Firefish's 10G rimless "The Island" - Tank transferred to 14g bow front

[Firefish15]

11 hours ago, mfield16 said:

Brings out the negative space, and actually makes it look bigger!

Almost like that’s the way it was supposed to be aquascape! I had it cluttered up for quite a while. 😅

 

Cyano is back. That took all of a day. At least it’s not so much on the left where the new power head is.

[Firefish15]

Got another piece of reef keeping equipment that I probably should have had a while ago: a temperature controller!

I went with the Inkbird ITC 308S, on recommendation of some others here on N-R. Setup was easy, and so far it seems to be working without a hitch. 
My 75W Cobalt Neotherm has been doing a great job, no fluctuations or anything. That being said, it is almost three years running. Can’t help but think that it’s a ticking bomb now. 

[mfield16]

Nice! I literally got 2 of these in yesterday. One is for my planted tank. I run 2 heaters on every tank I have, and split the heater plug so the Inkbird controls both. That way if one fails, the other one still runs for me. The backup heater is set 1° higher than the main, so I'm saving the backup from turning on and off constantly.  

[Firefish15]

@mfield16 Hey, that’s a decent plan! I’ll have to file that away for later use. 
 

Well, I was stirring my sandbed yesterday after sucking out some cyano with a turkey baster. I stirred a patch of brownish slime, not thinking much of it. Then I noticed the tell-tale snot strings hanging in the water

column. I think I may now be dealing with a dinoflagellates outbreak as well as the cyano. 
Been doing some reading, and I think this may also be stemming from my bottomed out nutrients. More research is needed.

At any rate, I’m not looking forward to dealing with this issue as well. 

[Firefish15]

Hey all! I think that I’ve been making some progress on the cyano. 
It has been about a week since I have stirred the sand bed or cleaned the glass. This is what I have now. There are still small patches, but nothing like the carpet there was before. 

 

There are still some patches of what is possibly dinoflagellates back here, but so far they don’t seem to be bothering anything.

 

I have been pretty diligent at trying to raise my nutrients to detectable levels. Been feeding Reef Roids every other day or so. 

I also got a second Hipargero Aquaknight set up over the tank for better spread. Between the two of them, I should also be able to illuminate my planned upgrade tank as well. Also got in a new 100W Cobalt Neotherm, still sitting in the box. At this point, I have pretty much all the equipment I need to upgrade to the IM 25 lagoon. Just a bit more patience and saving until I buy the tank and stand itself!

 

[Firefish15]

Hey all! 
Been a little while. Yesterday I took in some more frags to my LFS and cleaned things up a little bit. I didn’t even buy any new coral, just some more frozen food! 😆

 

I also got a Nannochloropsis phytoplankton culture that I’ve been dosing daily. That should help compete with the cyano with the other measures I’ve been taking. 
 

Tested some parameters yesterday.

Ca: 450ppm

Alk: 8.5dKh

NO3: ~0

PO4: Trace

 

Didn’t change water, just scraped glass and turkey basted the rockwork. 
More Reef Roids! 
 

I have some bubble algae that’s spreading unfortunately. The little female emerald isn’t keeping up, so have been manually removing when I see it.

[Christopher Marks]

Good to see the cyano is almost beat @Firefish15!

[Firefish15]

Hey, thanks @Christopher Marks! I’m glad I tried natural methods and didn’t nuke the tank with chemi-clean. The forum was helpful in that decision. 🙂

[Firefish15]

Well, I’ve had the upgrade bug for a while. I started with this small budget tank, and I’m very pleased with how it’s gone. I’ve been considering the IM Nuvo Fusion 25g lagoon, which would be quite a jump in terms of hardware aesthetics and volume. A decent bit of money to drop though. 

And then I started looking at bigger tanks, particularly the IM Nuvo Fusion 50g lagoon. I mean, if I am going to pull the trigger on something, the 50g and stand is only $300 more than the 25g.

 

I don’t know, what are people’s thoughts? It would be a jump out of the nano realm for sure. Are 50g AIO tanks feasible? Or should I be looking for a sump at that volume?

[DGibster]

2 hours ago, Firefish15 said:

Well, I’ve had the upgrade bug for a while. I started with this small budget tank, and I’m very pleased with how it’s gone. I’ve been considering the IM Nuvo Fusion 25g lagoon, which would be quite a jump in terms of hardware aesthetics and volume. A decent bit of money to drop though. 

The Nuvo 25 is a fine tank that I would love to upgrade into at some point. If you have the money and space, I say go for it.

[Firefish15]

Well, woke up last night to the Inkbird giving me a low temperature alert. Between that and a warm plastic smell, I figured out that the heater was shot. 
 

 

No obvious signs of damage to it, cracks or melting or anything. 
I got almost three years of use out of this 75W Cobalt Neotherm, so not unhappy with it. As far as a failure goes, it was pretty benign. Tank dropped to 74F for a few hours, and then was brought back up by the new heater. 
 

Thankfully I recently bought the 100W version for my eventual upgrade to a bigger tank. Glad to have that on hand. It doesn’t fit in the HOB filter though, so it’s sitting in the display for now.

[Firefish15]

Well, it’s still too early to declare total victory over the cyanobacteria, but I am extremely happy with the progress made so far. 
It has been a few weeks since I have stirred or siphoned the sand bed, but I still only have a few isolated patches of cyano left. I cleaned the glass yesterday, and things are looking good! A little bare in a few patches from trading in some bigger corals, but it’ll fill back in. 
 

[dferrari13]

On 2/28/2021 at 3:49 PM, Firefish15 said:

Well, woke up last night to the Inkbird giving me a low temperature alert. Between that and a warm plastic smell, I figured out that the heater was shot. 
 

 

No obvious signs of damage to it, cracks or melting or anything. 
I got almost three years of use out of this 75W Cobalt Neotherm, so not unhappy with it. As far as a failure goes, it was pretty benign. Tank dropped to 74F for a few hours, and then was brought back up by the new heater. 
 

Thankfully I recently bought the 100W version for my eventual upgrade to a bigger tank. Glad to have that on hand. It doesn’t fit in the HOB filter though, so it’s sitting in the display for now.

This makes me nervous cause my neo therm is about 5 years old and still kicking....but as electrician I know, all things will fail eventually

[dferrari13]

What's that spinstream attached to?

[Firefish15]

9 hours ago, dferrari13 said:

What's that spinstream attached to?

Just a cheap little pump. 
 

https://www.amazon.com/Homasy-Upgraded-Submersible-Water-Burning/dp/B078XQ3FCL/ref=asc_df_B078XQ3FCL/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=241884620788&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16832113385121663092&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9033284&hvtargid=pla-456081066852&psc=1

 

I’m not a fan of how long the whole contraption is, but I did need just a little bit of dispersed flow.

[TatorTaco]

Did you make a decision on the Lagoon 25 vs 50?  I've had the same considerations myself. 

[Firefish15]

1 hour ago, TatorTaco said:

Did you make a decision on the Lagoon 25 vs 50?  I've had the same considerations myself. 

I’m still a ways from having enough saved up for either, but seeing as how I already have all the equipment for the 25, I’m thinking of going that direction. I’m a young adult still, so my living arrangements may change semi-frequently as well. Moving the 25 will be easier. And it’ll still be an awesome boost to volume and aesthetics. 
Possible frag tank down the road? 🤨

[Firefish15]

Well, been a bit of ups and downs lately. I did manage to find a pretty good deal on a used IM25 lagoon and an unfinished live edge stand. 

 

Unfortunately, while driving it back to Washington, my wife and I were in a car wreck. Nobody was hurt thankfully, but the car and new aquarium took a beating. 

 

So that was pretty discouraging. The 10g was a bit neglected for about a month, and the cyano started coming back. 
 

I’ve started cleaning up the 10g again, and things are looking decent. 
I also bought a new 14.3 gallon bow front that will be the new upgrade tank! 

 

Overall, I’m really excited to get this new tank outfitted with all of the new gear I’m planning! I’m not changing my reefing philosophy at all, still sticking with all-natural filtration and hardy critters. However, I’ll be changing some things that I’ve wanted to for a while, in terms of equipment and aesthetics.

 

Expect more updates to follow!

[debbeach13]

Glad no one was hurt. Is the tank still usable?

[Firefish15]

2 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Is the tank still usable?

I haven’t had the chance to leak test it, since both the tank and car are still stuck out of state.
It didn’t shatter, but one of the bottom corners of the front pane is cracked pretty heavily. I just decided that I don’t want that time bomb in my living room.  

[Tony Bologna]

Sorry to hear about the accident. I'm glad nobody was seriously injured. That is terrible luck with the new tank. I really like the looks of the new bow front tank and can't wsit to see what you do with it.

[Firefish15]

Yeah! Lots of equipment planned.
 

So for starters, I’m going to take the time to apply a permanent background to the 14g. On the 10, I just used a cheap sheet background held on with Vaseline. It’s now peeling and has looked terrible for a year or two. On some freshwater tanks of mine, I used Plasti-Dip spray to do a black background, and that has held up so much better and looks a lot nicer. Nice matte black finish that doesn’t reflect too much. 
 

Then for filtration, I’m still going to use my AC70. I really like the flow and volume, and how I can hide my 75W heater in the filter box. Now though, I’ve ordered a magnetic overflow kit from Oceanbox Designs. This will help with anthelia fronds getting sucked into the intake, as well as take care of the surface scum that I’ve had to manually remove during water changes. 
In conjunction with the overflow, I’ll also be putting my Smart Micro ATO into service, since the gravity fed bottle ATO won’t work with the overflow box. 
 

For flow, I got really tired of the IM SpinStream. It was a pain to take apart and clean, which it needed fairly often in my experience. Too many moving parts. I actually stabbed myself in the palm with a flathead screwdriver trying to pry it open (and the SS broke). User error perhaps, but it still soured me on it. 

Now I’ll be trying the Jebao SOW-3 for flow. I leak tested the new aquarium and function tested the wave maker. So far, I really like it. Moves an impressive amount of water, nice sine wave function, and it was more quiet than the AC70. We’ll see how the corals respond to that increase in flow. Maybe the wave maker longevity won’t be the best, but for $50 seems worth a shot. I’ll keep it clean at least, much easier to take apart than the SpinStream. 

 

For lighting, I’m going to stick with the pair of Hipargero Aquaknights. This new tank is long enough that they’ll both fit mounted on the back wall, which will be a good change from the current arrangement. The AC70 should be able to nestle in between the two mounts just fine.

 

I will start a new journal soon!

[Firefish15]

Well, I came back after a week’s vacation to find the tank blanketed with cyano again. Not as bad as back in January, but that’s still a little disappointing. My sister kept fish fed and ATO topped off, and that’s all I asked her to do.
The little 80gph power head pooped out while I was gone, and the cat managed to turn off one of the lights. 
I cleaned the glass, turkey basted the rocks, and spot removed big sheets of cyano. 
Also installed the Jebao SOW-3, and it has things MOVING. It’s on the lowest setting in sine wave mode, pointed up to the surface and into a corner. I don’t think I can get the flow any lower, so hopefully things will adapt. 
Overall, tank is not looking fantastic at the moment. Parameters look decent, salinity at 1.025, Alk at 8.5, calcium at 400. Nutrients bottomed out again. Need more feeding.

  

[billygoat]

On 8/1/2021 at 8:43 PM, Firefish15 said:

Unfortunately, while driving it back to Washington, my wife and I were in a car wreck. Nobody was hurt thankfully, but the car and new aquarium took a beating. 

I am not sure what part of this is more of a tragedy - the damage to the tank, or the damage to your car (it's your car; I just hate to see an aquarium get damaged! 😅). Really glad to hear that you are switching things up with a new system despite the setback though. I will be sad to see this little 10g tank go (I set up my first system at about the same time as you set up this one, so it has a special significance for me), but I am excited to see what you do with the new bowfront tank. Keep us posted! 

[Firefish15]

13 hours ago, billygoat said:

I just hate to see an aquarium get damaged!

My wife was mortified, she was the one driving. The aquarium was pretty low on the list though, all things considered.

13 hours ago, billygoat said:

will be sad to see this little 10g tank go

Don’t think of the 10g as “going”. Think of it as a forward progression, similar to your 18 and new 40g! The rockscape, livestock, and reefing philosophy are all staying the same. Moto Moto is still around! 😄

Really, this is just an equipment and aesthetic facelift.