kgoldy Posted March 14, 2011 Author Share Posted March 14, 2011 Phi- I'm glad to see someone with a slower going build than me... I can't seem to find any of my reef "bibles". I must have brought them to work and left them somewhere... Thumbing through the species books always feels better than internet searches when I'm trying to plan a stocking list... Link to comment
phi delt reefer Posted March 14, 2011 Share Posted March 14, 2011 Phi- I'm glad to see someone with a slower going build than me... LOL - man I am suprised my wife hasnt left me over this build. Just had a nice long chat about how lazy I have become recently. Picked up my tank TODAY and have most of next week of so things should really pick up. Man if I had a shop like yours and a truck this thing would have been done ages ago. Buying a house and trying to setup this money pit of a tank has to be by far the stupidest thing i could have done but it is what it is Link to comment
d9hp Posted March 14, 2011 Share Posted March 14, 2011 Awesome build and really well documented. I love your fuge! Great job all around. Link to comment
kgoldy Posted March 14, 2011 Author Share Posted March 14, 2011 Well, after a long weekend away, I'm hoping the ammonia level is down so I can get my Inland Aquatics packages... Hopefully I can get some creepy crawlies in there by the end of the week! Oh, and before I left, I got a few bristle worms and micro stars from the LFS. The guys who work there think I'm absolutely out of my mind for always asking for off the wall stuff. ...and instead of something like an angel in the sump... I'm thinking maybe pipefish would be a neat addition. There's so much LR rubble and stuff in there, I don't think they'd destroy the pod population, as long as I supplemented it every few months. Link to comment
kgoldy Posted March 14, 2011 Author Share Posted March 14, 2011 Got home today to find a nice GHA outbreak, with a little tiny bit of cyano in the fuge. Still haven't tested the water, but my guess is that the cycle is stabilizing. Just called Leroy, the GARF Grunge dude... Really nice guy. I spent a few minutes describing the setup to him, asking about the Grunge and all... And put in an order for the $49 starter kit, which includes 3 pounds GARF Grunge, Sally Jo's Bag-o-bugs, some coraline booster stuff, and who knows what else. Haha. He said it's a $60 value, and I'm just going to take him at his word. From his description of what I should expect in the package, I'm going to hold off on ordering from Inland Aquatics to see if I should just make a larger order from GARF instead. From talking to Leroy on the phone, I think I may get a much bigger bang for my buck with GARF. I'll go try to find my camera so I can take some pics of my ugly GHA. Link to comment
kgoldy Posted March 15, 2011 Author Share Posted March 15, 2011 pH 8.3 Ammonia 0 Nitrite 0 Nitrate 20 Calcium 480 kH 6 Temperature 79.5F Salinity 1.023 Running without the skimmer for now. Probably won't run it until I start having problems with excess nutrients. After all the research, I'm kind of wishing I made 3/4 of the sump just a refugium with DSB, and the last 1/4 for the return pump. I'm going to do no water changes on this system unless absolutely necessary. I can't remember the last time I needed to do a WC on my biocube... They're totally overrated. ATO is keeping the water level really steady. Link to comment
kgoldy Posted March 15, 2011 Author Share Posted March 15, 2011 GHA! Exciting, right?! Yeah, I know. I'm just posting to truly document every phase of this tank. edit- It just occurred to me that there is an incredible amount of detail lost between my computer and uploading to photobucket. Hmm... These pictures were actually something to look at straight off the camera. Link to comment
kgoldy Posted March 15, 2011 Author Share Posted March 15, 2011 So right now I'm waiting on John at Reefcleaners to update his website, then I'll be ordering my CUC and macros. Included in there will be micro porcelain crabs- depending on the price and what's available. As far as I can tell, they shouldn't become problems in the same way as larger crabs... But I guess I'm gambling since not many people seem to have experience with them. I'm thinking of bunching some mangroves along the back of the display tank so that the roots will reach the very tops of the LR. The fuge really doesn't seem to have enough room for mangroves, as much as I originally wanted to keep them in there. Link to comment
bitts Posted March 15, 2011 Share Posted March 15, 2011 would there be room on the side of the tank. to maybe put them in a pot. treat it like a second display with a shared sump. Link to comment
kgoldy Posted March 15, 2011 Author Share Posted March 15, 2011 There's room behind the tank where I could put a CPR aquafuge or something... The space on the side of the tank I want to keep open for the hospital tank. Link to comment
kgoldy Posted March 16, 2011 Author Share Posted March 16, 2011 Hey bitts- check this out and let me know if this is a good idea, to try to get BoostLED to produce some bulbs that are specifically geared towards growing macros. Also- Picked up some free macros from the LFS on my way home from work today. Picked out the grape caulerpa and tossed it out since it's supposedly like a plague. Kept what I now think is fern caulerpa... mostly because I didn't know what it was until just now (as I'm web searching). Think I should toss it? The seahorses gripping it in one of their display tanks sold me on getting it. And some... what I think may be... Caulerpa Prolifera... Crap. Is all caulerpa bad? The last thing looks like it may be something else... But I'm not sure. It's on a runner, the leaves are very small. May just be small pieces of one of the other three caulerpas. Bristleworms- The lone hermit- John at Reefcleaners just brought back the 10 pack of random macros. If this stuff I got is all junk, I don't mind throwing it all out before it spreads. Link to comment
bitts Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 I figure you've all ready been here but its where I would tell you to start on all of this. Then here. Also start a thread on your fuge & I bet there would be a ton of interest. Thus people could tell more specific's. Link to comment
kgoldy Posted March 16, 2011 Author Share Posted March 16, 2011 Been to the first link, as you guessed. I'll read up on the second... Now that I have macro algae other than the chaeto- I guess start a macro thread. Link to comment
kgoldy Posted March 17, 2011 Author Share Posted March 17, 2011 GHA outbreak in the display is getting severe... Just pulled the trigger on the CUC and macros from ReefCleaners. Should be here next wednesday... So with the growth rate of this hair algae, that crew is going to have a ton of work cut out for em. Also discovered that my money cowrie hitchhiked in on the LR I took from my biocube. The following pictures are a little redundant... I'm trying to learn how to use the different camera settings. Link to comment
kgoldy Posted March 18, 2011 Author Share Posted March 18, 2011 Exciting day for the money pit. I purchased an ORA Black Extreme Misbar and a black and white ocellaris. A little over priced- but I was itching to get em for a while. Took my regular misbars out of my BC, dripped them all at the same time... combined them into one container for a while, then dumped them all in to the 90 together. For the most part, they seem content to stay near each other- though the black and white kinda drifts off once in a while because he gets picked on once in a while. Unless one of them gets a growth spurt- it looks like the already dominant misbar will be the female. These guys look so freakin tiny in this huge 90 gallon. Also put some "tigger pods" to the fuge. I haven't noticed any bugs in the tank with their orange color yet, so I figured what the hell. Stuck the bottle in the tank to equalize temp- let it sink, and allowed a lot of the pods to creep out on their own. It was entertaining to watch... Not sure if the pods will show up on photobucket, but you can def see them on my camera. Added a few pieces of plumbing to see how I could break up the flow so it's not blasting through anymore. Got more pieces to add, I just forgot to pick up some more black vinyl tubing while I was at the LFS to help put it all together. Also put on some Hydor Rotating Deflectors to try to put some more back pressure on my return pump... I really think I should have gone with the Ehiem 1260. This 1262 is like freak 5 horse power or something. Anyway, hopefully that stops the sand from forming dunes and pits. The tank is now like random flow city! Tried to catch my algae blenny from my BC to try to put him in the tank too, but he's much more adept at net dodging than the clowns are. Finally got a top for my ATO tank- and after like 5 coats of krylon I realized I was ruining the driveway... That's what I get for reefing after dark. And here's my GHA farm- And how it looks 15 minutes before night time... Link to comment
d9hp Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 God that hair algae took off! I bet your CUC is going to have a field day with all of that though. Looking good so far. Link to comment
spanko Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 To help with Caulerpa identification. http://www.live-plants.com/index.htm Link to comment
bananahands Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 Just noticed the spelling of your first name.nice! Mine is Khristofer. Link to comment
kgoldy Posted March 18, 2011 Author Share Posted March 18, 2011 I woke up today to the b+w ocellaris hosting the GHA. Cute, but I hope that doesn't last long. He's also been in and out of the group of clowns... I hope he gets accepted into the shoal (is that correct way to refer to a group of clowns?) soon, so he doesn't get stressed too much. Just noticed the spelling of your first name.nice! Mine is Khristofer. Mine's German spelling... What's yours? Link to comment
kgoldy Posted March 18, 2011 Author Share Posted March 18, 2011 Free shipping from Foster and Smith... May get a "Reef Gently" Acclimate and some other stuff. Link to comment
ajmckay Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 I've been wondering about those "acclimators" and how they work.... Haven't really read up on them much, but they seem a little gimmicky... We'll see though! Like the tank. Except you left out some essential information on the screenshot of the reefcleaners order. Nice algae outbreak too! Who needs macro when GHA is abundant and free? I've got like a million asterina stars in my tank now chomping on it. They're not very effective though so I'm working on developing an "asterina removal tool". Link to comment
kgoldy Posted March 18, 2011 Author Share Posted March 18, 2011 I've been wondering about those "acclimators" and how they work.... Haven't really read up on them much, but they seem a little gimmicky... We'll see though! Like the tank. Except you left out some essential information on the screenshot of the reefcleaners order. What, you wanted my credit card info too? Haha. The acclimator looks like a pretty decent product. There was an instructional video on Reef Builders when it was released which shows it's multiple functions- fish trap, isolation tank, drip acclimation, in-tank refugium, etc. Guess I may as well dig it up... http://www.fosterandsmithaquatics.com/medi...cfm?videoid=248 I've been doing the set-and-forget 100% water change acclimation with all my fish and inverts by rigging up buckets at different levels with containers to catch and drain... But the lack of an even flow has sometimes brought the water dangerously close to overflowing onto my floor. This alone should make it worth it, especially since this is a brand new tank and I'll get a lot of miles out of it. Also- I may use it to isolate and pellet train mandarins and other finicky fish. That should be pretty handy, if I don't want to dedicate the 10 gallon hospital tank to this process. Link to comment
paneubert Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 The acclimator looks like a pretty decent product. Looks fancy! Link to comment
bitts Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 I've also heard of a group of clowns referred to as a harem. but not sure if one way or the other is the standard. Link to comment
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