The Mandarin Reef: Waterbox Marine 35.2 AIO

[ashiWaza]

Diatoms.....yay? Definitely in the ugly stages right now, but I guess that means my tank is progressing. The rocks have been brown for about 5 days now. Missing the look of my nice clean rocks .

Going to add Tigger Pods x 2 next week, and then allow the tank to mature until December 1st before I add in the dragonets. Getting close! I can see copepods crawling in the HoB refugium, and somewhat on the back wall of my AIO. Just hoping to give them another full month to really get a foothold on a solid population.

 

[DeanB.reef]

Looks like the tank is really progressing!

Are you planning on feeding frozen as well or solely relying on the pods for food?

 

[ashiWaza]

Looks like the tank is really progressing!

Are you planning on feeding frozen as well or solely relying on the pods for food?

I'm sure that I'll have to ultimately supplement with frozen food of some sort. I'm trying to have as large a copepod population as possible though. I'm actually debating running a chaeto reactor in my AIO chamber as well as having the refugium just for more space. I already have all the equipment to do so, just trying to avoid using another light haha

 

[Erik the Red]

What about adding gracilaria hayi in the tank, instead of the chaeto reactor?
It looks nice on the backside of the aquarium

 

[ashiWaza]

What about adding gracilaria hayi in the tank, instead of the chaeto reactor?
It looks nice on the backside of the aquarium

I'll look into this, actually pretty cool! Hadn't heard of it before.

 

[ashiWaza]

Just an update. I switched stands 9/28, and had cycled the tank entirely before, but am still not having great success with pods. My refugium has started growing slight amounts of algae, and the chaeto is growing rapidly. I had I rough diatom bloom, but it all disappeared leaving normal rock. Im a little surprised how clean my rock still looks at this point, and I'm sure that's also not helping pod populations. Corals are all doing great, and I've established a nice little euphyllia garden. I've dosed about 4 containers of pods or so, and am going to hold off until December. Hoping to be able to see more visible amounts of pods before I add in the mandarins. I am, however, debating a clown pair or a goby/pistol shrimp just to get some sort of ammonia source instead of ghost feeding.

 

[Erik the Red]

You could use also DrTim`s ammonia instead of getting fish you don`t want to keep afterwards

 

[ramona]

Following along, as I am looking at same tank; could you please tell me what are the dimensions of the back chambers? Couldn't find it on the net. Thank you.

 

[ashiWaza]

Following along, as I am looking at same tank; could you please tell me what are the dimensions of the back chambers? Couldn't find it on the net. Thank you.

I unfortunately just saw this, do you still need the numbers?

 

[ashiWaza]

Tank is now 3 months old. I'm starting to notice little hitchhikers here and there, and it seems like everything is pretty well established. Have yet to experience any significant algae blooms, other than an initial diatom spread. Still cant seem to keep pods in any sort of visible population. Will probably dose pods again at the beginning of December, and reevaluate. My LFS has so many dragonets in stock, its killing me. On a good note, added to the hammer garden! XL Orange Hammer I got for a steal from my LFS Black Friday sale.

 

[Cole.mormon]

Just keep swimming, Just keep swimming

 

[ramona]

I unfortunately just saw this, do you still need the numbers?

No, thank you. I just bought one. It will take me a while to set it up though, trying to figure out what to replace the socks with. It will be a pain to clean a 2" diameter filter sock!

 

[ashiWaza]

No, thank you. I just bought one. It will take me a while to set it up though, trying to figure out what to replace the socks with. It will be a pain to clean a 2" diameter filter sock!

Look up Octo Aquatics, they make a filter media holder that fits the Waterbox. Super clean.

 

[ashiWaza]

The ecstasy and the agony. This hobby can be brutal, and its horrible to watch something beautiful that you created slowly die.

Anyone have experience/issues with AI templates for their Prime lights? I've been running a template for a while, pic included. I don't have a PAR meter although I might try to get my hands on one. Had a bunch of people tell me my zoas were reaching for light, so I very slightly modified my light output, and it killed a ton of my corals in a matter of a few days. Some of my torches, which were higher up in the tank, were completely unaffected. All of my hammers basically were wiped out though. All other parameters for water quality have been consistent:
1.025 salinity
0 ammonia
0 nitrite
Very low reading for nitrate, hard to be exact
78 degrees


Super depressing. Not quite to the give up stage, but I dont even like looking at my tank currently which is a super sad thing to think about when it comes to this hobby

 

[Cole.mormon]

Get that nitrate up to 4 or 5

 

[ramona]

Any updates?

Happy New Year!

 

[Cole.mormon]

Updates pls

 

[diabolical_clownfish]

Any update?

 

[twall73]

I am interested to hear of your experience with the Mandarin in a 30 gallon. I just started a 30 gallon tank tonight so I am a long way before being able to add one. Like you I read that they must be in a larger tank but I would love to have one when the time is right. They are beautiful fish!

 

[OmuNegru]

I'm a pretty meticulous person and wanted this to be the perfect display tank with some higher end corals along with my mandarin. I decided to go the LPS route, given that the mandarin prefers a lower flow rate from what information I've read through. I dont really care for the bare bottom look, and also wanted a solid bed of sand to eventually aid with copepods, biological filtration, etc. With the mandarin being native to the Indo-Pacific ocean areas, how convenient that Caribsea makes an Indo Pacific arag-alive sand! It was perfect. However upon some further research, I found the sand to be discontinued. On top of that, I found this VERY interesting read about a fellow reef2reef member struggling with nickel/vanadium problems from the same sand! I decided to go with Fiji Pink from Caribsea instead, despite some claiming it leads to cloudiness from the small granule size.

ATI results back, sources of vanadium?

I received my ATI ICP test results and I have extremely high vanadium and nickel. What could possibly be the cause of these metals in the tank, specifically vanadium. I am unable to keep SPS alive for more than a few weeks before they completely STN. All magnets, pumps and powerheads have been...

www.reef2reef.com

I'm starting the same tank model. How many pounds of sand you used and for what thickness?