First saltwater tank, 40 breeder

[KleineVampir]

Check out that even spread!

 

[KleineVampir]

Wow...so my light has a malfunction in it where one of the whites is just always on. Which is not good for fishy sleep time at night. So they're just sending me a free one?! They don't even want the old one back?? Lol seems kind of ridic but I guess that works for me!

 

[KleineVampir]

Man...pretty soon I'm gonna have to start fragging these zoas, and honestly I don't want to! It makes me nervous! Seems like they're doing great now...all they need is for me to come in and ruin everything. Also doesn't feel good to be cutting an animal, but of course they don't have any kind of nervous system. Still just feels like I'm doing surgery that I really shouldn't be. I suppose I should frag the cheapo zoas first, though I want to frag my mandarins.

 

[KleineVampir]

After all this time I finally did another algae scrubber harvest. Didn't film it, I think 4 is enough to get the idea! I think feeding pellets really fed the algae. I only fed them like 3 times in probably as many weeks, but that was still enough to see a huge nutrient spike in the system.

 

[KleineVampir]

Well I just used some Selcon along with their food and man...the fish really love it! It's great to see. I'm probably sold on that stuff. The question is, am I gonna use it every time? Well, they say it's good for corals and filter feeders too, so the answer is that I SHOULD use it every time, which is still every other day. Only time will tell if that's gonna happen. I suppose if I have a busy day one day I might not take the extra 3-5 minutes to do the selcon. But I think the fish's reaction to it really says volumes about it. I don't think I've ever seen happier fish! And it gives me renewed confidence in keeping fish.

At first I was thinking about getting some Rod's food but then I discovered selcon! Which can apparently turn any old frozen food into amazing all-purpose reef food for the fish and corals. So much better than paying 30 dollars just for the shipping of the frozen Rod's food!

Also I re-added vinegar to my ATO. I am struggling with a bit of an algae problem again and I think maybe the vinegar played an even bigger part in keeping the tank looking good than I thought. And it's such an easy fix to throw some white vinegar into your ato reservoir. Not to mention cheap. So hopefully over the next week or so I see some improvement with the film and hair algae. Yes...a little bit of hair algae has started making a comeback.

 

[KleineVampir]

I think the combination of feeding those pellets and the 12 hours of light is what is creating the algae problem again.

 

[KleineVampir]

Welp I really gone and done it now! I decided to try hydrogen peroxide in my tank, and well..I'm pretty sure it killed my shrimp! And surprisingly it just disappeared. I saw it laying on the sand, moving just a little bit. I come back only like an hour or two later and it's totally gone! Looks like he's paying the price for my experiment, which is too bad, because I think I've had that shrimp for quite a while now. Not sure if I'm going to get back into the shrimp game. It just costs too much to keep buying them. Meanwhile clownfish last virtually forever.

Looks like H202 is a no-go from me. Didn't even get rid of the hair algae I syringed it on. Just ticked everything off and killed my shrimp! I don't think the fish mind it but the corals do. Looks like the next step is the no-pox again.

I think tomorrow I'll clean out the scrubber though there is an argument for letting it be. Just a hail-mary attempt to get it to start up again. It has some hair algae in it but not much, and it doesn't seem to be growing.

 

[KleineVampir]

It's amazing to think that something's gonna drag that entire shrimp under the sand or somewhere I can't see it within an hour or so. I think it may be the conch I have in there who is responsible for this. He's fairly big and he's been surviving in there for quite some time now despite the fact that most of the time I don't even remember he's in there!

 

[KleineVampir]

Well I bought a bunch of hermit crabs and trochus snails. I'd really like to get the trochus to breed in my tank, dunno how realistic that is. I have some trochus now but not many survived getting into the tank. I got some bigger hermit crabs, not just the little blue legs. Kind of trying them instead of cleaner shrimp. As much as I do like cleaner shrimp I think I'm going to take a break on them and see if I'm happier with just a bunch of hermit crabs. They're cheaper and I think they actually do more. The cleaner shrimp I'm thinking may only be suitable for a bigger tank with lots of fish.

 

[KleineVampir]

Been kinda depressing lately with the GHA comeback, but I realized that the only reason it's coming back is because of all the nitrates and phosphates stuck in that sand. Initially I was pretty bummed that my method didn't seem to be working, but...here's the thing. The scrubber does work to get nutrients out of the WATER. But not out of the sand! Hit that sand with a bunch of flow and light and you best to believe you're gonna get GHA coming out of it!

So in a weird way it's not so bad. I've been doing nopox but strangely it doesn't seem to be doing much. But I am slowly upping the ante 1 mil at a time, every other day. Just added 4 ml.

Perhaps my system would be better served with a bare-bottom tank. Or perhaps bare bottom is just the way to go in general. Or maybe deep sand bed is better. But something tells me shallow isn't the way to go. If anybody thinks I should actually add more sand, or even take it all out, by all means let me know! Because it seems the sand is one of the few problems of this tank.

Also it looks like large hermit crabs are kind of a no-go. The thin stripe hermit I got is cool but he has a tendency to do things that are not exactly beneficial to the tank. For example, he knocked a whole chunk of GSP off its rock. I'd say hermits are great but stick to the small ones!

 

[count krunk]

You need to mix up the sand if there aren't enough critters doing it for you

 

[KleineVampir]

You need to mix up the sand if there aren't enough critters doing it for you

I'm reluctant to do that since I've never done anything with it so far! I just feel like it's a massive nutrient bomb! Though I do have some critters in there but probably not a ton. But with my pump and my scrubber, maybe it would be ok. Got any recommendations for a good heavy-duty sand-sifter? That way it isn't just one big bomb going off!

 

[count krunk]

diamond gobies are supposed to be awesome for it. just do a small section. I do maybe 1/4 of the tank with each water change

 

[KleineVampir]

diamond gobies are supposed to be awesome for it. just do a small section. I do maybe 1/4 of the tank with each water change

Any merit to just taking it out? I mean this substrate is gnarly! With GHA and shells everywhere.

 

[KleineVampir]

Well I'm interested to see how well I can clean this stuff. So I got a motorized cleaning hose thing that sucks in water and just blows it back down into the water, but it has a filter on it. Hopefully not a total waste of money! Could be that this tank could really use some siphoning action on that sand!

 

[KleineVampir]

Well you said shake up the sand...already got and used this thing once and it does shake up the sand pretty decently! So I'm hoping that released some stuff into the water that my algae scrubber can now deal with.

 

[KleineVampir]

Well I just ordered some filter socks! I wanted to see the system without such a thing and I think I have by this point! So let's add filter socks and see what happens. With a 0 water change method, you really need as many nutrient export methods as possible. I thought the scrubber would compensate for this but lately it hasn't been doing anything. I think what's happening is that food is breaking down into the sand and rocks.

Anyways maybe it won't do a ton for my nutrient/algae issues, maybe it will, but I am looking forward to seeing the water get really clear! That's one thing I think it will do.

 

[KleineVampir]

Just say no to xenia kids! I got rid of mine. Gave the big rock away and started throwing the remnants down the toilet! It takes up everything...things that your other better corals want. Namely amino acids/proteins I think. I swear I can already see the zoanthids and gsp growing faster now.

 

[KleineVampir]

Ok Eat sleep reef, the youtuber I'm sure just about everybody is familiar with, said something that stuck with me. Flow is important! Not just for your coral but for your filtration system! Keeping particles suspended in the water is something you actually want to do, so that your filtration system can eventually take care of it. Seems so obvious but I think I really blew it on this one for too long. Well no more! I upped the flow by over double. The gyre used to be on 4, off 20 (seconds). It's now on 6, off 10! Then I even went in and brushed off some rocks with a toothbrush and I could see that the particles kept being kicked up.

Man I've kind of struggled with getting all the elements of good filtration going. I'm hoping with this, and the coming filter socks, I'm going to have a pretty darn good filtration system! And once I finally do get the filter socks, I'm gonna stir up as much crap as possible and probably change out that sock early. And maybe do that with all 6 socks. There's a lot of crap in that display because it all settled too much.

It's taken me a while to learn this stuff but it has been really interesting! It's kind of a unique challenge. Not quite engineering but not quite biology. There's both involved and when you first start it's like you have to learn both at the same time. And it's gotta be about impossible to get everything right the first way through.

Maybe all in all, the tank looks pretty good for all the mistakes I've put it through. I'm hoping that I can get it to look better without doing anything drastic. Hopefully by making positive changes the tank will start to look better. Might take a while but I'm looking forward to speeding things up by stirring up a big particle storm and catching it all with the filter socks! That's gonna be pretty seriously cathartic! And good for the tank.

 

[KleineVampir]

Welp it looks like I'm in for a total sand makeover! Honestly my sand is terrible and I hate it. I bought it when I was cheaping out because I was buying so many other things. Not this time! I got 100 pounds of caribsea fiji pink! So what I'm actually doing is going deep sand bed. That should cover a little more than 3 inches.

Also I bought some turtle grass. Who knows if it'll take off or not but we'll see what happens. I feel better about doing this now that I have the filter socks. What can I say? It's time! I want a beautiful sand bed, not a disgusting aragonite mess!