Uhuru Part II - ADA 120-P w/overflow

[reefrook]

looking to upgrade in the near future and have been considering the 120p... after looking at yours its kind of hard to not to go with it. beautiful tank uhuru

[Uhuru]

Thanks reefrook - as long as you get the thicker glass version made in china you will love it.

 

 

 

Dendronephthya can go to war too. This one got into a fight with a dendrophyllia, I circled in red the branch that got burned off.

[Uhuru]

Here is a recent pic of my feeding setup. I'm now feeding H20 Life Nanno9 Live Phytoplankton from the beaker on the right. The magnetic stirrer only stirs the plankton gently and it comes on every hour. To the left I still mix all of my FM foods as well as frozen cyclopeeze, ova, baby brine shrimp and rotifers.

 

[Maeda]

Moar hardware pics. Yummy.

[Aquanist]

Stool samples with dosing pumps. Yummy! Seriously though - looks amazing!

[d9hp]

That's a remarkable picture of your angel. Beautiful fish.

 

That's a pretty rad setup too, btw.

[Uhuru]

Moar hardware pics. Yummy.

 

Yeah sure I've been wanting to take more pics of how everything is setup just haven't had the time. But I have a couple weeks off so I'll work on it!

 

Stool samples with dosing pumps. Yummy! Seriously though - looks amazing!

 

Haha, I spend too much time doing fecal floats, don't remind me.

 

That's a remarkable picture of your angel. Beautiful fish.

 

That's a pretty rad setup too, btw.

 

Thanks! She's definitely a beauty and tons of personality to boot.

[Uhuru]

Nothing special, but it was food prep time so I thought I'd share some pics. I buy as much food in bulk as possible and chop it up into cubes. This saves me a ton of money and makes the hobby affordable somewhat. This will give you an idea of how much I feed daily (1 cube of each item per day).

 

bulk cyclopeeze cut into cubes

 

rotifers

 

nutramar ova

 

baby brine shrimp

 

It takes me about 3 minutes per day to drop the cubes into a flask, add 1.5 tsp of the powder food mix (also prepared in advance) and 10-15 drops of Ultra Min D.

 

The powder food mix consists of:

NLS Reef Micro Feeder

FM Ultra Clam

FM Ultra Seafan

FM Ultra Min F

FM Ultra Zoa

FM Ultra Life

FM Ultra Pac

 

And thats it!

[animalmaster6]

That's a lot of food!

[Uhuru]

Haha you know the scary thing is it doesn't seem like that much to me anymore. I also feed the fish pretty heavily with rods food or roggers food and NLS pellets a couple times a day.

[animalmaster6]

[pismo_reefer]

NOMNOMNOM...

[Uhuru]

here are a couple more behind the scenes pics:

 

The water prep room... its not pretty but it serves its purpose. Included is a 50g FW reservoir, 45g SW mixing brute, and 150g SW reservoir.

 

Filling the 150g SW reservoir that automatic water changes are made from. This is plumbed about 150ft. as the water has to travel to the other side of the house and upstairs to reach the display tank.

[animalmaster6]

That's a huge ATO. Why so big?

[Uhuru]

You mean the FW reservoir? Its not the ATO for the display. I use it for mixing saltwater. The ATO for the display is only 5g. Both of them are connected to the RO/DI unit under my sink.

[animalmaster6]

Oh it's a reservoir.

[DaveFason]

Mike - Any photo's of the sea grass tank? Please say yes!

 

-Dave

[Uhuru]

No pics sorry! The seagrass tank is still very much a work in progress. It had a major cyano outbreak. I mean the worse I have ever seen, everything was completely covered with it. I tried manually cleaning it off the seagrass blades daily but that got old real fast. So I just let it run its course. Its finally starting to die off, months later. Most of the seagrass died, but there are some remaining that seem to be making a slow comeback, however some still get cyano on them. We'll see. If not, I'll replant some once the cyano is completely gone. I'm sure the large amount of fiji mud I used played a role in the cyano outbreak. Its just not the same as using a true established sandbed. I figure with the sandbed starting to mature now its able to compete with the cyano better. It also coincides with the rest of the system (including the ADA and Elos) doing better. So the lesson learned is not to use too much mud unless you can really let the tank sit for several months just like with regular sand. I do like the softness of the mud. Also I would plant caulerpa prolifera while waiting for the sandbed to mature.

[bitts]

just hope the thread helps. can't believe some of the hardware pic's, please keep them coming.

[animalmaster6]

No pics sorry! The seagrass tank is still very much a work in progress. It had a major cyano outbreak. I mean the worse I have ever seen, everything was completely covered with it. I tried manually cleaning it off the seagrass blades daily but that got old real fast. So I just let it run its course. Its finally starting to die off, months later. Most of the seagrass died, but there are some remaining that seem to be making a slow comeback, however some still get cyano on them. We'll see. If not, I'll replant some once the cyano is completely gone. I'm sure the large amount of fiji mud I used played a role in the cyano outbreak. Its just not the same as using a true established sandbed. I figure with the sandbed starting to mature now its able to compete with the cyano better. It also coincides with the rest of the system (including the ADA and Elos) doing better. So the lesson learned is not to use too much mud unless you can really let the tank sit for several months just like with regular sand. I do like the softness of the mud. Also I would plant caulerpa prolifera while waiting for the sandbed to mature.

How's the OSFF?

 

Wouldn't the caulerpa be hard to take out and would take over the seagrass?

[Uhuru]

The OSFF is doing great, fatter than ever.

 

I only recommend caulerpa prolifera and another one called cactus caulerpa. These are slower growing and dont take over the tank. Of course there is the possibility of them going sexual but not as likely in a higher nutrient system like mine. Keep in mind I don't have any rocks in this tank, so removing the caulerpa is easy just pull them out of the sand.

 

My sand dollar just popped up out of the sand for like 3 minutes today and I snapped a quick pic. I'll post it later. I've had it pretty much since I started up the tank and I believe the continuous feeding is what has kept it alive. It actually looked better than when I first got it.

[Uhuru]

Took some new FTS shots even though my tank is a little messy right now.

 

 

I'm falling in love with this delicate little gorg already...

[DaveFason]

Mike - Post the FTS from RC. Unreal!

 

Are you still using ozone? If so how much? Any thoughts on bio pellets?

 

Shoot me your PP.

 

-Dave

[TheNordCelt]

He said shoot me your PP......

Sorry I have very juvenile humor.

Tank is beautiful.

[Uhuru]

Mike - Post the FTS from RC. Unreal!

 

Are you still using ozone? If so how much? Any thoughts on bio pellets?

 

Shoot me your PP.

 

-Dave

 

I'm honestly a little embarrassed to show this one because I didn't clean the overflow and I forgot to remove the magnet... but here it is:

 

I am using ozone. 50mg/hr. I keep the ORP between 360-400. I believe it plays an important role in getting good polyp extension in tanks with high organic loads.

 

I wanted to try bio pellets when they first came out but decided to wait. Now it seems everyone is using them and it may be a key filtration and food element for non-photo tanks. I am keeping it in mind as a "big gun" for if I ever need it. Right now I don't think I need it.

 

I emailed you my PP