Copingsaw's 15G ADA TBS

C

Copingsaw

New member
My last reef tank crashed in a bad way after a few days without power due to the horrible wrath of Hurricane Ike. After a year and 1/2 break, I've decided to start a new 15 gallon rimless tank. I have two goals with this tank: small and simple. My old tank had a HOB fuge and skimmer and they really turned into a pain to maintain once the tank matured. I am going to try to maintain this tank with simple filtration and weekly water changes.

I've had the tank up and running for a week now. The rock from TBS is fantastic. I've got lots of wildlife on these two small rocks. Lets see ... Red Mithrax Crab, Porcelain Crab, Decorator Crab, Gorilla Crab (still small), Hermit crabs, Keyhole limpet snails, Whelk snails, Cerith snails and various worms. I've noticed a few small creatures that I believe are Nudibranches. The rocks themselves are covered in feather dusters, barnacles, sponges and tunicates.

I've also got something in there that makes a loud popping or clicking sound. Research tells me that I either have a mantis or pistol shrimp. I haven't seen anything to suggest which it may be. Here's hoping it's not a mantis.

As far as cycling the tank, I saw ammonia spikes on days two and three. Did consecutive water changes on days two, three and four. Ammonia has been at zero since day five. I know Richard from TBS said the tank would cycle in 7-10 days but I was still a bit surprised to see it happen so fast given how long it took on my last tank.

Next week I should get part 2 of The Package from TBS. I'll update with more pictures then.

Equipment:

15 Gal ADA rimless (thanks to aleaksthegreat for selling the me the tank)
Current USA 24" SunDial T5HO 4x24 watt
Vortech MP10
Biosystem 25 HOB filter w/ Surface skimmer
200W titanium heater (overkill but I had it laying around)

In the Tank:

RO/DI water w/ Oceanic salt mix
Tampa Bay Saltwater Sand
Tampa Bay Saltwater Live Rock

Initial Pictures:

Richard at TBS did a fantastic job of packaging things up.
fish2.jpg


Tank being filled. I spray painted the back of the tank a deep blue and really like how it turned out.
fish1.jpg


Got the rock in the tank and things are starting to clear up ...
tank3.jpg


Equipment installed and things have cleared up nicely!
tank5.jpg
 
I received the second half of "The Package" from Tampa Bay Saltwater yesterday. It included about 15 lbs of additional live rock, a bunch of hermits and snails, a peppermint shrimp, a cucumber, a brittle star, several macro algae, a gorgonian, an anemone and and a bunch of other stuff. See pictures below.

Overall, I am very happy with my order. My tank is crazy full of live rock and critters. I barely have room to add any corals at this point.


pack24.jpg



pack23.jpg



Can anybody identify this for me?
pack22.jpg



Not sure about this flame scallop. From what I read they are almost impossible to maintain in captivity. Anybody have any wisdom they can share?
pack21.jpg
 
Updated picture:

tank6.jpg


I had a bit of an ammonia spike on day two and three after adding all the new stuff from the package. A few 20% water changes later and things seem to be fine again. I did take both the gorgonian and red sponge out. The gorgonian did not look well and both it and the sponge were a bit too large for my small tank. I'll probably also give the Mangrove away, I don't have a fuge or anywhere else to appropriately place it.

Both the anemones seem to be acclimated and happy. The flame scallop finally seems to have settled into a dark spot at the back of the tank.

So far the thing I am most happy about with this tank is the temperature control. My last tank would spike up to 82 or so during the summer months and usually ran about five to seven degrees warmer than the house. This tank has been running only about 1-2 degrees warmer than the house. I attribute that to three things: T5 lighting, an open tank with good air circulation and keeping all the pump motors outside the tank.
 
Re: Copingsaw's 15G ADA TBS

tagging along, i want to see regular updates. you are really bucking conventional wisdom and i want to aee you succeed. normally you would not do any water changes for aeveral weeks to allow your tank to spike nitrates and nitrites as well.

also the nems in a tank less than six months old has to be making some people nervous.

not being negative towards you at all, looks good and im subscribed. keep us updated.
 
fstar25 said:
tagging along, i want to see regular updates. you are really bucking conventional wisdom and i want to aee you succeed. normally you would not do any water changes for aeveral weeks to allow your tank to spike nitrates and nitrites as well.

also the nems in a tank less than six months old has to be making some people nervous.

not being negative towards you at all, looks good and im subscribed. keep us updated.
Click to expand...

A fellow Texan!

Yah, I certainly did not ask for the nems. They were unexpectedly included with the 2nd shipment from Richard at Tampa Bay Saltwater, who certainly has his own system for cycling a new tank. So far it has worked but I was honestly a bit disappointing that he sent sooo much stuff along with the 2nd shipment. All the sponges and gorgonians were a bit too much for such a small tank and I think it showed with an immediate ammonia spike the day after I got it all in there.

I'm definitely gonna sit for a while and let things stabilize before adding any fish.
 
I know this is kinda late but have you ever thought of just using a sump? drill the tank?
unless you were avoiding that for specific reasons.
 
yongpanda said:
I know this is kinda late but have you ever thought of just using a sump? drill the tank?
unless you were avoiding that for specific reasons.
Click to expand...

Yes, I was avoiding that. I believe, er ... hope, that I can maintain a successful nano tank with weekly water changes and good filtration. No sump or skimmer. The benefit is that the tank is less complicated and easier to maintain. We'll see what happens.
 
I recently replaced my heater with an old ebo jager 50w heater I had laying around. I drilled a 1-inch hole in the plastic cover of the HOB filter to make room for the heater as it sticks up a few inches above the filter. I was a bit worried since the top of the heather sits about 4-inches above the water water line but so far it seems to be working out great. I guess the temperature sensor must still be below the water line. I am thinking about upgrading to a stealth, which seems like it would work better due to the compact size.

heater1.jpg


I also had my first major loss last night. After getting home from a night on the town, I noticed that the tank water was really cloudy. Then I saw the bubble anemone on the sand all shriveled and messed up. My only guess as to what happened is that he somehow got sucked up into the MP10. Clearly something did a real number on him and there is no livestock in the tank that could do that. When I found him he was under the MP10 and several inches from where he had been just a few hours earlier. I checked the water parameters and everything was still fine. I did a 40% water change and the water cleared up in a few hours. I took the anemone out and put him in QT but 24-hours later he hasn't recovered so I think he's a goner.
 
I have a 100W stealth and it has done a great job on my 29G. My house has gotten down as low as 66 degrees with the colder than usual winter/spring we have had in Houston, Tx. And my tank has not dropped below 76 with the heater set on 78.
 
Are you sure the minimum water level on necessary for the heater isn't that solid white line just below the temp dial? From the picture it seems like that's what it is. I would be concerned running a heater like this.
 
mattskims said:
Are you sure the minimum water level on necessary for the heater isn't that solid white line just below the temp dial? From the picture it seems like that's what it is. I would be concerned running a heater like this.
Click to expand...

The white line is actually the maximum water level. It's a heater that is not supposed to be fully submerged. I have monitored it very closely and so far it has worked flawlessly.
 
Tank is about 6 weeks old now and I'm planning on adding fish soon. I'm planning on two percs and a small goby, not necessarily in that order. So far I have had no algae or water parameter issues. Really kinda waiting for something to go wrong, given the algae blooms I have had starting up previous tanks. Getting tons of coraline algae forming on the rocks.

Updated Pictures:

Full tank Shot
tank7.jpg


Flower Anemone, which has darkened up considerably since I first got him a month ago. He is also taking on some shades of green. Still mostly white, cream and brown colors
tank8.jpg


My first zoas. Three varieties ... a dark green, neon green and fire and ice. They seem happy so far, although one of my two decorator crabs took a shining to them and picked a few of them to death. I had to remove him from the tank. The other decorator has left them alone.
zoa1.jpg
 
The tank is still coming along nicely. I have added an orange skirt zoa and a hammer coral along with my first two fish ... tank raised percs.

I gave the flame scallop away to a local reefer. It was constantly shifting position and sifting up sand. I didn't think it was a good fit for a tank this small.

I did finally determine that my 'popping' noises are being made by multiple pistol shrimp. They are less than an inch long, translucent in color with a big 'ol green pincer. So far I have seen two at once and suspect there may even be a third.

The flower anemone is so far my favorite inhabitant. He has darkened up considerably and has a nice greenish tint. I feed the tank daily with a very small amount of either rod's food or New Life Spectrum Marine Formula pellets soaked in selcon. The anemone eats hardily when I target feed him.

I am very happy with what so far has been a manageable maintenance schedule. I clean the glass daily with a magnet. I do a weekly water change of about 2.5 gallons. I swap out the filter floss weekly and I do a thorough glass cleaning with a razor blade about once every three weeks. So far that has been it. I have yet to have any sort of algae outbreak, which has been the constant bane of my previous tanks. I have a few theories of why this might be but still fear the day that algae once again becomes a problem.

A few updated pictures:

FTS:
tank9.jpg



New Zoas on the left side of the tank close-up:
zoa3.jpg
 
I guess it's been five or six months since I've updated on the status of my tank. The bad news is there is a reason for that ... I haven't been paying a whole lot of attention to it. The good news is that I feel I have succeeded in creating a low maintenance tank.

Since my last post the only change to the equipment has been the addition of a top-off system. I went with the double top-off controllers from autotopoff.com.

http://autotopoff.com/products/DT1/

It has worked as advertised. I top off from a 1.5 gallon reservoir in the cabinet under the tank and need to refill the reservoir about once ever week and a half.

Still no skimmer.

Maintenance on the tank itself consists of a weekly 3-gallon water change that takes about 15 minutes. I also change out the filter floss on the filter at the same time. I clean the glass with a magnet about twice a week. I have removed and cleaned both the MP10 and the biosystem filter once. That's it. Really really simple.

Water quality seems to be good. I haven't been doing a lot of testing of it but I haven't had reason to either. After the first few months, I have had absolutely no algae problems, which gives me great satisfaction given the problems I had with my previous tanks.

I haven't added a lot of corals or livestock. All of the sponges from the original Tampa Bay Saltwater Shipment died. The anemone and gorgonian are both doing well. I still also have quite a few porcelain crabs, red mithrix crabs and pistol shrimp from the original shipment. I'll try to find the time to take a picture of the various coral and post it later.
 
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