Hank's 10g QT tank

[HankB]

We went to our dealer this morning and Cindy had way too much fun. As a consequence, my QT tank is full. (The RSM is hers. I lay claim to the QT tank. )

 

It ain't pretty, but it does now have a lot of stuff in it so I thought I'd make a short tank thread for it.

 

It's a plain old 10g tank with chips and scratches, but it holds water. I have a 24" fixture that I've upgraded to a 55 watt PC with 50/50 bulb and it gets some sunlight from a south facing window. Filtration is via foam filter and as a result, I can only keep it about 2/3 full to avoid salt carry-over on the light. Circulation is by a Koralia nano. There is additional filtration by chaeto that is contained by some egg crate.

 

Today we added:

 

An open brain:

 

A purple monti cap:

 

 

A green paly (which looked a whole log greener under the dealer's lights):

 

A green stripe purple mushroom frag (which isn't pictured) and (drum roll please.....)

 

A pair of clowns:

 

These are all Cindy's of course, but at the moment they are next to my workstation and under my care.

 

Of course no tank thread would be complete without the FTS and I will not withhold:

 

 

 

Definitely ghetto - but it will do for now.

 

thanks for looking,

hank

[Kraylen]

I love ghetto tanks. +1!

[dahliaheartsyou]

ARE YOU GUNNA EAT THAT BRAIN?!?!

lolz. i like the plate.

I don't think it looks that bad though...

couldn't you cover up the fuge area with some plastic/wood?

like a diy canopy...on the side?lol.

ANYWHO-your pics are EXTREMELY good! very crisp and detailed!

[AdriftQuasar]

So how do you cycle a QT? I definitely need one, but have never taken the time to set one up, which is very foolish of me.

[EnjoiFish]

TOTM!

 

I love that you have a thread for this. My boyfriend and I kinda ran into the same deal. I have a little pico for pods and QT for my main display. He's now turning it into his frag tank/reject tank of misbehaved crabs.

 

Hey even these tanks need a little TLC. No reason for them to be barren, neglected tanks.

[HankB]

ARE YOU GUNNA EAT THAT BRAIN?!?!

lolz. i like the plate.

I don't think it looks that bad though...

couldn't you cover up the fuge area with some plastic/wood?

like a diy canopy...on the side?lol.

ANYWHO-your pics are EXTREMELY good! very crisp and detailed!

 

B-R-A-I-N-S... (Apologies to Robot Chicken. )

 

I'm not going to go down the path of trying to make this look good. This has one function and that is to provide a healthy temporary environment for some fish and corals until I'm sure they are ready for the DT.

 

Thanks (pics.) Fixed focus lens, tripod, remote release and then a bit of unsharp mask in postprocessing.

 

-hank

[HankB]

So how do you cycle a QT? I definitely need one, but have never taken the time to set one up, which is very foolish of me.

 

That's a really good question. My original guidance on this is an article in Reefkeeping.

 

The author suggests keeping a foam filter in a sump to be ready any time a QT tank is needed. For the first generation, I did not have that so I added a couple changes of filter floss to the tank, figuring that the detritus would perform the same function as a cycled foam filter. It did not and I shortly had a nitrite spike. There wasn't a lot, but if I ran the API nitrite test side by side with water from the DT, I could see a color difference. (Water for the QT tank came originally from the DT.) It took weeks for the nitrite to return to zero. Eventually that tank also had a thick coating of green hair algae on every solid surface. The only thing it had in it was some pulsing xenia I had obtained from a fellow reefer and a few polyps of palys and a tiny spaghetti leather. It had no live stock. I also QTed some chaeto and grape caulerpa which was destined for a fuge in the DT.

 

I took advantage of the GHA to see what some snails would do with it. I dropped an astrea in there and it moved about 4" in the first 24 hours, leaving a clean path about 1/2" wide. That's pretty good since the GHA was up to an inch long. Next I dropped a Mexican turbo in and it cleaned a spot nearly the size of my palm the first night. (*) So it's pretty clear that either of these snails will deal with GHA when it crops up (pun intended. )

 

Eventually I took down this QT tank so I could move it nest to my workstation (where I had just taken down a F/W QT tank.) This was about a week prior to vacation. I transferred over the foam filter and chaeto, removing most of the caulerpa due to fears of it going sexual. I was really surprised upon returning from vacation that there was no additional algae growth in the new tank. I've been extolling the virtues of chaeto since then. (It also helped to eliminate cyano in the DT.)

 

After stocking it yesterday, I tested water for baseline conditions. I was surprised to see nitrates at 5-10 (cannot differentiate the color for those on the API test kit) despite the previous lack of bioload and zero algae growth. I suppose that the algae is phosphate limited and nitrate alone is not sufficient to produce growth. I'll be testing carefully for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates to make sure everything remains on an even keel as the fish and corals settle in.

 

Well... bit of a long winded answer, but that's what got the QT tank to a cycled situation. I think that chaeto and a foam filter that has actually been filtering is what worked. The floss probably didn't work because it had only been in the tank a matter of days and that was not long enough to build up a population if the bacteria that provide filtration. The detritus it collects is not the same as the stuff that collects on the bioballs after an extended period in the tank.

 

-hank

 

edit: (*) footnote on Mexican turbos - a couple nights ago I put about 6 square inches of nori in the display tank to feed our herbivores. Later that night I saw the turbos down in that corner. By morning the nori was gone and the turbos had moved off about an inch and just sort of curled up. I thought I could hear "I'm stuffed! I can't move! Let me sleep!" Another day and they still have not moved more than an inch or two.

[HankB]

Later in the day and now that it's settled in, it has expanded past the edge of its saucer:

 

 

I guess it's happy to see me.

 

-hank

[HankB]

My brain has a friend!

 

 

Thats our latest addition and all for now - at least until we get everything QTed and into the DT. I might have a use for some of the equipment in the QT tank.

 

So... The brain really inflates. I hope that's a sigh that it is happy. I figure it is just trying to expose maximum surface to the light for photosynthesis. What surprises me is that the cleaner climbing all over it does not seem to bother it at all. It just remains inflated.

 

thanks for looking,

hank

[HankB]

Time for humble pie.

 

I have been bragging about how my QT tank remains free of algae despite the fact that it gets full sun from a south facing window. Well... bioload has taken care of that. Since we put the clowns in there, we are growing a fine crop of hair algae on our PVC rockwork (which incidentally, the clowns love - the PVC, they could not care less about the algae.)

 

This is in spite of the chaeto, which is growing profusely. I have rehomed an astrea snail to the QT tank along with a few stomatellas and he is making a dent, but one is probably not enough. I should move more since algae is not a problem in the DT and there may not be enough there to support the CUC anyway.

 

Part of the problem I suppose is that I sit right next to the QT tank and the clowns have trained me to feed them at will.

 

We've had one issue with a coral in QT. With the help of SeeDemTails we identified and are dealing with montipora eating nudibranchs. Actually I only saw one, but there were eggs too.

 

I treated this by scrubbing the underside with an unused tooth brush (now dedicated for reef use ) and then dipping and scrubbing a couple days later with Logol's Iodine (3 minutes with 1 drop/cup tank water) I could not find any more eggs so I hope we're through with that problem. But that coral will remain in QT a bit longer.

 

Found a sea spider on the montipora too. It is incredibly difficult to spot.

It also is not bothered by the iodine, but I was able to suck it up with a turkey baster. It is not clear to me whether it was bad or not, but it is now gone.

 

The fish look great. The shrimp looks great. It likes to perch on the brain which does not seem to bother it at all. The palys also look fine, though they wound up behind the PVC where they are hard to observe.

 

thanks,

hank

[SeeDemTails]

Sweet glad you got rid of the nasties!

[JerseyChick]

Your new pieces are beautiful and I LOVE your pair of clowns

[HankB]

Sweet glad you got rid of the nasties!

Cautiously optimistic.

 

Your new pieces are beautiful and I LOVE your pair of clowns

Thanks. The clowns and the skunk cleaner went onto the DT tank today. The clowns are a little stressed out in their new surroundings - swimming back and forth, up and down. At Cindy's suggestion, we moved one of the PVC elbows to the DT since they spent most of their time in those. So right now they're hosting a 2" PVC elbow. And the purple firefish and green chromis are freaking out about the elbow and new inhabitants. I suppose things will settle down in a day or two.

 

-hank

[airman_verde04]

Hey Hank, thanks for stopping by my page today! I was wondering why you were so interested in 10g, now I see why!! I love how plan your tank is!!! and I love that brain coral!! those are very cool. how bright are those lights? I wonder if they are brighter than my Nova T-5s? I want to put some SPS stony monti caps, and want to know how they do in other peoples tanks with similar lights.

[HankB]

Hey Hank, thanks for stopping by my page today! I was wondering why you were so interested in 10g, now I see why!!

Actually... You don't.

I love how plan your tank is!!! and I love that brain coral!! those are very cool. how bright are those lights? I wonder if they are brighter than my Nova T-5s? I want to put some SPS stony monti caps, and want to know how they do in other peoples tanks with similar lights.

Well... It is plain because it is a QT tank. It is there to keep nasties out of out DT and at this point, I'm really glad I have it. In another thread SDT painted a pretty strong argument against QT tanks, but I think a key aspect of that was that often QT tanks are not properly (my word) set up and result in more harm. My desire was go provide an environment at least as good as our DT for incoming stock. I think our stock has benefited and we are now in the process of migrating it to our DT. Once that is done, the QT tank will come down until we plan more acquisitions. Incidentally, I think our Monti is looking better:

 

Also... We now have flatworms in the QT tank:

 

We don't have any Acropora corals, so I don't think they're Acro Eating Flat Worms, but they can be a nuisance if they get out of hand. For that reason I'll get some Flatworm Exit and dip these on their way to the DT to keep them out of there. Once the corals are out, the QT will be decommissioned until we need it again.

 

Back to the lighting... This is a 50/50 bub I got from AH Supply with a PC conversion for a 24" strip light. It provides adequate light for softies and such, but I'm not sure about LPS or clams. This should be about half the light in our RSM but the bulbs are a vastly different color. Some day I'll try the RSM bulbs in here to see if the difference is in the ballast or the bulb. (STevieT keeps SPS and a clam in his RSM so it is actually pretty good lighting.) In my case, the tank gets supplemental sunlight and I'm sure that helps. (The monti above is in full sun.)

 

thanks,

hank

[HankB]

A couple days ago we moved the brain, green striped mushroom and monti to the display tank after doing a Flatworm Exit (FWE) dip. I decided to nuke the QT with FWE also to clean up the chaeto, snails, hermit and remaining corals. I dosed initially with 5 drops. It is only a little over half full so it probably has about 6 gallons of water and standard dosage is 4 drops/5 gallons. Within minutes there were flatworms floating in the water but an hour later I could still see some crawling on the egg crate where they are easy to spot. At that point I added another two drops. An hour later I didn't spot any so I drained most of the tank and refilled with about 5 gallons of fresh saltwater. I also put in a small filter with a couple ounces of activated carbon to remove the rest of the FWE. I'll probably run that a couple days.

 

I took advantage of the opportunity to move the tank and now have my next project sitting next to my workspace.

 

It will probably be a week or two before I know if the FWE was 100%. There's no rockwork in which the flatworms can hide so I expect it to be 100% effective. If not, I may just dip anything I want to save from the tank and take it down. I would like to use the chaeto in my next project, but I can steal some from the DT where I have not spotted any flatworms.

 

-hank

[clownfish617]

i dont like you

 

you know why, your qt tank looks nicer than my main display! and has better corals im a loser

[HankB]

i dont like you

 

you know why, your qt tank looks nicer than my main display! and has better corals im a loser

 

 

Chill!!!

 

 

The only nice coral left in my QT tank is the big green palys. I've even removed the PVC.

 

All that stuff is in the DT now so you don't have anything to be jealous about.

 

Or was it the flatworms you like.

 

-hank

[ajmckay]

Nice QT!