The Interim Tank

[The Reef Dork]

Hello Christmas present... ;Woot

First couple of tries - pretty poor shots to be fair but only played with it for 2 minutes and I can see the potential ;Snaphappy

 

[The Reef Dork]

Christmas is over which means I now get to spend time with my tank instead of my family

In celebration, i'm doing a full update. Which I intend to do once a month with mini updates in-between

Equipment
Tinkering. Usually a bad idea right? Well it's warranted when you didn't get it right straight off the bat. I've had too much flow for my acans and too little light for m'clam. So my powerheads are now down from 100% to 20% (added bonus of being quieter too) and the lights went up from 40% to 60% then to 80%.

I'm thinking of upgrading my auto top off to a Reefloat. My current ATO jammed on today - a quick clean sorted that (first clean in 3 years ) but it made me think about upgrading. The main reason though is the plug on my D-D unit - it's massive and I hate it. It weighs 600gs which means it can pull itself out of the socket if the socket is elevated.



See what I mean?! ;Jawdrop

I got a new macro lens for Crimbo which is FREAKIN' AWESOME! I've had a bit more of a play with it today with improved results. Turning the LEDs up has meant my shots are now over-exposed so i'm adjusting my settings to get things right. When i've worked that out, i'll have a proper hour-long sesh with the DSLR and get some proper pics ;Snaphappy

Even with zero ability and no time spent though, i'm getting quality results.



I've finally got round to using the PAR meter on my Seneye today. It was an eye opener to say the least! Really good to know what light levels i'm looking at though and i'll always have a PAR meter now. Tres useful.

Parameters
Doing this update monthly is great because if I do it weekly, i've got sod all to show in this section

Alk - 7.6 (down from 7.84 in 3 weeks)
Nitrate - 5ish
Phosphate - 0.045
PAR(!)


The 127 is my T. Maxima which is dead centre. The 134 is higher but further towards the back of the tank (Mount KrakaZoa). But the headline is that this is all a LOT lower than I expected These results are at 55% - i'll test again at 80% but i'm pretty sure my clam will need a lot more.

Livestock
So the clam then. I keep reading that clams would basically be happiest 3 feet away from the sun. I reckon it'll need at least 250 PAR, preferably 350+ so I have some serious work to do. I'm considering a re-scape with the bommie to the left moved to the centre (to raise the clam up a bit) then the bit I drilled the other day to be introduced on the left. That would give me an excuse to set up MKZ part II and would give the clam more juice. It would take away pretty much all negative space away and would look a little clustered but my clam needs more light so it might have to happen. The alternative is to try to create some kind of platform to elevate the clam. None of these options are ideal for the overall tank aesthetic but a clam's gotta eat. The other option would be to sell the clam and buy another one when I upgrade .

Any suggestions welcome! Ideally, i'd have him dead centre, 3 inches below the surface!

In happier news, my acans are looking much better now they've got lower flow. The improvement was almost immediate - slightly better colour and MUCH better polyp extension ;Stig

Pink dragon showing slight signs of pink ;Woot













How about some zoa pics?













I sold my 2 hammer frags today. I just couldn't find the right spot for them so I decided to ditch them. I'll also be selling these zoas...















With the proceeds of sale from the frags and a MH voucher for xmas, I then bought this little dude

I went looking for a flame hawk but the one I found was ugly and i've wanted a Royal Gramma for ages so...







Future plans
I want to hard-plumb this tank and put in a manifold but that might be too much of a pain in the **** with it being wet already. I'm planning a trip to Romsey World of Water soon - they have shed loads of hard plumbing **** so i'll talk it through/price it up before i decide.

I also have my eye on some GSP. The plan is to put it on a zoa rock so it's isolated and can't spread too much. What do you reckon? Stupid Idea??

You know that upgrade i've been planning? Yeah, i'm moving into rented for 6 months so it's being delayed ;Bored

But i'm actually really enjoying this tank so... ;Woot

On the downside, i'll have to move an established tank in a month or so when I move into rented ;Facepalm

Thanks for reading/skimming the bullcrap and looking at the photos Beer time now - it's late in Blighty

 

[Cameron Wise]

Cool

 

[The Reef Dork]

Couldn't resist the re-scape in the end

Before and after...

From that angle, I really like it. From the lower angle I usually watch from, it looks a little busy but the clam has more light now - raised 2-3 inches - so I'm calling that a win

 

[The Reef Dork]

Some new additions today but firstly a photo of a blenny impersonating an acan (badly)



First nube is a GSP frag I got from my neighbour (that I originally gave to him 3 years ago ) Last time I had GSP (this bit's 'mum'), it took about a month to open - i'm hoping this will be much quicker. I've put it on a zoa rock so it won't spread.






...crab...






...CRAB...






CRAAAAAAB!!!





Put your glasses on ;Watching and use your imagination and you'll see 4 heads of LA Lakers zoas. They're on a 3 inch bit of rock that in time, they will engulf



And a Granny Apple Smith zoa. This is a lovely bright green with flecks but you'll have to take my word for it at the moment



How good do the Alien Anti Venoms look in the background above?!

And finally a bit of monti setosa...



I've also ordered a frag of Energiser zoa and a frag of Candy Apple Orange that will be ready in a fortnight. MKZ Pt II is going to be the nuts ;Woot

 

[The Reef Dork]

And a few shots under blues

 

[The Reef Dork]

Experimenting with aperture - not quite got it right yet but getting there...





Need to commit a good hour to practicing ;Snaphappy

 

[The Reef Dork]

I know this is basically the same photo but it's much better

 

[The Reef Dork]

 

[The Reef Dork]

Long time, no update! Well, for me anyway. The Interim Tank has had a busy few weeks - new kit, new livestock, new method and finally something more concrete on the successor…

I have taken a lot of photos this month ;Snaphappy

Equipment

My ATO just packed up after 3 years. I'd expect it to last longer but the worst part is that it didn’t fail safe - it jammed on Fortunately I was looking straight at it, otherwise it would have dumped up to 17L of freshwater… into a 100L tank ;Dead

The best ATOs available in the UK are the Tunze and the Reefloat. I went Reefloat. I’d imagine the Tunze feels a more premium product but the Reefloat comes tres highly recommended. The sensor is more accurate than my old one - it seems to dispense smaller amounts more frequently. It also has some nice fail-safe features that mean the pump won't run dry and shouldn't jam on. Thumbs up.







I also set up my doser too in order to start ATI Essentials! Goodbye water changes, hello worrying about fractionally low levels of boron, bromine or some other junk





I’ve started off at 20ml which is doing the job at the moment. I’d like to test alk more frequently though - maybe I should sell my car and buy a KH director. Or just pull my finger out.

I haven't done an ICP test yet but I really should do soon

My doser also supposedly has a temp alarm and low water level alarm (I put the sensor in my RO reservoir) but they don’t appear to do an awful lot ;Walkingdead

I calibrated the doser before I set it up and have had to do that again already after it slightly overdosed alk. Seems to be running like a goodun now though

After my pathetic PAR results, I put my Kessil up to 80% (from 40 originally). I don’t think the zoas/LPS will be too keen on that but the clam will and he was more expensive so…

As I'm now running ATI, I've put a skimmer in. It's the nyos quantum 120 from my last tank (yeeshk). To counter that, I've quadrupled the amount of pellet I feed - from 1 lot to 4 on the auto feeder. I've also removed my phosphate reactor - I'd like some nutrients left ;Woot

R2R rules state that skimmer updates require a vomit-inducing photo. I'm sorry.



;Vomit

Last bit of new kit is a digital salinity pen. So much better than a refractometer! Easier to use and gives a precise reading.



Full sump shot


Parameters

Right. I have been testing... but... well, come back here on the weekend and I promise i'll have posted something

Livestock

More zoas this month ;Woot Some Granny Apple Smiths and Valentine's Day Massacres whose colours will compliment each other well.

VDMs




GAS


Also some energizers - these look fantastic when they're open!



The LA Lakers I superglued to a rock have disappeared but I have another small frag of that stuff so sat on my frag rack, growing out






My green star polyps have opened up a little now. Still a long way to go before they look good mind.



Coralline algae on powerhead




And now some random photos because everyone loves photos of nerdy tings right?












Proof (sort of) that this is actually a rainbow monti...




#PhotoBomb












Future plans

Finally I have some semi-concrete news! I've had an offer accepted on a house ;Shamefullyembarrased so I should be moving within a few months. And that means the upgrade is on

The only bad news is that the tank will have to go in the kitchen/diner and there's only room for a 4 footer But that just means I'll have more money for livestock! I have a feeling I'm going to go crazy with corals and fish early on! I'm thinking of getting a shoal of anthias and a shoal of chromis immediately and getting a good few nice sps in there too. I miss sticks

 

[The Reef Dork]

Latest FTS

 

[The Reef Dork]

Actually, ignore that last FTS... here's a better one



While i'm here...

GSPs coming out slowly


And a cleaner shrimp waiting for a tang to pick parasites off (I haven't got the heart to tell him)

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Great-looking photos, man! I see you're making great use of that new lens!

 

[The Reef Dork]

Great-looking photos, man! I see you're making great use of that new lens!

Thanks

Hell yes! Best bit of kit I've bought!

 

[The Reef Dork]

Haven't put any photos up for a while...



Wait, is that a double head?!



I'm rich! ;Woot ;Greedy







This is a newbie - he's kinda folded over like an elephant's ear at the moment but he'll be awesome when he's out properly It's a black magic zoa for you name nerds and is purple



Energizers



GROW CLOSER TOGETHER dang YOU!


As MrFraggle predicted, the mohawks are going crazy. But that's OK cos they look freaking awesome ;Stig(and they're on their own island)

 

[The Reef Dork]

Here's a better angle of the double header...

 

[The Reef Dork]

;Pompus

DSC_0425 by Alex Brooke-Smith, on Flickr

 

[Nachoman]

Any updates dork. The thread has been an entertaining read mate.

 

[The Reef Dork]

Any updates dork. The thread has been an entertaining read mate.

Hi Nacho. Wow, that's slipped a bit! I've been spending more time on my YouTube channel recently. However, your wish is my command! Check back later for an update... ;Woot

Here's a quick video of the current state of affairs in the meantime...

 

[The Reef Dork]

BIG update time. Get yourself a cold one and put your reading trousers on ;Bookworm

First up, i've started sending off ICP tests through ATI Essentials - AKA the poor man's Triton ;Greedy

I only had 2 small frags of SPS and they died so it was time to see what the problem was...





Bad news is I got metal (not the good head-banging Motorhead kind;Headphone). That could explain the death of my montis and my acan recede-age.

Tin, zinc, vanadium and nickel are all high (as is aluminium but ATI don't seem bothered by that weirdly).

Also, I have a little sulphur and sodium in my RO water but it looks pretty clean otherwise

My phosphate was off the scale at 0.43!! So I set my DD H2Ocean media reactor up and immediately remembered why I hate it so much :mad: It usually takes 2 or 3 goes of closing it to prevent it leaking around the screw top lid and it's annoyingly tall. So I bought the phosphate reactor i've had my eye on for ages - Aqua Forest AF90. Easy screw lid, shorter and holds the sponges in place better. The DD sponges used to lift up on one side as the water poured (fix for that here) in which meant the Rowaphos then dropped below the sponge and you had to pull the whole thing out and start again. Not any more though... ahhhhhhh ;Joyful



I've also finally installed a proper cabinet light which makes life so much easier ;Woot



Then, I got an outbreak of ulva algae and found aiptasia in the space of a few weeks





I gave the aiptasia a nice hot shower...



And to help with the metals, I did a 30% water change and used some polyfilter - here's a before and after shot



To sort the ulva, I bought a tang ( I apologise to the Tang Police)

BUT, it's a tiny Tomini (maybe an inch and a bit long) and i'll be upgrading m'tank soon. I wanted to call him Poontang and Mrs Reef Dork wanted to call him Tangfastic. So we compromised and went for Poontangfastic

Looks like my Chepe the midas blenny doesn't approve of a tang in a small tank either ;Wideyed





So 3 weeks after introducing the tang, this is what the algae looked like! JUST EAT IT FOR PETE'S SAKE!!!!



Then I turned my attention to the clam. It still wasn't getting enough light after I raised it on that rock. So I played with the light colour and boosted PAR from 170 to 250. That's much more like it but still not enough soooo....

I bought 2 24w T5s



Before I show you the install, here are a few DSLR shots ;Snaphappy

Tang and clownfish clearly up to no good, doing that cartoon whistle thing










And now my amateur attempt at a T5 install Now this is not exactly fine Italian craftsmanship but it's only an experiment to see how the lights look...



Vinyl wrapping


Some panels to screw the tubes into




Brackets to hold it in place. Oooh, that Kessil might not be straight


And the finished article...


Photobomb from my soccer team going through to the semi-final



And finally, a short video showing the difference between LED, T5 and hybrid


And a couple of photos
The zoa shot shows the benefits really well. You have to look closer with the acan shot but there's a definite improvement with brighter colours and more pink (it is a 'pink dragon' after all...)





I've been playing with exposure compensation on my DSLR- really reduces the excess brightness you get in tanks and gives a more natural and atmospheric look. I also think it gives a truer reflection of the actual corals/fish


Oh yeah, I bought a duncan



















And now you're up to speed

I've had another ICP test in - that shows metals still so i'll do a few large water changes. I've bought Triton Pure 2.0 which I really like the sound of! More details to come on that in due course.

Thanks for reading! See you soon ;Woot