90g build thread

[Mark9]

^^ I was kinda feeling the same way. I'm not very artistic and with 90lbs of rock it seems to take up a lot of space quickly.

Get the wife to help, I had to move mine until she was happy.
I got a lot of "you can do better...".

 

[patiof]

Thanks for the compliments guys. Here's a couple more pics. What do you guys think of the aquascape. Tried to make for a lot of caves and good flow through the rocks.

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it looks kind of mechanical. like a spreadsheet. there are lots of caves though.

i'd throw some triangular rock shapes in there and work in thirds in terms of space.

 

[lazydaze73]

Ok so i re aquascaped, still not sure im sold on it but i think it will allow me better placement of corals and i think it will look good when its all covered, and its a pain in the *** and im not doing it again so this will have to work. lol. Anyways ammonia is at zero, according to the API test kits, i suppose it could have a trace amount but i'm judging by color. Nitrites are still high and it looks like the nitrates went up a tad. Seems to be progressing well.

 

[lazydaze73]

Alright so its day 12 of the cycle. Ammonia still at 0, Nitrite still over 5ppm, and nitrate seems to have gone up to about 15-20ppm. The live rock has some sort of hairish algae all over the light exposed sides and the sand appears to have what i think is the diatom bloom going on right now. Some feedback on that would be appreciated.

Oh and and another question i have is: Once you guys get your salinity set at a certain SG does it ever slowly drop? Do you ever have to add a little bit of salt? I ask because i left for three days and when i left i had the salinity set at 1.025 and when i came home it was 1.024. Water level hadn't changed at all thanks to my ATO.

 

[lazydaze73]

 

[lazydaze73]

For some reason every picture i take with my lights on wont upload.

 

[cmoore806]

following!

 

[lazydaze73]

Another thing i noticed today was some small air bubbles floating to the top coming from the algae on the rocks and sand. Whats that all about?

 

[oneilwiz]

nice build,

 

[danielmitchell]

ofcourse its going to look like a pile of rocks, but imagine a pile of coral thats what you have to look forward to.

 

[lazydaze73]

Well the tax man was very good to me this year so the wife gave me the go ahead to blow some more money on this endeavor. One of them showed up today. I got the maxspect gyre xf150. I just wasnt really satisfied with the flow from my two koralia 1500's. I felt it could be better and boy is it. This thing is awesome. Kicked up so much crap when i first turned it on. I could see the crap floating in the gyre pattern. Very cool to watch. Its so strong that it overpowers my return pump and starts filling my sump to much after 60%. I have it flowing against my overflow and return because it is to long to fit horizontally on the other side. I tried the vertical mount and just didnt like the flow pattern as much, not as much rippling on the surface of the water that way. Anyways pretty impressed so far, very quiet up to about 70% too.

I also got a cheap clamp on light for my refugium that i set up with a 75w equivalent 6500k cfl. And got another test kit to measure phosphate.

My nitrites are still very high, nitrates seem about the same and still 0 ammonia. Hoping these nitrites start going down soon. Well let me know what you guys think.

 

[bubbasmithson]

looks awesome

 

[South City]

Your ATO probably was the cause of the slightly lower salinity. If it put in just a bit more fresh water than what evaporated, your salinity would drop. Without an ATO, the opposite normally happens. Your salinity creeps up slightly due to evaporation in between manual top offs.

Oh and and another question i have is: Once you guys get your salinity set at a certain SG does it ever slowly drop? Do you ever have to add a little bit of salt? I ask because i left for three days and when i left i had the salinity set at 1.025 and when i came home it was 1.024. Water level hadn't changed at all thanks to my ATO.

 

[lazydaze73]

Alright so finally my nitrites are down to zero. Current parameters are:

SG: 1.025
Temp: 79
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 40ppm
Phospate: .25ppm

So with these parameters would i be ok to do a water change and add a cleanup crew maybe 2 fish? Or should i wait until the nitrate comes down more.

I keep reading conflicting info on that so some feedback would be appreciated.

 

[lazydaze73]

Today i got a very nice pair of clowns from a fellow forum member. Nice and healthy with a good appetite. Put them in the QT yesterday, and my cleanup crew arrives tomorrow.

 

[lazydaze73]

I installed a GFO reactor today. I went with the BRS single reactor with the cobalt aquatics mj1200 pump and BRS hi capacity GFO. I love the build quality, very sturdy and the push connect fittings make setting it up quite easy.

 

[lazydaze73]

Well i finally got my skimmer in, after a two month back order. I now have the Aquamaxx EM200 cleaning my tank. Anyone have any suggestions on how to adjust it. How high up should it be bubbling?

 

[lazydaze73]

Also what is the yellow tube coming off the collection cup for? Some sort of overflow?? It didnt come with really good instructions.

 

[lazydaze73]

thought id post a little video of my build so far. So far its been cycled for exactly 1 month. Things seem to be going well except for the green hair algae, which im hoping will start dying off soon with the help of the gfo.

http://youtu.be/hzViOEjc95o

 

[jml1149]

Just a suggestion, but in my albeit limited experience, clowns do not take to PVC. Add a small 4" terracotta pot to the QT tank and they will be much happier.