Jump to content
Premium Aquatics Aquarium Supplies

Bpkenn's BC 14


bpkenn

Recommended Posts

as you can see in the picture, fighting off a bit of hair algae atm. I am ready to give up on this sapphire aquatics bc14 skimmer and put in stevie T's media rack.

 

I'm introducing phosphates somewhere, I think maybe from my home depot bucket that i had salt mixing in for a week or so. Either that or I am overfeeding. either way, the skimmer requires i use a piece of sponge to quite the flow of water from chamber 1 to 2, which in term raises the water level in the tank higher than the intake grates and prevents good surface skimming.

 

I am hoping that with the stevie T's that i can get a good mix of mechanical (filter floss), chemical (purigen, chemi pure) and biological (chaeto), + the gfo in chamber 1, that i will never see hair algae again. What do you think?

 

 

I'll post here instead of my thread. I very much like StevieT's MR. I thought though, that I would be able to get both the purigen and chemipure elite into the middle section of the MR. Seems like that wont happen, so I am thinking of putting just the chemipure in the middle section and the cheato in the bottom section (bottom section is bigger, but I want the cheato in there). Purigen isnt really needed since I am running the chemipure, but i can run it in chamber 3, where the stock blue sponge pad use to be or either under the filter floss (i dont think the purigen needs to be submerged). As for your GFO, chemipure elite contains GFO, so not sure you need to run that separately. Hair algae will be a problem in the beginning of any tank. Your CUC in time should get rid of it. It they dont work, get a sea hare, it'll mow it down within a day. Are you testing for phosphates or just think you are introducing it in?

Link to comment
  • Replies 106
  • Created
  • Last Reply

i think i am introducing it in somehow, never had any issues until now. I may just be feeding too much.

 

Why cant you put chaeto in bottom, chemi pure in middle, and purigen in top, then filter floss on top?

Did you also buy the underwater light that Stevie T uses?

Link to comment
i think i am introducing it in somehow, never had any issues until now. I may just be feeding too much.

 

Why cant you put chaeto in bottom, chemi pure in middle, and purigen in top, then filter floss on top?

Did you also buy the underwater light that Stevie T uses?

 

 

That was my second option, thats what I meant by "under the filter floss". Yea, I bought 1 light for now to see what kind of growth I am going to get.

Link to comment
That was my second option, thats what I meant by "under the filter floss". Yea, I bought 1 light for now to see what kind of growth I am going to get.

 

ordered almost 1 of everything from stevie t. luckily i already have chemi pure and purigen (which i hear is renewable!). cost almost $80 shipped, almost as much as the skimmer that is worthless imo. I'm going to try and get a refund from sapphire aquatics.

Link to comment
You going to get them from Mitch @ Booyah's right? :)

 

 

I'll see what my LFS has, he has got a school of them right now. I told him when he gets a pair, put it aside for me. If I dont get it there, I'll hit up your guy.

Link to comment

Thanks for the water level pic btw. Sapphire Aquatics agreed to refund my money and is even sending me a box with a return label. Very cool of them. Glad to see a company standing by their product, EVEN though it didn't work out for me. Definately would not have any issues ordering something from them again. And their nano media reactor is awesome btw.

 

It may be uneccessary, but its an added level of protection against phosphates, and will help all the other filtration items last longer.

Link to comment
I'll see what my LFS has, he has got a school of them right now. I told him when he gets a pair, put it aside for me. If I dont get it there, I'll hit up your guy.

 

 

Looks like I'll hit your guy up for the fish. Asked my LFS what he sells them for, $150-200! :o

Link to comment
Looks like I'll hit your guy up for the fish. Asked my LFS what he sells them for, $150-200! :o

 

holy crap. Tell him Brian (bpkenn) sent you and he will hook you up with a nice pair. BTW, just found out his guarantee includes shipping also. So if after a while you don't like how they have colored up, you can exchange them :)

Link to comment
you took one of the ones that i wanted. that swirley one looks sweet

 

yeah he is pretty cool isnt he? he actually sold him to me for a bit less than he posted too ;) He was in a tank with like 50 other onyx when I picked him out, knew I wanted him immediately as he caught my eye.

 

Neither of us noticed the pelvic fins were missing when I picked him, but I am assuming they were nipped off. I'm pretty sure they were nipped off and will grow back, but even if they don't he is an awesome looking Onyx.

Link to comment

I think i can start to see a little bit of black on the end of one of his pelvic fin stubs...lol. I am going to take this as a good sign that they are growing back in full force. They appear to be larger then when i first bought the fish also. yay :)

Link to comment

Noticed last night, despite having a small HA problem, I am getting good growth like 1/8-1/4" growth on my hammer and frogspawn. The green yuma frag that i got from a friend looks like its almost fully healed and growing now...though im starting to doubt its a yuma, its definately some type of softie though.

 

I am considering starting to use a 2 part dosing solution. I haven't really taken calcium readings regularly (i know lazy), but I think this might help my LPS really grow faster.

 

 

My order of Stevie T's stuff came today. Can get some added filtration setup tomorrow because I bought the 10oz bag... which wont allow me to fit both the chemi pure and purigen in the bottom chamber.

 

StevieT confirmed that you can use the 1/2 unit (5oz) chemi pure and the 2.1oz purigen will also fit. He said the extra 5 oz of chemi pure (i.e. using a full 10oz) wont really help in a tank this size.

 

I will have to head out tomorrow and buy some chemi pure elite 5oz. The main difference from the non-elite is that it has GFO in it. I know i already have a GFO reactor in chamber 1, but id rather have it in there as a backup.

 

I have never used either of these products...ive always been a fan of the au natural methodology, but these water volumes are just too small to incorporate the necessary components of a system based on that. Here's crossing my fingers, lol.

Link to comment

My girlfriend took me out for dinner and drinks tonight to a place called Stonewood Ale House. The food was excellent, and they had a few decent imports...not as great of a selection as you would expect from a place with "ale house" in the name.

 

anyhow, came home feeling good and decided to finish off the tank. So first on the order was to glue and epoxy down the awesome Yuma I got from Menard (on reefcentral). Hopefully my yuma isn't too pissed about being dropped face down on the sand bed a few times. No more working on the tank after drinking I think. Second thing to do was to finish up the filtration/media basket setup from StevieT.

 

Now let me start by saying StevieT makes a kickass product, but his Quality Control is severely lacking. His products are great, but there were a few problems i had to overcome. For instance, with the fish saver, i had to sand down/trim the far left portion so that it would fit in my tank.

 

post-42229-1249538188_thumb.jpg

 

second, i had to file down the piece of acrylic that snaps into place to "lock" the fish saver in place. The acrylic was bent inwards and was too narrow to fit on the false wall between chambers two and 3.

 

post-42229-1249538018_thumb.jpgpost-42229-1249538028_thumb.jpg

 

Third, the media rack itself was not level, and would fall backwards in chamber 2 and hit the back wall. This isn't a big deal though.

 

Problems 1 and 2 are probably the most inconvenience, as i had to bust out the dremel to fix problem 1, and i had to use a miniature file to fix problem two. Problem 3 isnt that bad since you are able to position the acrylic "flow directors" in the proper direction so the water falls into the media basket. Still, I would like to see more QC for the $$ paid. I mean with shipping I ended up paying about $85.

 

Even with those issues, I would definitely recommend buying the StevieT media basket, and fish saver guard. I cant tell you how many times i fished my previous onyx clown from chamber 3 before i finally bought a fish saver.

Link to comment
Now let me start by saying StevieT makes a kickass product, but his Quality Control is severely lacking. His products are great, but there were a few problems i had to overcome. For instance, with the fish saver, i had to sand down/trim the far left portion so that it would fit in my tank.

 

I think every tank might be a little different (in size internally). My fish saver fits almost perfect. The little notch on the side of the fish saver doesnt really line up with the side molding, but this works for me because it makes the fishsaver more ridgid. I would have thought that notch would have helped you if it was a little to long, so you didnt have to sand down the portion you did.

 

second, i had to file down the piece of acrylic that snaps into place to "lock" the fish saver in place. The acrylic was bent inwards and was too narrow to fit on the false wall between chambers two and 3.

 

I did have to sand down the fish saver lock (length wise). But I attribute this to there being too much silicone holding the false wall between chambers 2 and 3 on the glass.

 

Third, the media rack itself was not level, and would fall backwards in chamber 2 and hit the back wall. This isn't a big deal though.

 

If you look down in chamber 2, part of the molding/false wall sticks out a bit, which makes the rack tilt back towards the glass. Once you get the rack in, you can shift the entire rack closer to the glass so it does not sit on this part, whic would make it level.

 

I just think the tanks themselves arent built exactly the same. So whatever tank he used to measure, could have been different from what our tanks are, making the pieces not fit exactly. Just my opinion.

Link to comment

I must have the one tank that the fish saver is slightly too big for then, lol. Its all good tho.

 

Did you notice that with a lower water level (barely at/below the eggcrate for chamber 1) the water seems to drain through the basket better.

 

I'm going to pickup some chaeto on saturday, see how well it grows with all the filtration in place.

Link to comment
I must have the one tank that the fish saver is slightly too big for then, lol. Its all good tho.

 

Did you notice that with a lower water level (barely at/below the eggcrate for chamber 1) the water seems to drain through the basket better.

 

I'm going to pickup some chaeto on saturday, see how well it grows with all the filtration in place.

 

Yea, thats where I have my water, comes up to the blue part that holds the egg crate.

 

Question for you, do you dip your corals\fish? I have never bought corals/fish online and have never dipped my corals/fish. I thought that I read somewhere that there is no need to acclimate beside temp because the water is so fouled up from shipping anyways.

Link to comment
Yea, thats where I have my water, comes up to the blue part that holds the egg crate.

 

Question for you, do you dip your corals\fish? I have never bought corals/fish online and have never dipped my corals/fish. I thought that I read somewhere that there is no need to acclimate beside temp because the water is so fouled up from shipping anyways.

 

i use old tank water and mix it with revive and dip for 5 min, 10 max, using a turkey baster to clean off the frag. It depends where i get the coral/frag from really. I got a yuma from someone i really trusted, so i didn't dip it as it was/is my favorite coral. i got some random zoas from some guy, and i dipped them in both revive, and iodine (tropic marin pro coral cure). the guy watched me closely as i was dipping them because he had never done so, and then at that point decided to mention he had been picking off Zoa spiders the other day from his zoa colonies...oh and he had been sucking out zoa eating nudi's!!

 

I didnt see any spiders drop off, a few asterina's, pods, some indistinguishable things, but you never know.

 

some do a freshwater dip, i havent done that yet or researched it, but the revive/tmpcc works pretty well. the TMPCC is mostly for SPS i think (red bugs/planaria i think)

 

id rather loose a frag or new coral than introduce a pest that will cause me far more loss of time and money.

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

Hey B,

 

Are you using any supplements if so what?

 

On the media rack, I made a spacer out of extra plexiglass to prevent it from leaning backward. Luckily I have the newer version of the BC14 where the partition wall is already extended to prevent snails and fish from entering the back chambers.

Link to comment
Just got home from a fellow reefers place with a new Ricordea Yuma frag! :)

 

Check it out:

OMG, I love this Yuma, how much did you get it?

Link to comment
Noticed last night, despite having a small HA problem, I am getting good growth like 1/8-1/4" growth on my hammer and frogspawn. The green yuma frag that i got from a friend looks like its almost fully healed and growing now...though im starting to doubt its a yuma, its definately some type of softie though.

 

I am considering starting to use a 2 part dosing solution. I haven't really taken calcium readings regularly (i know lazy), but I think this might help my LPS really grow faster.

 

 

My order of Stevie T's stuff came today. Can get some added filtration setup tomorrow because I bought the 10oz bag... which wont allow me to fit both the chemi pure and purigen in the bottom chamber.

 

StevieT confirmed that you can use the 1/2 unit (5oz) chemi pure and the 2.1oz purigen will also fit. He said the extra 5 oz of chemi pure (i.e. using a full 10oz) wont really help in a tank this size.

 

I will have to head out tomorrow and buy some chemi pure elite 5oz. The main difference from the non-elite is that it has GFO in it. I know i already have a GFO reactor in chamber 1, but id rather have it in there as a backup.

 

I have never used either of these products...ive always been a fan of the au natural methodology, but these water volumes are just too small to incorporate the necessary components of a system based on that. Here's crossing my fingers, lol.

 

You will love the purigen and chemi pure elite, and I used them both at my 7 gallon tank, and only got a little bit of diatom aglea at the first month, and then it worn off, now my tank is 5 monthes and water is always crystle clean.

 

I will get my BC 14 next week shipped from nanotuner. I'm also gonna order MR from Stevie T.

But not sure about 5W underwater light, do you have experience on it? Is it good enough for chaeto growth?

 

How about sixline, I want it too. But not sure 14 gallon is big enough for it or not.

Link to comment

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recommended Discussions


×
×
  • Create New...