Official Lifegard Aquatics Crystal (AIO) Aquarium Club!!

[Dpatron1977]

Not sure what size it was. I can see if I can get a pic tonight. My wife does nails and had a small diamond bit that fit in the weir. I just took it slow and removed material till the weirs were an even thicknes all the way through. If the bit is too big it will have a tendency to bounce or bind up. 

[itsamaybe]

14 hours ago, Dpatron1977 said:

Not sure what size it was. I can see if I can get a pic tonight. My wife does nails and had a small diamond bit that fit in the weir. I just took it slow and removed material till the weirs were an even thicknes all the way through. If the bit is too big it will have a tendency to bounce or bind up. 

Nice makes sense. I think I have a few small diamond bits for my drill. When the tank arrives I could always just see if one fits easily in the weir and go from there.

[ReefahBarra84]

Let's not Let this Club disappear! 

I'm moving into a new place at the end of the month, and once I'm settled in. I'll be doing a coral growout setup. How's everyone's tanks going? Post up pics! And any other reef related conten! GO GO GO. 

[dwdenny]

Mine seems to be doing pretty good. Here a full tank shot. 

Have on order a neon green frogspawn and a teal frogspawn. Can’t wait to receive them

Wednesday/Thursday. Will post more picture soon. Also looking to upgrade to a 50g IM Lagoon EXT in the future.  Working on the aluminum stand in my shop next week as well. 

[ReefahBarra84]

Yeah, since I've been working with so many different reef systems the past 3 years,  I've learned that each tank is like it's own individual ocean. That's why some things work is some tanks, where in others  they don't. 

Your  tank is definitely sweet tho!

[dwdenny]

19 minutes ago, ReefahBarra84 said:

Yeah, since I've been working with so many different reef systems the past 3 years,  I've learned that each tank is like it's own individual ocean. That's why some things work is some tanks, where in others  they don't. 

Your  tank is definitely sweet tho!

Here is an updated full tank shot. 

[Randall S Simpson]

Here is my 4.1g Lifegard, as you can see I'm having some hair algae issues.  The tailspot blenny has helped a ton but IF I feed the tank he ignores the algae.  So it is my fault in the end.

 

A few things I have noticed looking at these tanks over the past year in all my LFS is that they all have the wrong strainer fitting for the bottom input (3/4" instead of 1/2") and they all have the 400 pump I've not seen one 200 version, they just twisted the valve to turn the 400 pump down.  So if you need more flow check that first.  

 

I went with the only adjustable heater I could find that would fit and allow for water changes without unplugging it, Hygger 50W mini, it is 5" tall!  Replaced the stock pump with some unknown brand from amazon along with a Tunze 5024.040 pump in the bottom right corner.  That gave me the flow I was looking for.  I settled for a Lominie LED Astro 20.

 

I have a giant patch of hair algae I just keep trimmed, the blenny sleeps on it and the pistol shrimp is right under it.

 

So I have a peppermint shrimp to control those stupid anemones, a bumble bee shrimp to eat the asterina starfish (I have watched them eat the starfish, but they eat other things too so don't expect to replace a Harlequin with 10 bumble bees.  Now in a 4g 1-3 bumble bees are not only funny to watch but will do a good job at controlling them.  Lastly the pistol shrimp and the tailspot blenny.

 

My Phosphates, ammonia, NO2 and NO3 all read zero with the test kits I'm using, likely due to the hair algae + water changes.  I remove more debris than I'm putting in at this point, every day I have less algae and feed the blenny less as he/she is figuring out what these pellets that fall from the sky are for.

 

[Randall S Simpson]

The Zoas and Duncan are open now, and this is what the tanks looks like after the lights have been on for a few hours.  So many bubbles coming off the hair algae.  The blenny likes to rest or sleep on the thermometer mounted in there.  

[dwdenny]

Looks good. What other clean up crew do you have for the GHA? 

[Randall S Simpson]

I don't recall I went with one of the mini packs from reefcleaners, I know I have 2 female emerald crabs and a lettuce sea slug.  Alot of the snails liked the floor more than my tank so the smaller snails are gone.  Once the algae gets to producing oxygen bubbles it is easy to remove manually, but I think that the extra oxygen is worth the mess.  That and the blenny picks at the algae most of the day.  Probably why she/he is so fat.

[Retrograde_i486]

Here's my 24 gallon tank, home to Lord Vlad Tepfish the betta

[danieyella]

I haven't posted mine in awhile, here's where we're at:

 

[Dpatron1977]

Unfortunately due to some miss-judjments on my part the 10g is no more. I totally scratched up the front glass to the point I could not get the algae out of said scratches. Looked awful. The tank remains as a quarantine/holding tank. I was fortunate to be able to upgrade. IM.30l

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

On 9/1/2021 at 8:25 AM, danieyella said:

I haven't posted mine in awhile, here's where we're at:

Ha I was actually just skimming through your journal on the other forum. Looking good! 

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

29 minutes ago, Dpatron1977 said:

Unfortunately due to some miss-judjments on my part the 10g is no more. I totally scratched up the front glass to the point I could not get the algae out of said scratches. Looked awful. The tank remains as a quarantine/holding tank. I was fortunate to be able to upgrade. IM.30l

Bummer mate. But an IM30 is a nice upgrade for sure! (haha probably has better flow too 🤪)

[japsche]

Hi, I'm setting up a 24 and got a Hygger titanium heater/ controller. 

The heater paperwork stresses that it should be mounted horizontally.

It will fit in the overflow diagonally or horizontally  behind the rock in the display.

I would prefer to keep it in the overflow.

Thoughts?

 

 

 

[banasophia]

On 9/1/2021 at 7:25 AM, danieyella said:

I haven't posted mine in awhile, here's where we're at:

 

Wowwww that is gorgeous. Do you have a journal? I’d love to see more about it!!

[banasophia]

4 hours ago, japsche said:

Hi, I'm setting up a 24 and got a Hygger titanium heater/ controller. 

The heater paperwork stresses that it should be mounted horizontally.

It will fit in the overflow diagonally or horizontally  behind the rock in the display.

I would prefer to keep it in the overflow.

Thoughts?

 

 

 

Really hard for me to tell what we’re looking at in the pics. Does the heater have to be fully submerged? Is that a crack in the bottom of the chamber? 

[japsche]

5 hours ago, banasophia said:

Really hard for me to tell what we’re looking at in the pics. Does the heater have to be fully submerged? Is that a crack in the bottom of the chamber? 

It’s hard to get a usable pic of the overflow- the top of the heater is well below the waterline.

I’m just wondering why they say it must be horizontal and can’t find any information about this.

Thanks for your response.

[japsche]

Settled on the aquascape for my 24.

[Randall S Simpson]

Here is my original 4.1 gallon after the freeze that caused  us to go without power for a few days in the middle of winter and almost everything died.  Some Bristle worms, tube fan worms, a few hermit crabs, some snails, and 2 patches of Zoa's were all that made it.  I left it alone doing very little until the last few months.  Pulled a rock out every couple of day looking for snails/hermits/whatnot then tossed the rock.  If you are wondering why I tossed the rock well here it is.  Easily 18"+ came out of a 4.1g tanks and it was very strong.  Got all the rock out and cleaned the sand looking for more worms, there may be some in the back I have not redone that part yet it is on my todo list.

 

Sorry about the bad photos but my hands shake 🙂  I still have some rockwork todo and the plug racks are just there for a little while one of the Duncan will stay.  I'm planning on some sexy shrimp maybe 5-7 and a smaller trimma, goby, or blenny bonded pair would be perfect.

[japsche]

My tank is cycling now.

I opened up the return slits with a diamond bit like some people here have talked about. I'm pretty handy with stuff like that but I cracked the corner of the overflow divider so I would suggest caution if you want to do that. I got lucky and was able to superglue it in back together.

Otherwise the flow of the filtration/return is no problem.

I also read about the Quiet One pump and the Tunze 6040 being noisy. Maybe I got lucky but this thing is dead silent so I'm happy so far.

[Andrew561]

 

This tank has been running for a couple years. The top rock is over a decade old. I have many bristle stars in the rocks, some bristle worms that come out at night, snails, hermit, and have started stocking it with corals. I recently added a second HD Prime which I am very pleased with. 

[Randall S Simpson]

Added a tailspot blenny, a rock anemone and 7 sexy shrimp.  Also an In-Tank basket, should save me a lot of time changing filter floss, plus a 1/2" random flow generator from Vivid Creative Aquatics.  Cut some Bonsai soil mesh to make the input slots on the top of the tank smaller so the shrimp don't go to the back of the tank.  The first photo is from 2 of the shrimp constantly hanging around my Duncan, if they don't stop soon I'll have to move the Duncan to another tank.

[Mechanic Max]

I don’t know if this was mentioned yet but I have been doing a lot of research on what protein skimmer would fit in my heater basket on my lifeguard 24.9 gallon.  I went with red devil nano-150.  If fits great and working good.  I almost went with the icecap nano skimmer but this one was about half the price. Anywa fits good even with my heater in there also.