400g system from scratch pictorial

[gcarroll]

I discovered a new hitchhiker, a fuzzy crab. I did a search on here and I'm getting conflicting input on this being a good vs. bad crab. Some call it a "teddy bear crab" that is supposedly ok, others link it with the gorilla crab, meaning he has to go. He has small black claws which I understand is generally a bad sign. But I also heard that these are common on MI rock and that they are harmless. I tried to catch him w/ some tongs last night, but that wasn't working out. He and my banded coral shrimp hang out in the same cave, presumably because that's where I've been feeding the shrimp. The two of them will face off for food scraps, but the shrimp typically wins, although the crab will lounge out at the shrimp now and again and the shrimp will jump back since it startles him.

Here is a shot of the crab. Does he need to go? You can just make out the shrimp in the background.

Please save yourself the grief and get rid of this beast. These are very common in Marshall Island Rock and they are predators. I have lost several fish and 100 snails over the last year. The snail shells always ended up in a pile outside the cave where he was living. I finally was able to kill him when I caught him feasting on one of my flasher wrasses (unfortunatly these wrasses sleep in the rocks instead of the sand), the 5th one to go missing over the last year.

 

[pclausen]

Thanks for the heads up Greg. The good news is I have already removed him from the display. Saturday night, as I was hosting a meet, he waltzed right out into the front of the tank, a very unusual move for him. I picked him up w/ a pair of tongs and dropped him into my qt tank. The 2 clowns are back in qt, and I also got a yellow tail damsel in there.

The crab is only about 1", slightly smaller than the fish. If he is a threat to the fish, then I'll get rid of him. I guess I shouldn't put him in the sump since I got a bunch of snails in there. At least he'll be real easy to catch in the qt.

 

[pclausen]

I wasn't able to determine if I have Majano anenomes or not last night since they (whatever they are) retracted as soon as I tried to move the rock to get a closer look. Will try again tonight.

 

[joseney21]

i think you have the pink pocilopora mixed up with the pink acro, awesome setup btw.

 

[elephen]

Looking good man! What kind of lighting you using?

 

[pclausen]

Thanks joseney, I'll make a note.

Elephen, I running 3 Phoenix 250W 14K DE in RO III+ pendants on home made M80 ballasts.

Well, I think you guys might be right that I have Majano anenomes as opposed to army green polyps. It's really hard to tell with the naked eye, but this enhanced pic sure does look like an anemone of some sort to me. What do you think?

I just tested my calcium and its right at 400. It seems that putting the calcium reactor online worked out well. My effluent is right at 60 ml/min and the pH exiting the 1st chamber has a pH of 6.6. I installed a pH probe inline between reaction chamber 1 and 2 as illustrated in this picture. I got my Milwaukee controller set to cut off the CO2 when the pH drops to 6.5. Seems to be working pretty well.

The clowns are doing great in the qt, but I did a no-no impulse purchase of sorts. I was at the lfs Sunday and was checking out this beautiful Yellow Tang that they had been holding for 4 weeks. This was the 4th time I checked him out. Very healthy looking and no sign of any diseases. Well, I picked him up and after acclimation, I dropped him into the 180g rather than going through the qt procedure and all that. I didn't want my bioload to drop to zero in the main system since I removed the clowns.

He has an incredible appetite. I'm feeding him Spirulina, Cyclop-eeze, Mysis, Formular 1 and Chaeto. He got the run of the tank as the sole inhabitant, so I know I might run into issues when I reintroduce the clows (and other fish), but perhaps the clowns will run and hide in the anemone. The YT has a grace about him that I have never seen in any fresh water fish in the years that I have kept them. I'd say he's about 3.5" at the moment, so not exactly a featherweight.

Almost forgot, I got another individual in the tank that appreciates the Chaeto even more than the YT.

 

[WILDTHING]

:lol: :lol: well at least now you know he won't starve.

colleen

 

[scotty1234]

Glad to see that they will eat macros!

 

[camaro03]

Tank looks good

 

[Bax]

That's putting your extra chato to good use

 

[pclausen]

Thank's camaro! Bax, that chaeto is growing like crazy. I gave Colleen a healthy piece when she was here, but that ball just keep getting bigger and bigger!

The leather than I picked up from Colleen went soft on me and separated from the base and it smelled really bad when I pulled it out, so I assumed it had died and didn't put it back in. Not really sure what happened since it looked great when I first put it in the tank and all the other corals seem to be doing great.

I've been somewhat pre-occupied with a major mold infestation in my house that I'm in the process of correcting. Fortunately nothing related to the tank setup, but I have a 275 sq ft crawl space that is in bad shape, especially considering the house was built in 1997. I'm sealing all vents to the outside from this location and installing a permanent crawl space dehumidifier that will be plumbed to my drain via a condensate pump. All the existing insulation will be removed as well as the existing moisture barrier. I'll then treat all surfaces with an EPA registered quaternary ammonium chloride twice. Then the dead mold will be removed using TSP (trisodium phosphate), and finally 2 additional treatments with the ammonium chloride will take place. Then a nice new vapor barrier consisting of 6 MIL polyurethane will be laid down, extending up onto the cinder block walls and taped down. Finally new insulation will be put in.

I'm not looking forward to this "project" at all, but it needs to get done as the wife had to move out due to allergic reactions from all the mold, and I'm feeling it as well, but someone had to stay behind to take care of the tank! I feel like I'm going through the same thing Mr. 4000 did, only in my case the reef isn't to blame, but the timing sure is bad.

 

[DeeZeal]

Awsome setup! Too bad that crab isn't good with snails cause it looks pretty cool (and familiar for some reason)... Can't wait to see it get a "full" look to it.

 

[DeeZeal]

Awsome setup! Too bad that crab isn't good with snails cause it looks pretty cool (and familiar for some reason)... Can't wait to see it get a "full" look to it.

 

[Phan]

Everything looks awesome. How long did you plan this out before you bought the first thing? the way you have the rocks now looks awesome. nice stuff man.

steve

 

[pclausen]

Thanks guys!

Steve, I found RC around 3/15 and ordered my first item, a Typhoon III RO/DI unit on 3/21. I also picked up the 2 Rubbermaid stock tanks about the same time.

Here is a shot of the tank from 3/14 when the only thing left in it was my Oscars and Silver Dollars.

I spend most of April designing and near the end of the month I pulled the trigger on purchasing everything that I needed (I should say everything that I thought I needed). I was finally at the point where I could add the rocks by 6/1. So it took 2.5 months from when I knew I wanted to convert my freshwater 180g to a reef until the rocks went in.

I ran a full set of water tests yesterday, and here are the results:

I cranked up the calc reactor a bit seeing that it had dropped back to 350, but other than that, I think the parameters look good.

pH, temp and ORP all appear to be quite steady as long as I leave the probes in the water. Here are the readings for the last month.

Btw, I'm making good progress on the crawl-space mold issue. Got the dehumidifier permanently hooked up and all the old insulation pulled out. That was no fun at all! Next will be spraying everything with mold fungicide.

 

[NexDog]

I dropped him into the 180g rather than going through the qt procedure and all that. I didn't want my bioload to drop to zero in the main system since I removed the clowns.

Ah, I see the last Ich lesson was not well learned young Padewan. Yellow Tangs are very prone to Ich and mine didn't show outwards signs for 2-3 weeks - but he was already in QT - total time was about 9 weeks in the end.

Nice setup though and I hope all that venting will work to keep humidity down. Is that 180g 72x24x24 or 60x24x30?

 

[pclausen]

Catching YT

Catching YT

You have amazing timing NexDog. The YT has been in the display now for 2 weeks and just last night I noticed a tiny white dot on one of his pectoral fins. My QT has finally completely cycled, so I want to catch the YT and move him to the QT w/ the clowns and drop sg down to 1.009. I have 2 large 10" nets, so I dropped those into the tank last night. Of course the YT immediately swam behind the rocks and it took him a couple of hours before he ventured out again. Hopefully tonight he'll have gotten used to the nets and I'll try to catch him. If that fails, I think I can get him by moving a couple of rocks around. Other than the tiny spec, he looks great and has an amazing appetite.

Having said that, I know that the only way to ensure an ich free display will be to remove him for at least 6 weeks. That will once again leave the display 100% fish free.

I did stick 6 small rocks into the QT to aid w/ the cycling. Would it be ok to leave those in during the hyposalinity treatment, or would I be better off putting them back in the fuge? (the only treatment that has taken place so far in the QT has been Melafix) There's some algae growing on the rocks and I'd like the YT to have something to nibble on during his stay. I have no intention of treating w/ copper, or any other medication, just dropping the salinity.

The tank is 72x24x24. I'm quite paranoid about humidity since discovering the mold issue. So I picked up a digital meter to check my relative humidity. It remains constant at 46% around the tank. The fish room is kept at 52% by the exhaust fan. I run 2 dehumidifiers in the basement, and the humidity there varies between 50% and 55% or so.

 

[NexDog]

You'll need to take the LR out really. Don't get me wrong, it can be done but it's not advisable. I know because I did a while back. I moved some stuff to a smaller tanked and QT'd the main tank with about 20kgs LR. It takes hypo about 2 weeks to finally kill off what it kill (inverts basically) and at the 2 week mark, my God, the stench that I woke up to one morning. There was brown fuzz covering everything that made your average dino outbreak look like a dirty rock. I yanked the rocks out and scrubbed them, did a large water change and put them back. I think I had to scrub them again a few days later but then it was okay.

Haven't had Ich in the main tank since then but in hindsight moving all the fish to a special QT tank would have been better. So your tank is fishless, not like you can't do anything. If it ever happens to me again and I have to pull the fish out, I'll just go on a coral buying binge for 6 weeks to ease my boredom. But then again, lots of people have fishless coral tanks these days. I just love fish. Lots of fish.

 

[DrHarryLopez]

Great looking tank!
How do you know how much time your chiller runs? (ie 8 out of 24 hours in one of your previous threads)

 

[pclausen]

How do you know how much time your chiller runs? (ie 8 out of 24 hours in one of your previous threads)

Here's a snapshot of the last 36 hours or so:

So the pattern seems to be that it comes on briefly for 1 hour around 9 am. Then again at 11 am and runs all day until 9 pm. Then stays off all night and then the whole thing repeats again the next day. Daytime temps have been in the mid 90's this week and while the main part of the house is kept at 74 degrees by the A/C, the basement has no A/C for the most part, so temps down there get close to 80, especially now that I have 2 dehumidifiers running all the time. I have 4 windows in the basement and a double door, so that's why if can get pretty warm down there.