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Coral Vue Hydros

Luke's 20 Gallon Simple Reef Tank


Luke78

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The ammonia cycled through just fine and I'm sure that the organics will be no problem. The tank is now starting to cloud again, this time it is a different type of clouding. The water is now just overall cloudy all the time now and the light cycle does not change the cloudiness like it used to. I guess its time for me to wait out another ugly period 🤷‍♂️

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  • 1 month later...

As you may have noticed, I took a break from posting because some pretty crappy stuff happened in the tank. I am pretty sure that I have the water quality back on the right track. I have not done anything major to the tank and I look forward to updating my progress here in the coming months and years. I will post a formal update later tomorrow night and hopefully some of you guys can help me out with a few of the problems that I'm experiencing. 

 

 

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I was not able to post this last night because of some internet complications.

 

 

I don't have the time tonight to write a full update, but I will give the basic things that happened when I was not posting. The cloudiness never resolved itself and has yet to go away, but it does seem to have started declining within the past few days. A bug crawled into my tank and died without me knowing it and caused the water to smell like sulfur and it still does, thankfully none of my snails died as a result. The incident conveniently happened when I had just ran out of salt, so now I am waiting for some more salt to come in (I'll make sure to have an emergency stash for future use) so that I can change the water. The sand seems to have started clumping together on the top layer and it looks pretty unappealing.  Everything the tank keeps on being coated in a white layer, like when I first added the live sand. Could any of you give me some advice on this.

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More flow, and make sure your filter has some sponges or the like that can catch the stuff that gets blown into it. 

 

Activated charcoal for the bug death. Any idea what kind of bug it was? Stinkbug? 

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Huh, the sulfur smell is odd then. Was it an especially big one? I had a couple of baby roaches get into my shrimp tank and die, and it sure didn't produce a sulfur smell. They were kinda small, though. 

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This was no baby, it was probably about 2 inches long. The tank is actually quite clear today and the light has been running for almost 12 hours now and that came as a surprise to me because  the light usually makes the tank get progressively cloudier. The smell is starting to clear up as well. It looks like things are starting to get back on track now. I would take a picture, but my stupid self left my phone at school and I won't be able to take a picture with that, but I might try and take one with a camera that I have.

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I just set up my hob filter again and found an unused filter sponge pad as well as an unused filter floss pad in my storage cabinet. Hopefully this will help with the detritus problem that I have been having. I will start running carbon as soon as a find a mesh bag to run it through. The tank is slightly cloudy today, which is better than what it usually is, but I would love to see it clear up. I plan to combat the cloudiness by doing a large water change as soon as I get my hands on some salt next week. 

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Today, I started running carbon again (4tbsp of REEF-SPEC Carbon) and hopefully it will strip excess nutrients while I am waiting on salt to come in. Right now, I'm also struggling with powerhead placement and would like some input on where to place it so that I can minimize dead places (my rock-scape is still the same). The powerhead is a Aqueon 500 and it says that it turns 500 gallons per hour. Would it just be better to ditch the one I have and get two smaller powerhead or can I place it in such a way that dead space will be minimized? Film algae is coming back now that the tank lights are on again and I will probably order some sort of a reef cleaner pack. The pack for a 20 long at reefcleaners.org seems far to large for the tank size and it seems that many of the animals that come with it would starve to death in my tank. Could one of you recommend a pack or even a specific crew that would be a sufficient size for my tank, but not too large?

 

Edit: I also meant to ask where a good place to buy macro algae is. 

Edited by Luke78
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Reefcleaners is good for macroalgae. I'd say look at their 20gal pack, decide what seems appropriate in comparison, and order those things individually. He sends way more than you order on a lot of the smaller things. Maybe just order some dwarf ceriths and a couple of algae-grazers that you think are neat, like a limpet or one of those barb-shelled snails they have now.

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How does this sound for a cuc?

-8 dwarf ceriths

-2-3 Florida ceriths

-3 Nassarius Vibex

-2-3 Fly Speckled Ceriths

-2 limpets

 

+my pre-existing cuc of 3 snails

 

It seems like a lot, do you think that I should cut down on the amount?

Edited by Luke78
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Keep in mind, many of these are small animals that don't eat much. Sounds okay to me, and you could always email the ReefCleaners guy to ask. 

 

How much algae do you have? Multiple kinds all over the place, or just a thin layer of film algae? You don't really want to be getting algae-eaters for nothing but film algae, they'll eat it all pretty quick. And keep in mind, you should never have 0 algae. That starves your critters (including pods), and leaves the situation open for any introduced pest algaes to go hog wild. The goal of the algae-eaters is to put a dent in the algae and keep it from overgrowing/outcompeting your stuff, not to keep the tank spotless.

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43 minutes ago, Tired said:

How much algae do you have? Multiple kinds all over the place, or just a thin layer of film algae? You don't really want to be getting algae-eaters for nothing but film algae, they'll eat it all pretty quick. And keep in mind, you should never have 0 algae. That starves your critters (including pods), and leaves the situation open for any introduced pest algaes to go hog wild. The goal of the algae-eaters is to put a dent in the algae and keep it from overgrowing/outcompeting your stuff, not to keep the tank spotless.

Its just film algae right now. Thank you for the information, I'm starting to get a better understanding of a clean up crew's purpose now. 

 

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50 lbs of salt is coming in tomorrow and I will do a 50% water change since the water has not been changed for a few weeks. I will update the thread after the wc.

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1 minute ago, Luke78 said:

50 lbs of salt is coming in tomorrow and I will do a 50% water change since the water has not been changed for a few weeks. I will update the thread after the wc.

Just wanted to chime in and offer my continued support! I really admire your perseverance so far. Giving up after a few early defeats is super easy in this hobby, but you've demonstrated that you are in it to win it. 😁 I hope things clear up and stabilize soon!

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I would like to take a moment and thank all of you who have supported me throughout this journey. There were times that I came very close to quitting, but thanks to the support of everyone on this thread, I have been inspired to continue and persevere through the tough times. It really helps to see that you guys genuinely care about my tank. Once again, I give all of you my deepest thanks for your support.

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Since you have a lot of salt, you should be sure to mix the salt itself before making any water with it. Salt can settle when left to sit in a large batch, so you want to stir your bucket/bag/whatever to be sure that all the different particles of things are evenly distributed. 

 

Here's hoping things continue to go well!

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1 hour ago, Tired said:

Since you have a lot of salt, you should be sure to mix the salt itself before making any water with it. Salt can settle when left to sit in a large batch, so you want to stir your bucket/bag/whatever to be sure that all the different particles of things are evenly distributed. 

 

Here's hoping things continue to go well!

Oops, I meant to say 30 lbs. Its also coming in two 15 lb bags, but I'll make sure to mix it anyways.

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I did a nitrate test today and it came out at <10. I am going to try and get a pair of clowns this weekend and maybe a soft coral. There isn't much of a difference, but here is a pic of the tank about 48 hours after the wc. It may be a little more clear, I'm not sure though. Do any of you have some coral recommendations? The light is a Fluval Marine and Reef 2.0.

 

 

 

 

20200209_214605.jpg

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6 minutes ago, Luke78 said:

I did a nitrate test today and it came out at <10. I am going to try and get a pair of clowns this weekend and maybe a soft coral. There isn't much of a difference, but here is a pic of the tank about 48 hours after the wc. It may be a little more clear, I'm not sure though. Do any of you have some coral recommendations? The light is a Fluval Marine and Reef 2.0.

<10 seems pretty good for nitrates! My tank runs at a whole lot higher than that to be honest. 😂

 

Zoanthids, mushrooms, and leathers such as Sarcophyton or Capnella are good choices for starter corals. I'd just get one to start, and see how it fares. If it seems to do well you can begin to add other things from there.

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Thank you! Do you have any experience with the Aquatic Life RO buddie RO/DI system. I'm getting pretty tired of buying distilled water from Walmart and I feel like the cost for buying water will soon outweigh the cost of an RO/DI system. Also, I feel pretty wasteful throwing away all of those gallon jugs.

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21 minutes ago, Luke78 said:

Thank you! Do you have any experience with the Aquatic Life RO buddie RO/DI system. I'm getting pretty tired of buying distilled water from Walmart and I feel like the cost for buying water will soon outweigh the cost of an RO/DI system. Also, I feel pretty wasteful throwing away all of those gallon jugs.

I have not personally used this RO/DI system, but if the price is right and the reviews are good I would say that it's probably a good long-term investment for your tank. Finding a reliable source of high-quality fresh water is definitely a critical part of this hobby. 👍

 

Another alternative would be to source your water from a water machine instead of buying individual jugs of distilled water. For the past year I have been purchasing water from the Sparkletts machine outside my local supermarket ($0.35 per gallon), and it's been working out pretty well for me. I have a 5 gallon BPA-free water jug (made by Reliance) which I fill at the machine once every two weeks or so. I keep my RO water in a 20 gallon Hefty trash can and use it to mix saltwater as needed. The water from the machine generally tests at around 10 TDS, which is pretty good by my standards (and certainly a lot better than my tap water, which is up around 150 TDS).

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I'm pretty sure they're widely considered inaccurate, at least for the nitrate cycle tests. A combination of the unreliability of the shake-liquid-into-water method and the difficulty of reading it properly. 

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