RollaJase's 30G Custom Cube - Tank Torn Down

[RollaJase]

Lol I'll take a picture of mine in the afternoon, at work right now.

Haha, will be good to see the difference.

[RollaJase]

Experiment day today.

Did a 50/50 mix of Red Sea Coral Pro and Blue Bucket to see what the levels would come in at. For the record here is what my current bucket of Coral Pro mixes in at (keep in mind I use tank water not RODI).

Red Sea Coral Pro:

Temp = 25c

Salinity = 1.026

Alk = 11.8-12dKH

Cal = 400-410ppm

Mag = 1300ppm

 

And the 50/50 mix:

Temp: 25c

Salinity = 1.026

Alk = 10dKH

Cal = 405ppm

Mag = 1240ppm

 

The 50/50 mix is definitely more along the lines of what I want to achieve. Next change I will do a 45/55 mix (little extra blue bucket) to try and get the Alk into the 9.8-9.5dKH range. The Cal and Mag levels are pretty much bang on with what I want. I'll test the tank at the usual time this evening and see how things changed compared to testing last night.

 

On another note the green acro I picked up a few weeks ago is doing really well. The green colour has brightened up a little more and some really bright yellow/green polyps are starting to show their faces. Pale green/grey growth tips on every branch also . Another thing I have noticed since getting the Alk stable between 9 & 10dKH is that my acro that has the neon blue growth has coloured up also. The body is less brown (more of a tan now) and the tips of the current branches are turning blue also. Still no PE though but I am hoping it will come. Looks like I may have found the sweet spot for my tank.

 

Unfortunately I did toss 4 SPS pieces this morning. The red milli, pink poci, neon green acro and the green plating monti were well beyond any point of saving unfortunately .

[RollaJase]

Alk dropped .7dKH overnight from 9.1 to 8.4dKH. It looks like I may have let some air into the line while messing around with things over the weekend. This could have thrown the daily dose off by a few ml causing the change. I dosed an extra 2ml tonight (helped me purge the line of air also) and upped my daily dose to 9ml for tomorrow, will see how it goes. I could immediately tell levels were lower then normal when I got home from work just by looking at the birdsnest frag, it just looks 'different' when there is a slight swing.

 

Until now I have been successful with keeping Alk between 9 and 9.5dKH.

[markalot]

Good to hear the doser is working well. I've had some air in the line issues as well. I make sure to run on manual mode into a cup until I'm sure I'm getting a steady output. Unfortunately you can;t put this back into the dosing container without chancing introducing air again.

[RollaJase]

Good to hear the doser is working well. I've had some air in the line issues as well. I make sure to run on manual mode into a cup until I'm sure I'm getting a steady output. Unfortunately you can;t put this back into the dosing container without chancing introducing air again.

I absolutely love the doser, so much more convenient then manual dosing. With the dosing containers I am making, adding more fluid should be easy without having to remove the hardline tube . After this air in the line issue i have rethought my design a little.

[BattleAthletics]

Haha, will be good to see the difference.

[RollaJase]

Haha, will be good to see the difference.

 

Mine still says that but in this case I wouldn't say it is hard to understand. Although I can't remember what that setting does haha.

[RollaJase]

Been messing around with some pillar ideas for the rear of the tank, want lots of room for SPS plus my leather at the base.

https://imageshack.com/i/f05vjsnVj'>

Liking the second one much better. It will definitely be tall, the top plateau will be higher up in the tank than my current SPS pieces.

[markalot]

I can only see the second pic, but I like it.

[RollaJase]

I can only see the second pic, but I like it.

Bah, Image Shack has been acting weird lately, should be displaying now . I'm pretty happy with the second one. Realistically at that height the tallest point is about 3/4 up the water column, if I dig the pillar into the sand a bit it should give me a nice high point roughly 2/3 up the tank. The first pillar is roughly the same height as the current rock formations.

[RollaJase]

Over the past week I have struggled with precipitation on the end of my Alk dosing tube causing it to crust over and throw off the dosing. I rectified this to a degree by upping the frequency of doses throughout the day. The main cause of this though (I think) is the fact that I have been using the Seachem liquid concentrate at full strength. Over the weekend I am going to drain the doser, dilute the alk solution 50% and double my total dosing volume per day to counteract the change. This should lead to a stable Alk level, I hope.

 

Also aiming to build my SPS pillar over the weekend and finish off the lighting/fan install in the stand. I was aiming to have the sump installed by the end of July, unforeseen circumstances made that impossible. Current goal is the end of August. I need to give myself enough time to get everything dead stable before I go on holidays at the start of January.

[Jstn]

Nice rock setup, I am too of thinking of trying to build something for more sps along with torches and acans

[RollaJase]

Nice rock setup, I am too of thinking of trying to build something for more sps along with torches and acans

Thanks, I managed to get is all epoxied and pinned together today, took about 3 hours to get it to a stage I was happy with. I'll leave the tower for 24 hours or so to cure properly and will then submerge it in water for a few days to get rid of any powdered rock etc. from drilling.

 

Sorted out my doser today also, mixed the Alk concentrate 50/50 with water and no more precipitation or crusting on the tip of the hose. I doubled the amount of liquid to dose daily on the doser to account for the half strength liquid.

 

Decided to take a couple of snaps while I was working on the tank.

https://imageshack.com/i/kq2DASmQj'>

This acro is colouring up really well, love the look of the growth tips in contrast to the body colour. Ignore the few dead tips, this happened when a hermit knocked the acro onto the torch coral.

 

New chalice is colouring up really well also now that it is under quality light.

https://imageshack.com/i/ipRLjERuj'>

[RollaJase]

Alk swing problems again, my birdsnest is pissed . Since making a diluted mix of the alk solution to avoid precipitation on the end of the tube (which did work BTW) I have been having trouble keeping things in line. My alk dropped 2dKH over 48 hours before I caught it. I have further increased my dosing to counteract this and have been adding a few extra ml after I test to bump it up a little more.

 

I think the biggest mistake I made was getting some of the Cal solution mixed into the Alk solution, this has probably impacted on the efficiency of my dose, something I want to rectify tonight. I will purge the Alk head on the doser tonight with fresh water and will mix up a fresh batch of dose using powder this time, not concentrate. I will have to try and get the ratios right so I don't have to relearn the process again.

 

Using Seachem Reef Buffer it states that 3g of power will increase .7dKH in 150L of water volume. On the other hand 5ml of the Seachem liquid contentrate will increase dKH by the same amount but for a total water volume of 80L. I estimate my water volume to be between 80L and 90L due to displacement from the sand, rocks and the water level being roughly 1" from the top of the tank.

 

So my dosing containers are a little over 1L and are marked up to 1L with a little extra space at top. For those who don't know, 1L is made up of 1000ml. So my estimate, when mixing the powder for my water volume is that based on the above, 2g of powder will raise the Alk in my tank by about 1dKH. I want to spread this powder over 15-20ml of dosed liquid per 24hr period, may even go 10ml. Working on 20ml of liquid per day, my container will hold enough liquid for 50 days of dosing. Based on that amount of days, adding 100g of powder to 1L of water will deliver my desired about of buffer for 50 days before refill.

 

I'm not sure if this is the right way to be calculating things, I'm not great at math but it makes sense to me . Based on those calculations, my 600g container of Reef Builder will last me about 300 days, considering the container was $12 thats not half bad at all. Depending on how the tank requirements change I can alter the saturation of the liquid as I go.

[4x5]

Seems like you've done the math but if you haven't seen this calculator yet, you should - it's the best. http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html - makes life so easy for calculating how much to dose.

New chalice is colouring up really well also now that it is under quality light.

This chalice is so sexy.

[RollaJase]

Seems like you've done the math but if you haven't seen this calculator yet, you should - it's the best. http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html - makes life so easy for calculating how much to dose.

 

This chalice is so sexy.

Wow, that calculator is awesome! And it lists the Seachem Reef Builder that I want to use . It is basically telling me that for about a 1dKH increase I would need to add 2.8g of buffer to my water volume. I think I will start with aiming for 3g of powder dosed per day spread over 20ml of liquid so basically 120g of powder per 800ml of water, forgot to take into consideration the addition of the powder offsetting the liquid. Thank you so much for that , I tried to find something like this but had no luck.

 

I am in love with that chalice, it is easy to see now why it was originally earmarked as an export piece.

[RollaJase]

Actually scratch that, 800ml wont fully dissolve 120g of powder. Working on 120g powder per 900ml water (22.5ml of liquid dosed per day).

[RollaJase]

Well, burned through my last class 10 SD card after about 2 years of solid RAW snapping service. Paid about $30 for an 8GB card at the time, these new ones were $12 a piece for double the capacity and twice the speed. Bring on the rapid fire RAW glory!

http://imageshack.com/i/p5NXHRqHj'>

Why 2? Well I had to make the shipping worth while and the second one will come in handy when I head to the States/Europe/Singapore in January 2015.

[4x5]

It's amazing how the price has come down on cards. They're so cheap now compared to a few years back.

[RollaJase]

It's amazing how the price has come down on cards. They're so cheap now compared to a few years back.

Yeah they really are. I remember when flash drives were the new big thing, I paid about $50 for a 512MB drive, about 7-8 years ago. Now you find 4GB drives as impulse buys at shop counters for under $10. As with anything electronic, early adopters get stung and prices drop significantly once the technology becomes mainstream and the demand for it rises. I see this trend at work everyday, even looking back 12 months there has been noticeable changes in price for identical items.

[RollaJase]

After a few days of soaking in water and a few days drying out infront of our open fireplace, my custom SPS pillar is now ready to go. I will post up a few pictures when I can of the construction for those interestred.

[Jstn]

I mix 100g sodium carbonate into 1l and have had good luck, I converted Randy's recipe into metric since I hate std us units...

[RollaJase]

I mix 100g sodium carbonate into 1l and have had good luck, I converted Randy's recipe into metric since I hate std us units...

Mixing 120g to 900ml of water left me with only a little residue at the bottom of the container. Heating the water while mixing really helped the water obsorb the powder and even held that state once the solution had cooled to room temperature. Thanks for the tip though, I will be playing around with the ratios over the coming months to get the best results out of the Seachem powder.

[RollaJase]

Looks like my dosing calculations were spot on, Alk did not move from my test yesterday under the new dosing plan. It is however still much too low sitting at 7.7dKH after the precipitation issues I was having. I dosed a few extra ml of the 50/50 solution I had mixed up which should boost the Alk levels up to the low 8dKH mark. I also increased my daily dose by 1ml to slowly bring the Alk into the 9.5dKH region over the next few weeks. I have a water change scheduled for this weekend so I will make sure I mix it in at about 8.5dKH as to not cause a swing. As a result of the big swing from 9.5 to 7.5dKH my birdsnest is pretty much toast and the piece is too small to try and save any of it , a shame as it was the nicest birdsnest I ever attempted at keeping.

 

I did find a flaw with my doser overnight also. When adjusting the daily schedule for a pump, if I change both the ml dosed and the doses per day it will freeze the on board clock. I'm not sure if the cock display freezes or if the actual timing mechanism freezes. Going by my stable alk since yesterday it looks like only the display freezes. Now that I am aware of this it wont be an issue but it will be interesting to see if other users of this dosing pump have experienced the same thing.

[4x5]

Did the Birdsnest lose it's flesh or did it go white? Mine hated it when I had Alk issues but it bounced back from looking a goner to being fine again.