College 10g newb reef

[WarDamnEagle18]

Hey I am also a college student but I have the 24G NC. Anyways I noticed the Bucknell! I am from PA. I live in Alabama now though but I am headin to PA in about a week and a half. Any good stores I could stop at and get some good priced frags to bring home?? I am goin to Williamsport/ Montoursville/Muncy. I dont know if you know where that is but I figured I would throw it in. But nice frag and nice pair. I wanna get a snowflake and a black pair. The only problem is I dont know where I can get a snowflake.

[bucknellreefer]

Whats your plan for moving your tank? I was thinking on getting a couple coolers just for moving my tank the 4 times a year between school and home. One for the lr and water and one to put the bags with my livestock.

 

moving is a bit of a concern to me, i think i will end up draining about half-2/3 the water out of my tank and putting half that water into a bucket with whatever coral/rock would be above the water. the other half of that water i will put in something to store the fish, not sure what yet. i will probably also try and half enough salt water premixed so i can replace at least the fish storage water when i get home. coolers are definately a good idea, to keep everything warm/cool enough during the 2.5 hours i have to drive.

 

frequent moving is one reason i went with a normal tank instead of an all-in-one, their questionable durabilty and cracking problems wouldn't lend themselves well to being moved 4 times a year.

 

i exchanged pms with Collegereef about moving concerns and in searching n-r.com i think i found a couple informative threads on moving tanks. i still have worries but i think those won't go away until i have managed a successful trip or two.

 

Here is what he said, hopefully he won't mind me sharing but i think this could be useful for a lot of us with moving concerns

 

COLLEGEREEF:

 

"obviously make sure that your tank is the last thing you pack up and the first thing you unpack. anything that was once wet shout remain wet, such as filter pads, purigen bags, ect (so that any of those bacteria survive).

 

first i turn everything off and unplug everything then pack everything. i use a 5g bucket to put half of my water in and also one of my rocks. (I only have one that sticks up very high and its a big one) then i take the tank half full and put saran wrap over it and duct tape all 4 sides down (to keep from spilling the sloshing water around in my car). i poke a few holes in the top for some ventilation. put it all in the car and undo the process.

 

My next move will be my first move with a fish so i think i am going to buy one of the battery powered airpupms and put the fish in the bucket with the air pump and the big rock."

 

It should be noted that he changed his mind on the air pump later due to concerns about the possible effects it would have on the pH in a small amout of water.

[bucknellreefer]

Hey I am also a college student but I have the 24G NC. Anyways I noticed the Bucknell! I am from PA. I live in Alabama now though but I am headin to PA in about a week and a half. Any good stores I could stop at and get some good priced frags to bring home?? I am goin to Williamsport/ Montoursville/Muncy. I dont know if you know where that is but I figured I would throw it in. But nice frag and nice pair. I wanna get a snowflake and a black pair. The only problem is I dont know where I can get a snowflake.

 

I wish i could be of more help you but i haven't had a chance to check out any of the stores around Bucknell. you should look up "that fish place", i know they are in Pa but i am not sure where exactly, they are supposed to have a pretty large selection. Right now i am doing all of my purchasing in Maryland. i know that Dr. Mac at Pacific East Aquaculture has pairs of baby black ocellaris for like $60 but i think you are going to have to drop a lot of money if you want snowflakes, they had some on liveaquaria and i think they were $500/pair or something insane like that.

 

the one lfs i know of in Pa that i am going to check out is Miller's Reef, but i have no idea how it is.

[zmckenzie]

Thanks bucknell!

[djchristone]

i'm a college reefer too but why so much water left in the tank? o.O i leave barely enough water sifting over my sand during my move although my methods are the same as yours (5 gal bucket with all lr and coral and my nc's sponges-live stock is just bagged but in a rather larger one the fish store uses for big anubias plants )

[bucknellreefer]

i'm a college reefer too but why so much water left in the tank? o.O i leave barely enough water sifting over my sand during my move although my methods are the same as yours (5 gal bucket with all lr and coral and my nc's sponges-live stock is just bagged but in a rather larger one the fish store uses for big anubias plants )

 

i actually haven't had to move it yet, haha. this is just what i have gathered from others. i guess i was planning to leave the bottom part of my rock work in the tank and remove the pieces that sit higher in the tank. i just worry that if i remove everything i wouldn't get the scape i have now back again.

 

on another note, i have some made a couple additions over the last week, I added a blood shrimp and a polyp of the normal orange/purple ricordia. Everything is still doing pretty well. i had a huge outbreak of algae when i started feeding (biiiiig shock) but that seems to be slowly going away. i also purchased some more zoa frags from a member here on N-R.com but those haven't shipped yet because i have been working all week. my zoas have been open almost all the time, except when something runs into them, and the ricordia is fully extended.

 

hopefully i will find the time to take pics of everything tomorrow.

[bucknellreefer]

Here are the pics i promised yesterday:

 

My blood shrimp:

 

The Ricordia:

 

And a New FTS, looks a little cleaner in this picture than it really is....:

[bucknellreefer]

well, i bought another coral on monday, its a green tipped hammer and its still looking kinda grumpy about being moved from the LFS. I posted a thread about it yesterday and people seemed to agree that it should be fine in a couple of days. here are a couple of pictures showing the color and location.

 

 

I should also be recieving a couple more small zoa frags tomorrow from mvite here on NanoReef. Once i have those i think i am going to stop making additions for awhile to see how everything does.

 

I am also starting to get some good looking coralline on my rocks, here is a pic of a snail sitting on some:

[zmckenzie]

looking good!

[DarkXerox]

Woohoo, welcome to the college reef club!

 

I just moved my 29g back in late June from school. Took out 90% of the water, left the sand in, and left the powerheads in the tank (too hard to get the cables out. Disconnected the plumbing from the return and pulled out the skimmer, heater, and other parts, but left the fuge wet. The drained water went into water jugs (had 10G of new water waiting at home. All the sensitive frags/inverts went into a 2gal bucket, while the fish, LR, and whatnot went in a big 15 gal or so red bucket from home depot (the kind with the rope handles).

 

Lost literally only 1 thing: a dendro polyp that fell onto my diploastrea. The stand was really heavy, so it helps to have a station wagon make the trip with you. When I got home, I set up all the hardware, but put a powerhead and a heater in the buckets so that they got circulation and heating. I didn't net the fish either, so that helped with the stress.

 

I lost probably 3-5 gallons of water in the process, and I did a waterchange the next morning to drop any nitrates that got kicked up from the sandbed.

 

But the second you get home, try to hook up a powerhead and a heater to the bucket, I only went about an hour and a half on my trip, so you wont want to waste any time with that (it helps to go on a warm day too).

[bucknellreefer]

Thanks for the info! I am so worried about moving my 10 in a month, i can't imagine the effort involved in moving a 29. i am hoping everything goes alright with my move as i have put a lot of time, effort and money into this little tank this summer (hopefully it will start looking like that soon haha).

 

Update on the tank:

The hammer coral is still no fully out, it doesn't seem to be bleaching or losing any of its color, it is still just like 1/3 the size it was at the store... getting a little frustrated now as it has been a few days.

I also received my first non-store bought coral in the mail this thursday from mvite here on nano-reef. i purchased a couple small zoa frags from him, one is an almost metallic pink and the other is super bright greens. they have fancy names which i don't really remember or care about, all i know is that i think they look nice! he also threw in a couple small free frags of other colors. all in all i was very pleased with the whole experience and i would definately buy from him again.

here are some picture of my new additions:

Pink Zoas

Green Zoas

and another pic of the ric i got last week, just because i like it!

 

next addition that i am planning is some xenia, i want to see if i can get it to grow up the back of the tank and onto the ac110 piping, giving my tank a little more natural look. that might be the last addition before i make the big move on august 10th, i want to try a monti cap eventually but i think i may wait until december for that.

[Deleted User 7]

Hey,

I was also a college reefer once...... long ago! I had a 30 gallon. They allowed 30 gallons back in them days (Carroll College). Anywho, just wondering if you had any more photos of the hammer?

 

- Eben

 

P.S. I will be moving soon and one of my tanks is a 24 gl Nano Cube. Does anyone have any suggestions on moving this without breaking it? I dont want ANY cracking going on. TANK You (thank you)! (aquarist humor)

[DarkXerox]

Hey,

I was also a college reefer once...... long ago! I had a 30 gallon. They allowed 30 gallons back in them days (Carroll College). Anywho, just wondering if you had any more photos of the hammer?

 

- Eben

 

P.S. I will be moving soon and one of my tanks is a 24 gl Nano Cube. Does anyone have any suggestions on moving this without breaking it? I dont want ANY cracking going on. TANK You (thank you)! (aquarist humor)

 

Heh yeah for me it helped having my advisor/research prof being the dorm head too lol. But I had a 12g cube last year at school and I just took out half the water and put it in my car. For a 24, you could get a cut piece of wood that you set it up on, then slide off the wood when you want to move so it has a flat base and doesn't crack.

[zmckenzie]

Dr. Dagget,

 

Are you talking about Carroll College in WI?

[Brooklyn]

I really like that ric you got. I am also in the same boat as you, I have to move my 10 gallon to school soon. Are you bringing the tank home for any breaks?

[bucknellreefer]

I really like that ric you got. I am also in the same boat as you, I have to move my 10 gallon to school soon. Are you bringing the tank home for any breaks?

 

right now i am planing on taking the tank home for christmas break only. i may have to find someone to tend to it over spring break but i think those are the only breaks that i have that are over like 5 days long. i will have to get an auto-top off before i go to school to keep it topped off over short breaks (really feeling a little lost there, seems like there is a new "help me pick an ATO thread everyday and i still have no clue what i am going to do, i might just go with the JBJ they sell on nanocustoms even though the price makes me sad...). i think moving the tank twice in less than a week would be much more stressful to the corals and fish than not feeding them for a few days.

 

mini update: i added a couple ricordia yuma polyps i got from the LFS for a good price as well as a small frag of xenia. i will post some pics in a bit, things are a bit ugly, the cyano is so out of control its kinda scary.... i may have to take so action soon there.

[zmckenzie]

I think we nano-reef needs a section just for college reefers! There are lots of us out there.

[bucknellreefer]

Hmmm... Time for a real update:

All my corals are looking pretty good despite the huge amount of cyano that is growing everywhere. its not just in areas that are lower flow but also like right in front of the power head, frustrating but it doesn't really seem to be bothering anything. For awhile i was having to scape the glass everyday because of the green algae growing on it but this seems to have died down; i am hoping that the cyano does the same and sort of slowly dies off by itself. In the last week I have added a small piece of xenia as well as a couple of ricordia yuma polyps (i paid for 2 but there are at least 2 other little tiny babies growing on the shells they are attached to).

The best thing that has happened in the last week is the slow opening of the hammer coral i have had for 2 weeks. it never really looked that bad, it just refused to open up much, at least until this week when it finally began to extend out.

When i placed the Yumas in the tank the other day i got a bit of a surprise when my silly shrimp jumped on my arm. Now whenever i move anything around he comes out of his hiding spot behind the rocks and crawls over my arm. He also molted for the first time in the last week.

the other times i have been in the tank it has been to move my zoas around, trying to find the places where they will open up the best. I think my original orange zoas have started to form a couple of new polyps which i think is a good sign that they are healthy after a month in my care.

My scarlet hermits have also reappeared. for a while i was certain that at least one of them was dead but now they are out and about much more frequently. with their reappearence i think that i have still managed to keep loses thus far to 0 with the possible exception of a cerith snail.

 

with all of that out of my system here are some pics:

here are the yumas, i have put them in a partially shaded area for the time being to get them used to the halide light:

 

Here is my Hammer coral, looking much happier than before:

 

Harry and Lloyd posing in front of the Ricordia, you can also see the silly shrimp in the background and the beautiful coat of cyano covering the sand....

 

Finally here is the latest FTS, its a little out of focus but you can still see where erverything is as well as the purple crap covering everything:

 

Even though my tank has been up for just around 2 months i am already planning an upgrade. If i go through with it it will probably be around 20 gallons with a small sump, i am thinking that i would probably keep it fairly shallow so i can still use my mh setup with the addition of a couple of compact flourescents or T-5s.

I am hoping to build the tank myself but who knows whether that will be possible...

one of many concept sketchup drawings:

[Awincko]

college reefer here too...i've made it my first three years without getting bit by the reef bug...now its got me full force once again...i've had a nc6 2.18 from nano customs set up for about a month and a half now...didn't add much more than lr and some xenia that has nearly trippled in size in 3 weeks...now that the summer is winding down i'm gunna have to make the trip from pittsburgh, pa to tamp, fl, with two overnight stops in charlotte and daytona to pick up some things...not looking forward to the tearing down stage..any moving/packaging suggestions are welcome

[Prowland]

Good Luck with the custom build... I am looking at doing the same thing. I want to design and build everything from the stand to the sump. I got lucky and my work has a bunch of acrylic that I get to use for free!!!

 

College Reefer!! Go Hoosiers!

[bucknellreefer]

college reefer here too...i've made it my first three years without getting bit by the reef bug...now its got me full force once again...i've had a nc6 2.18 from nano customs set up for about a month and a half now...didn't add much more than lr and some xenia that has nearly trippled in size in 3 weeks...now that the summer is winding down i'm gunna have to make the trip from pittsburgh, pa to tamp, fl, with two overnight stops in charlotte and daytona to pick up some things...not looking forward to the tearing down stage..any moving/packaging suggestions are welcome

 

Thats quite a drive! you might wanna look into one of the dc to ac car adapters so that you could run a powerhead or heater while you are driving. since you just have xenia and rock it probably wouldn't be hard to put everything except the sand and enough water to cover it in a 5 gallon bucket and then stick a powerhead in there. I am not speaking from experience, just throwing out ideas. the good news is that xenia is hardy so it should be able to take a fair amount of abuse and bounce back.

[The Propagator]

Wheres the update pics?

[bucknellreefer]

Wheres the update pics?

 

Haha, ok!

I finally got some replacement batteries for the digi so i can throw up some pics of the additions i have made over the last couple weeks.

 

Earlier this week i purchased some zoas from The Propagator after seeing one of his picture threads and i was extremely happy with the whole transaction. I got 4 frags, one of which ( the carribbean blues, my favorite of the bunch of course) is still looking a bit grumpy from the move and has yet to open much. Here are pics of the other 3:

Blood rains:

reverse gorrilla nipples:

and pinks:

 

I also went to the beach last week and a trip to the beach means a trip to Dr. Mac's on the way home and I picked up this frag of purples with green edges:

 

I also made another addition from my LFS, I guess a little over a week ago, a small frag of some sort of acan. Here it is looking hungry:

 

And the most exciting developement of the last week was treating with chemiclean over the weekend. I had cyano covering everything, the stuff was so lush and stringy i though my clowns were going to start hosting. In anycase, I did a treatment of chemiclean and after about 12 hours it kicked in and managed to eliminate almost all of the cyano. i am probably going to do another treatment before i leave for school thursday to try and finish off the last bits.

Here is a FTS showing all the new additions and the lack of cyano:

[bucknellreefer]

I took a couple more pics today when i fed the tank. My blood shimp who spends most of his time behind the rocks always runs around like crazy snatching up food whenever i feed. I managed to get some pics of the silly shrimp in action. He might be my favorite creature in the tank, he has gotten bold enough to climb all over my arm whenever i am working on something in the tank.

Anyways here are the pics!

Attack Shrimp!

 

 

Ferocious isn't he?

[The Propagator]

Luk'ing goo' mane!! ( Alpachino Scareface voice LOL!)

 

Those Caribbean blues will open up shortly.

They may take a bit longer then the others but when they open you'll be pleasantly surprised!

 

Try moving them towards the top more.

Contrary to popular belief "most" caribbean zoanthids are found in water less than 10 feet deep. This means they are one of your higher light loving zoanthids.

Most people give in to the speculation and place them near some shade thinking that since most of the Florida Caribbean is subtropical they dont require as much light. WRONG. If you do that they will wither away and die.

 

Now the deep blue caribbean zoanthids you see on the market such as the blues found on Florida sealife in.'s website ARE found in deep waters ( usualy more than 20 feet under ) and do not require high lighting conditions. His neon blues however are also found in shallow waters so they too require high lighting conditions.

 

Well heck here ya go. Since 75% of the most readly available stuff to us inlanders is comming from Florida heres make shift light chart:

 

 

High light loving zoanthids, mushrooms and gorgonians from the Florida Caribbean.

 

Ricordea:

Purple blue ricordea ( can go both ways)

Neon green ricordea ( same)

Yellow ricordea ( same)

Neon green ricordea

Orange ricordea ( medium to high)

 

Rhodactis:

Gold Rhodactis ( can go both ways but does best under medium to high)

Orange Rhodactis ( same )

Red Rhodactis ( same )

 

Zoanthus:

Metalic green

Blue green

Whit'ish blue

Neon blue

Caribbean blue

lime'ish yellows

 

Gorgonians:

Yellow seawhip

Purple seawhip

Corky finger ( does best under medium to high)

Sea rod

Purple sea blade

Yellow sea blade

Encrusting Gorgonian ( does best under medium to high)

 

Non High light loving zoanthids, mushrooms,and gorgonians from the Florida Caribbean.

 

Ricordea:

Green with purple rim

Green

Deep Blue

Light blue

Rainbow

Pink

 

Zoanthus:

Deep or dark blues

 

Palythoas:

Cinamon polyps ( need to be partialy shaded if you have high lighting)

Chocholate brown and green palys ( place them in the sand bed or shallow on the reef)

Light green palys ( same as above)

Prety much any palythoa from the Florida Caribbean

 

Gorgonians:

prety much all "frilly" gorgonians.

 

 

Now with Florida species light loving and low light gorgs you still have to feed the heck out of them to get them to do anything other than merely exists.

Florida Caribbean waters are LOADED with microfauna, zooplankton, you name it. Hense the need to feed them alot

Ask any LFS that gets coral from a Florida Caribbean wholesaler LOL!.

Almost all of them use sea water to ship with and it always comes in slightly murky, and stinky from the seawater containing so much life and the sea waters live organisms die off during shipping.

 

 

 

I am glad your happy and that every thing made it.