Old school DIY 8g mixed reef

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Let me introduce my long awaited turn back into reef keeping:

 

Fell free to comment and advice!

 

 

Display: Dennerle opti white 8g rimless open lid

Water: Small RO under the kitchen sink

Rock: 6 lbs dry rock

Sand: 5 lbs blue treasure sand

Lighting: Chihiros AII Max 301 with custom leds

Heater: None

Circulation: Sicce Voyager Nano 1000

Skimmer: None

Filtration: Eheim Experience with Maxspect Biopheres

Lid: None

Dosing: Green Aqua macro (for phosphate) 3 drops a day

Top Off: Manual when needed

Salt Mix: Aquaforest reef salt

Controller: None

 

Livestock:

Hermit crab

Azure damselfish

Mushroms

Ricordeas

Frogspan coral

Caulastreas

 

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I have high expectations of this rocks, very promising how clean and porous. The plan is to drill the necessary holes and reinforce the rock by gluing plastic plugs with cyanoacrylate. Once the adhesive has completely cured, I will place it and some smaller, established live rocks into a plastic container with lighting and filtration, for a period of 3-4 months to initiate the colonization of life.

 

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Here comes the DIY section. The aquarium is currently illuminated by a Chihiros Max lamp. The plan is to convert it into a reef light. In the 2010s, I built many custom lamps, I have the diy skills required to this project. I know today there are many cheap lights, but not here. The Kessil A80 costs nearly the same as the spectra aqua knight, and the ai prime twice as much in Hungary, tax and customs doubles the prices. But I already have a cool looking lamp with full bluetooth control from phone app, and drivers compatible with it. I'm planning just throw away the original mcpcb, and replace it with luxeon leds. The options are a little limited, I have 36V and 24V 1 amp adapters, If I correct, with small limiting resistors the 12 or 9 led layout comes to play.

 

The disassembled Chihiros lamp:

 

3x3 layout plan

 

It's hard to create a good 4x3 layout

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finished with the reef building. Glued together with the carbon rods.

 

A rod here...

 

 

A rod there...

 

And the finished structure:

 

 

[Amnemonemomne]

rock work looks nice

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Today ordered the luxeon leds, and started curing the rocks with small pieces LR from three different tanks in a plastic box from Ikea. I'm against dosing anything to nano aquariums, because I believe heavy water changes cheaper, than testing and dosing. There is no room for error or unknown side effects, but the drawback is to take out too many nutrients. This time I added prodibio biodigest and bioptic additives, because the LFS highly recommended that, "they do the magic". Some plus nutrients fiering up bacterial growth can't harm...

 

 

 

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I received the LEDs, but I can only install them next week. I presented a clownfish to speed up the cycle. Unfortunately, I didn't test for nitrate before putting the fish in, it was 30 ppm afterwards. I know I was lazy when I mixed water from multiple aquariums and combined rocks from different sources without testing, so now I'll never find out where the nitrate came from. I did a 50% water change, which I will repeat tomorrow.

 

 

new leds

 

clownfish with the job producing ammonia

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I bought another clownfish from the local fish store to test its water, which had a nitrate level above 100. Both fish died by the next day. I will never buy from this fish store again. From now on, I will proceed with fishless cycling.

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Sorry guys, a lot has happened, and I've been lazy to write, but now I'll try to catch up. My wife wouldn't let me convert the freshwater into saltwater because she said the 'guys' (team of 13 Boraras) would stay with us no matter what, so I got another 8-gallon aquarium, and the marine stuff moved in there.

 

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Snagged all the budget-friendly frags and corals from every local fish store! 🐠🌿✨

 

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Fought off those dianos with all I had, and finally triumphed. Invested in a Hanna Phos test, it displayed 0 reading. Then, I began my phosphate dosing regimen. Also, managed to snag a second-hand Eheim reef UV sterilizer, which cleared my tank within just one day. I'm aware that there may still be some dianos lurking in the sand, but I decided to pause the UV sterilizer. I'm fine-tuning my water changes and phosphate dosing now. My beloved euphilia is looking absolutely stunning after the treatment, and I couldn't be happier that she's thriving – I was genuinely concerned about losing her.

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Turning 43 soon, my wife asked for my ultimate desire. I craved a Kessil A360x with a gooseneck. Anticipation's high, but it can't fit to 8-gallon tank. It now resides in the sock drawer, alongside other unrealized dreams.

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A few changes have been made recently. I removed the Tunze filter because it was taking up too much space, and I installed an Eheim canister filter filled with Maxspect biospheres. I also got some new corals.

 

 

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I've been struggling with alkalinity levels in the past few days. I can hardly find any information online about what might be the issue. For some reason, my dKH is increasing. Initially, I used a reagent test (Tropic Marin) because that was the goal, and I planned to take action once the decline starts. Well, when I compared the mixed water (four-stage RO + Aqua Forest Reef Salt) to the aquarium, I consistently measured 1 dKH higher in the aquarium. Today, I went to the LFS to buy a Hanna dKH test kit, but they were out of stock, and they suggested that the Salifert test would also be suitable for my purpose. The freshly mixed water has a dKH of 8.3, while the aquarium's dKH is 8.9. Essentially, I got the same result but with a higher resolution. The condition of the corals is fine, except for the plated montiporas, which unfortunately have bleached. 

 

I'm only dosing phosphate to prevent it from reaching zero. Nitrate is at 10, phosphate is at 0.03, and salinity is 33. Weekly changing 15% water.

[jservedio]

22 hours ago, Schön said:

I've been struggling with alkalinity levels in the past few days. I can hardly find any information online about what might be the issue. For some reason, my dKH is increasing. Initially, I used a reagent test (Tropic Marin) because that was the goal, and I planned to take action once the decline starts. Well, when I compared the mixed water (four-stage RO + Aqua Forest Reef Salt) to the aquarium, I consistently measured 1 dKH higher in the aquarium. Today, I went to the LFS to buy a Hanna dKH test kit, but they were out of stock, and they suggested that the Salifert test would also be suitable for my purpose. The freshly mixed water has a dKH of 8.3, while the aquarium's dKH is 8.9. Essentially, I got the same result but with a higher resolution. The condition of the corals is fine, except for the plated montiporas, which unfortunately have bleached. 

 

I'm only dosing phosphate to prevent it from reaching zero. Nitrate is at 10, phosphate is at 0.03, and salinity is 33. Weekly changing 15% water.

There are plenty of potential areas for your tank to increase in alkalinity, especially in a new tank with fluctuating nutrients.

1. When nitrate is consumed biologically, it'll increase your alkalinity. Normally this doesn't have an effect since Ammonia converting to Nitrate reduces alkalinity and they offset each other. However, when when N/P are out of whack and you are doing water changes, it throws this off. Your dosing of Phosphate likely caused increased consumption of Nitrate (since you were P limited) and that increased alk.
2. Your RO may not be removing all carbonates from your water. Normally, if you had a DI stage, anything bypassing RO would be mopped up, but you don't have that. I'd test my ATO water for alkalinity. Additionally for nitrates since if nitrates are being imported into your system, that'll increase alk as it's consumed.
3. pH fluctuation. If your pH is fluctuating because your house has little airflow or your tank has very little surface agitation and no skimmer, that could be causing your alk to fluctuate
4. Sand/Rock slowly dissolving. This is normally very slow and steady and is normally offset by orders of magnitude when coral is growing. If your P was down at zero and you have a new tank with very little growth, this could potentially be greater than usage.

I'm sure there are other things I'm missing as well.

 

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20 hours ago, jservedio said:

There are plenty of potential areas for your tank to increase in alkalinity, especially in a new tank with fluctuating nutrients.

1. When nitrate is consumed biologically, it'll increase your alkalinity. Normally this doesn't have an effect since Ammonia converting to Nitrate reduces alkalinity and they offset each other. However, when when N/P are out of whack and you are doing water changes, it throws this off. Your dosing of Phosphate likely caused increased consumption of Nitrate (since you were P limited) and that increased alk.
2. Your RO may not be removing all carbonates from your water. Normally, if you had a DI stage, anything bypassing RO would be mopped up, but you don't have that. I'd test my ATO water for alkalinity. Additionally for nitrates since if nitrates are being imported into your system, that'll increase alk as it's consumed.
3. pH fluctuation. If your pH is fluctuating because your house has little airflow or your tank has very little surface agitation and no skimmer, that could be causing your alk to fluctuate
4. Sand/Rock slowly dissolving. This is normally very slow and steady and is normally offset by orders of magnitude when coral is growing. If your P was down at zero and you have a new tank with very little growth, this could potentially be greater than usage.

I'm sure there are other things I'm missing as well.

 

Thank you for the response, it was really helpful, and it helped me realize what the issue might be. I've done quite a bit of research on this, but somehow it escaped my attention. The first point is almost certainly the problem, as I also add nitrate alongside phosphate to maintain the Redfield ratio. My RO system has a resin bed, and I constantly monitor it to keep it close to zero TDS. Although I've never had issues with it, it's always the prime suspect whenever there's any trouble, so I never neglect it. Today bought a new electronic ph tester, not the cheap eBay one. It shows 7.7 ph. A little bit low.

I think I'll temporarily stop adding nitrate and reduce the phosphate dosing as well. Unfortunately, I can't feed enough to prevent it from hitting zero, even with a pretty substantial amount of feeding (weekly 0,15 ppm phos usage with heavy feeding). My hope is that once the microfauna populate all available niches, an equilibrium will be established where their total biomass no longer increases, eliminating the need for dosing nitrates and phos.

[jservedio]

7 hours ago, Schön said:

Thank you for the response, it was really helpful, and it helped me realize what the issue might be. I've done quite a bit of research on this, but somehow it escaped my attention. The first point is almost certainly the problem, as I also add nitrate alongside phosphate to maintain the Redfield ratio. My RO system has a resin bed, and I constantly monitor it to keep it close to zero TDS. Although I've never had issues with it, it's always the prime suspect whenever there's any trouble, so I never neglect it. Today bought a new electronic ph tester, not the cheap eBay one. It shows 7.7 ph. A little bit low.

I think I'll temporarily stop adding nitrate and reduce the phosphate dosing as well. Unfortunately, I can't feed enough to prevent it from hitting zero, even with a pretty substantial amount of feeding (weekly 0,15 ppm phos usage with heavy feeding). My hope is that once the microfauna populate all available niches, an equilibrium will be established where their total biomass no longer increases, eliminating the need for dosing.

 

Bought a new electronic ph tester, not the cheap eBay one. It shows 7.7 ph. A little bit low.

Keeping your nutrients at a healthy level is far more important than having your alkalinity fluctuate a few tenths over a few days. I'd definitely not worry about it slowly rising as your corals will soon enough overtake whatever slight increase in alkalinity you are seeing. As long as you are within 1 dkh change over the course of a day and your water changes keep it from getting too high you are fine - it'll find a natural balance.

 

It's only temporary anyway since you'll probably be dosing alk/ca eventually!