Diary of a Newbie's 46g Tank. What to do Next?

[robilium]

Good to hear Pat.

Also frustrating from TBS was that they charged my card 4 months ago for the full package amount. When I contacted them about canceling the second half multiple times they kept saying "here take keys rock instead" or "oh we may be able to dive next week - just wait!" etc.

I ended up having to call my credit card company, and they were nice enough to still let me dispute the partial charge for the second half even though it was older than 90 days.

I wish TBS had just let me cancel the second half. Very dissapointing

 

[liverock]

Good to hear Pat.

Also frustrating from TBS was that they charged my card 4 months ago for the full package amount. When I contacted them about canceling the second half multiple times they kept saying "here take keys rock instead" or "oh we may be able to dive next week - just wait!" etc.

I ended up having to call my credit card company, and they were nice enough to still let me dispute the partial charge for the second half even though it was older than 90 days.

I wish TBS had just let me cancel the second half. Very disappointing

Bill

I did credit your account 3 days after we spoke, please check with you visa company, the credit memo was

Credit 0003

Thanks
Richard TBS

 

[robilium]

Premium Aquatics Marshall Island Rock Review

Premium Aquatics Marshall Island Rock Review

What follows is a photo review of the Premium Aquatics Marshall Island Premium Cured Live Rock @ $5.99. PA was great with my order, they had mistakenly quoted DHL as 1 day shipping to NH, which unfortunately it is not. So when I saw the rock in transit with a Shipdate of thursday and a delivery of Tuesday I felt horibble about the livestock death on the rocks. I called PA and didnt even have to explain to the guys. They immediately saw the error, told me to refuse shipment and then proceeded to cross ship a new set of rock overnight! They covered the additional shipping charge even! Now that is service. I highly recommend these guys. A buddy of mine hought that was such a good story he just purchased 3 175w MH retro kits from them.

So on to the review of the rock itself.

First off - the rock was very tightly packed and very clean non leaking box.

My only comment is that the paper was not sopping wet - more moist. Kind of a 50/50 wet to dry ratio. Is this normal? I must admit my only other experience with LR shipped is from TBS and that is drenched in water.

Next post will have rock pictures....

 

[robilium]

MI Rock continued....

MI Rock continued....

I have used a hammer as size comparision. My initial rock impression quick hits are as follows:

- Cool green, and purple
- Rock seemed a lil dry?
- Very neat shapes - just like a lare stone coral
- VERY light even compared to the Kaelini
- No visible sponges/livestock/etc.
- A few peices of wet and dry macro algae
- One piece that looked like it had a bit of coral on it still

Lot of rock for only 25lbs! A number of comments i have received from people say Marshall will have less life on it - but awesome shapes and color up beautifully! I think PA even says this on their site.

As for rubble/breakage.... maybe a softball size amount total?

Onto the pics...

Picture of the relative wetness of the paper. Am I just being picky??

 

[robilium]

This rock has some fuzzzy looking stuff to the right. Any ideas? Coral?

Here they are stewing.....
I am not sure how much curing they will need. They seemed pretty ready to go..... No die off visible - smelled great. I added a light that was the same as on my fuge 90w effective PC.

 

[robilium]

Anyone use these lights for their fuge?

Anyone use these lights for their fuge?

I grabbed this four pack from Home Depot. They dont exaclty match Melev's SKU but I hope they are similar. Pretty cheap comparatively and I love them so far.

 

[robilium]

Here is a pic of my current rockscaping with my new 22lb Fiji rock encruted with corals mentioned above in the thread. The new rock is the large piece to the right. All the new marshall rock will be go to the right of the arch. It looks like i cut off the right 33% of the tank when i took this picture. There is a fair amount of space available.

The new rock..... propped up by a TBS rock.

Here is the new rock with just the blues on.

Pics of free corals on rock.

 

[robilium]

Some random corals - A devils hand with Mushrooms.

Acropora frags and some Zoo frags - recieived in trade for the Mantis Shrimp

Lenny the Blenny! Arent we just original eh?

 

[robilium]

Marshall Island Rock Review previous page

Marshall Island Rock Review previous page

PLEASE READ PREVIOUS PAGE FOR MARSHALL ISLAND ROCK REVIEW FROM PREMIUM AQUATICS>

 

[robilium]

Speaking of Marshall Rock....

Here are some pics of my last trip out to visit the Marshallese. I am more than happy to supply their economy. The natives must has used hundreds of thousands of tons to build their last causeway between islands in the atoll.

 

[patsan]

The rock looks good! :thumbsup:
It's normal to only have some wet newspaper on it. TBS is really the only ones that ship totally in water, to prevent die-off.
It will color up nicely in a few months.
I can't be positive, but in this picture take a look at the spot I marked. It looks like it might be valonia (bubble algae). If it is, scrape that bubble off really well.

 

[robilium]

Hey Pat!

You are correct it is a bubble algae - take it off myself? Will do. I have a single bubble in my display tank that hitchhiked on my new croal encrusted rock as well. My hungry hungry emerald crab will eat it?

I think I need a better camera too. This one was top of the line 2 megapixel at the time. But it is really showing its age when I look at my pictures compared to others.

Also - I must say - that Arrow ROCKS! No pun intended.

 

[patsan]

Yes, remove it. Try to get down really deep. Since you have the rock in a bucket, just take it out to remove it.
MI rock tends to have this from what I've read. I have some in my tank, and "so far" it hasn't gotten out of control. I can't remove the rocks to get it, so I usually just take a tweezer and remove it that way. I've only have to do this once every few weeks, and so far it seems to come off easily.
You'll hear all different opinions on how to remove it....not to break the bubble in the tank, etc. I don't have much of a choice since I don't want to take all the rock out and have to re-scape the tank again...so I just do it the best way I can for now. If it gets out of control or spreads a lot, I may have to do something different, but for now it's only a few bubbles here and there.
I've heard yes and no as far as emerald crabs removing it. I won't put any type of crabs in this tank, so I can't say first hand if they'll do the trick.

 

[robilium]

Thanks for the info Pat - the only green bublle I have in my tank is easily accessible and I will remove it there as well.

Quick update on rock cycling. After 12 hours in the trash can I have seen only a minimal spike in Amonia between 0 and 0.1 on the salifert test. VERY faint. Same thing for Nitrites 0 to 0.1. It may go into my tank sooner than the 2 weeks I was expecting.

 

[robilium]

Took off the Bubble algae

I have put in all but one peice of Marshall Rock into the Display tank. No smell, no amonia, no Nitrites. However.... one peice that had looked like some sort of coral, i.e. the fuzzy thing. That smells horrible! I tried to rub it off with no luck.

So back to curing it goes!

That peice along with a few small pieces of nice Fiji/Kaelini rock I took out form my display to make room are now earmarked for my future 12g Aquapod nano tank at work

 

[patsan]

Do you have a full tanks shot?

 

[robilium]

Let me go take one! BRB!

 

[robilium]

DOH! - NEW Metal Halide Bulbs are most definitely not burned in yet!

DOH! - NEW Metal Halide Bulbs are most definitely not burned in yet!

Hey Patsan and everyone else following along but not chiming in

I am so EMBARRASSED by these photos. I recently purchased 2 175w 14k MH Bulbs on ebay. The seller as 4700 mentions and 99.7% approval. However - these light bulbs have not yet been burned in / broken in. After some research i saw that MH bulbs burned in have some smoky look to the edges of the filiment. These did NOT. Therefore I suppose I will need to wait 100 hours before they reach 14k? Right now they are VERY YELLOW. Around 6500k I would guess. I did check the bulbs to make sure there wasnt a mistake - nope 14000 written on the bulb.

The first pictures are with the MH on. My camera makes the pictures look much yellower than they are to the human eye.

The second set of pics are with just the Blues 96w PC on.

Some notes on Aquascaping
So I tried to make some mountains and valleys. The new Marshall rock - or about 20 out of 25 lbs of it are on the left, some of it form the mountain and one other forms the base of the arch/cave. i am not sure I have as much open sand as I want to, it is hard to do I think with such a small tank.

I love IT!! (the fish do too )

I would love to hear your (yes you!) opinions or suggestions regarding the scaping.

Some notes on Aquascaping

 

[robilium]

Here is my fuge.

Now I am somewhat perplexed by the cyano outbreaks. I used to have cyano in my main tank but some chemi-clean and the replacement of my MJ 900 with a SEIO 640 fixed that. (Love the SEIO btw).

Yet for somereason I can not get it out of my fuge. I have tried chemi-clean. I also replaced a single 1 1/4" water inlet with a 3/4" PVC pipe drilled and capped which runs along the entire length of the aquarium and about 4" off the DSB. If I turn up the water anymore I get a sandstorm, you can sorta see the remanents of the last time I turned it up.

Some Facts:
- All of the above Live Rock was recently moved from my Display to the fuge.
- The Chaeto is stock full of creatures spawning, I split it, stretch it out, and dispose of about half of it weekly.
- the DSB is made of 1 bag LFS sand and 1 bag southdown. (Tropical Caribean Play Sand)

Some Questions
What else do I need to do for the DSB besides not touch it, and let the live rock populate it?
Any idea on how to stop the Cyano? My next step is to try Red Slime Remover.

 

[JW Jersey]

everything looks great, happy to hear you caught the mantis shrimp. hopfully those bulbs will start to look like 14K bulbs. Good luck with everything.