Watch Me Screw Up a 15g Column!

[idontwan2know]

Current FTS as of 5/17:

 

 

And now video! The clowns were right up against the glass, so they look bigger than they actually are. Also, pretty much all of these pictures show the tank as being a lot more blue than it really is. It's much more of a white color with a bit of blue. Sort of lavender-ish.

 

 

The title says it all. I've done lots of FW tanks, including high tech planted tanks, but this is my first foray into reef-keeping, so I expect to make lots of mistakes.

 

The tank is a 15 gallon column kit by Aqueon. Out of the box:

 

 

The hood with the stock lighting setup, a single T-5 bulb:

 

 

Keeping the stock look of the tank/hood was a huge priority. I'm big on hiding equipment and the outside of the tank looking as good as the inside, so after a lot of research I decided to gut the stock lighting and replace it with an LED kit from AquaStyle. There will be an acrylic splash guard before any livestock gets added as the heatsink is only an inch or so off the water, but that's a project for another day:

 

 

My craftsmanship is less than exquisite, but from the outside it looks fairly OEM. I originally wanted to mount the fan from the inside so it would be flush, but there just wasn't room in there and making a square attractive cut in the plastic of the hood proved to be very difficult:

 

 

Here's a shot from right after setup. The sand is CaribSea Sugar Sized Aragamax, the tall rock is a pillar rock from Marco Rocks and the other stuff is live rock from my LFS. I'm reasonably sure I made my first careless mistake at this point as I put the live rock in, added distilled water and then added salt rather than mixing the salt water first. Hopefully the inadvertent fresh water dip didn't kill off too much of the good stuff on the live rock.

 

 

I was a bit nervous about going with the sugar sized sand after reading about it taking forever to settle, getting kicked up and making the water cloudy, etc. but after only a few hours with an oversized HOB I had hanging around and the AquaticLife skimmer going, it had cleared up completely.

 

 

 

Finally, a few FTS with different lighting shades.

 

 

 

It's my first reef tank, so I don't have a lot of basis for comparison, but I'm really happy with the lighting. I split the whites 50/50 between 10000k cool whites and 2800k warm whites and you can definitely see how the warm whites bring out the red spectrum. With that being said, if you're going to use this tank, I would suggest using the stock light and supplementing with 2-3 LED strips unless you're REALLY into DIY and saving money. Cramming this lighting kit into the hood was a major project and took the better part of two days(and counting, since the splash guard isn't done). If I hadn't had all the tools and supplies necessary(soldering iron, solder, dremel, etc) already at hand it probably wouldn't have saved me much, either. I will recoup some costs by using the stock T5 as a fuge light, but again, unless you're REALLY into DIY, I suggest spending the extra money for some Ecoxotic Stunner Strips and leaving the stock light in there.

 

I'm going to rescape the rocks, to be a mirror image and get the tall rock into the left hand corner. This will look better from the other side that's viewable from the room. This is my first cube type aquarium, so I'm not used to having to make the scape look good from multiple sides.

 

Most of my equipment is still on the way, but when it's all assembled, the equipment list will look like this:

 

AC110 modded into a refugium with sand, live rock rubble and chaeto.

Eheim Jager 50w heater (in the fuge)

2 Hydor Pico Evolution 600 pumps for flow. One at the top, one at the bottom.

AquaticLife 115 Internal Mini Skimmer (in fuge)

 

As you can probably tell, keeping equipment out of the tank/hidden is a huge priority for me. From what I've seen, scale is critical in a good nano scape and nothing destroys the sense of scale faster than a big ugly heater in the tank.

 

As far as stocking, I'm debating between a pair of clowns and a purple firefish; or a single clown, purple firefish and a green banded goby. A coral banded shrimp and a ReefKeepers quick crew will go with either choice.

 

I have no real solid plans as far as corals yet. I'm lucky enough to have three well stocked LFS within 15 minutes, and some truly awesome shops just 30 minutes away, so I'm just going to let myself be guided by what they have and what strikes my fancy rather than getting my heart set on things and having to scour the planet to find them. I went with the 16 LED lighting and skimmer so that I'd have the flexibility to grow pretty much anything.

 

Anyway, the cycle is started so there won't be much interesting happening in the tank for a while, but I'll be sure to update the thread when I get the rest of the equipment in and the fuge mod completed.

[iball1804]

Looks really good! Great job on those lights

[londonloco]

Def impressed. Very nice. Subscribed.....

[miniwhinny]

Don't see this shape of tank being used very often....really looking forward to seeing it develop. I have a feeling it's going to look great

[Dnanoreefer]

I think the 50/50 cool white and royal blue would have been the ideal choice for a saltwater reef but to each his own.. The tank looks sweet and if you replicate the tower on the left side also.. That will be sweet!

[asting]

Haha awesome tall rock.

I'd suggest painting the back before you get too far.

[idontwan2know]

Thanks for the comments, folks!

 

As far as the colors of the LEDs, my research indicated that the trend now is more towards covering more spectrum for better colors in the tank. I can definitely tell just from the stuff on the live rock that the warm white brings out colors in the orange/red part of the spectrum better than the cool white.

 

I'm debating a black or blue background. I've done black for all my planted tanks as it really makes the plants stand out, but I'm not crazy about the black backgrounds I've seen in reef tanks.

 

The idea of putting another tall rock in the opposite side is a good one. It would create kind of a canyon effect that would help with the depth effect and fill in the back of the tank.

[kevinlogan42]

I set up the same aquarium at the beginning of the year. There are a couple others on here that have threads going. I look forward to following yours. Looks good

Kevin

http://i1075.photobucket.com/albums/w425/K...8-44-17_265.jpg

http://i1075.photobucket.com/albums/w425/K...3-21-36_857.jpg

[asting]

The Blue/black is largely personal. I like to think blue gives a cooler more relaxed and natural tone, while black lets exotic oranges, yellows, etc really pop.

[idontwan2know]

Hey folks, quick update:

 

Finally got all my equipment in the tank. I went with an Aqueon Pro heater rather than the Jager because it was in stock and a bit shorter, thereby fitting better in the fuge.

 

Here's the AC110 modded into a fuge. There's Purigen in the intake chamber, live rock rubble in the middle chamber, and the skimmer and heater in the third chamber. I decided to go bare bottom in the fuge since I didn't have enough space for a decent sand bed. I have a fleabay submersible LED pod coming in the mail that will attach to the inside of the hood to support chaeto, but other than that, the fuge is complete. It required a lot of dremeling both on the hood and the AC110 itself to get it to fit. It's about an inch too wide and too tall out of the box.

 

 

 

I rescaped the rocks to get the taller rock into the opposite corner and despite doing it completely blind, I think it came out much better. I like the rockscape as it is now from both sides and don't plan to change it any more.

 

 

 

The water is actually quite clear, it's just micro bubble city in there while the skimmer is breaking in.

 

 

If anyone has any brilliant ideas for hiding the power cord of the pump that's concealed behind the rocks at the bottom of the tank, let me know. The current plan is to run it up behind the pillar rock.

 

Last equipment project is a DIY battery powered ATO. Just waiting on my float switches to get started on that.

[Cintax]

Looks great! Running the cord behind the rock work makes the most sense to me.

[idontwan2know]

Got the fuge lights monday and siliconed them into the AC110 lid, though I did sadly crack and mangle it trying to drill it.

 

Been testing ammonia, nitrites and nitrates daily and I think the cycle is just about complete:

 

Ammonia is registering just above 0 (I have my doubts about this test kit as it has never EVER read fully 0)

Nitrites 0

Nitrates no more than 2-3ppm.

 

I went ahead and tested all the other relevant parameters since it seems like the cycle is about complete:

 

Salinity: 1.024

Calcium: 460ppm

Carbonate: 10dKH

pH: 8.4

 

 

At this point I think it's safe to add some inverts so I ordered a custom cleanup crew from ReefCleaners.org along with some chaeto.

 

10 dwarf ceriths

4 Florida Ceriths

3 Nassarius

3 small/medium Nerites

3 Hermits (blue knuckle, scarlet, blue leg)

 

Pics when they arrive!

[idontwan2know]

So, mistake #2! I had an odd situation where the wire for the thermometer probe was siphoning water out of the tank very slowly. Slow enough that I thought it was just an oddly high amount of evaporation. It resulted in a drop of salinity down to 1.021. I resolved that a few days ago, but it didn't occur to me that this amounted to a small water change and would dilute my test results. So, testing a couple days later and the ammonia was back to .75ppm.

 

The CUC was already ordered at this point, so I'll just have to hope for the best.

 

As is apparently normal, John at Reef Cleaners sent more extras than I can begin to count.

 

 

Just about everything is moving right away, except for a few ceriths and nassarius.

 

Totally digging this blue knuckled hermit!

[banshee]

Love the blue knuckled hermit! Very cool! Wish I would have started with an RC pack rather than ala carte here and there. They look awesome!

[MFChop]

Great setup so far....

[ecogirl22]

love the tank, so jealous! are you adding amquel or something to lower the ammonia? I'd worry about inverts in .75ppm .....

[PwnMe]

I would've done a rather large water change when the ammonia went up. I know I'd probably screw up the cycle though. I love the tank though, something about high tanks excites me. Hopefully if you stock with fish you pick some fish that utilize the height of the tank.

[idontwan2know]

The ammonia actually dropped back close to 0 by the next day, and everything seems to be doing okay. The hermits hide in the rockwork most of the time but I do see them occasionally.

 

Been fighting some leaks with the AC110 from it not sitting level, but I think I finally got it solved.

 

The Auto Top Off is the next project now that the water level should be more stable.

 

Edit: I also discovered today what looks to me to be the beginnings of green coralline algae. These little lime green patches are all over the place. Would appreciate it if someone can confirm the ID.

 

[kevinlogan42]

The ammonia actually dropped back close to 0 by the next day, and everything seems to be doing okay. The hermits hide in the rockwork most of the time but I do see them occasionally.

 

Been fighting some leaks with the AC110 from it not sitting level, but I think I finally got it solved.

 

The Auto Top Off is the next project now that the water level should be more stable.

 

Edit: I also discovered today what looks to me to be the beginnings of green coralline algae. These little lime green patches are all over the place. Would appreciate it if someone can confirm the ID.

 

Auto top off is amust with this setup i think i use about 2 galons a week topping off. the small surface area really makes the evaporation noticable. Let me know what you use I may have to copy you.

Kevin

 

How did you end up modifying your 110? I had to cut1/2 -3/4 inch off the overflows to get it in mine. I wasn't brave enough to do it to a new one i wawaited ti find a cheao used one to experment on.

Kevin

[Paigee]

Hmm a challenging shape for a reef!! Being so tall it's hard to get a good flow. How is the flow going on this one? I see an AC110 and another small powerhead, but does that really get all the way down to the bottom?

 

I'm interested to see how it turns out with that one stack of rock that goes all the way up. It looks kind of funny to me now, but I'm sure once corals start going in it could look pretty cool!

[idontwan2know]

There is a second powerhead concealed behind the rocks on the right. Flow seems to be quite strong, with only one small dead spot in the back right corner where I would not put any corals anyway.

 

The tower,mountain look is definitely different, but I needed a scape that would look good from the front and one side, and it has to be tall so the top of the tank doesn't look empty. I also just flat out don't like tanks where the hardscape is just rock stacked up to the top of the tank along the back wall. Leaving enough swimming room for fish was also a concern, since the length and width of the tank is basically that of an 8 gallon tank.

[MFChop]

Update? looking at doing one myslef

[Markushka]

Nice LEDs! my friend has a 5g version that he wants me to set up for him, I'm gonna start looking at leds now to swap out the stock light.

[idontwan2know]

There hasn't been much to update lately. I chopped the intake tube of the AC110 very short, so it starts to pull air really quickly, which combined with the column footprint means it's very sensitive to evaporation. Getting the ATO set at the right height has been a bit of a chore.

 

Was beginning to get concerned with how long the scarlet and blue knuckled hermit had disappeared, but both have made appearances this week.

 

Looking to get my first fish as soon as I can find a purple firefish in one of the LFS.

[idontwan2know]

Quick update. I've added a purple firefish who seems to be doing well, however I've encountered a water quality issue.

 

A few weeks ago my water suddenly became extremely cloudy. At first I believed this was sand that I accidentally stirred up somehow. I added an extra hob filter with a bunch of filter floss in there as well as putting the skimmer directly in the tank, rather than the fuge. This was the same setup that cleared up the sand from the initial setup in a matter of hours. However, after a day there was no noticeable difference so I decided it had to be a bacterial bloom and started doing large water changes every 3-4 days. That seemed to be working as the water appeared almost clear after a couple weeks, but then it clouded up with a vengeance again. I have a UV sterilizer on the way now to hopefully resolve this once and for all.