MLS_Reef Posted March 28, 2023 Share Posted March 28, 2023 Ok, I have been lurking for a few weeks and have not looked at reefkeeping except for internet pictures since hurricane Matthew 2016. My IM10 was down for 5 days and it did not recover. I started reef keeping in 2007; most hurdles and the biggest hurdles I have encountered were financial. Most of the mistakes I have made were impulsive decisions experimenting when I should not have. 16 years later I am in a new world. There used to be a lot of people here, I think covid may have changed peoples' outlook on using the internet. Covid may also have Changed peoples taste for staying home and reefkeeping. I know international regulations have changed and are constantly changing. Collecting coral and specimens will never be what it was 15 years ago. I see Captive bred purple tangs are available. Who would have thought. I am amazed at the changes I see in the industry. The advancement in technology and knowledge is incredible. Marine depot does not exist anymore… lol. I have been watching Bulk Reef Supply videos on you tube and I am amazed at how far they have come in relaying information and enabling people to succeed. I also appreciate the fact that the information is free with an internet connection. So to open this thread… It was the middle of a Covid-19 ridiculed 2020. This one night, i was drinking, all was good, amazon.com was my friend. Then i saw it.. a Landen 60P all in one for alot less than the holy sh*t price they sell for now. I also may have had credit card points. Now there is a funny story about the tank and I will tell it to you all later, it was delivered perfect, and it was a breeze to set up and run. I set it up and I ran water for a couple years because i have a crapload of rock and sand here from 2007. My first tank was a 120 gallon i got for a steal. and i have kept everything that could once again be live. I never lit the tank, i pumped a few reef cleaners into the tank and ran water. So this January I got serious. I picked out a select set of rocks and I rinsed the sand. Lastly I made two rules and reset the tank on an actual matching Landen stand. I will not rush. I will not buy a clownfish. 1 Quote Link to comment
MLS_Reef Posted March 28, 2023 Author Share Posted March 28, 2023 Feb 23rd ten days into the reset. 5 Quote Link to comment
GobyBryant Posted March 28, 2023 Share Posted March 28, 2023 Welcome back! How are you liking the Landen tank so far?! Their prices are ~extremely~ tempting haha Quote Link to comment
MLS_Reef Posted March 28, 2023 Author Share Posted March 28, 2023 Here is a complete run down of what i did to cycle this tank, I have to say the concept of a fishless cycle is pretty amazing. Friday 10th Feb 2023 salinity 1.024 Set up the stand and tank. Rinsed old sand I had stored from the last venture. It’s fiji pink. I have about 170 lbs of dry rock stored in buckets from a tank I had in 2007. It was imported live rock but it’s dry now. 1 zip bag of dry ceramic rings 10 ceramic bio balls that seem like it’s the new best thing. I have an unused bucket of instant ocean i bought a while back for this. 40 drops ammonium chloride from Dr.Tim Tank measures about 2ppm ½ of 4 oz fritz ½ 4 oz microbacter xlm Saturday 11th Added 2 caps Microbacter xlm and added 10 drops ammonium 2-4 ppm Sunday 12th Added 2 caps Microbacter xlm Moday 13th Added 10 drops ammonium 2-4 ppm added 2nd half Fritz Bottle and 2 caps of Microbacter xlm Tuesday 14th Added the remaining microbacter xlm ammonia measures 2-4ppm Wednesday 15th Wed 0.5 ppm ammonia 10-20ppm nitrate, nitrites never detected. Amazing! Thursday the 16th Testing .25 ammonia .25 nitrite not true blue redose 20 drops ammonium chloride to 1-2 ppm. Friday the 17th at 8pm ammonia 0 nitrite blue to gray reading nitrates 20 -50 ppm Thursday 23rd I left the tank run all week and have done nothing, Tonight i started mixing 20 gallons of saltwater, tank reads 0-..25 Ammonia 0 nitrites and a solid 40 ppm nitrates Quote Link to comment
MLS_Reef Posted March 28, 2023 Author Share Posted March 28, 2023 6 minutes ago, GobyBryant said: Welcome back! How are you liking the Landen tank so far?! Their prices are ~extremely~ tempting haha Thanks GobyBryant! The Landen tank has a lot of space behind that wall, it holds a full ten gallons of water in the sump/filter area. I think it makes a good beginner tank, or easy tank to manage. 30% of your water is sump. I also bought the Landen pump the Biosmo 1000 that goes with the tank. it's a quality pump for 50 bucks and has pulsing and constant flow settings. Im sure it's no IM Mighty jet. However the water return outlet that comes standard with the tank needs an upgrade, It cant handle a big return of water. Quote Link to comment
MLS_Reef Posted March 28, 2023 Author Share Posted March 28, 2023 This would be March 26th. I have green algae forming, Coralline hopefully. There are no fish yet, no corals yet. Quote Link to comment
MLS_Reef Posted March 28, 2023 Author Share Posted March 28, 2023 Saturday March 4th The Diatoms are here, very light on the sand. Tuesday March 7th the tank is not winning this war. Rock and Sand Almost 100% covered and the back wall is growing. Wednesday March 8th bought some super glue. Went home cleaned the glass only. Thursday March 9th found some old egg crate in the storage closet and built a rack for the first chamber with the super glue. Added filter floss to the tank. Stirred ½ the sand. Mechanical filtration not added until1 month later... HMMM. Friday march 10th finished the rack with cable ties screw super glue Friday changed filter floss. Stirred the other half of the sand. Saturday March 11th morning Cleaned glass Moved all the biological filtration to 1st chamber bottom. Vacuum second chamber and third (pump) chamber Vacuum all sand 60% water changed filter floss added 100 micron filter pad Circulate tank 1 hour Test results ammonia 1.00 ppm No nitrite Nitrate NR Saturday march 11th Afternoon Turkey baste all rocks Pulled Bubble magus QQ2 out of storage closet soak for an hour in warm water Clean it with a paper towel and place in middle chamber and fire it up. Sunday March 12th Change filter pad and floss No real skimate collected. Added carbon to the second shelf in the filter rack. Ammonia still 1.00 ppm Nitrite 0 Nitrate 20 ppm No CA or DKH run. Dropped in a quarter cube of oyster eggs to get the skimmer running and prep for a clean up crew install Wednesday March 15th Clean up crew installed I ordered Saturday delivery but they shipped it 3 days early and it showed up on Wednesday. Test the water Ammonia 0 Nitrite 0 Nitrate 10 to 20 better than Sunday Float the bags 5 red legs 5 blue legs 5 yellow legs 10 nassarius snails 15 cerith snails 5 margarite snails Change filter floss Drop the critters in the tank. Thursday March 16 My sand is fairly white again the crabs have moved to the rocks. 2 margarite 1 Cerith dead I always expect 30% loss in snails and crabs including being shipped empty shells. Dropped in a cube of frozen mysis. Change filter floss once there are no floaters Empty skimmer cup Fill top off Wednesday March 22nd API KH 11 Thursday March 23 tank is white again and the rocks are showing spots of green. Hopefully it’s coralline. Changed filter floss All five margarita snails lost and 2 blue legs but they are tiny. Friday March 24th Fed the tank 1 mysis shrimp cube and a half dozen pellets to keep the cleaners alive Sunday March 25th Mixed 17 gallons of saltwater. Test Results 0-.25 Ammonia Nitrite 0 Nitrate 5~10ppm Cleaned skimmer created microbubbles Changed filter floss Picked out 3 empty shells Api KH 11 No calcium test and we are up to date... Quote Link to comment
MLS_Reef Posted May 9, 2023 Author Share Posted May 9, 2023 I really did not do much in the month of April, it was busy. cleaned the glass and 5 gallon water changes every week, skipping the third week. changed the floss, switched out the carbon for a chemipure bag. I bought another Hygger wave maker to match the first, they are really inexpensive and i'm sure one was not enough to keep the flow. I added a scoop of Kalk to my ATO to keep the Alk up around 9-10, I do not have a pH probe in the tank yet. I am testing ph randomly and its not worth It. but i did go shopping... 🙂 1 Quote Link to comment
MLS_Reef Posted May 9, 2023 Author Share Posted May 9, 2023 Full Tank above, i still have green algae on the rocks. It is not going away quickly. I apologize for the horrible photography, it's cell phone photos shrunk down to save space. I need to take a crash course in aquarium photography and photo editing 1 Quote Link to comment
MLS_Reef Posted May 9, 2023 Author Share Posted May 9, 2023 I bought a few cyphastrea, They freaked out under the lights and started to bleach , so i currently have them lined up against the right side wall out of the immediate light trying to recover. I did not understand how low light these corals can be. Quote Link to comment
fishkid714 Posted May 9, 2023 Share Posted May 9, 2023 That return pump, how big is it thinking about the 700 for my 15-gallon! Quote Link to comment
MLS_Reef Posted May 9, 2023 Author Share Posted May 9, 2023 2 hours ago, fishkid714 said: That return pump, how big is it thinking about the 700 for my 15-gallon! The footprint of the 1000 is a strong 4.5 X 2.5 inches it is a hair to big for the IM fusion 10 return chamber, the 700 would probably work well but i cant confirm the 1000 can move some water i currently have mine set at 6 out of 10 constant flow, it has a pulsing flow as well but its not programmable. It is set it and forget it. 1 Quote Link to comment
MLS_Reef Posted June 1, 2023 Author Share Posted June 1, 2023 Taken in the morning in the daylight I still have green algae on the rocks. It's tough and cannot be scrubbed off with a tooth brush. i'm still rocking a solid 10 or 20 ppm nitrates. I have been water changing 5 gallons every three days and am on my 4th change. my hope is to get to zero detectable then add fish and copepods. Quote Link to comment
MLS_Reef Posted June 1, 2023 Author Share Posted June 1, 2023 However with the tank lights on (FTS) the green is barely noticeable the most dense green you can see. I am going to keep scraping the glass and water changing until it's gone. Quote Link to comment
MLS_Reef Posted June 1, 2023 Author Share Posted June 1, 2023 Other than topping off the top off, cleaning glass, water changing, cleaning the skimmer once a week. I'm not doing much but waiting, I test with api nitrate and dkh kits twice a week to make sure nothing crazy is happening. The tank will be 4 months old on June 10th. The Cerith and Nassarius populations have suffered losses. Bought too many crabs and have not been feeding the tank well enough to protect them. I think the next month will really define what this tank will become. I saw my first lone amphipod this week, it was exciting. For the first time in reefing i have been dipping the corals. I think that seriously slows the population formation of copepods and amphipods. I get why you do it, not sure I like it, However 2 aptasia popped out of my clove polyps this week, they survived the dip, and the dip seriously hurt the blue star polyp frags I picked up, nursing them back to health. Quote Link to comment
MLS_Reef Posted June 1, 2023 Author Share Posted June 1, 2023 the lps are out and ready for moving up the rock, i also need to program the flow better. the hygger mini's are a deal on amazon 69 dollars. but they take some ingenuity and trial to get programmed right. The control is limited. Quote Link to comment
sapling Posted June 1, 2023 Share Posted June 1, 2023 11 minutes ago, MLS_Reef said: the lps are out and ready for moving up the rock, i also need to program the flow better. the hygger mini's are a deal on amazon 69 dollars. but they take some ingenuity and trial to get programmed right. The control is limited. Hygger minis are on my radar at the moment because of the pricing, is it really that complicated and how are they limited? from your impressions would you buy it again over something like a nero or mp10 ? corals looking good btw! 1 Quote Link to comment
MLS_Reef Posted June 1, 2023 Author Share Posted June 1, 2023 47 minutes ago, sapling said: Hygger minis are on my radar at the moment because of the pricing, is it really that complicated and how are they limited? from your impressions would you buy it again over something like a nero or mp10 ? corals looking good btw! the hygger control has a preset day in it. there is a time block for morning a time block for day a time block for evening and a time block for night. preset... you can control the function of the pump for that preset time block. it is not programmable outside of that check out the user manual. link below. example 530 am is dawn on this pump. my lights start at 11:30 am so i have to set the clock 6 hours back so the internal dawn to the powerhead matches my sunrise https://www.hygger-online.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/Other Products/Hygger 951 USER MANUAL.pdf 1 Quote Link to comment
MLS_Reef Posted June 7, 2023 Author Share Posted June 7, 2023 picked up a few friends this weekend 3 Bangaii cardinals and a Neon Dottyback. The Dottyback is so small it's ended up in the first chamber overflow twice. Also ! suck at capturing fast moving fish in photos on phone cameras so this is more like proof of life. I immediately over fed the tank and continued to do so all weekend. Quote Link to comment
MLS_Reef Posted June 7, 2023 Author Share Posted June 7, 2023 End result Monday/ tuesday diatoms. Quote Link to comment
Lebowski_ Posted June 7, 2023 Share Posted June 7, 2023 Fun thread! Love the dimensions. Will follow along. 1 Quote Link to comment
MLS_Reef Posted June 8, 2023 Author Share Posted June 8, 2023 The tank will be four months old next week, and i'm fairly excited because it's aged enough to show strengths and weaknesses. It's not picture perfect, it has plenty of nutrients never zeroing out on nitrates (phosphates are untested) and alkalinity is maintained at 9-10 with kalk in the top off water. I have introduced a bunch of coral no losses. Had losses in the crab and snail department. the tank has 5 small fish (picked up a tiny six line wrasse) 🙂 After last week and the four water changes, still had 10 ppm nitrates, which kind of confused me. I pulled all of the media from the first chamber and rinsed it in fresh mix salt water. and flushed the detritus from the back chamber. However today, with a light diatom bloom, overfeeding fish everyday and twice on Saturday and no morewater changes, nitrates today are in the 10-20 range, No nitrites, no Ammonia. With all the fish food and detritus stirred up the skimmer kicked in hard and pulled a weeks worth out of the tank in three days! 👍 Quote Link to comment
MLS_Reef Posted June 8, 2023 Author Share Posted June 8, 2023 I forgot how great a good frag rack is for when you want to clean the sand. The Rack is halfway up and we will see how everything responds. The Cyphastrea may have to go back to ground level. Time to think about Gluing the GSP to the back wall. 1 Quote Link to comment
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