Reef tank build from day one

[bdejong1112o]

Well, a quick update on the tank.

• I QT'd and added a bonded pair of clown fish. They were the one must have for my wife. We found them in a local fish store and other than a little praz for intestinal parasites they made it through QT with a clean bill of health. Only issue is the femal always gives me a quick nip when i am in the tank moving corals around. What a B....
• I also added a bunch of clean up crew members to keep up with the new growth in the tank.
• Got the cheato in the fuge and its growing as it should. However, green hair alge also loves the fuge. Good part is that it loves the fuge more than the display. I do have a little bit here and there in the display but the CUC is keeping it contained so far. If it starta to get out of hand I will add more snails to mow it down.
• Currently I have a pink spotted goby in QT. He is the next to go into the display. After that I may add either a bleny or the gramas. More than likely the bleny as its more beneficial to the tank.
• I did get some LPS corals. Hard to resist these right now but I promised myself I would hold off for a bit and let the ones I have establish themselves for a bit before adding more
  • Two torch, blue and pink tip one on each end of the tank
  • Couple zoas on the zoa island. Got a nice colony of fire and ice that isndoing very well.
  • Hammer, branching type, also doing well, very plump and happy so far.
  • Duncan, love this guy, found a good spot for him and he is all open and appears to be very happy.
  • Some gsp, because i love the grass of the sea. Isolated to an island for now.
• Worked a bunch on lighting, using a par meter.
• Worked a bunch on adjusting and setting up the flow in the tank for the inhabitants. They will tell you when you get it wrong.
• Monitoring all my parameters and have my triton dosing setup and ready to go. I am sending out my first ICP tests today. Will see how it goes in a week or so when the results come back.

Thats all for now.....

 

[Brew12]

Only issue is the femal always gives me a quick nip when i am in the tank moving corals around. What a B....

How would your wife feel if you started moving the furniture around in your house without getting her approval first?

 

[bdejong1112o]

How would your wife feel if you started moving the furniture around in your house without getting her approval first?

Well, from expirence she doesnt bite me. Lol....

 

[DeniseAndy]

Looks good. We need another fts. BTW I like the redo of the rockwork. JMO of course.

 

[bdejong1112o]

UPDATE:

So some good and some bad. The bad is that the Pink Spot Goby did not make it through QT. I am at a loos as to why since he showed no signs of any sickness at all. He was acting fine and then one night he was dead. I did a quick dip into Fresh water to check for flukes and nothing.

I reset the whole QT tank, sanitized it and filled it back up with fresh water and added a new pair of gobys. Found them while at the LFS witha friend of mine looking at the latest coral. They actually stuck by eachother all the time. If one moved to another spot the other one followed. This is quite a bit different than the other pair in a different tank that were spending thier time working out thier domanance issues. lol So I couldnt see splitting them up and think there is enough room in my tak for both of them. All my rock is on the glass and the sand added after the rock was put into place so they can go and move sand arond all they want.

Oh, and then got talked into a small foxface. Yes, probably a fish to many for the 20 gallon QT tank. I will be busy with water changes and maintenance on that tank for sure. They are all on the small size so I am certain I can keep up with it. I have a 100+ gallon RODI system in the garage that makes water as needed so it will be all good.

Now, Foxface, what a character. Did not realie the changed color so quickly and so often. I swear he know when I am watching. he always changes color when I am around. However, when I watch throug the QT camera he is Yellow and swiming around. Me thinks he is a drama queen.

Refugium is working good, Cheato is growing and the snails that I banished down there are fat and happy. Skimmer is making nice, stinkky, dark brown skimate. It comes and goes as to when it makes it but its skimming it out very nicely. I am going through about 14 gallons of ATO water every 5-7 days in the tank.

I have been slowly ramping up the pumps and tuning the flow in the tank. The lighting has also been adjusted to get the right PAR at each area in the tank.One thing I forgot to do was adjust the lights after adding the egg crate covers. This cut the light at the bottom of the tank far more than I would have assumed. Due to how much light was reduced I ordered the 1/8" screen kit from BRS. The egg crate is ar to ineficient to keep it up there.

Happy t report all corals ini the system are doing well. My blasto has some new growth on it that I noticed while taking some pictures the other night. The fire and ice zoa is doing the best and loves where it is located. Always fat and happy. The others are more picky but they will work it out sooner or later. The torch are good as are all the others.

Yup, Zoa, LPS and softies. Remember this was a lazy mans tank. I am good with the care requirements of the current corals for now. I am keepig Nitrates at about 3-5 and Phosphates to 0.05 to 0.08 depending on the reactor schedule. Alk, Calc, and Mag are being handled by the Triton dosing. Keeping Alk to 8.3 and Calcium at around 430. I will continue to monitor and adjust the dosing as needed. I also sent out for my first ICP test on Friday. We will see what it says in a few weeks.

I also added a Neptune auto feeder. Pretty cool device and will help me by providing the mid day feeding when I am at work or away for the day. Clowns took a bit to figure out where it was but now they keep comming back looking for more food. What pigs they are.

Thats all for now....

 

[bdejong1112o]

So,you know how I said the auto feeder is pretty cool. Well, while it is cool it can also smack you in the face. So I went to pull out the food container to adjust the amount of food dispensed and poof, off came the cover and a whole ton of food spilled into the tank. Now, I also use the two little fishes food ring so it sat there for a few seconds, contained inside the ring and I thought go get a spoon and get it out. However, by the time I got back to the tank the sheer weight of the food caused most all of it to sink and get blown into the tank. Ugg, I mean it was like a pellet food storm. I try to look at the positive but all I could think of was the impending nutrient spike and all the cascading probles that will cause.

But, I did get to see some of my corals eat. My blasto got some on him and he gladly took it all in. Several other corals threw out thier feeding tentacles and snatched a few pieces out of the water. So, remember, new tank and small frags. 200g of space and there was enough to actually get these tiny pellets to several corals. It was like a pellet food snow globe.

Enter in the two MP40's. I had created a switch on my Apex that would trigger the nutrient export mode simply by turing on the switch. I did this a while back when I was expirementing with the different modes of the power heads. I will tell you that this mode works and works very well. I mean I watched over the next hour as it showved most all of the food into the overflows. It would create little tornados of food in the corners and lift it off of the substrate and down the over flows it went.

I dont think it got it all but it did a fantastic job at it. Now all I need to do is go flush my filter sock to get it ot of the system and hope the nutrients are taken up by the chaeto and the CUC. Time will tell.... Now I am off to clean out a filter sock. Oh what fun.

 

[bdejong1112o]

Ok, so keeping with the positive theme... I removed the large filter sock I am running on my returns right now. I used a large white bowl to place the sock into while I carried it to the sink. While rinsing out the sock I noticed some movement in the water left in the bowl. I watched and sure enough, little small specks were jery moving around in the water. So I grabbed my little pipette and sucked one up and placed it on a slide to look at it under the microscope. Sure enough. Little copepod! There were several in the water that drained off from the sock so they must be growing in the sump. Never dosed them so they must have come along with the cheato. Was nice to see and hopefully they will grow in numbers so that in a year or so I can support a dragonette.

Silver linings folks, Silver linings...

 

[Brew12]

Ok, so keeping with the positive theme... I removed the large filter sock I am running on my returns right now. I used a large white bowl to place the sock into while I carried it to the sink. While rinsing out the sock I noticed some movement in the water left in the bowl. I watched and sure enough, little small specks were jery moving around in the water. So I grabbed my little pipette and sucked one up and placed it on a slide to look at it under the microscope. Sure enough. Little copepod! There were several in the water that drained off from the sock so they must be growing in the sump. Never dosed them so they must have come along with the cheato. Was nice to see and hopefully they will grow in numbers so that in a year or so I can support a dragonette.

Silver linings folks, Silver linings...

I used to get amphipods in my socks all the time. Now I think my fish keep their numbers in check. I actually miss seeing them.

btw... I've done the same thing with my Apex feeder. What a pain! But, no long term harm.

 

[bdejong1112o]

UPDATE

So, I added a few more turbos to help graze on the hair alge. The LFS eill take them back once they run out of food in the tank. Well, three days later they really put a huge dent into the growth. The tank looks much better. There is still some green alege on the rocks but it is not the hair stuff. I banished one turbo to the refugium since there is plenty to eat down there right now. I am keeping an eye on the tank and will thin out the turbos as the available food is reduced.

Setup feed mode C on the apex for coral feeding. 15 minutes with all power heads and return pump off, skimmer as well with a defer... Mix up some rotifers, reef roids and reef chili. Most all appear to have a feeding response and there is about 5 to 8 minutes of still water after feeding for them to soak it all in. Thinking I will do this once a week to start.

I did make new screens using the BRS kit for 1/8" screen. Kit had plenty of material and a huge amount of screen. Due to light mounts and return pipes i had to use egg crate for the back few inches and then screen for the rest. Looks much better than solid egg crate and the egg crate cut a ton of light. Like 40% according to my par meter.

Why screens you ask? Added a goby, didnt want to lose it due to jumping so covered the tank.

Recieved the results from my first ICP as well. Some tin amd copper which i will have to deal with. Little low in calcium so dosed that. Other than that a few trace elements like potassium, boron and some others that i will take a look at later.

Adjusted my triton doses to keep up with consumption lately and added a nano power head to the refugium right where i dose triton. Read tjat you need to dose in high flow area and there was not enough right where i was dosing. After adding the nano power head it is whisked away much faster.

Current tank picture.

 

[bdejong1112o]

Added a Desjardini Sailfin Tang to the tank this week. That may very well be the last one for the year. Kind of worn out on the whole QT thing with fish, hate seeing them in the QT tank with nothing to do. Seeing them get so excited and happy when they are introduced to the main display tank is awesome.

Biggest tank related thing this week was the purchase of a backup power source. Yes, it will benifit the house in case of power loss as well but in the past we would just either sit it out or goto a hotel. It was a real concern to me to think about loosing all my animals due to power loss. Where i live we loose it quite often, mostly for a few hours but sometimes for several days.

So here is my plan. A 9,000 watt gas generator and a beefy UPS. The UPS will handle just return and maybe heat until i get the generator running. It will also cover me when we loose power for short periods of time. I bought the generator already but am looking for the UPS. I want one with an io output that can be fed into my Apex breakout box so it knows its on UPS power and cuts off all but the most essential items.

Will update when I find one and how well it works..

 

[bdejong1112o]

Well its been awhile since the last update. With the holidays it has been busy and well I wanted to enjoy my vacation.

So here are the highlights.

• Fish are doing great. All of them are getting along. The fxface and tang are always togather. Every once in a while they show thier fins but nothing comes of it other than seeing how cool they are.
• I am expirementing with dosing sodium nitrate to add a little nitrate to the tank. since this is a lazy mand tank I am foceson easy care LPS and they, at least from wht I read, like a little nitrate. The tank is an expert at removing notrate and phosphate so I need to add a little and want to do it in a manner that is predictable. In other words, not the result of overfeeding.
• Speaking of overfeeding, I like to feed my fish. I think they are calm and non agresssive partly due to the fact that they dont have to compete for food.
• More food stuff. Rods food rocks. Fish love it. I mean really love it. @Rod's Food you rock.
• I have started to feed corals eery three days. Mostly LPS so only the blastos, a few ricordia, duncans and acans right now.
• Also found a good alternative to fish saweed. Go to the local Asian market and get a good, no oil dded, sushi wrap. 1/3 the cost and the exact same thing.
• Got carried away on the last @WWC ebay auction. Have a good sized shipment comming from them to build out my acan garden. Also got some other nice LPS stuff to add to the tank. First order from them so we will see how it goes.
• Picked up two very nice Yumas from @VelasCorals. He is local to me so its always nice to browse his inventory on site. picked up two excellent specimins this week. They love being under the overhangs of the rocks in my tank. Will see how it goes over time.
• Speaking of coral, also had a morning trip to a local coral farm in my area. Picked up a few easy care sticks, poscilipora(sp). Placed them high in the tank right in the direct fow of the MP40's. Time will tell how these go. Also picked up a small toadstool frag. Didnt have one and had a good spot for one so i got one. See how that works... lol.
• Conveted to the coral labs LPS lighting schedule. Corals are saying thanks every day.
• Cheato, still suck at getting this to grow. Will get it right sooner or later. Hope the nutrients are the key.
• Started a pod tank for a future tank addition. Going to see if I can get pods and cheato to grow in that tank. Or at least get pods to multiply. Feeding phyto in that tank. Set it up today so we will see in a few weeks how its going.

I will post some pics when the corals are all in the tank. It is starting to look very good. I can get lot just watching all the occupants do what they do.

 

[Brew12]

I'm glad your tank is going well, can't wait to see some pictures with the coral added!

 

[bdejong1112o]

I will be sure to take a series of before and after pictures. It is a bit more than I planned but with @WWC holding off on shipping until after the holidays it is giving me some plannin time. I have moved a few things around in preperation. I ammsuper excited. I am also going to have the 20g tanks up and runnign to place all the coral in once they arrive to serve as a few day home so i dont have to process them all in one night.

 

[bdejong1112o]

Tried my hand at a new video program, Adope Clip. Did this on my phone with some pictures and videos i took for my enjoyment. Mixed in some beats and you get this...

 

[bdejong1112o]

More.more.more.more.

 

[Brew12]

Nice video's! Surprisingly good for a phone!

 

[bdejong1112o]

All from the galaxy S8+. Standard phone app but in pro mode with white balance adjusted a bit. I do loke it though. Going to keep doing it as I keep finding new growth this way.

 

[Mark Gray]

Following along nice build and good info. I understand the same problem with the apex feeder I take the whole thing off the tanknbefore I try to open it. I haven't read the whole thread but I will soon.

 

[bdejong1112o]

Yeah, I made that mistake only once. Lol. Its now in a box on the way back to neptune. It developed an issue with returning back to the fully closed position. So its getting replaced.

I still believe in having one for the multiple feeding for the fish and to allow me to be away from the tank every once in a while. Just need to see if the replacement works better.

 

[bdejong1112o]

Man its been to long since I last updated this thread. There has been a lot of additions, activity and changes to the tank. I will do my best to list it out and provide details where necessary.. I am not sure how many people actually read long winded threads. Let me know if this update was to short, to long or just right.

One thing to state right now is that I am very fond of a "moving" tank. I like LPS and softie corals but as you will see I have started to add a few very easy and hardy "stick" type corals. But everyone who comes to see the tank and the family in general really like and appreciate the movement of all the corals we have so far. I am also fairly busy and started this tank with the plan for it being as low maintenance as possible. This will help everyone understand the coral choices and why I am filling my tank with the corals that I have so far.

So I think the biggest topics for discussion are the additions of coral and the operation of the sump. Lets start with the new corals and the livestock.

• I did get super carried away with the coral auctions. Couldn't resist the deal of combining all my auctions with the one single shipping charge for my initial purchase of some acan's for my planned acan garden. I have grown to appreciate the growth pattern of acan's and the coloration's that are available.
• What I ended up with was about 37 frags in total and a wide variety of types and frankly some that I will more than likely trade away without ever mounting in the tank. I did have a 20g tank ready for teh day of arrival that they were acclimated into that gave me some time to deal with them before adding them to the main display tank. I also made about a half dozen small frag racks out of egg crate and suction cups so I could place them in the main display and test out where they would possibly like to be long term. This allowed for change in depth and location to see where they appeared to show the best. This actually worked out very well, especially for determining the depth in the tank.
• So far I have placed all but about 8 of the frags. The remaining are a few that I took mostly because they looked interesting and were fairly cheap in the grand scheme of things. These are the ones that may end up being traded locally as I am not sure where they would fit in the plan for the tank.
• I also am fortunate to live very close to two great coral places. @VelasCorals and The reef farm. These two places and their owners have been extremely helpful to me along the way with education and great coral specimens that have been healthy.
• I also added a very nice purple gorgonian from @VelasCorals that has added a nice splash of color and movement to the middle of the tank. it was the first addition that actually made my wife stop and point at the new arrival to the tank. She is more about the fish but this one really caught her eye.
• I will add some pictures below of a few of the favorite new additions and will work on creating a good new FTS worthy of posting.

Sump operations

• Cheato, up and down with this stuff. I get some, put it in the sump and then watch it wilt away. I worked on balancing out the PO4 and NO3. I allowed the Nitrate to rise and the coral responded by opening up nicely. I also control the PO4 with the GFO reactor timing. This has also taken care of some of the ugly algae that showed up one day and is all gone now.
• I also had a small mishap with my Kessil H380 grow light. I mounted it using the hooks supplied but my tank stand has limited space and well one day while removing the large filter mesh sock on the main drains I knocked it off the hook and splash into the refugium it went. It was on at this time and immediately cut out. I quickly pulled the plug and removed it from the sump and rinsed it out in fresh water. I then took it apart and completely dried it out and let it sit for 5 days open air to completely dry out. I will say I am very impressed with the construction of this light. I work in the LED lighting industry and can tell you they have taken the right steps in the conformal coating of the circuit board and the sealing of the LED array to the heat sink. It was due to this attention to detail and quality that allowed this lamp to survive the dunking in the sump. The light has operated flawlessly since the incident. Hats off to Kessil.
• Now, with PO4 and NO3 at levels that are not zero and in better balance the cheato is finally starting to take off and grow much better than before. This is important since I am running the triton method and a functional and large refugium is a key part of the method.
• I did add some rock to the refugium tank of my sump(see above for the split sump I am running). These are for general filtration and for future needs as they come up. This way they will be ready for immediate use.
• I have a good visible pod and amphipod population in the refugium.

Clown laying eggs

• This is a new event that just started the other day. The clowns we added were listed as a bonded pair and were a male and female. My wife picked them out and they are fun to watch. the female is quite a b-otch since she always bites me when my hands are in the tank. However, the little male is a blast to watch as he is very attentive to his girl.
• So I noticed a patch of silver shimmering stuff in the corner of the overflow last week. The male was all over it so I posted and sure enough it was a clutch of eggs. Panic set in as I was neither ready or prepared for this event. I immediately got a rottifer kit on the way from @Reef Nutrition along with setting up a 5g tank with an air stone to put the fry into. Well, the eggs were on the last day when I noticed them so the next morning they were all gone. Bummer, but I was learning what it would take to care for clown babies just in case it happened again.
• Well, guess what. Two days later I caught them at it again but this time I saw them actually laying the eggs. Now I know the starting date so I can be ready at day 8 to get everything in place.
• Today(Friday) the kit came in and I started my rottifer culture going. I also ordered the larvae trap from @Bulk Reef Supply since I saw it used by several people on youtube. Everything will be ready by the time this batch hatches.