pdiehm New Build

keithp · May 31, 2015

This turned out very well. Good job.

Did you plan to take it apart? If you do any more woodwork, you can skip the pocket holes when you are going to cover it with plywood since the screw heads wouln't show anyway. Just use longer screws and screw through the top.

pdiehm · May 31, 2015

Plan? No. But knowing my wife, I can't ever say never

pdiehm · Jun 7, 2015

Apex controller ordered! PH, Temp, fusion ready. Not really needed right now but will be down the line. Toying with getting the salinity probe

pdiehm · Jun 9, 2015

Getting first fish tonight. a pair of clowns, will start the QT process, and go from there.

Been doing 25 gallon water changes twice a week to bring down the nitrate reading. Also using NO3

O4-x. Will test tomorrow night. Nitrates were well over 64, probably closer to 100. Last test had them estimated at 50, and if my math is right, should be under 40 with this most recent water change. I have noticed the snail activity has increased with each water change.

The Biocube will receive a 5 gallon change tonight. Nitrates were at 16, and should be in the 10-12 range after this 5 gallon change. The 2 crabs left, have been active, moreso when the moonlights come on.

Learned alot about cycling a saltwater tank, now I know what not to do

pdiehm · Jun 10, 2015

Got a pair of Occelaris Clowns. First place I went to was closed (seriously who closes at 6pm?). Went to another place , and saw a pair of Percula, but the smaller one had a bit of a ragged tail fin, and the larger one had what looked to be a small piece of white fuzzy on its bottom lip...for $28.99, I wasn't paying for sick fish, and with this being my first saltwater fish ever, I wanted something healthy that I didn't have to nurse back to health.

Stopped at Petco, not to buy fish, but get some supplies, and my stepson called me over, and they had about 12 occelaris clowns in the tank. One wasn't because the middle stripe went about halfway, but in the back right corner there was a pair and did everything together. Watched them for about 25-30 minutes, and then asked the guy to feed tank. He looked at me like I was green, and did feed them. The pair ate like pigs. Kept watching them, eyes clear, fins in great shape, no fungus that I am able to detect. I bought em. Wasn't my first choice of places to buy, but they looked healthy.

Salinity was 1.022-1.023, my tank is 1.023-1.024, so I floated the bag for about 20 minutes to acclimate to temperature, and then over the course of 30 minutes added 1/2 cup of water to the bag. Released into the 10gallon tank. And here we are.

in 47 hours, 51 minutes, the transfer to tank #2 will occur, and dose with praziquantel. Checked on them this morning and they were doing great. put in a little bit of brine shrimp, and they didn't know what to do, and took some courage to go up to the surface to get it, but they at least ate a little bit. Will put some flakes in tonight.

Observed them, no indication of ich (the cardinal tetra's my kiddo got there, of the 10, 8 had ich within 12 hours, 6 died - this was before I knew about quarantining fish). The funny thing is the guy at Petco told me, oh, you don't need to quarantine these guys.

Yeah right.

booth2010 · Jun 10, 2015

pdiehm said:
The funny thing is the guy at Petco told me, oh, you don't need to quarantine these guys.

Thats a good joke lol. I wonder how serious he was.

pdiehm · Jun 10, 2015

Oh he was dead serious. He gave me a very quizzical look when I told the 11 year old of the plan to transfer them to a new tank every 3 days, for a total of 13, and then 30 days in the 20 gallon long. he chimed in and goes, you know, you really don't need to quarantine these guys.

Having said that a friend of mine told me the same thing, that my tank is empty, and clowns are really resistant to disease and such that I could get away without QT.

And all that may be true, but given where I bought these guys from, they are going through a full QT process. Maybe if I got from Vivid Aquariums, I could probably just get away with the 2 week Tank Transfer process...but Petco? No way, though their salt tanks looked to be very well taken care of.

pdiehm · Jun 12, 2015

First transfer complete. 3 more to go. dosed praziquantel this time. Lightly feeding for 3 days with no prime addition. No signs of ich, clowns very active, very healthy at this point. Scooping them up with the square colander was easy, next one will be more difficult because of how i built this stand...hindsight being what it is, should have given myself more room, but oh well.

pdiehm · Jun 18, 2015

Final transfer completed this morning. Dosed 2.4ml of Praziquantel. Sunday morning will be the transfer to the main QT tank for 30 days.

Clowns are doing well (that I can tell). I have become the "food god". Every time I walk into the room, they are at the surface looking for food. Have not notice any white spots on them, nor do I see any signs of anything externally. They are colorful, active, and always looking to eat.

pdiehm · Jun 27, 2016

Updating my build.

I think it's impossible to move much slower than I have been. I still have the clowns that I rescued. I ordered 6 blue gudgeon gobies but within 3 hours of acclimating, one was dead due to some kind of fungus. That left 5. Woke up the next morning, and another was dead. 4 left. Made it through TTM, and the morning I was going to add to my display, 1 went carpet surfing. 3 left!

Added to the display and about a month later, one started hiding, and not eating. I was able to scoop it out and put in a hospital tank. But the next morning it was done. About 2 weeks later, one of the remaining 2 did the same thing, and I saw a hermit had taken the body up on a rock and was picking. Not knowing if it was a parasite or something, i removed it from the tank. Didn't want something eating it, and spreading it.

1 blue gudgeon gobie left! It's a pig, and I'm wondering if possibly they shouldn't be in groups.

I recently bought a mccosker's wrasse, which is in QT until my 3 other flasher's arrive tomorrow, then I'll start TTM with them as a quartet. 4 males, different versions so to speak.

Would give me 2 clowns, 4 wrasse, 1 gobie. I want to add a blenny (leaning towards Midas or a Canary), a gobie/shrimp pair, 2 tangs (yellow and Kole, though multiple people have said with my 60" tank, and how I have my rocks, I could easily support a hippo tang), and probably a foxface as the remaining fish to stock.

I added a green bubble tip anemone, and I have about 13 SPS corals as I have been running Zeovit since April 1, and things are doing very well so far.

It's been a long journey to this point, and after the overflow box fell off while I was in disney, I was seriously thinking about just shutting down the 120, selling it...and starting from scratch a year or 2 later. If I knew my tank would have to go in the basement, I wouldn't have turned down the free 240 and stand. 8' long if I remember.