Waterbox Peninsula Mini 15G Renaissance - Photo heavy

[rimga123]

I explored the cheapskate way, as I always initially do, but got disappointed when I couldn't find a single nicrew or similar second hand unit.
Ireland is a small country and we are very limited with our options. There are always good deals in UK, but after brexit it became a hassle - not worth financially to be shipping anything over from them. 

But we do have a couple of primes and couple of hydras for sale. So that's why i am learning towards them. Radions dont seem to pop up that often either, but hoping to see them more often now that g6 came out.

How would you rate your Nicrew lights? growth, build quality and how does it make the tank look color wise ( if you had anything else to compare it with)

[A.m.P]

Growth isn't usually a light issue imo.

They actually look quite good, it's a nice spectrum and they have a decent amount of "pop".

Quality-wise I haven't had any issues so far but all my tanks have lids so evaporation and salt creep aren't an issue.

I also mounted them quite high above the tank to get as much spread as possible, in order to keep them level I needed to shim the bracket with thin plastic. I also had to cut the back 6" or so off the bracket in order to place the tank close to the wall (I can confirm the bracket is solid aluminum because I sawed it by hand).

As far as build quality goes they're solid machined blocks of aluminum with just enough plastic to hide it and I appreciate that.

[rimga123]

Thats sounds pretty good alright. Might go for them. I would be hanging them quite high as well. Thank you for your input on all of this. I will be on a lookout for some deals on these lights

 

[rimga123]

A quick pictureless update.

A deal camu up that I couldnt pass.

4 heads of dragon soul torch

Good size frag of milipora (cant remember which, will update later)

Good size frag of green stag

And a working AI hydra 26, with two spare LED pucks, and a spare power board. Just the lenses need to be changed and I need to figure out how to mount it and would ideally want to get some sort of diffuser for it.

Everything for just 200quid.

I did a bit of rescaping on my hammer garden.

Hopefully i'll find time to take some photos tomorrow.

Free space wise, i have none left. I think that I am pushing my limits now.

Will probay start selling some corals, to reduce the colony size.

Overall I am happy how tank looks now, and i believe that i used most of the space wisely.

A bit afraid to get the new lights setup, just in case i throw everything off balance.

[rimga123]

A phew photos attached.

New torch coral

 

"New and improved" hammer "garden"

The one on the bottom right gets twice the size when he's happy, so I think that I'll sell half of it 

 

New acros

 

I broke millepora off its base by accident, so now I have to find somehwere to put the base on.

 

Really strugling for space now.

I Think that I am pretty much finished with corals, might only add some zoas or rics.

 

Full tank 

 

Don't really like taking photos with a phone, I always get this purple'ish hue.

And proportions seem a bit scewed. So maybe next week I'll dust off my DSLR again.

No deaths since last post, parameters have been stable.

I have ordered a hanging kit for the hydra, but struggling to find replacement lenses.

[rimga123]

So quick Update.

 

I have finally received my hanging kit for the hydra 26HD, but I am still waiting for my replacement lenses, they should come in any day now.

I decided to get the hydra mounted anyway and just replace the lenses once they arrive. So far I am not too impressed with it.. its nice having all the controlability, but I am struggling to get the color spectrum that I want, most preset that i found are wayyyyy to blue for my liking. But I will just keep working towards it till I find what works for me.

The spread is terrible, I get so many dark dark shadows and both sides of the tank are quite dark in comparison when I was running my blackbox, its mounted quite high too. I don't understand how people manage to run one Prime over these tanks, especially the 25gallon version of this tank.

I am running hydra at around 75w capacity right now at its peak, from what I was reading, I was hoping to run it at around 50% or even less, but it seemed too low. also with all shadows and darker sides, tank itself does not look as bright as it use to. Which I also do not enjoy.. I will have to get some sort of diffuser DIY made for sure.

I don't have a par meter, but I took my Blackbox Lux readings with my phone at the water level and tried to match it.

Blackbox lux readings - left side of the tan 8600, middle 18500, right side 14000.

Hydra lux readings - left side 7000, middle 20000, right side 10000.

 

may not be the best way, but better than nothing, will borrow a par meter eventually. 

As you can see, where both led pucks cross beams, I get more LUX, which is fine, because there are only some sps corals down under there, so I am sure that they will enjoy more light, was just thinking that my new acros would love some more light.

but it significantly drops at the side, of which I am not a fan of.

It looks better in the photo than it actually is, but at least you can see how high above the tank the light is.

 

 

 

All in all, not too happy with the light. But I will try to work with it in the mean time and see where i get.

 

now that I finished ranting about the hydra.

Ever since I added the dragon soul torch, my nutrient levels started to plummet . Maybe just a coincidence, maybe it's just one of those corals that loves to uptake them.

Most coral seem fine, but all the torches are not looking well, one of the indo gold torch heads started to have some tissue recession, Dragon soul barely have any polyp extension and the green torch is just looking "flat".

Dinos appeared and now even with heavy frozen + pellets, + reef roids feeding I cannot get my nutrients to detectable levels with my test.

I am still using salifert  No3 and Po4 tests. Plan is to get hanna checkers once the Christmas bonus clears.

In the mean time I have ordered these, they should be with me tomorrow.

 

After starting dosing the above, I am not sure how will I go about my nutrient problem after I get everything back withing the range. I don't want to be stuck dosing nitrates and phosphates daily, Might get more fish, but I do not have much room for them.

 

 

[rimga123]

Hi all

I am still battling dinos. I Tried to identify them with a cheap 40-100x digital "microscope" thingy-mcbob

But it just wouldnt magnify enough. I could only see that in fact they are some sort of dinos.

Took me good 4 days to rise the phosphates, which are now in between 0.25-0.5 according to salifert test

And Nitrates are at around 10-25

Nitrates stayed up after the second dose and I havent had to dose phosphates now for 3 days.

I have also got an UV filter for couple of weeks from a local reefing club. Not sure how powerful it is, but its rated for ~100liter tanks or so i have been told.

I also dose 5ml of peroxide after lights go off (maybe an hour or so after they go off) and 5ml in the morning before work while the lights are still off.

I have been manually blowing off dinos every day and changing the filter floss every couple of hours after blowing dinos off.

I have also not cleaned the glass, just a tiny bit to check on my gold torch which was not doing well. More on that later.

All in all I do see a big imprivement in dino situation. Was hoping that increasing the nutrient levels + dosing hydrogen would be enough, it may have stopped it from spreading or at least reducing the rate of spread, I wasnt finding my tank in worse and worse condition every day. But the UV was a game changer, i have UV on for 2 days now and it made the biggest improvement. Today i could barely find any patches of dino on the usual places like sand or glass or gorgonians.

And the glass has a green tint algae instead of brown

I will keep runing Uv for the next week.

 

And on the healt of my corals. Sps, zoas, shrooms and acans didint seem effected much if at all. But my torches and hammers looked deflated and polyp extension was poor, especially for torches.

Kh, ca and magnesium seemed within the normas

Kh at around 8, calcium 400-420, mag 1400

So i blamed it on the lack of nutrients in the water. After increasing the nutrients it seemed like corals were doing a tad bit better but they havent recovered to a level that i expected. 

At this stage my smaller head of gold torch started to loose some tissue.

I continued testing and everything seem fine to an extend. Gorgonians were alsosuffering because dinos would grow over them, so they would barely have any polyp extension. So then I blamed dinoa for maybe releasing toxins into the water which irritated some corals.

On Sunday evening i was testing my water. Salinity came in at 1.026 as per usual (using DD refractometer) which was fine, thats were i wanted it to be.

But i thought that I havent calibrated my refractometer in a while so I wiped out my ATI reference solution and it turned out that my refractometer was miles off. My actual salinity was 1.022-1.023.

So i just let the water to evaporate and topped up some water with fresh salt water. Took me about 2 days to bring salinity back up and i have to say that my torch corals look way better now. So i think that it was just a combination of factors that made them really unhappy. It only shows how resilient they are. I am sad to loose one of the gold torch heads but the second one seems to be fairly happy.

 

 

[rimga123]

Another quick update

I raised tanks temparute to 28C for two days (thats just over 82F for my friends over the pond) 

And it seems like that finished the remaining of dinos that i had. UV is still runing and I will keep it runing till the next weekend. To be honest, I am quite paranoid to take it off, but its a bit of an eye sore and i have to give it bacm. if dinos come back I'll just have to buy my own one. But so far I am really pleased how the battle with dinos went and makes me think about all the other people that have been struggling for months and months with them. Is that poor due diligence on their side to keep on top of things? More aggresive type of dinos? Mix of different type dinos? Hard to say, but I am happy that my fight is finished, at least for now.

 

I got myself a Hanna ULR phosphate checker 

 

And as you can see, my Po4 is on the higher side.

I wasnt sure if I was getting the correct readings with my salifert test 

But last time I checked, according to salifert test, my Po4 was between 0.25 and 0.5

So not too far I guess.

All corlas look fine, the remaining head of gold torch is doing ok, not dying. Dragon soul still doesnt have polyp extension that it use to, but still better than two weeks ago.

I Also did a small water change today, first one in couple of months, so hopefully that will further help for euphyllias to recover.

Gorgonians finally have their polyps out constantly.

Forest fire digi has lost a lot of its green color, but thats probably due to higher phosphates so i am not too worried about it, other than that it looks fine.

 

New additions to the tank

Two new ricordea mushrooms, pink and brigh orange.

And a bright neon-green branching hammer.

Also got some more fish today

2 tiny bangai cardinals, not sure if a pair, they kinda look like two femails but I think that they are too young to say for sure.

Gold streek blenny, since my last one jumped but I loved how much personality it had for such a tiny fish.

And a Yellow Wrasse (Halichoeres chrysus)

not going to lie, its a bit big for my tank. It looked smaller at the petstore, but that make sense. Because my tank is smaller than where the tank where wrasse was kept.

Was meant to get a sixline, but read too many horror stories of them going roge.

Got myself a new glass lid, hopefully that will prevent from any jumpers, some small gaps around it for the wavemaker wires.

 

Will clean the glass over the long weekend and whip out my dslr for some snaps.

 

Merry Christmas everyone!

 

[rimga123]

Few phone snaps.

I still havent cleaned the side or back pannels from all the algae and the uv filter is still runing. I cannot see any dinos anywhere, so will be removing uv in a couple of days and giving all pannels a good scrub. Feels a bit claustrophobic with all the glass being dirty. Also with very similar light output, tank looks a lot darker than it use to with the chinese black box light. Paid a deposit for an Radion XR15 G5 with a diffuser and will be collecting it mid January, high hopes for that light.

Still havent got rid of the blue tang, as per usual a couple no shows from the Craigslist, but its in the process. Sorry tang police.

Middle ric is what i got a couple months back, right and left ones are new.

new fishes

No photos of the goldstreak blenny yet, he's a bit camera shy.

 

 

New hammer.

And my torches, indo gold and the green ones are doing great. But the dragon soul is still a bit pissed.

 

[rimga123]

And a hammer garden. 

[rimga123]

Quick new years update

 

Uv removed and 50% water change done 

Clean your glass my people

Before and after

 

Re-arranged rics

Before and after

 

 

Some of green torch polyps bailed and one of the dragon soul head is only barely holding on. All the heads that bailed have been splitting so extra stress did not help with probably not the most ideal enviroment.

Havent dont a water change in months because of the dinos, but hopefully it will help, will do another 50% in a week or so i hope.

[debbeach13]

I love before and after pictures. The glass cleaning WOW. Seriously it is looking good in there.

[rimga123]

4 minutes ago, debbeach13 said:

I love before and after pictures. The glass cleaning WOW. Seriously it is looking good in there.

I know right! Tank itself even somehow looks bigger!

I have been telling this a lot, but maybe this time i definitely will take out my dslr for photos tomorrow, everything should be fully open and readjusted after the water change

[Llorgon]

2 hours ago, rimga123 said:

Quick new years update

 

Uv removed and 50% water change done 

Clean your glass my people

Before and after

 

Re-arranged rics

Before and after

 

 

Some of green torch polyps bailed and one of the dragon soul head is only barely holding on. All the heads that bailed have been splitting so extra stress did not help with probably not the most ideal enviroment.

Havent dont a water change in months because of the dinos, but hopefully it will help, will do another 50% in a week or so i hope.

I feel your polyp bailout pain! Hopefully the water changes help the remaining torches.

 

The glass cleaning made a huge difference! Looks good. I guess I should get on cleaning my glass.

[rimga123]

Polyp bailout is a b*ch! Hopefully i fixed whatever that was causing it now.

Day after the water change!

All corals look nice and puffy, except for the dragon soul.

My milipora had some STN at the base, i thought that it might have been my parameters but it nearly always have a good polyp extension and color is great as well. But i found a small aiptasia at the base, so id say that it causing it to STN.

I also have fragged all zoas to an extend and a good bit of the forest fire digi for a gentleman who gave me the UV filter. 

[rimga123]

Green torch and indo gold became super puffy after the water change yesterday, but i lost one of the dragon soul heads that has started to detach. Hopefully that other 3 heads will recover.

All the hammer look much happier as well. Hopefully it stays that way now.

[rimga123]

An update I guess

 

Tests

Kh: 8.3

Ca: 420

Mg: 1500+

No3: ~50 (salifert)

Po4: 0.52

Salinity: 1.026

My po4 is this high since water change. Fed pretty heavy with reef roids and I think thats why they are so high still.

I chucked a bit of gfo in the filter chamber, but it hasnt done much in 2 days.

Although my nutrients are super high, all I can see is my corals being super happy and no nuisance algae so far.

Never seen my hammer so puffy and growth seems accelerated.

I blamed high phosphates to loosing green on my forest fire digi, but green is coming back.

My only guess is that high phoshpates could be affecting my dragon soul torch, but not sure as the polyl extension has became a little better, some Tentacles are getting longer.

 

Indo gold seem like its not as bright as it use to be, but ever since i hung the hydra, it has been living in green torch shadow, so I presume that lack of par is causing it to loose some color. Otherwise it seems healthy and green torch does seem fully recovered.

 

My peppermit shrimps has become lazy and stopped eating aipatsias so I killed the one under my milipora with aiptasia X. You can see flesh recession where aiptasia was touching it. Hopefully it will recover well.

 

this bugger is camera shy, so a lretty crappy photo of him.

[rimga123]

Also, forgot to mention.

I got a handful of amphipods from the guy who borrowed me the UV filter. I was always lacking them in this system, but it seems like i have a fairly healthy population of them in the filter chamber (I left them there with some old filter floss thats just sits there so they would have somewhere to "hangout", will probably change it for some rock ruble eventually. Everything gets prefiltered with another piece of filter floss before it get there if that make sense)

And after the water change I chucked a bag of some sort of coppepods into the filter chamber so fish wouldnt get to them so quickly.

Trying to expand the bio diversity.

[rimga123]

Update coming soon

Good few things have changed

Some corals didint make it

Dino is fully gone

And my nutrients, well...

I definitely am not lacking.

My phosphate test immediately goes to 0.9. Any predictions how my tank looks now with phosphates being so high that they cannot be read?

[rimga123]

Howya

 

So

An update

Life stock

Yellow wrasse - gone

Blue tang - gone

24k torch - rip

Dragon soul torch - rip

Milipora - rip

Forest fire digi - tried to get as much of it out as possible.

 

New additions

Oscar the clowfish - most friendly non evil chaotic clown that i had, fellow reefer gave it to me free of charge because other clowns were bullying him. He decided to live in a feather duster

 

Got 3 new stylos at some stage, a wild colonies, green, pink and green+pink combo

Thought that since my purple stylo is doing great, they should to

WRONG

Green one completely slowly lost all the tissue

Pink one is now brown and only has tissue at the end of the branches

And the pink with green (small frag in the middle'ish) has lost tissue going from the bottom and only has some flesh left at the top.

They were not ready for neglect.

I do think that two that left should be fine going forward. But will see.

Another addition was a massive boxer shrimp - got him super cheap to help with an insane bristle worm population. In about a month, he hasnt made a dent, nor have i seen him eat any.

 

Also, red mini carpet anemone just wondered out of the glass vase type of thing and i have never seen it again. Not sure if dead or living under a rock at the back of the tank somewhere. Dont really want to be taking all the rocks out to find out either.

 

Mushroom garden is doing well, it was not suppose to be a mushroom garden but it slowly became one. I am in the process of getting more florida ricks.

There 4 different types of red mushroom in that bunch.

Also the super small plate coral that i got a while back, has grown a lot!

 

Overall, corals are doing fine. Especially hammers.

Torch coral isint too happy, not sure why. Green torch always use to be a true trooper that could get trough anything. My phosohates are super high, but i dont think thats causing it for torch to be "flat", because i had another branch of this exactly the same torch with couple of heads on it that was thriving, while other branch wasnt doing that well. I ended up gifting that piece of torch coral to a fellow reefer from whom i got the clowfish. And purple stylo isint bleaching, I broke a couple branches to give away.

 

No real big plans for the tank or equipment upgrades. Might change the skimmer for some cheato in that chamber instead.

i'd love to go back to doing water changes more often and id love to give dragon soul torch another shot.

Maybe ill swap some acans for something different too.

 

Oh, and also!

Not sure if i somehow introduced some other type of asterina starfish that i had, but some started to go after my zoas. I pick out as much as i can

But i think that i will have to employ a shrimp for the job. They made a big dent in my zoa population, which is good in a way.