20 long - 1der's bommie reef

[1DeR9_3Hy]

Equipment:
20 long (30x12x12)
MP10
CaribSea Sp. grade
Via aqua titanium heater
Wave point T5 HO retro kit

No skimmer, just weekly water changes. I am unsure if i will be putting fish in this, but i learned from a tank i had at work that most tanks without fish (or rather a source of nitrates and phosphates) get really bland looking over time. So ill either be adding a few fish, or trying to find the right amount of food/aminos to keep things looking sharp. I dont know yet...


Rock epoxied and cured:

Tank painted:

water and sand in it, cycling away (10-10-11)

And that brings us to this point, im about to get my first pieces to put in (hopefully this weekend) and i figured it would be time to start keeping track of things a little better

In case you cant tell, this is in my fish room/basement. I breed discus, rams, and other good things...sometimes I have to spend 30-40 minutes down there just watching fish for behaviors or waiting for something or another. This tank should give me something else to watch as i am waiting.

I do have a another tank:

But its more my wifes than mine. She doesn't like SPS, or most LPS for that matter...lol. So this will be my tank for MY sticks!

 

[1DeR9_3Hy]

Got a bucket load of free corals last weekend, and got a quick vid of them. I was still acclimating them at this point so they were not glued in place.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_bLQyN-cSE

Free stuff included:
2 heads of hammer
4" stick of orange digi
1/2" stick of setossa monti
2.5" stick of unkown digi
6 heads of mint colored candy cane
30+ polyps of green/black zoas
5+ polyps of purple/pink/black zoas

Edit: I should not, the MP10 listed above never showed up in the mail...i was part of a big scam that Burbarry ran on a few people here. I almost lost my $200 hydor skimmer...at any rate, its still for sale and i didnt get ripped off...but i never got my MP10 I was supposed to be trading

So for now, im running a koralia revo 750 and a koralia 2.

 

[ViLife]

Cool setup. So where do I get in line for a free bucket of corals?

Nice job and look forward to more pics/updates.

 

[1DeR9_3Hy]

Cool setup. So where do I get in line for a free bucket of corals?

Nice job and look forward to more pics/updates.

You find someone nice that owes you a favor I sold him a pile of stuff real cheap last summer, im guessing he made a bit more money off from re-selling it then he expected lol.

Thanks for the words!

 

[6rotorguy]

Any reason for the such a small water volume?

I hear the smaller tanks are harder to keep parameters stable.

 

[1DeR9_3Hy]

For me, smaller tanks are easier. I can control just about every parameter i need to quickly and easily. I have had little success with larger tanks lol.

Smaller tanks used to be thought of as harder to keep stable, but in reality its almost never proven true.

 

[1DeR9_3Hy]

I am getting some diatoms. Now its been a few years since i had diatoms in a tank, and if i remember correctly diatoms are:

A)Caused by bad make up/top off water

and/or

B)A natural part of the cycle that goes away on its own

Im thinking B since my make up water is 0 tds and im using the same salt as my other tank that does not have diatoms.

I just wanted to here someone else's input on this.

 

[kaserpick]

Yes, diatoms are normal in a new tank. This is usually a good time to stock up on a clean up crew. If they don't go away after you add some snails and/or crabs, then there could be a nutrient issue at hand. But, usually this disappears around a week or so after you add the cleaners, in my experience.

The aquascape looks great! I'm looking forward to this tank's progress. :thumbsup:

 

[1DeR9_3Hy]

Yes, diatoms are normal in a new tank. This is usually a good time to stock up on a clean up crew. If they don't go away after you add some snails and/or crabs, then there could be a nutrient issue at hand. But, usually this disappears around a week or so after you add the cleaners, in my experience.

The aquascape looks great! I'm looking forward to this tank's progress. :thumbsup:

Thanks for the input, and wow man! Keiser himself!....i loved your cube tank!

Thanks for the reminder on getting snails, i had actually forget to load up on them.

 

[1DeR9_3Hy]

I picked up 6 Asteria snails and 1 Neoglyphidodon nigroris (BumbleBee Chromis)

It looks just like that. I would get a pic of it, but my P&S camera just gets a yellow blur...constantly moving! I fed it some blood worms, he gobbled them all down...so it looks like a winner.

Corals are fine, i still have some diatom problems but it is just an eyesore. It will go away sooner or later. No nuisance algae besides that.

No3 or P04 are both zero. pH stays between 8.0-8.1. Temp range: 79-80

 

[1DeR9_3Hy]

The tank is doing well, still in its ugle duckling phase with a little bit of turf algae that the snail have not gotten to yet and some tan detrius on the substrate that they have yet to get too.

Im thinking of siphoning out the sand and going BB...but everytime i have done that i regret it lol.

 

[ange062]

The black and gold damsels are so pretty when they are young! They get super aggressive with age though, they grow quickly and within months yours will be an ugly black/tan color.

This is what mine looked like before I traded it in to the LFS:

 

[1DeR9_3Hy]

The black and gold damsels are so pretty when they are young! They get super aggressive with age though, they grow quickly and within months yours will be an ugly black/tan color.

This is what mine looked like before I traded it in to the LFS:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff12/ange062/Nano%20Cube/IMAG0658.jpg[/ IMG][/QUOTE]

lol...so I have heard. I told a friend who does maintenance for a living about the chromis, he said the same thing while laughing. In this setup, he will be fine until he gets too big...then he will be given to someone or traded in.

While they are little like this, they make great nano fish if your only looking for one fish. Very colorful, very active and not shy at all.

The astreas are cleaning up the tank very well. I had some detrius that accumulated on the sand from the small diatom bloom I had. Thats almost all gone, and the rocks are just about spotless.

The purple digi, orange digi, setosa and hammer are all looking good. I accidently fragged the mini colony of pocci i had when i was gluing it to the rocks, and in doing so i must have damaged it because its been STN'ing since then. The green trumpets are also STN'ing for an unknown reason.

The purple palys and the green/black zoas are doing well. The palys sprouted 3 new heads, and have grown quite a bit.


Im on the lookout to trade in the hammer, and acquire some larger mini colonies of different SPS. Ive been meaning to get some "day 1" pics of the sps with a ruler before too long.....

 

[1DeR9_3Hy]

All my sps have burnt tips, and my alk is @ 3.5 meg/l. I have not heard of that level of alk causing burnt tips.

I dont dose carbon, nitrates are under 10 and Po4 is undetectable with no nuisance algae growth. Temp and pH are rock steady all day/night/week.

Other than the burnt tips, the sps looks happy. Great PE, and no other tissue recession. The zoanthinds/palys are also fine. The LPS are good as well.

 

[kaserpick]

Where did your SPS frags come from? Do you know what Alkalinity they were in before they came to your tank? Sudden shifts can cause some issues, but if everything is within range, they should bounce back.

 

[1DeR9_3Hy]

Where did your SPS frags come from? Do you know what Alkalinity they were in before they came to your tank? Sudden shifts can cause some issues, but if everything is within range, they should bounce back.

Since im taking SPS more seriously now i should probably start monitoring these values better huh?

The SPS did bounce back like you said...BUT....


I lost power Monday for about 8 hours, just long enough to nuke the tank. My softy/fish reef in my living room did just fine, but the SPS tank did not handle that well. Water temp was around 62 F, and pH was down around 7.8 when i got home and got my generator plugged in. The little damsel did fine, and the hammer came through...but all the sticks RTN'd overnight.


I was pretty let down i didnt catch the outage sooner since i could have come home during the day to hook up my geny, but i guess it all happens for a reason.

My wife knows how i was working on growing those sticks and making the tank looks nice all the time, so she has offered to start turning our soft/fish reef tank into a mixed tank.


Ill just keep posting the updates for that tank here. That tank has been up and running for almost 5 years now, great little tank...but its reached its peak as far as what we can do in it with just leathers/shrooms.

I will be tearing it down, cleaning it out and starting over with the rock in this tank + some more since its a tad bit taller.

Im not sure when ill start on that though, as we just had our first born last week and im working on finishing my garage this week (concrete tomorrow, electrical this weekend, inspection next week, more electrical...lol).

 

[JustinsReefTank]

I have a question for ya. What light are you running above your 20. I have a 20 long also but I am gonna use as a frag tank.

 

[1DeR9_3Hy]

I have a question for ya. What light are you running above your 20. I have a 20 long also but I am gonna use as a frag tank.

Its a wave point 24" 4 bulb retro. For the price, they cant be beat.