12 Gallon Rebirth

HowardJ02 · Mar 29, 2017

My wife gave me the green light on setting up another tank!

It's is my first ever saltwater tank back from 2009 - a JBJ nanocube.

I'm going to be running an open top as I have no idea where my broken hood is haha
I am wanting to do LED for this tank but really I don't have the first clue about different fixtures. I was looking at the Kessil A80?

Also thinking of doing black sand in this one vs the white/pink.

I'm excited to get this thing going again!

HowardJ02 · Mar 29, 2017

Messing around with rocks and future aquacape-

Gave some old dry rock a muriatic acid wash and it ate away a lot more of the smaller rock than I thought it would.

Maybe I'll just get a new live rock to seed the tank.

I'll have to order the black sand because no one around me has any in stock for a while!

AcroNem · Mar 29, 2017

I love a good cube build! I'm working on remaking my 12 year old 24g nanocube into a NPS reef. I don't think I'll ever use sand other than black in a personal build again, it just looks so good. Caribsea Hawaiian black is by far by favorite. Haven't used the A80 but have seen good things so far, keep us updated!

HowardJ02 · Mar 30, 2017

AcroNem said:
I love a good cube build! I'm working on remaking my 12 year old 24g nanocube into a NPS reef. I don't think I'll ever use sand other than black in a personal build again, it just looks so good. Caribsea Hawaiian black is by far by favorite. Haven't used the A80 but have seen good things so far, keep us updated!

I ordered some Hawaiian black last night!

AcroNem · Mar 30, 2017

Nice! Hope you like it, the contrast it gives is perfect, and it vacs easily because it's lighter. It will stick to a mag cleaner so be careful, that's pretty much the only downside.

HowardJ02 · Mar 30, 2017

AcroNem said:
Nice! Hope you like it, the contrast it gives is perfect, and it vacs easily because it's lighter. It will stick to a mag cleaner so be careful, that's pretty much the only downside.

Ah dang. I read somewhere that it wouldn't stick.
I'll just be more careful!

HowardJ02 · Mar 31, 2017

Ordered the A80 tonight!
Will have sand and the light early next week.
Kind of unsure about the rock that I've been working so hard to clean since the acid ate a lot of it. Sort of thinking about doing it all over again with other pieces I have.

HowardJ02 · Apr 4, 2017

Woohoo!

HowardJ02 · Apr 4, 2017

Coming together! Loving this little Kessil!
Mixing water up now.

HowardJ02 · Apr 4, 2017

It's wet!

HowardJ02 · Apr 5, 2017

The hydor-flo is making the sand in the front go up onto the rock. Not sure what to do about that now..

HowardJ02 · Apr 5, 2017

Put a bottle of Bio-Spira in last night -

Salinity - 1.024
Calcium - 540
Nitrites - .25
Nitrates - 5
pH - 8.2
Phosphates - .25
kH- 214.8

Do you guys think a few gallon water change will bring things down to where they need to be?

Also I don't believe my heater is working. Swapped it out with another one I had.

HowardJ02 · Apr 6, 2017

Did a 3 gallon water change..
Just getting antsy after adding the Bio-Spira. It claims to be able to add fish instantly but I wouldn't/didn't trust that.

I just got these readings:
SG: 1.026 (I wanted to get it a little higher before I added any life to the tank)
KH: 232.7
Calcium: 500
pH: 7.8
Nitrite: 0
Ammonia: .25
Phosphates: .25
Nitrate: 20

My calcium and alkalinity are high- what can I do about a that?

Was thinking about adding a small piece of rock from my other tank that has a little bit of GSP on it. Would I just be killing the GSP?

Tank is cloudy too - should I throw some carbon in?

HowardJ02 · Apr 18, 2017

I put the piece of live rock with GSP in the tank about a week and a half ago. It lost all of its color..

Not sure what color and intensity to put the light on?