Holyherbiness' Ten Gallon

[holyherbiness]

I began this tank on July 23, 2004.

It's a ten gallon standard 20 inch tank by AGA. Fifteen pounds nano marshall live rock from Premiumaquatics. Awesome stuff.

 

Progression:

 

Day 1

Day 6

Around 3.5 months, long after an initial spill that occurred at about 18 days, and caused costly damages to the flooring

This is March 10 picture.. the most recent and about 8 months after I first began the tank. Aquascape changed yet again due to a move.

 

 

Fish:

One Percula Clownfish, using my torch coral as a makeshift host:

 

Royal Gramma deceased about a month ago, after j umping out of my tank for some reason, ending it's half year life in my tank.

 

Corals:

Consists mainly of a six pack order from fragpacks.com: Mushroom, zoanthids, sun coral, torch coral, hammer coral.

 

 

I'm too lazy to put in more- lost a rhodactis and yuma a while back.

 

Invertebrates:

Huge cleanup crew. This consists of 6 very large margarita snails, Five ceriths, Five red tipped hermit crabs, 15 nassarius, an emerald crab, and two peppermint shrimp. I've since lost one margarita, two hermits, 1 or 2 ceriths, and at least 5 nassarius, owing to lack of food in my system to support.

This pic shows the emerald crab, and a large margarita in the background.

 

 

Equipment:

Ten Gallon AGA tank

72 watts of PC lighting from DRSFOSTERSMITH: 2x36 50/50 6500/actinic 03.

 

Minijet 606

Maxijet 404

AquaC Remora HOB skimmer with MJ 1200, pre skimmer box (freaking hugeee!!!) and drain fitting:

 

That's basically it:

I also have a CPR BAK PAK IIR, that remains there because I've decided to go with the aquac remora.. I'll sell it for 85 shipped if anyone wants. I put in an airstone in this picture to enhance its skimming capabilities. Works like a charm, but I didn't like the appearance as much as the aquac.

 

 

Feeding:

 

I feed fairly heavily. Flake food, brine shrimp, and cyclop-eeze for the clownfish and sun coral, brine shrimp for the peppermint shrimp, dried algae for the emerald crab, spirulina tablets for the hermits and emerald crab.

I take comfort in knowing that the protein skimmer removes much of this matter.

 

Maintenance:

 

Ten percent water change per week (one gallon)

Cleaning skimmer collection cup four times per week.

Manual removal of bryopsis like algae.

DIY Kalk dripper

 

Other stuff:

Sandbed is crawling with life. Amphipods, spagetti worms, and hundreds of other small things that go running around the rock.

I've also noted repeated spawning by some of the snails, molts , etc.

my sun coral has also reproduced, leaving little sun coral babies all over the tank's live rock that are quite small. I don't feed these babies individually, simply because there are too many of them.

one of my zoanthid colonies has also reproduced this way, leaving several individual polyps to roam across the tank.

 

 

 

Plans:

Possibly move into a larger tank. Upgrade into 70W DE Halides, get another fish. Any suggestions? If you can point me in the direction of cheap halides system, i'd appreciate that haha

 

 

Thanks for looking!

[holyherbiness]

 

my diy kalk dripper, based from reefkeeping article

[rbaby]

Awesome tank, but you know...you can delete posts that you've made in error...just click edit and at the top check the DELETE button and press the DELETE button .

[holyherbiness]

I know.

I've tried that

But it says I do not have permission..even though i'm logged in!

[jenniebutterfly]

i used to have that problem. i don;t know what changed it lol

[holyherbiness]

[holyherbiness]

Here's a side view of the aquarium:

all the way in the back you see a coralline encrusted nimble aquarium magnet from nimblenano.com

[DarkXerox]

That LR is awesome and seems to have put on a ton of coralline in a short time! Those red shrooms are a great color too. Cool that you were able to move it without any problem. I'm going to have to move mine about 2 times a year in the future, so if you have any tips on how to move it, I'd love to hear!

[redparrotbubbles85]

Looks amazing. I really like the coral placement, and the live rock looks soo purple. Great Job.

[holyherbiness]

Thanks for the comments. I cured my tank with nothing but 12 hour flourescent lighting and rock during the cycle, and dosed kalkwasser.

huge spurt of growth

almost every cerith , hermit, and margarita snail has patches of coralline on it.

[ClarkiiClown]

Hey can you explain to me how you made your Kalk doser?

 

I would like to run one on mine but Im not sure how to go about it.

 

Thanks!!

[Daemonfly]

Nice tank

 

I notice after your "spill" comment, it looks like the tank is no longer on the shelves. The shelf give way?

[holyherbiness]

Clarkiiclown...

I directly followed the instructions on this site:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/skip/agu/kalkdripper.htm

If you have any other questions on these steps, just ask.

 

Daemonfly...

haha no, the shelf didn't give way, as it's quite strong. The tank sprung a leak on the bottom and gushed out.

[holyherbiness]

Couple of corals (and a now deceased aiptasia) with flash on:

[holyherbiness]

 

Upgraded to a 70W MH regent pendant about a week ago. Zooanthids gaining better coloration, love the point source light. 10k aqualine bulb.

[holyherbiness]

Picture I took as my sun coral was pooping. See the polyp with the blob of half digested brine shrimp to the right (sorry for bad pics, my camera sucks)

 

 

I saw the clownfish eat it.

[lgreen]

holyherbiness,

 

what was the trick to getting all that nice coraline? the fluorescent tubes, the kalk, or both?

 

did you use a buffer?

 

Also what type of salt u using? Ro/DI? what brand if so

 

Nice sun coral, how do you feed it?

 

when you upgraded to the MH, did the frogspawn and sun take it pretty well? how has that ugrade been for you?

 

thanks

 

lg

[qwertyuiop]

looks really great, keep it up!!!

[holyherbiness]

qwertyuiop thanks!

 

lgreen

I think it was a mix of the flourescents and the oceanic salt that I use. Maybe even kalk, but my strongest growth was before I dosed kalk.

 

Since i switched to metal halide, my coralline algae is not as pink, but is becoming the darker redder version that is harder to scratch off.

 

Water- I buy from a store that sells only purified water. supposedly under 5ppm tds.

 

sun coral- i just feed a slushy mix of brine shrimp, cyclop-eeze, flake food, and zooplex with a turkey baster.

 

the metal halide upgrade is one tha tI do not regret. I really like the shimmer lines (and I have a ton, even when I had PC lights i had shimmering effect because of surface agitation).

 

The torch coral and the frogswpans have considerably poofed up, and I'm considering trading off one of the frogspawn frags because they take up so much real estate now.

 

Zooanthids have really exploded in growth too.

 

Only my mushroom appears to be somewhat hurt by it, with one of the biggest polyps looking very 'squished.'

[lgreen]

thank you!

 

interesting, from what i herd, mushrooms usually perk up and do a little better with MH.

 

maybe not always though.

[lgreen]

One more question for you:

 

would you say your coraline algae growth overall has decreased with introduction of kalk? I read somewhere that kalk screws up magnesium which is an important component of coraline algae along with calcium.

 

oh, and you weren't using any buffers or alk supps right?

 

thanks,

 

lg

[holyherbiness]

Not sure. Sometimes I dose kalk, sometimes I don't. So it always ooks the same heh

No buffers or nething.