40 Breeder Project

[brock407]

I took five blue damsels for 6$ a pop an by the third month all except one dominate fish was still swimming they are jumpy.

[milfordguy]

You will get much more algae than that during your cycle. The hardest part of setting up a tank is waiting for the cycle. Trust me, you will want to add things as soon as possible, just be patient.

 

I would personally wait a few more weeks before adding a "real fish". Also you should try and get that damsel out of your tank sooner rather than later. If you browse around you will find endless threads about people who cycled with a damsel and can't manage to remove them after.

[koteckn]

Gotcha. We will try to get the Damsel out now rather than wait and will leave the snails/hermits/Caulerpa in while the cycle completes itself. Nothing more will be added for the next week or two, maybe three, depending on the speed of the cycle. Thanks for all of the information.

- n

[koteckn]

6/12/14 - Update - Day 22 of cycle

 

Water Parameters:

Salinity: 1.024

PH: 8

Ammo: 0

Nitrite: 0

Nitrate: 0

Calcium: 400

Phosphate: 0

 

I believe the cycle is continuing but I wanted to check on a few things and determine what steps we need to take at this point. Also, just to clarify, we still haven't performed our first water change yet either... Is it about time to do our first one?

 

In the attachments there are a series of pictures. The first three contain shots from the sump. There seems to be something yellow/red/brown growing between the baffles in the sump. Is this normal? Something to be concerned about? If it needs removed, what's the best way to approach it?

 

The second picture is a shot of the refugium. The Caulerpa seems healthy and alive. It started to attach itself to the sides of the glass, I presume this is a normal part of the growing process? Should we leave in the huge piece of algae here or should we cut it down so that there is more room for it to continue to grow? We also plan to add either some chaeto or a type of red algae that can second as a food source for herbivores.

 

The third is a picture of the skimmer. I just adjusted it so that the water level was right above the red ring, so I don't believe the skim has caught up to it yet. Before adjusting, it was bubbling very well and the skimmate looks to be the correct color, darker brown. Correct me if i'm wrong.

 

Fourth is a picture of the algae growing in the sand. It is growing heavily there and along the back wall (as you can see in the bottom second of the last picture). Is the tank at the point where I should continue adding cleanup? Should we be manually removing some of this algae or will this die on its own. Should we be running a 12 hr light cycle or should we run a shorter cycle or turn off completely?

 

The next three pictures is a series of pictures of something growing on a piece of live rock. It is very dark, almost black in color. I'm not sure what this is and would like an ID on it if possible. It seems to look more like a black algae rather than aptasia or the likes.

 

Lastly, the snails cleaning the back glass. There are some air bubbles being caught in the algae growth, is this something to worry about or will it work itself out? Will the snails be affected by those pockets? I believe this was from the return pump grabbing bubbles from the baffles prior to fixing the skimmer return (into the sump).

 

 

 

All in all, seems like the cycle is happening but I'm not sure where to go next. Start adding small amounts of the CC or continue to be patient and observe?

[koteckn]

Anyone out there want to show some love in answering our questions above haha? Thanks again.

- N

[koteckn]

Anyone...

 

We chose to wait on answers, so we did not head to the LFS yesterday and were hoping to today if we receive the answers we're hoping for. I know someone has enough experience to answer the elementary questions above.

 

Thanks yet again,

- N

[koteckn]

Bump it

[koteckn]

Bump.........

[frankdontsurf]

Pretty sure you're cycled dude. Not sure what the question is though?

 

Feel free to abandon this thread and start a new one with a specific question ..

 

Looking good!

[koteckn]

The questions we had are in the text of post #79. If you read through it, you will see there are a few uncertainties that we were having.

 

Given that we thought we were cycled, and have at least one confirmation of the same, we purchased the rest of our CUC yesterday as well as a Skunk Cleaner Shrimp and a Peppermint Shrimp. They are both doing fine and eating well. We also purchased a bag of copepods to add to our refugium and extra shells for our few hermits.

 

At this point, we are going to wait 2 more weeks to make sure all the snails, shrimp and hermits are healthy. This will also give the tank some more time to mature and grow it's beneficial bacteria and also give the algae time to be consumed and/or die off.

 

We did a 4 gallon water change yesterday and plan to do another 8 gallon w/c tomorrow and then let it sit again for 2 weeks. All of our readings are still 0 so the water changes will hopefully kill off the algae sooner than later.

 

Two weekends from now, we plan to add our first coral and "real fish" that will be with the tank for the long haul.

 

We will update as necessary and thanks again for your confirmation on the cycle.

 

- N

[lambogriffin]

Edit: Welp.. I commented after (unintentionally) not reading the whole thread.. Disregard.

[lambogriffin]

After reading more.. The tank pictures look normal.. The tank is Cycled.. Water changes are fine. Looks like you have some nuisance algae- manually remove as much as you can and then the CUC and keeping nutrient levels low should keep it in check.. There are some good guides for hitchhikers online with pictures. ID the things you don't like, and find multiple sources to confirm how to get rid of them. I would shoot for a 1.026 salinity personally with water changes, because it helps maintain high calcium levels.

[koteckn]

Alright everyone. After doing a little research to choose what our first fish and coral will be in two weeks (weekend of June 28th), I think we came up with two winners as long as I get confirmation that this would be a good starting place. Feel free to list better ideas or give me some better choices to a soon to be reef tank.

 

First coral - Pulsing xenia (not sure if there are different color strands but the one I saw at our LFS is a reddish color I guess you would say.

 

First fish - Purple Firefish

 

Thanks for any info or different ideas,

- N

[Tamberav]

Both of those will be fine for starters.

[jboren]

Firefish is a good choice.

 

Xenia can quickly take over if you don't keep it maintained. And it stinks to when out of the tank....

[koteckn]

I've really been debating on starting with a coral that in time will pester the heck out of all the others because of the growth rate... Anyone that has a better first coral to start with is free to give me some other ideas... I'd rather not have to trim the xenia and/or green star every week or two to keep it in check... i'd much rather sit back and watch as much as possible.

 

Oh, we finally found our first few hitchhikers. I don't have pictures now but will have to upload some in the future. We have 3 stomatella snails, a feather duster worm and it seems to be a coral but i'm not 100% sold on that yet.

 

The coral looking thing is very tiny which is why i cant 100% confirm what it is. It looks to have purple stocks with green polpts on the ends. Glows green at least under the moon lights of the radion. I'll post some pictures once I get back from my trip this weekend.

- N

[koteckn]

Decided to start with something easy. A piece with some dragon eye and eagle eye zoas and a few unidentified white corals (zoas too I believe). Is anyone able to give me an ID on them? Cell quality pics attached.

- N

[koteckn]

Pretty cool stuff happening now. Over the past two days, we noticed we have at least 4 hitchhikers. I believe from doing a little reading that they are beneficial to have within a reef as well. I believe all of them are stomella snails as they all look like the pictures below. We have a large brown one (pictured), a small whitish one and two smaller purple shelled snails. Let us know if these should be removed or if i should be aware of anything other than the moon phase mating ritual (pretty awesome) and that they'll re-populate quickly.

 

Sorry the pics are a bit blurry but we used a cell phone and had to zoom in.

- N

[koteckn]

Some pretty crappy stuff is happening as well. So far, this is day ~35 and we've finally found our first hitchhiker with negative impact to the reef. We've found some young aptasia on some of our rockwork. At this point, we cannot tell if everything we've located is aptasia at this point but we've burned all of the aptasia we were able to pull out of the tank.

 

The stuff we cannot pull out seems to have a purple base with greenish arms that glow under the blue light (has anyone seen aptasia like this by chance?). They seem/look more like corals that the aptasia we already took care of but i'm also aware of aptasia looking different from time to time. We're going to keep a close eye on this stuff to make sure it doesn't eradicate. We have a peppermint shrimp that's been in the tank now for a week or two but is still rather timid. This could be because it's molted a few days ago so we're just giving it more time to settle in. We're hoping that it starts to peruse the tank in the next week or so.

 

Our skunk cleaner also molted but is just as friendly as he's always been. My buddy, brother and I designed and built this tank and this cleaner has already taken to cleaning all of our hands when they are in the tank. Pretty neat stuff.

 

We've also found about 4 pineapple sponges that are growing on the underside of our bridge in the middle of our rock work. I've read that these are harmless and a decent filter feeder to keep... Can anyone confirm this?

 

At this point, the nutrient export seems to be working with the grape caulerpa in the sump. All of our GHA is basically gone, and all of the other green algae's are being slowly diminished by our CUC.

 

 

Next weeks game plan:

1. return from trip to ChiTown on Sunday

2. on Monday (half day at work for me), we plan to do a w/c and scrub/clean glass and blow live rock off. Hopefully catch the **** damsel too.

3. Monday evening, if everything goes as planned, we will be adding another 2-3 corals and hopefully our first fish that we plan to keep long-term. A purple firefish. Catching the damsel is step one so everyone is aware...

4. Whenever we catch the damsel and start acclimating the new corals, we plan to frag the white zoas off our first piece. We want the eagle eyes and dragon eyes only on this piece so the white zoas will either be fragged/tossed out or rehomed...

5. Once all of this is taken care of, we'll sit back again for another ~2 weeks and make sure everything is prospering before moving forward with adding corals and livestock.

 

- N

[koteckn]

Planning on ordering our next 1-3 pieces of coral tonight/tomorrow. Can anyone leave me some coral vendors that are top notch? I've searched google and looked through the sponsors of this site and was wondering if there were more that some of you may use...

Thanks,

- N

[Mojado]

Some pretty crappy stuff is happening as well. So far, this is day ~35 and we've finally found our first hitchhiker with negative impact to the reef. We've found some young aptasia on some of our rockwork. At this point, we cannot tell if everything we've located is aptasia at this point but we've burned all of the aptasia we were able to pull out of the tank.

 

The stuff we cannot pull out seems to have a purple base with greenish arms that glow under the blue light (has anyone seen aptasia like this by chance?). They seem/look more like corals that the aptasia we already took care of but i'm also aware of aptasia looking different from time to time. We're going to keep a close eye on this stuff to make sure it doesn't eradicate. We have a peppermint shrimp that's been in the tank now for a week or two but is still rather timid. This could be because it's molted a few days ago so we're just giving it more time to settle in. We're hoping that it starts to peruse the tank in the next week or so.

 

Our skunk cleaner also molted but is just as friendly as he's always been. My buddy, brother and I designed and built this tank and this cleaner has already taken to cleaning all of our hands when they are in the tank. Pretty neat stuff.

 

We've also found about 4 pineapple sponges that are growing on the underside of our bridge in the middle of our rock work. I've read that these are harmless and a decent filter feeder to keep... Can anyone confirm this?

 

At this point, the nutrient export seems to be working with the grape caulerpa in the sump. All of our GHA is basically gone, and all of the other green algae's are being slowly diminished by our CUC.

 

 

Next weeks game plan:

1. return from trip to ChiTown on Sunday

2. on Monday (half day at work for me), we plan to do a w/c and scrub/clean glass and blow live rock off. Hopefully catch the **** damsel too.

3. Monday evening, if everything goes as planned, we will be adding another 2-3 corals and hopefully our first fish that we plan to keep long-term. A purple firefish. Catching the damsel is step one so everyone is aware...

4. Whenever we catch the damsel and start acclimating the new corals, we plan to frag the white zoas off our first piece. We want the eagle eyes and dragon eyes only on this piece so the white zoas will either be fragged/tossed out or rehomed...

5. Once all of this is taken care of, we'll sit back again for another ~2 weeks and make sure everything is prospering before moving forward with adding corals and livestock.

 

- N

Is it aiptasia or ball anemone?

[koteckn]

The first stuff we removed was definitely aptasia. The other stuff, we're still uncertain about. I'll look into it more tonight after work and try to post some updates.

- N

[koteckn]

Well,

We were not able to get good enough pictures of the stuff that's growing from our live rock but it seems that some growths may/may not be aptasia and the other look like baby feather dusters. We'll keep a close eye out on this to make sure nothing negative eradicates.

 

We also noticed a brown bubble. circle in shape, on our live rock about a week ago (it since disappeared and it looks like there's another in a different position. The rock that it is on is purple (Fiji LR I believe) and when the bubble pops/hatches, it leaves a round white spot on the rock. Is this something hatching into the tank that we should be worried about? I did a few hours of research last night with no luck. I can add pictures of this tonight if that will help.

 

On the plus side,

We had 3-6 hands and 2 nets in the tank yesterday for about an hour, which wasn't our intention, but we were finally able to catch the last damsel that was slowing our progress down. Tonight, we are taking a trip to a coral shop that's about 45 mins from my house to purchase our next additions to the tank. As of now, i'm thinking of one fish and two pieces of coral but you never know what the place will have and us second guessing ourselves when we get there.

 

Any recommendations in regards to adding 1 fish and 2 more corals tonight? Too much/too little? remember we just removed a fish...

 

If that sounds good, we plan to add our firefish first. Any other recommendations for the 2 corals we should check out? We already have zoas so zoas and palys will not be purchased again tonight. Was thinking about a duncan, torch or hammer coral for one of the two.

 

Any info or recommendations would be great.

Thanks,
- N

[koteckn]

Decided to go with one fish and one coral. We decided on a Lubbock's wrasse to use as our starting fish because they sold their last purple firefish shortly before we arrived and this little guy is a small fairy wrasse. He/she went right into hiding as expected but did pop out to eat when I fed the shrimp/snails/hermits etc. Hoping for the best here.

 

We were going to get two corals, but given how new the tank is, we decided to go with one and we scored a 3" or so electric green hammer. As expected, it was retracted when we placed it in the DT, but started to open ~2hrs or so after it was in the tank. This morning I would say it's 50-60% open.

 

Will post pics when everything settles in and opens up.

 

- N

[koteckn]

Added three more pieces today. Dendrophilia, frogspawn and free chalice frag. Not sure of the type yet but it's purple with orange eyes. Added to the tank about an hour ago so they are still opening.

- N