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Qballs Oasis Nano


QballV1

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Hey guys

Setup my second tank, a Boyu TL550 (I think in some places they are known as ORCA TL550?) mid Decemeber 2013. Its been running for about 7 months now and is slowly starting to approach the point where I am happy with it. I reckon another 6 months or so and it should be about there...

 

I started off with the stock equipment and hood running PC bulbs... but that didn't last long.

To date all the stock equipment as well as the hood have been ditched...

 

Equipment list as follow per chamber:

 

1st chamber (overflow): black sponge, 2 layers of filter floss. (Sponge washed every WC, and top layer of filter floss changed every 3 to 4 days. Bottom layer changed every WC). 150w heater. Also has the pick-up pump for the dolphin slimline HOB filter(acts as refugium for copepods etc)

2nd chamber: tunze 9004 skimmer

3rd chamber: 150w heater, Bubble Magus pump that feeds The Waterboy UV-X 3 in 1 (UV light and 2 reactors) running ati phosphate remover and The Waterboy carbon. Stocking with Seachem purigen hanging in the chamber with HOB filter return flowing over it.


Chamber 4: 1400 lph return pump, stc-1000 temp controller and 220v fan. Another Bubble Magus pump goes into this chamber to feed my Hailea HC130 chiller in summer. ATU will also be in this chamber once I've had a gap to put it in.

HOB filter is filled with liverock rubble. I also built LED's into the filter lid for chaeto. It grew well at first but as the nutrients dropped off it started to die so I removed it.

 

In tank flow is provided by 3 x Jebao WP10 controllable pumps. One either side linked to the dual controller and the centre on on its own controller.

 

Lighting is a 120w full spectrum LED unit with 90° optics and 2 dimmable channels that I imported from China. I made a 70w DIY unit that I ran for about 2 months but then decided to give this chinese unit a go so I sold it. Contrary to popular belief about chinese LED's, it performs extremely well and I have nothing but praise for the unit. The price is the best part, total cost incl freight and import duties was R1900 (about $175).

 

Also have a acrylic 3 inch wide rim that sits on top of the tank to stop fish jumping out that has worked like a charm so far.

 

Livestock list:

2 x Snowflake Clowns

1 x Blue Streak Cleaner Wrasse

1 x Yellow Wrasse

1 x Blue Star Leopard Wrasse (Bipartitus)

1 x Yellow Prawn Goby

1 x Green Mandarin

1 x Harlequin Shrimp (almost 2 inches long now, bought him for my pico when he was just under an inch)

1 x skunk cleaner shrimp

1 x peppermint shrimp

CUC: local snails, a few turbo snails and hermits

 

All fish eat flake/frozen. Over a period of about 2 weeks I trained the Green Mandarin to accept frozen foods. I also breed brine shrimp and feed freshly hatched brine shrimp every day. Also had took a while to train the bluestreak and bipartitus wrasse to accept prepared foods. All the fish have been in the tank for quite a while. The bluestreak, bipartitus and mandarin have all picked up weight in the the time they have been in the tank (about 4 months)

 

Corals:

Mixed reef. Softies, LPS, SPS, mini carpet nennies and a clam. Too many to list

 

Dosing:

All done manually. Daily dosing rates:

3.5ml Red Sea Nopox

3.5ml Red Sea Magnesium

4ml Brightwells Calcion Liquid

6g Seachem Reefbuilder powder

Also dose Aquavitro Fuel and Seachem Zooplankton twice a week

 

Levels are maintained as follows:

Ca: 450ppm

Kh: 10.0 dKH

Mg: 1380

No3: Undetectable on Salifert test kit

Salinity: 1.025

 

20 litre water water changes are done weekly using Red Sea Pro Coral Salt.

 

Well that's about all I can think of info wise...

 

 

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Really nice how many gallons is this, how's the mandarin doing?

Thanks

Its 130 litres, I think that's about 32 gallons?

Mandarin is doing really well. She has picked up weight nicely since I got her. Feed her prawn eggs, fish eggs and live brine shrimp. Also munches pods during the day.

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Cameron6796

Wow you must have some crazy filtration for 7 fish in that tank. And a leopard wrasse ... How's it doing they can be harder then mandarins

 

Sorry guess I shoulda asked how experienced are you have a lot of difficult fish.

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The Tunze 9004 skimmer is a great little beast. Have it set to skim very wet so it works very well with the NOPOX. I also run 250ml of purigen which is changed every 2 months. Run phosphate remover and carbon in a reactor, changed out every month. Blast off the liverock with a turkey baster every second day and blast them all off with a powerhead just before WC. NO3 is undetectable with the test kits I have. Nutrients are very low as macro algae no longer survives in my tank.

 

As for the difficult fish, yeah I enjoy a challenge. Getting a difficult species to thrive is a reward in itself.

Took about 3 weeks to get the leopard wrasse off live foods and onto frozen and flakes. The bluestreak was a bit of a luck, only took about a week to get it from frozen and onto flake aswell. They both getting rather plump, the bluestreak cleaner actually now the food pig of the tank.

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  • 2 months later...

Been a few months since I've updated this thread...

Tank is still doing well and approaching a point where I would like it to be.

Stocking list hasn't changed much over the last few months except for my yellow prawn goby vanishing and adding a royal gramma about 3 months ago after the goby disappeared.

 

2 x Snowflake Clowns

1 x Blue Streak Cleaner Wrasse

1 x Yellow Wrasse

1 x Royal Gramma

1 x Blue Star Leopard Wrasse (Bipartitus)

1 x Green Mandarin (still nice and fat and getting bigger by the day)

1 x Harlequin Shrimp (almost 2 inches long now, bought him for my pico when he was just under an inch)

1 x skunk cleaner shrimp

1 x peppermint shrimp

CUC: local snails, a few turbo snails and hermits

 

20141005 215122

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  • 7 months later...

7 months since I've done an update... about time then...

Tank looks a bit more grown in now. Haven't done a water change since the beginning of Decemeber.

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Current livestock is as follows:

 

Fish:

2 x snowflake clowns

1 x mandarin

1 x cleaner wrasse

1 x bipartitus wrasse

1 x midas blenny

1 x royal gramma

 

Inverts:

1 x harlequin shrimp

1 x cleaner shrimp

tons of turbo snails (breed like mad in the tank, constantly giving baby snails away)

collection of local hermits and snails

 

Current dosing:

Nopox (5ml a day)

Seachem reef builder

Seachem calcium

Seachem magnesium

Orca Labs Strontium

Orca Labs Iodide

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