Jump to content
ReefCleaners.org

Kyle's Reef - ~150g combined system


Kyl

Recommended Posts

You could most definitely get away with one light, just keep low light and softies on the sides. When I had my Fusion 10, after the nanobox problems and finally having to return it, we replaced it with the A160WE. Then about two months later, the opportunity for this brand new 20 came up really cheap and I jumped on it. The plan was to keep the 10 running as something else, so another A160 was purchased. That kind of fell apart, so the second light was moved to this tank. I just have a cheap par 38 over the 10 now, and have been using it as a quasi QT tank for corals and a holding tank for the fish I'm putting upstairs.

 

To sum up, I think the power of the Kessils are currently overkill, but I love the shimmer. If the forthcoming A80's were out and I was doing this again, I might have just gone with two of them.

Link to comment

Two Jaebo SW-2's ordered, we'll see if they're a good fit for the tank.

 

Things are continuing to improve as phosphates are now hovering between .027 - .031. I believe the GFO is working at keeping things stable after initially knocking PO4 down with lanthanum chloride use. I can see new growth on the surviving plating montiporas, the encrusting rainbow and the setosa frag, along with less algae growth overall.

 

Both clowns are actively being hosted by the rbta all day, but the female is ruling the roost and kicks the male out of it at night. No cozy anemone for him, just the couch (right side overflow)! The golden torch right next to the anemone seems to have halted it's wandering with no ill effects, so hopefully it stays put now. On the plus side, once I can get the acros to recover, it's opened up a nice spot for the best light conditions in the tank.

 

This weekend is going to be busy busy with the reboot of the 10 into a bare-bottom frag tank, and possibly a new tank-mate for the crew. :ninja:

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Got a tip last night that the LFS had just gotten Court Jester / Rainfords Gobies in. They seem to be very rare here vs the Hectors, and by the time I got there today there was one left. Acclimated very easily, chilled in the specimen box for a bit and then he went right to sifting. Sand should be full of all sorts of things for eating, so I hope he likes the tank.

 

Love the varied colours on this guy, just under 2" long.

 

30654808895_b8bf24680b_o.jpg

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Very pretty! Are they the ones that like cooler water?

 

I'm not at all sure. LFS water was 77, I keep mine at 78. Liveaquaria says 72-78, I guess we'll find out!

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Aaand there goes a $25 snack to the crabs. Looked completely fine since picking him up, gone when I got home. Now to hope it didn't bring anything else into the tank..

Link to comment

Think I'm done with new livestock in the tank, aside from the green banded gobies if the LFS ever actually orders them in (and i'll be QT'n them!). I do want to get 2-3 more sexy shrimp though, and possibly another porcelain crab now that the anemone is large enough and the clowns are hosting, so it will probably stay out.

 

I think this weekend will also be a good time to pick up replacement frags of the plating monti's that died. Still amazed at the growth rebound on most of the SPS since the phosphates got controlled, night and day.. Rainbow monti is a bright blue skeleton again with green / orange polyps, purple valida and pink lemonade are both encrusting more in a week than the past two months and the red planet is slowly recovering. SW-2's arrived tomorrow, so should be another weekend of tinkering.

  • Like 1
Link to comment

30150970444_a41308151f_o.jpg

 

First nitpick, as I'm not used to Jebao 0-10v control, why couldn't they just go with the standard 3.5mm male stereo connector... Going to have to hit the electronics store tomorrow and pick up a couple of DC barrel plugs and DIY up this leftover dual 0-10v 3.5mm stero jack harness that I had waiting.

30482102160_f86086845e_o.jpg

Link to comment
fishfreak0114

Glad to hear things are looking up! You'll have to give a review on the sw-2's once they're in your tank, I haven't been able to find many people using them yet.

Link to comment

Got the harness adapters made yesterday, and have spent some time playing with the apex profiles to get a very basic anti-sync pulse going. One thing that is weird with the Jebao controller is the 0-10v input seems to be processed backwards, 0v (0% in apex) = 100% pump power, 10v (100% in apex) = ~20% pump power, effectively off.

 

Anyway, both pumps are in the tank and the initial full power was too much, so they're running dialed down to about 1/3 power. I think these may end up being a perfect addition, the flow certainly has my plate, torch and aenome blowing in all different directions rather than the counter-clockwise it mostly was (with some erratic flow from the spin-stream nozzles added in).

 

So, for a less than day of use review I think these are going to work out, just hoping the anemone doesn't get too testy and start to move all over again. Days to come will be spent getting some flow patterns and different modes set-up, and finding the best position for these. The other big perk is I can move the MP10 to the 65gallon tank and mix things up a bit there. These weren't the cheapest even though they're Jebao, but I got them from a Canadian vendor that provides 1 year warranty and I don't have to worry about shipping, potential duty charges, brokerage fees or DOA's. So, I paid about $15 more per unit but get 1 year peace of mind. I think that's not such a bad deal..

  • Like 2
Link to comment

A few more days with these SW-2's and I'm less enthusiastic than initially, but I'm still happy with buying them. The MP10 is still in the tank as I haven't had much free time this week to continue playing with things so I don't want to go "AFK" crazy. These heads are only on when I'm home, still trying to fine tune the power profiles as one pump is quite noticeably weaker than the other. It's either a controller issue or the 0-10v port isn't functioning fully, but that's the gamble you take with something that doesn't have much in the way of quality control. I'm going to take the controller apart this weekend and see if I can track down the issue with my multi-meter.

 

They are definitely more bulk in the tank than an MP10, and aesthetically a downgrade. That said, the whole goal of this was more varied, changing flow and that's being achieved. Lots of detritus coming loose when in alternating pulse, and the pink streak wrasse seems much happier as I've never seen him zipping around the tank and pecking at the rock work as much as he is when they're on.

 

More DIY this weekend as my break out box PCB's arrived from OSHPark, the newer clowns and cleaner wrasse for the 65 are in final stages of QT and doing great. SPS still recovering, but dinos are slowly creeping back. Dosing some H²O² to try and knock it down, I really don't want that coming back..

 

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

So the SW-2’s are fully installed and have been running for the past week in some simple ramp / pulse / surge profiles. Both controllers are showing the same voltage output to the pump, so at this point I can only assume one of the pumps is mechanically performing below the other. If I were to estimate the flow reduction it would be around 15-20%, part of the reason Jebao is so cheap ;) Still happy with the decision, though I want to further investigate if the controllers can be ditched completely somehow as they’re simply pass-through at this point. I believe the other Jebao power heads have DIY methods available to achieve that already.

The anemone was not happy with the new flow and has made its way to just above the pink lemonade acro.. which I’m hoping won’t have to move it as it has encrusted very well in the crevice it’s glued in. I didn’t want to come home to another dead anemone as the MP10 had the foam cover, so I stitched some extra MP10 covers tighter to fit the SW-2’s. it The surviving montis still haven’t been re-mounted, nor have the replacements been picked up. Dinos are coming back, to the point I may have to black things out for a couple days. H²O² knocks it back for about half a day, but then it starts to come together again, so I'm going to switch tactics up. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone’s tank..

Now for a better tone, DIY weekend went well. I followed a thread on the Neptune forums for a break out box and had some PCB’s printed through OSHPark. Everything came in as of last Monday, so far one of the boxes has been completed and is working flawlessly. The best part about this, other than the price is not having a single shared ground terminal to deal with. If I was to do this again and could edit the layout, the pcb would be a bit wider to fit perfectly in these local plastic project boxes, and include the 6th port. Pin 6 is connected to the ground internally, so if the BOB cable gets pulled for whatever reason you can know right away and program outlets with that in mind. Total BOM was around $25 for each box since sourcing some things was a pain, but it was a neat little project.

 

31169139105_83e135d302_o.jpg

Link to comment

Clowns, blenny, wrasse.. Jester died on day 3, which I figure now was probably due to sifting the sand that was full of dinos. I had thought the sand was getting diatoms and figured it was a great time to luck upon the Jester for sifting duty, but the brown bubbly snot is now really all over the place and I have to believe dinos have been there all along now. It's probably the worst fight yet I've had with the tank and started to show shortly after I got the PO4 levels knocked down - another learning experience.

 

Given more thought I'll also assume it's why I also lost both cleaner gobies in the last number of weeks and some snail die-off. H²O² had seemed to temporarily knock things down but it's getting worse every day when I get home. Photo period was reduced from 10, to 8, and now 6 hours with no change, running double the carbon/gfo and changing frequently to try and stem anymore die-off while the fight takes place. Xenia has been the first casualty, it's slowly turning into a blob where the heads used to be and starts to disintegrate. Local guys are saying it's time to black the tank out for ~3 days, probably this weekend. Just hope the anemone doesn't get affected too much.

Link to comment
fishfreak0114

I recently got rid of my Dino's, they weren't awful to begin with but it did take some work. First, I blacked out the tank for 3 days and dosed h2o2 every night. Nothing was negatively affected. I then ran my lights at half intensity for a week and continued to dose peroxide. They haven't returned. I hope you can get rid of them!

Link to comment

Sorry to hear about the dinos, they can be really hard to get rid of :(

 

Good luck with the black out! The livestock should be fine, they are in the dark when they get shipped and it doesn't hurt them.

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Sorry to hear about the dinos, they can be really hard to get rid of :(

 

Good luck with the black out! The livestock should be fine, they are in the dark when they get shipped and it doesn't hurt them.

Running fresh carbon in the minimax reactors and will change it again tomorrow, so not too worried (about the dino die-off).. but still worried!

 

At least it's giving a bit of a break to do more research on stock for the 65. The LFS has in a really neat Red Elongated Dottyback that I hadn't seen before and from some research it appears to have a more peaceful temperament than usual for a dottyback. They also finally got tail-spot blennies in (haven't seen any in over 7 months), which would be a better fit for the 20 size wise, so the eventually larger bicolour could move up. I had wanted a Midas blenny, but at this point I haven't seen one locally since I've started. Thankfully a 20 long is setup now as a permanent QT tank, so I can grab fish I see finally come in.

 

Always changing the list, and there's not even any coral in that tank yet. Nothing's really set in stone other than the flame angel and eventually a mandarin, but I do want some yellow in the tank. No tangs or rabbitfish for this tank, so maybe the carpenter's wrasse will be be off the list and something yellow instead. Should probably make a build thread for it at this point..

QTY Name                      Binomial Name                Type

Current
2 Lyretail Anthias            Pseudanthias squamipinnis    Anthias
2 Ocellaris Clownfish         Amphiprion ocellaris         Clownfish
1 Bluestreak Cleaner Wrasse   Labroides dimidiatus         Wrasse

Future:  
1 Bicolor Blenny              Ecsenius bicolor             Blenny
1 Purple Firefish             Nemateleotris decora         Dartfish
1 Red Elongated Dottyback     Pseudochromis elongatus      Dottyback
1 Flasher Wrasse              Paracheilinus carpenteri     Wrasse
1 Flame Angel                 Centropyge loriculus         Dwarf Angelfish
1 Green Mandarin              Synchiropus splendidus       Dragonet
Link to comment

Sorry to hear about the Jester.

 

I recently got rid of some dinos as well. As fishfreak mentioned, I dosed 5-7ml (per 5 gallons of water) of h020 for about a week. My tank was only 5 gallons anyway.

 

I kept lights off and didn't completely black it out with towels and newspaper.

 

After about a week, most dinos went away. The ones that were left turned into an ugly grey and basically disintegrated.

 

That said, I took a risk as I was really following advice from a friend who knows about the hobby quite a bit. The reading that I did on my own about things like "ORP" I had really no idea what they were talking about so I'm glad it worked out for the best.

Link to comment
fishfreak0114

What store? J&L? I got my tailspot from them, it came with ich (the store seems to have a lot of that!) but it's healthy now and has the awesomest personality ever! :wub: And I must say, I'm so jealous that you live so close to actual stores, I have to go an hour and a half for salty stuff.

Link to comment

Yeah J&L, pretty much the only thing in town for salt. Our store selection for being such a 'big market' is pretty much the one store plus some random things at King Ed, Pet Lovers, Pauls in Surrey or Fish Addicts. Quality of livestock definitely suffers because of almost no competition.

 

I've never seen crypto manifest on the fish in my 20, but it's probably in there. The 65 I hope is 100% free, nothing shared has ever touched it and all the livestock has been QT'd (TTM + 20long stint for flukes). I often feel we're on the wrong side of the border for this hobby..

Link to comment
fishfreak0114

I like king eds, not for their saltwater fish though. They do have some interesting coral. And the freshwater fish are pretty great. And fish addicts, well that place has so many different types of fish it's hard not to love. Unfortunately when I went he was just getting the saltwater going and the selection was limited, but the prices seemed ok. I can't even tell you how many times I've wished I could get my livestock from the US. Think of all the online stores!!!

Link to comment

Lights on, everything looks great. Not a sign of any brown snot in the 20, minor amounts in the 10. Going to run with a reduced and mostly actinic lighting schedule for the next week or so and continue H²O² at night. For tonight at least, the tank looks clean.

 

Reading a lot of back and forth for do big water change or not, I might do a small one just to get some of the extra crud out.

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recommended Discussions

×
×
  • Create New...