's why you did it yourself.

 

Actually it was not difficult and the entire set of 5 hole saws cost about what I have heard a glass shop will charge to custom-drill one hole. So much cheaper, especially since I still have the drills for the inevitable future projects....

 

As far as plumbing goes, I do have concerns about salt creep and I think that may become an issue going forward. Those Loc-Lines are notorious for it as well as all those plastic hose connectors. Something you might consider when you move the tank to its final position would be to switch to flexible PVC. It comes in Black, white, grey, and I even think blue. Budget comes to mind because it is not cheap, but based on your cranks, I'd say that may not be a major issue. If you want to learn more, let me know and I will fill you in on how it's used and where to get the best price on it. I just don't like all those hoses...makes me nervous!

 

Actually the one place where salt creep is an issue is where the hose barb elbows go through the canopy top. I had meant to seal them with urethane glue when I built the thing and forgot. Of course now it's running and taking it all apart would be a PITA, so I'm being lazy and just wiping up salt. All of the actual loc-line is inside the tank - it looked like something that just wasn't meant for a dry area installation.. I think the Modular Hose website even states that explicitly.

 

Your video is cool BTW. Nice work.

 

Thanks! My first try with the Nikon point-n-shoot. I am thinking about getting a better camera (of course...).

 

Lighting...nice job on that, but as I am sure you realize now, T5 arrays put out a LOT of heat. I have an 8 x 4' array over my snail grow-out/QT tank and measured the glass at 189F. I had to raise the lamp and put a fan between it and the water.

 

Hmm. Mine gets warm but not 189F. The piece of acrylic I have under it is holding up so far. It does have fan cooling, which is one reason I ponied up for the Aquatinics unit (all bells/whistles standard). I've felt the heat output of a 150W MH running and I'll bet that would add way more heat to the system than my T5 setup. That said, obviously between the lights and the pumps I do end up needing a chiller. I suspect the Quiet One (which is also a Hot One) may be as much to blame as the lights, however.

 

Your sump/fuge is going to cause you problems for sure. What will happen over time is that detritus will collect in the bottom around the rocks, mix wih the sand, etc. and become a nitrate and phophate magent. I know it's commonly thought that sand and rubble/rock in the fuge is a good idea, but unless you vacuum it out on a wekly basis, over time you will run into trouble. And I cannot state this more emphatically, you MUST change out 1/3 of the sand evey six months. While we all believe that the sand is a more "natural" environment in our systems, the fact is these are captive systems that do not have the diversity of animals nor the dilution of billions of gallons of water. The sand will become saturated with PO4 and you will have a tank crash. This is extremely important in nano systems.

 

Hmmm. The old DSB vs not debate. Obviously you know this is one of the two most contentious issues in reef tank design, along with the skim vs not debate (I get the sense that we are on the same side on that one). I'm not entirely clear on the chemistry behind the sand becoming saturated with PO4 per se, but it does seem that there is the potential for accumulation of detritus. The big question in my mind is from the N standpoint does it all get mineralized before getting piled up (i.e. is all the organic N going into the system being converted to NO3 such that it is soluble and available either to uptake by organisms or denitrification to N2. Obviously if you were introducing so much food that "undigested" organic N was piling up, you'd be headed for a disaster (analogous to an critter dying and rotting all at once). The P issue is more perplexing, since there is no mechanism analogous to denitrification that permits its loss via equilibration with the atmosphere. Plus it is efficiently recycled such that the only available sink is growing critters. Thus the grow and harvest algae strategy. I wonder if a "fuge" that was just e.g. a chaeto monoculture in a glass sump would produce as much microfaunal diversity as one that has sand, rocks, etc.

 

Not to tick off too many of your fans, but I do want to let them know that $6/lb for live rock is about 3x what the retailer pays for it. Live rock wholesales for between $1.35 and $2.89/lb, and then the LFS kills it and sells it as live rockl...but I digress.

 

Yeah, I have not been too impressed with the "live rock" I see in LFS. The pre-cured (and it really was) rock I got from RM was an easy route to a fast cycle, but I really feel like I lost out on interesting diversity by not getting absolutely raw straight from the ocean rock and curing it myself. Next tank will be done this way for sure.

 

Your Ca/alk is out-of-balance. I suggest you check out this chemistry calculator to find the right balance and help you with your dosing. BTW, Driveway Heat is the same thing as Kent Turbo Calcium (AFAIK) so all you need is Driveway Heat, Baking Soda, and Epsom salts to keep your tank in the right spot, and all cheap as can be. I target sal: 1.026; Ca: 420ppm; Alk: 9.0dKh; and Mg: 1450ppm.

 

Yep, as I explain a couple pages back this is why I'm biasing my supplementation toward more Ca than Alk, trying to drive the system (slowly, so as not to make too drastic a change) toward the ideal. I don't have a Mg test kit. How critical do you feel this is (what range would you say is safe to operate within? has your tank ever gone out of range and required fixing?).

 

As far as salts go, everyone has their favorite, which I think is a bad thing. The last batch of Seachem Reef salt I tested was horrible, and so was the Tropic Marin Pro. The last batch of OceanPure Pro was at ca: 375, alk: 9.0, Mg: 1400ppm. Every salt changes batch-to-batch and dont assume because one has a good reputation that it will always measure out the same. They do not and with nanos, this is EXTREMELY important. I test every batch of SW I make, adjust as needed, stir/age, and aerate for one week. And I switch salts because I believe that invariably any one particualr salt will be lacking in some untestable elements, so I like to change it out. Of course, as you may know, I buy 12 - 48 buckets at a time.

 

This is why I have a 20 gal tank - I can afford it! Seriously, I have obviously been dialing in all waterchange water with the refractometer, and as you saw measuring the Ca/Alk. I am gong to mix up a batch of the Sea Chem today and will post the test results when I get them. If it is not ideal I will adjust it before use. Of course, once I've tested that 50gal bag (I will mix it before use just to ensure homogeneity) I know the parameters of my replacement seawater for the next 10 waterchanges... :-)

 

Getting to your animals:

 

Get rid of any store-bought turbos. They are not fit for your reef and when they kick they will foul that water so fast you will most certainly see some STN. In fact. most snails sold in the hobby are NOT captive reef compatible for a variety of reasons. You can learn more at Project Dibs. I am a founding breeder and have about 10,000 reef appropriate snails in my main system.

 

Yes, I have been planning to get rid of the Turbos. I need to replace the grazing effort they represent with more appropriate beasties, however. Just moving one of the Turbos to the fuge (to eat up microalgae growing there) has noticeably upped the algae level in the main tank. I'm guessing based on looking at the DIBS website you mention that you favor Trochus, a genus that others on this board have recommended as well. I would like to have something that will reproduce and replenish itself, that's for sure. The tiny little Nassarius are cute, but it would take more than 10/gal to really keep the system mowed. My LFS sells Astraea as a smaller alternative to Turbos. What do you think about them? What would the optimal snail strategy be, in your view?

 

Also, please get rid of the GSP right now. Throw it in the garbage, give it to a local reef club member that noone likes, or trade it back to the LFS. If I see that GSP in any future pics of your reef, I will start stealling bike parts out of Greg's garage and selling them on eBay, and I may even fly out and snatch your saddle to use on my trainer. You seriously do not want that to take hold in a Nano. Once it's on your rocks, it willl snuff out everything like an invasive weed. GSP=English Ivy...but alas, that is lost on you apartment dwellers!

 

What about putting it in the fuge to consume nutrients, then pruning it back as it grows?

 

All crabs and shrimp are scavengers and regardless of what you are told by the people selling them to you, they will taste everything in the tank and eat anything they feel like. The peppermints will eat regular fish food so you do't have to worry about them starving, but because your tank is small, the hermits will cause problems. They are so cute, but they are evil little buggers.

 

Hmmm. The do a good job of picking little bits of algae off the sand, however. Many people (e.g. Bob Fenner) caution against most hermits but are OK with very small ones (and mine are very small). The little Mithrax crab seems to be behaving for now as well, but it will obviously be suspect #1 if anything starts looking grazed on. The Peppermint shrimp are a magic Aiptasia cure, though, and those are one problem I REALLY don't want.

 

All the sand sifting creatures sold in the hobby essentially eat the beneficial benthic life-froms that make sand work well for filtration. That's why I HATE "cleanup crew" refresh packs...it's just marketing so ignore it with all your might.

 

All of them? I got some tiny brittle starts and bristle worms that seem to be pretty nice detritivores. they are certainly spreading nicely in the system. I would agree that based on what I've read sea cucumbers are not a really wise thing, at least for any sort of nano tank. What do you think is the optimal set of sand bed animal species? How would you go about making sure you had them all?

 

The zoos you picked up are really sweet and such a nice colony. Watch your fish and crabs around them. Adding animals to control algal blooms is not terribly good IMO. Your tank has just gone through a regular cycle it seems and once all the algae is gone, those animals will move on to something else.

 

Yes, hence my musings on "balancing" algae growth and algae consumption. As far as I can tell, if one puts nutrients into the tank (and you have to, corals do not live on light alone) there will be some algae growth. And this is just like natural reefs, where algae grow all over. On the reefs where I snorkel, there are also tons of snails, and huge schools of tangs that cruise around scraping that algae away just as fast as it can grow. So there's the nut of my desire to have just the right population of grazers to balance algae growth. Obviously, that growth rate changes as other things in the tank change, so fine tuning may be inevitable...

 

Lights out for a day is not a bad idea IMO, but if you continue to have nuisance algae issues, I would sugest a one hour "nap" in the middle of the light cycle. Algae is one of he most simplests forms of life on the planet and it takes a long time for it to ramp up photosynthesis.

 

Hmmm. I would have to see the data to support that. In general simpler organisms do things with shorter cycle times than more complex ones (for example generation times of 30 min for bacteria growing at their maximum rate). I'm not arguing that light "holidays" don't work, just that this may not be the mechanism behind why they work.

 

Corals, clams, and anemones all react to light much faster and don't mind a nap. Because you have the T5 array, this should be no problem and your AC Jr. will take care of the switching for you. This IMO, is one of the best methods of controlling nuisance algae while trying to determine the source of nutrients making it grow in the first place. Chew on that last line a bit guys.

 

Kudos on your new reef. Corals look great, don't over-populate!

 

Well, in the final analysis, the source of nutrients that is making the algae grow is whatever you are putting into the tank, since the critters can't go shopping themselves. Plus, as you allude to, recycling of nutrients within the tank. That relates to your admonition to not overpopulate. Obviously you want to leave things room to grow, but it seems to me that having a robust biomass of photosynthetic corals taking up dissolved nutrients is also a good way to control unwanted autotrophs (algae). This would be analogous to packing a FW tank full of plants to ensure that there's no nutrition left for the algae (works for my GFs planted tanks, and she feeds her fish a shocking amount, with no algae growth to speak of). This is also the way I respond when new FW aquarists ask me "how many fish can I put in my N gal tank without it being overpopulated?" I tell them it's not about how many fish you put in, it's about how much fish food you put in (and how many water changes you are willing to do).

 

Thanks again for all your thought-provoking input. Let's try to keep this conversation going here, and see if others will chime in. I have no problem with my thread being used for the discussion.

 

 

 

 

Thanks again for all your thought-provoking input. Let's try to keep this conversation going here, and see if others will chime in. I have no problem with my thread being used for the discussion.

PS if anyone can tell me when the quote flagging in the last post is not working I would appreciate that!

 

A

[jnarowe]

Geez...your post was as long as mine! Good question about the post flagging...I guess I shouldn't have posted because now I have to answer a lot of questions!

 

First let's tackle the sandbed issue: I don't believe in them for the sole reason that they present more risk than reward. I have a slight amount of sand in my display, maybe about 50 lbs. to cover visible open areas, and a remote DSB/fuge with about 600 lbs. of sand in it. I am slowly removing it all. In fact I am going to encourage polyps just like the sweet colony you have, to encrust the entire bottom of the display tank.

 

The risk is this: As I built my system, I planned it much like Steve Weast's tank and only used a small amount in the display fr aesthetic reasons, but I fully believe in the ability for sand to clean water...that's how my septic system works, and that's how Mother Earth does it, at least in part. The reality of it is that I have not changed out the sand on schedule, and I have not vacuuumed my tank nearly often enough to have replaced any sand in the display as Weast does on a regular basis. It's a lot of work, especially in a 35" deep tank.

 

My fuge/RDSB has gone through some serious cyano cycles and plain and simple, it's because I am not maintaining it as I should...now in my case, changing out 300 - 400g of water per month and the sheer water volume in general has kept things nice, but in a nano, my livestock would all be dead by now 3x over.

 

Now to the disturbing evidence: I have a buddy that is a bare-bottom fan, and his tank is sweet. not having sand means he needs to pay more attention to mechanical filtration, skimming, GFO & carbon, but there is NO place for detritus to hide. One day I decided to clean out my sumps and I had about 100 lbs. of rubble in them. When I pulled the rubble out, I clouded the tank horribly, so I had to do it slowly over the course of several days. What I found on the bottom was a startling amount of detritus. Really Startling. So, knowing you are a friend of Greg's, I would expect you to have some scientific leanings, but his husbandry is horrible. Knowlegde of marine biology does not make an agressive reef keeper!

 

Another tidbit I learned from Weast, is that he took own his fuge entirely. His point is this: in order to export a meaningful amount of nutrients, your fuge really has to be extremely large. I put one in anyway because I figured any export is better than no export...until it becomes a problem.

 

So peruse through all the threads on TBS tanks...I am not knocking them as a company or for what they sell, but using those threads to make a point. All the ones I have read have had some sort of tank crash at about the two - three year mark.

 

I enjoy my fuge for other reasons though, like a safe haven for a fish being picked on, or a school of mollies to make live food for the reef, but I just don't see me keeping the sand in it long term.

 

T5 Array...my Aqua-Medic doesn't have fan cooling! And the Quiet One will assuredly add less heat than a Mag pump!

 

About feeding the tank, there's an entire industry built around feeding corals and I think most of it is BS. A lot of reefers dose their tanks with phytoplankton, many of which grow their own. All they are doing is adding liquid phosphate to their tanks and they can't seem to understand why they have algal issues, so then they buy tank cleaning crews, which happen to eat the algae but unfortunately it does not de-materialize. It just turns into piles of nutrient laden crap. So they are not removing nutrients. They are just changing it to a form that can be hidden under rocks.

 

The only corals I feed are just very occassionally I will give a little piece of shrimp to my LPS when I am feeding my anemones. That is less than once per week. I put absolutely no coral food in the tank whatsoever, and neither do any of the big tank owners I know personally. The general concensus among US, is that it just adds nutrients that we then need to export, and in particuar they are very wary of PO4. Most fish food is full of it so every time you feed you are adding more than your corals can consume....in fact I use no dry prepared foods in my system at all. I make my own fish food.

 

Just cleaning the glass alone will provide a good amount of food for your SPS.

 

Yeah, I have not been too impressed with the "live rock" I see in LFS. The pre-cured (and it really was) rock I got from RM was an easy route to a fast cycle, but I really feel like I lost out on interesting diversity by not getting absolutely raw straight from the ocean rock and curing it myself. Next tank will be done this way for sure.

 

I didn't cure my rock at all. Brought it in direct from the Marshall Islands and popped it in my tank....you can see pics of it a little ways down on my Tank Startup Page. I got a lot of cool hitchhikers (and some bad) but feel it was the best way to go.

 

My LFS sells Astraea as a smaller alternative to Turbos. What do you think about them? What would the optimal snail strategy be, in your view?

 

Astreas can't right themselves. They are at the TOP of the No-No list. Don't ever talk to your LFS about snails again. All they want to do is sell you more. PM me and we can discuss snails in further detail.

 

 

What about putting it[GSP] in the fuge to consume nutrients, then pruning it back as it grows?

 

Clearly you misunderstood me, or you think it would be funny to hear from Greg that bike parts are missing from his garage. Seriuosly, it is nearly impossible to prune and it will migrate. Not as fast as aiptasia, but it still will. I have it in my system, but I have an entirely different situation than you, and I really like that saddle. Get it out of your display now. Keep it in the fuge until you can find a home for it...it's a beginner mistake, we all make them, but I want you to avert disaster. If you can't find a home for it, throw the rock away.

 

The little Mithrax crab seems to be behaving for now as well, but it will obviously be suspect #1 if anything starts looking grazed on.

 

I put 5 in my system and have only seen one in the last 18 months, but I HAVE seen their claw marks on a couple of fish multiple times. Crabs are way cool, and the fact that they scavenge is really nice too, but they misbehave. You can always toss them in the fuge, but then they will pick off your pods.

 

Bristle worms used tohave a really bad rep. but I tend to agree that they help as detrivores. I have a couple tangs that are detrivores as well. True mini-brittles are fine too AFAIK, but not very often available through LFS. BE careful what you are buying and ask them where they got them.

 

Lights out for a day is not a bad idea IMO, but if you continue to have nuisance algae issues, I would sugest a one hour "nap" in the middle of the light cycle. Algae is one of he most simplests forms of life on the planet and it takes a long time for it to ramp up photosynthesis.

 

Hmmm. I would have to see the data to support that. In general simpler organisms do things with shorter cycle times than more complex ones (for example generation times of 30 min for bacteria growing at their maximum rate). I'm not arguing that light "holidays" don't work, just that this may not be the mechanism behind why they work.

 

Data? Why don't you try it? I have been doing it for years on my FWP tank. Won't hurt the corals...like a cloud going over right? But the key is to not put in more nutrients than you can export, and if you are not vacuuming out the detritus and pruning a good volume of macro algae on a weekly basis, you are adding more nutrients than you can export. And nutrients bond to sand. Look at any kind of sand filter manual and see what it says...don't get me wrong, sand is a great method of filtration, but in captive environments, it must be maintained by swapping out partial quantities on a regular basis.

 

BTW, it says I am receiving notifications, but I am not.