30 rimless sps

[cherubfish pair]

Very nice tank! Love the way it is progressing! How do you like going bare bottom. I am trying to debate on going back with sand or just keeping it bare.

Thank you. It's coming along slowly. At the tail end of setting up equipment and starting coral stocking. I like the bare bottom and for one thing it's black which doesn't show as much dirt. Is your bare bottom black or white?

 

[cherubfish pair]

Everything looks great. I would isolate that GSP or its gonna take over, haha.

Thanks. GSP tends to spread and be invasive doesn't it? It came to me on a piece of rubble and I grafted it on the rock with the hole through the middle. It just might grow over the hole!

 

[cherubfish pair]

+1 on isolating that GSP it grows like a weed. I'm setting up an IM micro 30 right now and leaving my GSP in my current 10g. Your setup looks great btw.

Yeah it's actually an encrusting gorgonian or aka gsp. I don't know what to do with it. Is yours the 30 long too? How are you stocking it? I wish I could have two tanks. Appreciate the comment.

 

[Indiana Reefin]

Thank you. It's coming along slowly. At the tail end of setting up equipment and starting coral stocking. I like the bare bottom and for one thing it's black which doesn't show as much dirt. Is your bare bottom black or white?

Its clear right now.
I know eventually it would be covered with contain algae. My dream setup would have a bottom covered with ricordias or zoanthiads. It would take a lot lol

 

[cherubfish pair]

Its clear right now.
I know eventually it would be covered with contain algae. My dream setup would have a bottom covered with ricordias or zoanthiads. It would take a lot lol

I'm not sure what contain algae is. Are you going to paint it on the outside bottom? I've painted two tanks white that way that I put a thin layer of sand in. Where the sand was scarce the white bottom blended in. Uh, I'm not sure I would line the bottom with corals, it would be hard to keep clean but so is sand lol.

 

[Indiana Reefin]

I meant Coraline algaea.
I might have to look into spray painting the bottom. Really hate to spray paint my elos.

 

[kitkat717]

Oh that's clever to paint it white so the sand moving isn't noticeable!

 

[burkhart.5150]

Yeah it's actually an encrusting gorgonian or aka gsp. I don't know what to do with it. Is yours the 30 long too? How are you stocking it? I wish I could have two tanks. Appreciate the comment.

No it's not the 30L it's the micro 30 (cube). I barely got the wife to agree on two tanks [emoji106]. I explained that the GSP would eventually take over the tank like our current 10g (GSP is her favorite) and also our clown is super aggressive so she would be better off alone in the 10g with her anemone and GSP[emoji6]. I haven't made a stocking list yet but want the tank to be SPS dominated.

 

[cherubfish pair]

I meant Coraline algaea.
I might have to look into spray painting the bottom. Really hate to spray paint my elos.

I know what you meant I was just giving you a bad time. It would take emptying the tank wouldn't it? You'll have to weigh the pro's and con's and just go for whatever decision you make.

 

[cherubfish pair]

Oh that's clever to paint it white so the sand moving isn't noticeable!

Clever eh? Well I never thought of myself as being clever!

 

[cherubfish pair]

No it's not the 30L it's the micro 30 (cube). I barely got the wife to agree on two tanks [emoji106]. I explained that the GSP would eventually take over the tank like our current 10g (GSP is her favorite) and also our clown is super aggressive so she would be better off alone in the 10g with her anemone and GSP[emoji6]. I haven't made a stocking list yet but want the tank to be SPS dominated.

The micro 30? Don't know that one yet. You are fortunate to have such a wife. SPS nanos are a kick in the pants.

 

[burkhart.5150]

I believe the micro 30 is a few years old it has been discontinued. My LFS had one sitting around and I got the tank and stand for a killer deal.

 

[cherubfish pair]

I believe the micro 30 is a few years old it has been discontinued. My LFS had one sitting around and I got the tank and stand for a killer deal.

I know there was an IM 38. Did the micro 30 come with stock lights?

Glad you got a good deal!

 

[burkhart.5150]

No I opted out for the stock lighting because I will be using my kessil 350 that's over my 10g at the moment.

 

[cherubfish pair]

That will be a good match up. IM 30 gallon and Kessil 350.

 

[cherubfish pair]

WATER CHANGES

I do a 15% water change every 2 weeks using IO Reef Crystals and make 25 gallons at a time using my The Filter Guys rodi. When I do a water change I siphon with this 3/8" hose that has an RO fitting and rigid tubing to get in the back chambers and behind the liverock. I use the small diameter hose because it siphons at a slow rate and I have more time to target spots. I puff water in every crevasse in the LR at the same time with the turkey baster. Funny story: when I was first programming my Apex auto feeder, I messed up and I unknowingly dumped the whole drum (a jar of food's worth) of pellets into the tank over the course of 12 hours. Needless to say my nitrates shot up, I'm still trying to get them down even after siphoning 97% of the detritus out but I wish I would have gotten a picture of the siphoned water in the bucket for you guys. It was colored like hot cocoa!

 

[cherubfish pair]

Bought a Tunze calcium dispenser that is basically a non mechanical kalkwasser reactor. It's a canister that sits inside your ATO reservoir and has a little kalk in the bottom and filled with FW. The Osmolator metering pump squirts water in the bottom of the dispenser and stirs up the kalk where the water in the canister reaches saturation and is pumped out the top and into the tank or sump. I haven't tried it with kalk yet so I got my fingers crossed. I'm also having problems with it now. The pump isn't getting water into my tank and I think it's the check valve supplied by Tunze. I might have to replace it and have a post about it on the Tunze forum here on RC.

Also in the top pic is two pouches of Chemi-Pure Blue and an Eheim heater I bought at the same time.

 

[cherubfish pair]

WATER PARAMETERS

NO3 with Red Sea = 7.3 ppm been hovering there for quite some time.

Ca with Red Sea = 410 ppm the corals are using some up.

Alk with Red Sea = 7.1 dKH was in the 9s two weeks ago.

Mg with Red Sea = ??? messed up the test, have to wait till next time.

Temp with Apex = for last 6 days, 66.4 min. 80.3 max. 74.77 avg. waiting for a new heater.

pH with Apex = for last 6 days, 6.73 min. 8.37 max. 7.97 don't know what's going on there, I'm ready to try kalkwasser.

ORP with Apex = for last 6 days, 213 min. 325 max. 300.72 avg. not too bad for this tank.

Haven't set up my salinity probe yet.

The probes were out of water for a couple hours because my ato res went dry which caused some unnaturally low readings

Photo in next post corresponds to this post.

 

[cherubfish pair]

 

[Indiana Reefin]

Nice let me know how you like the red sea test kits. I have only used elos or salferit