Nano to "Not So" Nano ie My progression in the hobby

[luvtolean]

Hello All, I don't post frequently but I do some lurking. I am basically copying this thread from one similar to the one I posted on reefcentral, with updates for a couple of changes over the last 2 days. Just wanting to share my knowledge as I've gotten much great info off these 2 boards.

 

 

 

I thought I'd share some of my experiences from transitioning from a 7 gallon mini bow to a 20 gallon with a 10 gallon refugium.

 

I set up a 7 gallon here in my cubicle at work about 1.5 to 2 years ago as I was living in a house with wood floors and couldn't have a tank at home.

 

Here is the tank after about 6 months.

[luvtolean]

My LFS told me I could keep the anemone with the "stock" 14 W light. My anemone actually did well (that pic was the day I got it, it colored up nicely from that bleached state). After a couple of months, the BTA started getting real bad looking and thinking it was starved for light I added a 32 W PC. This did not help. In desperation I took a sample of my water down to Dr. Le at Aquatic Gallery in Milpitas and it turned out my Salifert Alkalinity test kit was no good (who knows why) and I had a tank with very very bad water. The anemone did not recover.

 

Over time I added polyps and Rics from Tubs and Aquatic Gallery and the tank got to its best in Oct of this year. This pic was after I added a bunch of frags and some rocks. By this time I'd also had my calcium/alkalinity levels dialed in for a while and I had a massive increase in coraline algae. The front rock was entirely covered in less than a month!

 

After this shot was taken the angel, after about 6 months of being a model citizen, became a polyp picker.

 

Then about 2 months ago I added a 70 W MH to the tank. I could not find a way to control water temps that was acceptable to me. Fans over the water would've brought the evap rate up too high as my tank, being at work, does not always have someone to take care of it around and I travel frequently.

[luvtolean]

I've been wanting to do a refugium tank and a bigger one on the desk seemed to be OK with my boss (who's also putting a 20 on his desk).

 

I deicded to get a blue backed 20 gallon acrylic and add a refugium to it. I was going to use the bow as the refugium but Dr. Le convinced me to use a 10 gallon "$25 Petco special" instead. This was great advice.

 

The 20 gallon is plumbed with a ½" feed from a Rio 1100 pump. Initially I had a ½" overflow return bulkhead which ended up causing me many headaches. Although I'm a mechanical engineer and studied fluid dynamics, it didn't occur to me that the ½ feed would have much head pressure from the rio, while the overflow would basically have no head pressure. This meant that my ½" overflow could not keep up, even with the Rio throttled down more than 50%. Dr. Le and I decided that a 3/4 overflow was the best solution, problem was, now my tank had no material as a guide bit for the hole saw. I wanted to clamp a piece of acrylic to the tank as a guide but couldn't find a way to do it. So I just went slow and managed to make it work. Now I can run the Rio wide open, and add water into the tank and the overflow will keep up. Lesson learned, I will always use an overflow at least one pipe size larger than the feed!

 

So here's the whole tank with only 1 piece of live rock more than the 7 gallon. The sand bed is 20 pounds of live sand. It's sparse!

 

You'll notice some of the frags are still as they came from the store. This is because I still need to aquascape so I don't want to glue them in yet.

 

Equipment in this tank:

 

½" inlet.

Rio 800 powerhead.

3/4" overflow with a 1¼" 90º elbow on the bulkhead to keep the flow path open!

DIY Hood with 70W MH and 32W Smartlamp PC

 

I need to build a better reflector for the hood, and plan to add the 20W fluorescent fixture that came with the 20 inside as well, if I can make it fit!

[luvtolean]

A couple of my more colorful inhabitants.

[luvtolean]

1 more, added yesterday

[luvtolean]

Finally the refugium.

 

It's the aforementioned 10 gallon with a bunch of calurpa out of one of Aquatic Gallery's refugiums. There are 20 pounds of live sand and some live rock rubble as well. It has a Rio 1100 to pump water up and a 100 micron diatom bag on the return. Last night I added a check valve as it would get a wicked siphon going if I turned off the 1100. I added a 3/4" valve and reduced it upstream to the ½" line. This reduced flow where now I plan to get a Rio 1400, same size, more flow, so it will be easy to add.

 

A Prizm hang on skimmer is currently on there, but it will be swapped out eventually. The heater is a 100W unit. The hood has 2 incandescent sockets, one of which has a 20W PC, the other a 10W PC. I have this tank on the floor underneath my desk. To add some safety, I put it in a rubbermaid tub to help contain an overflow should it occur, as well as to protect it from an errant vaccum cleaner strike or something like that.

 

So there you go. My quest for the ultimate cubicle tank have lead me here.

 

Many thanks to Dr. Le from Aquatic Gallery for helping me with the set-up!

 

No idea what is next other than more rock, fish and frags.

 

Anyone wanna help me figure out how to aquascape my huge new tank and choose fishes!

[luvtolean]

78 views and no comments...I guess I wasn't too exciting.

 

I have been watching temps over the last few days with a thermocouple and they're higher than I'd like, 81.8º or so on average. I ordered a Aqua Medic chiller tonight to fix the problem.

 

http://www.premiumaquatics.com/Merchant2/m...Code=AM-Chiller

 

Also got a Rio 1400 coming while I was at it.

[Armadildo]

ok, soooo what is yout thread point again ?

 

I just don't know what I'm looking at here..... THREAD WISE.

[cpreefguy]

Man, I have a MB7 and now I want the 20!!!! Don't do this to me!!! Looks great, love the aquascaping like it is. It gives a nice open, kind of oceany feel to it, keep us updated.

[trmiv]

Looks like he upgraded from a 7 gallon to a 20 gallon, and wanted to share it, not that hard to figure out.

 

luvtolean: Dr Le at Aquatic Gallery is a really nice guy. The prices their are a bit expensive, but I like going there because he's friendly and helpful. I get my RO from there.

[luvtolean]

Originally posted by Arma#####

ok, soooo what is yout thread point again ?

 

I just don't know what I'm looking at here..... THREAD WISE.

 

No point, just sharing my reefing experience over the past couple of years hoping to help others. If you read all my posts you'll see I posted several things that don't work, or at least didn't for me, and ended up costing me money. Also, it's my ode to refugium's, I am now a huge believer. Besides, it's my "Members' Reef".

 

Dr. Le can be a bit pricey, I find it all depends on what you're getting. I don't mind paying a bit extra because he gives me great service, and I know he has good stuff that's well taken care of. I started my tank with water out of his tanks and it tested out perfect.

 

I've had terrible experiences with most other LFS's, but I like Mermaid Aquarium up in Fremont and Tropical Paradise (though I find them very pricey) up in San Leandro too.

[luvtolean]

Originally posted by cpreefguy

Man, I have a MB7 and now I want the 20!!!! Don't do this to me!!! Looks great, love the aquascaping like it is. It gives a nice open, kind of oceany feel to it, keep us updated.

 

Thanks, yeah, I am going to work to keep more sand open than my 7 was as I think it makes the tank nice and bright. But I want to add live rock built up and over the sand I think. Still can't figure out how to do it...the current thought is to use a bunch of Tonga.

 

I'd say do it, but make sure you have a pile of cash, not only do you need equipment, you'll want to spend hundred$ on livestock!

[myelin]

Nice tank! I read the whole thread. It sounds like we are in the same boat. We lurked soo much, you really don't have anymore questions - just get to work on your tank and make it look nice. That's where I'm at now.

 

Nice job again.

[Carl_in_Florida]

What is the lighting on the new tank? Is it the MH from the old one?

[luvtolean]

Yeah, I built a hood out of Acrylic to hold my old 70W Catalina (yeah I know) MH bulb on a PFO ballast, and the 32W Smartbulb PC. I'm thinking of trying to build a better reflector and when I do, I will try to add the 24" fluorescent fixture that came with the tank for a bit more light.

 

I added some live rock, and the blurry fish at the top was a present from my girlfriend this week, a candy hogfish, so the tank looks a bit different in the pic.

[luvtolean]

fish eye view

[cpreefguy]

any updates?

[luvtolean]

Actually, yes. The refugium was broken somehow overnight last week. A Euro Reef skimmer was added (along with the requisite sump), 250W DE Ushio metal halide...maybe later I'll have time for the full update with pics.

 

Also, yesterday I also picked up a stunning aquacultured acro.

[Carl_in_Florida]

You don't have melting problems with a 250W MH in an acrylic enclosure?

[luvtolean]

Dammit! I hate it that you lose all your text if your attachments are too large.

 

Anyways. No, the acrylic is fine. The 1/16" piece of glass shattered in about 10 minutes from the temp differential though. I ended up adding 2 more 80mm PC fans to the enclosure and used a piece of 3/16" thick glass I had tempered. The enclosure and tank are all cool to the touch. The glass hits about 80º.

 

I bought a Euro Reef skimmer to replace the red sea. This necessitated a sump, which I bought a 28 gallon rubbermaid truck box for. I cut a hole in the lid for the skimmer cup, and put the refugium in at an angle so it would overflow from one end. I came into work the next morning to a weird water trickling sound....with baited breath I opened the sump to find the glass had been broken in the refugium. I replaced it with a PLASTIC 10 gallon rubbermaid container with 2 holes drilled in the end as overflows into the sump, and a big hole in the lid for my light fixture.

[luvtolean]

I added about 10 pounds of LR and my GF bought me this cool Candy Hogfish as a "starting grad skool" gift.

 

Also meet NR member Gavin and got some nice zoos from him which live on the "wall o' zoos".

[luvtolean]

During the light debacle (before the new sump) my SPS frags started bleaching as the only light came from the 32W PC for about a week. Then, as everything was getting accustomed to the low light, I left the 250W on for about 6 hours to find a steady state temp (86º) and to see if the Aqua Medic Titan chiller would work (it didn't, only dropped temps about 1º). This burned the hell out of my poor frags. Also had a huge diatom bloom which a bag of Rowaphos over the intake for the pump solved completely in 2 days.

 

You'll notice tons of green corraline growth, and the tank is pretty dirty as I haven't cleaned the glass in about a week.

 

Also the frags are well on their way back, and the zoos, rics, shrooms and frogspawn all look better than ever. Also, the 2 heads of my frogspawn started branching about 2 weeks after getting in the new tank. Last week they both completely separated and now the stem is growing apart. It now looks great, and much bigger. Also, one of my blue rics is splitting, the first to do so in about the 10-12 months I've had them.

[luvtolean]

Since I have decided I want to make this an SPS dominated tank, I needed to up water flow.

 

I added this beautiful Acro yesterday against my current rule (no new stock until more water movement) since it was so beautiful.

 

I put a Rio 1100 I had laying around (after upgrading the main pump to a Rio 1400) in with the T's for now (though it looks awful), and have a SCWD and 780 GPH pump coming tomorrow to build a closed loop.

 

A calc reactor will also be added in the very near future.

 

This whole thing has gone over the top, but I plan to reuse most of the equipment on a new, larger tank at my house in the future.

[cpreefguy]

Looks awesome. Great, just as I am slowly catching up to you by ordering a 70w hqi, and thinking about getting a 20 gallon, you go and get a 250w halide. Damn, always a step behind! What brand is your tank? What are the dimensions?

[luvtolean]

Think about the 250 very carefully, it's a serious committment. A 150 DE ended would be much easier, and require less work on your part. But I got the 250 because I think SPS will do better under it, and I'm hoping eventually it will fill out and I'll have to start fragging out of it. I was OK with the cost of a chiller otherwise I wouldn't have done it. Also, the socket for a 70 and 150 are the same so that is a pretty easy transition.

 

I can't remember the brand, it was on the shelf at a LFS. I think it is Clear Vu or something like that.

 

It is about 24"x15"x13".

 

I don't think it looks real good yet. I still don't have it aquascaped to my liking, don't seem to have enough LR to do what I'm thinking and stuff is just kinda laying around because of that.