ps2cho Posted January 10, 2014 Author Share Posted January 10, 2014 Oh nevermind I found some time during my lunch. It is in my car now!! Woo! Now to think about the transfer over. I accidently forgot that I put my sand in a bucket full of tap water. Hopefully its not saturated in phosphates now... Link to comment
ps2cho Posted January 11, 2014 Author Share Posted January 11, 2014 And now the ball is rolling Paintin time! Link to comment
ps2cho Posted January 11, 2014 Author Share Posted January 11, 2014 Painted and overflow box attached with GE Silicone. My work is done for the night as it will let the overflow box cure. I will apply another bead in the morning to the inside to make sure its waterproofed. Tank is beautiful! I will get some higher quality photos tomorrow once it gets up on the stand Link to comment
ps2cho Posted January 11, 2014 Author Share Posted January 11, 2014 Off to get more sand! Since the silicone was such a thin layer, I think 24hrs should be good enough. So tonight I will do a leak test. Until then I am filling just below the overflow box so it does not get wet. Link to comment
ps2cho Posted January 11, 2014 Author Share Posted January 11, 2014 Getting wet! Everything looks like its good. No leaks anywhere... I will be doing a 100% water change after a few days to get rid of any phosphates or any nasties from tank production, silicone etc... Just want to get all the water moving right now to get rolling. Link to comment
BigFudge Posted January 12, 2014 Share Posted January 12, 2014 Beautiful Tank! I'm extremely jealous, those are the exact dimensions of the tank I want to start =). Following this! Link to comment
ps2cho Posted January 12, 2014 Author Share Posted January 12, 2014 Thanks! Oceans by Design did an incredible job. The photo's still don't do it justice. I am going to try and get a better camera. My girlfriends Nikon D5000 has a problem and won't focus, so I gotta find something else other than my Galaxy's camera. I'm loving the dimensions so much. I just think that long over deep adds a nice "easy" view, but it has no dimension like the real ocean has. The ocean at no place lacks dimension. Having it like this makes it seem more realistic and 3D'ish. IMO, of course. Just saw Lone Survivor tonight..powerful movie oh man. Got home and I was uplifted a little bit by a much clearer tank. I think by tomorrow morning it should be much better. Tomorrow also will begin the aquascaping! I may even begin moving everything from the 29g over. Since I am moving the substrate from the 29g, there should be no cycle at all. The rest of the dry rock shown in the photo has been soaking in saltwater in a brute trashcan for the past 5 weeks with weekly feedings. Link to comment
RollaJase Posted January 12, 2014 Share Posted January 12, 2014 The tank looks great, love the dimensions. Really interested to see how you scape this one. Link to comment
ps2cho Posted January 13, 2014 Author Share Posted January 13, 2014 Rockscape is done! Tank stats: 79f 1.025 dkh 8 ammonia/nitrite/nitrate 0 phosphates: 0 calcium 420 mg 1040 (Im really confident the test kit is bad now since this is brand new salt -- I have a Salifert kit coming tuesday) Moving fish over! Will post photos tomorrow of scape since its still a little cloudy from the sand churned up. Fish won't care though.... Link to comment
ps2cho Posted January 13, 2014 Author Share Posted January 13, 2014 Some photos so far including the sump...Will be much clearer over the next few days. Since I moved all rocks from the 29g, I moved the livestock -- there should be zero ammonia. I will be checking every day just to check, but I am confident there won't be an issue. Will take better photos of aquascape once my other camera is charged and the water is a little clearer. I have quite a few flat rocks so its gonna be easy to add corals. Link to comment
ps2cho Posted January 15, 2014 Author Share Posted January 15, 2014 Here are some better photos of the aquascape and tank. Stats from today: Magnesium was definitely broken with the Red Sea Kit. Now I have the Salifert, it reads 1260. Much better. Salinity 1.025 Alk: 9.5 Temp 79F Ammonia/Nitrite/Nitrate 0 Phosphate ~0.025 Magnesium 1260 Calcium 420 Link to comment
ps2cho Posted January 20, 2014 Author Share Posted January 20, 2014 I think I lost the reef chromi... I noticed yesterday I couldn't see him anywhere. I did the feeding and watched...nothing. This morning he is still not there. I checked in the overflow box and each overflow pipe has a strainer on it. So either he jumped and got ate by the cat (chromi's don't jump though do they??), or he's dead somewhere. I have about 10 hermit crabs, snails and an emerald crab, so they should eat him up if he is dead. I looked all over and couldn't see him anywhere. Doubt it was due to the tank move because he would have died a week ago, not 8 days later. Ammonia/Nitrite/Nitrate still 0. Link to comment
ps2cho Posted January 23, 2014 Author Share Posted January 23, 2014 Still have not seen the Chromi so he's definitely gone. Still haven't found the body. Ammonia still reading 0 so I am going to guess he jumped out and got eaten by the cat. My plan is to give the tank another 2-3 weeks of settling in time, then I will order my next fish to add I am currently monitoring my alk/ca/mg usage. Link to comment
ps2cho Posted January 25, 2014 Author Share Posted January 25, 2014 Ordered the Apex Lite controller! Its discontinued as of this year, so I grabbed one before they're out of stock completely. Will post photos Tues. Did my first water change last night too. 25%. I measured 2 nitrate last night so will bring it back down. I'd like to sit around .5 to 1. Link to comment
ps2cho Posted January 26, 2014 Author Share Posted January 26, 2014 Still rocking undetectable phosphates. Really happy. I think the fact that I let the rock sit in the tub for 5 weeks really made a big difference. I tested using both Salifert and my Seachem. Both read 0.03 or 0.00. Plus I actually have a skimmer and I am no longer feeding an entire cube of PE Mysis to a pair of 2" fish lol (no wonder my 1st tank was so cloudy all the time) Got my 29g QT set up. Got prime, prazipro, cupramine, garlic and ammonia alert coming in the mail too. I think I am going to get my Kole tang tomorrow from the LFS who has one right now. I'll let him chill for a week and observe, make sure he begins eating something then work on the prazipro and cupramine. I want to do a 4-6wk QT before putting him in my DT. Link to comment
urbaneks Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 Very good start. Couple questions for you: What was your deciding factor for putting the overflow inside the tank vs. going external? How tall is your stand? Link to comment
ps2cho Posted January 26, 2014 Author Share Posted January 26, 2014 Simplicity and redundancy. An internal box with a black background is practically invisible so its not a big deal to me. Also failure externally means a catastrophe. Failure internally is firstly practically impossible. The silicon would have to severe itself from the glass completely...by itself somehow, THEN the box would have to push itself away from the wall...not gonna happen. Externally, its a whole different ball game. Stand is 4ft high. Link to comment
ps2cho Posted January 27, 2014 Author Share Posted January 27, 2014 Got some more SPS frags today. BUT I found some bugs on them. Started a thread here as not to duplicate same info... http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/340337-got-bugs-what-do-i-do-photos/ I also got another skunk cleaner shrimp and a Royal Gramma. They are in the QT right now. Link to comment
ps2cho Posted February 4, 2014 Author Share Posted February 4, 2014 The Royal Gramma was put into the DT last night. She had a full week in QT and I noticed no issues at all. Ate first day. Did stay hidden a lot, but I am reading that is typical. I did a 2 hour drip line to bring the salinity from 1.021 to 1.025 then put her into the tank. This morning she found a nice spot to hide in, but did come out to meet the clowns a few times. I think she will be fine in a few days. Link to comment
AJ_Tsin Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 Gonna follow this one as you are on same timeline as me almost... Link to comment
ps2cho Posted February 5, 2014 Author Share Posted February 5, 2014 Installed a drain valve on the skimmer today. I have a few extra for sale in the hardware classifieds section if anybody is interested too... I am also getting a few strands of hair algae growing too...but it could have been from the death of the yellow watchman goby. I'll be doing a few 20% water changes over the next week to try and help out. Link to comment
ps2cho Posted February 14, 2014 Author Share Posted February 14, 2014 Royal Gramma has totally acclimated now. He no longer hides all day. He is often just out in the open hanging around. Glad he will be viewable. Nitrates still holding at ~0.5-1ppm. I have been changing the filter sock every 3-5 days so it seems to be going great so far. The little BHA that was showing has halted in amount. I think it was purely due to the death of the yellow watchman goby...he just didn't make the tank transition I guess. I didn't acclimate as well as I should have though, so lesson learned if that was the reason. --- I have a question about feeding though... I started feeding PE mysis daily, but the water started to get cloudy. I cut back to every other day, and it seems better now. Is this common for the duration of the tank, or more-so that it is still only one month in? I was only feeding maybe 1/6th of a cube worth of shrimp. I use tank water to defrost the cube overnight and then drain it out through a fish net. I then dump it back into a container where I add the garlic. Lastly I drain one more time. Any ideas? Link to comment
ps2cho Posted February 16, 2014 Author Share Posted February 16, 2014 A few updates: Temp: 79.5F Salinity: 1.025 Nitrate: 0.5-1.0ppm Calcium: 430 Alk: 9.4 dkH Magnesium: 1380 I put 3 cap fulls of brightwell magnesium and it brought me up from 1120 to 1380. I read the instructions, and it was not supposed bring it up that fast based on my dosage as I wanted to spread it out over a few days, but it looks like it did..guess it is what it is. Either way now that the Mg is up I am hoping coral growth will finally start moving along. I am going to post some update photos below soon as my camera battery is charged Link to comment
ps2cho Posted February 16, 2014 Author Share Posted February 16, 2014 Here are some photos from today. I think I'll become a better photographer as time progresses. First time with the D5000. 2/16/14 Link to comment
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