Adam The Aussie - 70 gallon build

[Amphiprion]

So, what did the TDS turn out to be? If it was bad, I assume that was a major part of the algae problem.

 

[Adam007]

Ah I only just ordered it, the unit will have to be shipped and I probably will not see it until the end of the week or early next week, and yeah I would bet good money using Tapwater for my topoff has been giving me the Algae !

 

[Amphiprion]

Ah, I missed the part where you said you were using tapwater. I thought you were replacing the unit or something. I can understand that, lol.

 

[Adam007]

My RO-DI Unit turned up today, its quite big !

Will grab some pictures and throw them up tonight, along with some TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) results of our local water

 

[Adam007]

Here we go

Here is how the unit hooks upto the mains water supply:

Whole unit itself:

How I currently have everything setup so the Mrs doesn't complain oke: We also rent so cant go hanging it up on the wall :

TDS Meter:

I also cracked it and got sick of how my rock was all layed out and re-did it tonight:

TDS Meter shows regular tap tap water as 115 TDS, and of course 000 out of the RO-DI Unit !

 

[Adam007]

Been speaking with Pete from 100% Reefsafe.. he has some nice Acro's

Also hopefully he gets some Yellow Coral Goby's in tomorrow !

Hope to score those two pieces of Acro's and two Goby's

Updated shots now the water has cleared up:

 

[cdan]

Looks good mate nice acros also.

 

[LOTUS50GOD]

you dont want to get 2 yellow clown gobies..

One will change sexes and they will begin to mate...

Problem is that they strip the polyps off SPS to lay their eggs.

 

[fejer]

mate get rid of the reef octopus i had one in my tank and we got really high nitrates so we got a nitrate reactor but nitrates were still going up so we got our fish store guy to come over and check it out and he told us that were the water outlet is when it goes through the absorb ring things they create nitrate so we got of them deltec ones and in 4 days our nitrates went from 40 to 15 and are still lowering.................what im trying say is they are
S#!t house

 

[vsuboy]

everything looks great.

i like the set up.

 

[Adam007]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13159643#post13159643 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by fejer
mate get rid of the reef octopus i had one in my tank and we got really high nitrates so we got a nitrate reactor but nitrates were still going up so we got our fish store guy to come over and check it out and he told us that were the water outlet is when it goes through the absorb ring things they create nitrate so we got of them deltec ones and in 4 days our nitrates went from 40 to 15 and are still lowering.................what im trying say is they are
S#!t house

Reef octopus is used all throughout Australia, probably the number 1 brand of skimmers used. They are used in alot of successful reefs, including ones over 2000L. The rings will only create nitrates if you don't perform some maintenance on them.. I give the top ring a clean out every time I empty my skimmer cup and I clean the rest out about once a month or so.

I also have no sign of Nitrates in my system.. so I guess you just had bad luck !

 

[Adam007]

I got a new fish over the weekend.. still no photos as it is very skittish. It's a Centropyge bispinosus AKA Coral Beauty, Here's a generic photo of one

Also while attempting to snap a photo of the new fish, I snapped these which I thought I might share:

I'm still awaiting my order from 100% Reef Safe - Pete has my two Acro's in holding while he waits for my Yellow Coral Goby's from his suppliers.

 

[Galleri3090]

Hey Adam,

How are you mate? I've been following your build for awhile now, it's getting there isnt it! Well done.

You mentioned you bought some macro algae online, mind telling me where?

 

[Adam007]

Howdy,

I got my macro from this guy here, he is located in Bundaberg, QLD:

http://www.aussieaquariumcorals.com.au/index.html

I got Taxfolia, so be careful of where you are located. Due to me being in QLD, it is legal to have Taxfolia because it grows naturally on the Great Barrier Reef, however it is considered a pest everywhere else in Aus I believe.

 

[Galleri3090]

Brilliant, thanks for that.

Have you purchased corals or anything else from these guys? can you recommend them?

 

[Adam007]

I got my sun coral and cleanup crew through them aswell, they where fairly slow on sending stuff however the pricing seems to be allright.

I mostly deal with Peter from 100% Reef Safe nowdays.

http://100percentreefsafe.com.au/

He doesn't keep much pircing etc on his website, but simply email / call him and let him know what you are after, and more then likley he will have it.. and if he doesn't have it, he can get it

 

[moebiius]

What brand lighting do you have?

 

[Adam007]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13344445#post13344445 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by moebiius
What brand lighting do you have?

Howdy, the lighting is a no-name brand buy an Australian importer.

Tank is still sailing along.. have not added or removed anything as I have been away for work, and we had abit of a scare that we might have to move house - which would have not been fun with a full reef tank !

I have had a fairly large breakout of Dictyota algae, which I have been manually removing via hand and siphon during water changes, however I just cant seem to control it. So im going to get a collector urchin which will hopefully demolish it all

I also want to get a tigertail cucumber to help with the cleanup effort on the substrate as it looks fairly dirty. I will get the urchin and cucumber put into my order from 100% reefsafe with the yellow goby's and the acro's that I have posted about earlier. Hopefully I will get this order sometime next week !

I found some great material to use as a weir guard to stop my Blenny from swimming over, it's just a peg basket from woolworths that has been cut up - it's a white plastic mesh sort of stuff, similar to eggcrate but abit finer (my blenny could swim through eggcrate!) But I went to silicone that on afew days ago and there is nothing for it to really bind to, so back to th drawing board !

Will update when this shipment comes in

 

[Adam007]

Hey guys, still have not heard back about my coral / fish order.

I popped into my LFS on the weekend and grabbed 2x Green/Blue Chromis. For such an inexpensive fish I love how these guys shine under the lights They were hassled at first by my coral beauty, however appear to be settling in fine now. I was quite surprised that is was the coral beauty rounding them up instead of my goby, as I thought he was the dominant fish, obviously the pecking order has changed

I had a fellow reefer from Townsville send my some frags by Australia post Not-So-Express. He sent on Monday lunchtime and they did not arrive until 7am this morning (Wednesday) - quite a lag in postage there considering Townsville is only 4hrs away :upset:

Mostly consisting of Acropora frags, they looked like they had just been tossed around, many broken pieces and afew of them looked very very white. However I put them into the tank, and only time will tell what has survived.

Will try and get some photos today, even if it's just showing the frags and Chromis

 

[Adam007]

I got a bunch of new frags today. My photography really is not upto scratch though, so sorry for that.

Dark purple Acropora:

Green / Redish Acropora:

Light Purple / Blueish Acropora:

Blue with Red Acropora:

Orange and Yellow Montipora:

Green and Red Montipora:

Purple and Fluro Green Brain:

Fluro Yellow Sinularia:

And lastly, got some Antiphos FE that I am running in a cannister filter:

The outlet holder that I DIY'd up: