Greyson's 18G Nano Build
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Greyson
New member
@Bitwise
Yep! i have a 3 x 2.5 inch flat piece of base rock that i will mount some of the frags on and let them encrust and give it a "garden" kind of feel to it. Some of the smaller frags like nuclear green and rasta i will keep on the plug for now to multiply. since there is only 1-2 polyps on it. I want to keep my main display rock for LPS, shrooms and sps. I dont like zoas encrusting my main rock, thats just my preference lol. The umbrella looking one is an RPE and it seems to go to normal and then go back to umbrella look. The light may possible be too strong for it ? depending on the lighting the previous owner kept it at. It's def. not doing bad though because 2 baby heads are sprouting from it, and i only have it a few days. The acan frag that i had is starting to extend its flesh a bit also and is looking really healthy, the tentacles come out when i put the moonlights on.
@biocubeguy Thank you ! thats what im going for keeping it as clean as possible, i will me removing most of the frags from the sandbed soon, i like seeing the white sand. The purigen absorbs organic waste which will prevent nitrates ammonia and nitrites, it doesn't actually remove them though just prevents them. But thats where the chemipure comes in, that will remove all that stuff.
I just did a test and my params are showing:
ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrites: .25 ppm
Nitrates: 5 ppm
the nitrites are going down significantly as predicted, and the nitrates are spiking right now. I will do another water change once the nitrites hit 0 ppm. maybe in a day or two. Overally my frags are looking very happy, and even though i am using a 10k light the colors are really popping, im thinking about getting a full blue stunner strip in the near future to make the colors pop a bit more. The kessil was a gift from my girlfriend, i wanted the a160 but im not complaining though. eventually i will make the upgrade.
Yep! i have a 3 x 2.5 inch flat piece of base rock that i will mount some of the frags on and let them encrust and give it a "garden" kind of feel to it. Some of the smaller frags like nuclear green and rasta i will keep on the plug for now to multiply. since there is only 1-2 polyps on it. I want to keep my main display rock for LPS, shrooms and sps. I dont like zoas encrusting my main rock, thats just my preference lol. The umbrella looking one is an RPE and it seems to go to normal and then go back to umbrella look. The light may possible be too strong for it ? depending on the lighting the previous owner kept it at. It's def. not doing bad though because 2 baby heads are sprouting from it, and i only have it a few days. The acan frag that i had is starting to extend its flesh a bit also and is looking really healthy, the tentacles come out when i put the moonlights on.
@biocubeguy Thank you ! thats what im going for keeping it as clean as possible, i will me removing most of the frags from the sandbed soon, i like seeing the white sand. The purigen absorbs organic waste which will prevent nitrates ammonia and nitrites, it doesn't actually remove them though just prevents them. But thats where the chemipure comes in, that will remove all that stuff.
I just did a test and my params are showing:
ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrites: .25 ppm
Nitrates: 5 ppm
the nitrites are going down significantly as predicted, and the nitrates are spiking right now. I will do another water change once the nitrites hit 0 ppm. maybe in a day or two. Overally my frags are looking very happy, and even though i am using a 10k light the colors are really popping, im thinking about getting a full blue stunner strip in the near future to make the colors pop a bit more. The kessil was a gift from my girlfriend, i wanted the a160 but im not complaining though. eventually i will make the upgrade.
BioCubeGuy
New member
Ah, ok thanks. I do like the sand bed look. I have 30 pounds of live rock, maybe more, and it covers 80% of the sand... I may removed some later... Anyhow, yeah your tank looks great man, keep it up.
Greyson
New member
UPDATE:
Okay so i did a 10% water change earlier today, and a few hours later i tested my water params. The good news is ...my water is reading as followed
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrites: 0ppm
Nitrates: 0ppm
So i'm assuming this is the end of my cycle, im also assuming that based on the diatoms that i am getting. It's not a crazy bloom of it, but i am getting spots on rocks and sandbed. Should i introduce a cleanup crew and add the chemipure elite? i may add the chemi pure tonight if its good to go.
Also i mounted a few zoa frags to the rock, to make my little "garden" rock, im not planning on keeping too many zoas so this will probably be 1 of 2 that i will make.
z Garden
Okay so i did a 10% water change earlier today, and a few hours later i tested my water params. The good news is ...my water is reading as followed
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrites: 0ppm
Nitrates: 0ppm
So i'm assuming this is the end of my cycle, im also assuming that based on the diatoms that i am getting. It's not a crazy bloom of it, but i am getting spots on rocks and sandbed. Should i introduce a cleanup crew and add the chemipure elite? i may add the chemi pure tonight if its good to go.
Also i mounted a few zoa frags to the rock, to make my little "garden" rock, im not planning on keeping too many zoas so this will probably be 1 of 2 that i will make.
z Garden
Greyson
New member
Okay so quick rant here ... i gotta say PETCO is horrible when it comes to aquariums at least the one near me. Their salt water stuff really makes my heart ache. I ran in today to pick up a few blue legged hermit crabs, and all that i found in the tanks were cyano and aiptasia. all their corals were bleached and dying. Beautiful blue linkia stars dying with their guts expelling, i mean pretty horrible. I decided to pick up two really small turbo snails just to keep the diatoms down, and even after i told the guy " two small turbos please" he marked them down as nassarius snails, which is cool because i ended up paying less but not cool that they are completely clueless.
ok .. now that thats over ... i have two new tank mates, i had a little tiny patchy of cyano about .5 x .5 of an inch on the piece of live rock and in the first 10 minutes the snails mowed through it no problem. So for that i am very happy they are doing their job. I also decided to add the chemipure elite since my levels were pretty much where i wanted them. Since CPE removes phos and silicates it should get rid of my diatoms without a problem. This stuff was kind of nasty though when i pulled it out of the container, they tell you to "lightly rinse" but lightly rinsing is def. not enough. I ended up pulling the purigen out of my mid chamber and stuffing it in a mesh pouch along with the chemipure and popped it back in, it made my water a little cloudy but i was told that its normal. So hopefully when i wake up the tank will be looking much better.
clean
hard at work
ok .. now that thats over ... i have two new tank mates, i had a little tiny patchy of cyano about .5 x .5 of an inch on the piece of live rock and in the first 10 minutes the snails mowed through it no problem. So for that i am very happy they are doing their job. I also decided to add the chemipure elite since my levels were pretty much where i wanted them. Since CPE removes phos and silicates it should get rid of my diatoms without a problem. This stuff was kind of nasty though when i pulled it out of the container, they tell you to "lightly rinse" but lightly rinsing is def. not enough. I ended up pulling the purigen out of my mid chamber and stuffing it in a mesh pouch along with the chemipure and popped it back in, it made my water a little cloudy but i was told that its normal. So hopefully when i wake up the tank will be looking much better.
clean
hard at work
BioCubeGuy
New member
That's sad.. looks like it's a trend among Petco. My local store always seems to have one or two fish that are either dead or close to death. Seems like they just stock their tanks in hopes of turning a quick profit while lacking proper maintenance and care. You can certainly notice the difference when comparing Petco to a locally run fish store. I've gotten some good stuff at Petco, but it's really hit and miss. Last time I rolled into Petco I quickly walked out, tanks were just bad!Okay so quick rant here ... i gotta say PETCO is horrible when it comes to aquariums at least the one near me. Their salt water stuff really makes my heart ache. I ran in today to pick up a few blue legged hermit crabs, and all that i found in the tanks were cyano and aiptasia. all their corals were bleached and dying. Beautiful blue linkia stars dying with their guts expelling, i mean pretty horrible. I decided to pick up two really small turbo snails just to keep the diatoms down, and even after i told the guy " two small turbos please" he marked them down as nassarius snails, which is cool because i ended up paying less but not cool that they are completely clueless.
ok .. now that thats over ... i have two new tank mates, i had a little tiny patchy of cyano about .5 x .5 of an inch on the piece of live rock and in the first 10 minutes the snails mowed through it no problem. So for that i am very happy they are doing their job. I also decided to add the chemipure elite since my levels were pretty much where i wanted them. Since CPE removes phos and silicates it should get rid of my diatoms without a problem. This stuff was kind of nasty though when i pulled it out of the container, they tell you to "lightly rinse" but lightly rinsing is def. not enough. I ended up pulling the purigen out of my mid chamber and stuffing it in a mesh pouch along with the chemipure and popped it back in, it made my water a little cloudy but i was told that its normal. So hopefully when i wake up the tank will be looking much better.
clean
hard at work
That chemi-pure stuff was weird when I pulled it out of the container. I wasn't sure how much I should of rinsed it, but I gave it a decent rinse. It's been in for about a week now and my water is nice and crisp.
Greyson
New member
Yeah i hear ya, sometimes you can get something okay, they actually had nightmare palys maybe like 4 polyps and they wanted a crazy price for the rock. If the price was right i would of took it and fragged it.
Yeah you def. have to rinse it really good, otherwise you will have carbon all over your tank. It may be too early to tell if it made my water clearer because my water was pretty clear at this point, but it does look really clear today. My duncan looks really happy, it has colored up significantly it was brownish when i got it and no polyp extension. I took a gamble with it but it came through.
Greyson
New member
Yeah ! i think its nice that way and it keeps your main display rock with being plagued with too many small zoas. it also give you a chance to like, swap them out of you get tired of the same stuff.
Greyson
New member
update:
everytthing is doing good, have some slight diatoms but it seems to be in check.
Got some stomatellas and a scarlet hermit to add to cuc.
Got 3 sps frags which are doing great. (a pocillipora,birdsnest,acropora,monti cap)
did another water change, levels are looking GOOD ! i switched to reef crystals salt since i added some sps and plan on adding more, it will just keep my calcium and mag. levels higher.
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everytthing is doing good, have some slight diatoms but it seems to be in check.
Got some stomatellas and a scarlet hermit to add to cuc.
Got 3 sps frags which are doing great. (a pocillipora,birdsnest,acropora,monti cap)
did another water change, levels are looking GOOD ! i switched to reef crystals salt since i added some sps and plan on adding more, it will just keep my calcium and mag. levels higher.
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BioCubeGuy
New member
Cool brother.. Looking good. I got hit with an diatom sand bloom a few days ago. It's looking better now though.
Greyson
New member
Update:
Added a small pouch of phosguard and a micro filter pad and it is doing a number on my diatoms. in two days the diatoms went down by about 70% so i figure maybe 2 more days until it clears up completely. with that i will pull out the main media sponge and rinse it of all the debris.
got a 4 head frogspawn from a reefer that was receeding a bit dirt cheap, and i know that it will heal up and do great in my system as everything has been growing extremely fast including the new sps i got, which are already bigger.
And last but not least .. finally got a frag of something that i have wanted for the longest time, and i'm super excited to have it in my tank. Here it is ...
Sunny
Added a small pouch of phosguard and a micro filter pad and it is doing a number on my diatoms. in two days the diatoms went down by about 70% so i figure maybe 2 more days until it clears up completely. with that i will pull out the main media sponge and rinse it of all the debris.
got a 4 head frogspawn from a reefer that was receeding a bit dirt cheap, and i know that it will heal up and do great in my system as everything has been growing extremely fast including the new sps i got, which are already bigger.
And last but not least .. finally got a frag of something that i have wanted for the longest time, and i'm super excited to have it in my tank. Here it is ...
Sunny
Greyson
New member
So this is 2-3 days of the combo of microfilter pad + phosguard.
[
filter
day3
It's clearly working and my water is so clear it almost looks as if there is no water in the tank, my levels are still at zero, and the diatoms are nearly gone, the sandbed is 95% clear of diatoms, and the rock work still has some, bit stomatellas and turbo doing their job very well.
I also decided i wanted to keep my sandbed clean of frags so i made me a frag rack with an old mag float i had laying around from my old tank. A few zip ties and we are in business.
rack
[
filter
day3
It's clearly working and my water is so clear it almost looks as if there is no water in the tank, my levels are still at zero, and the diatoms are nearly gone, the sandbed is 95% clear of diatoms, and the rock work still has some, bit stomatellas and turbo doing their job very well.
I also decided i wanted to keep my sandbed clean of frags so i made me a frag rack with an old mag float i had laying around from my old tank. A few zip ties and we are in business.
rack
BioCubeGuy
New member
Looks like that microfilter is definitely doing its job. Cool idea on the frag rack.
Greyson
New member
Update:
No more diatoms, and starting to see specks of corraline appearing on rockwork, i started to notice it since i added a 10" truelumen full blue strip. The actinics are giving everything a nice look and the coral seem to be responding to it also. All my sps are extending their polyps alot more since i added it. Tank parameters are still pristine. The sick frogspawn that i got is healing very well and the heads are extending much better.
New additions:
Got a Fish ! a little six line wrasse, hes doing good at keeping the polychaete worms at bay.
acropora echinata(teal-ish) still on frag rack.
Forest Fire Digitata
superman disco mushroom
mush
digi
6
fts
No more diatoms, and starting to see specks of corraline appearing on rockwork, i started to notice it since i added a 10" truelumen full blue strip. The actinics are giving everything a nice look and the coral seem to be responding to it also. All my sps are extending their polyps alot more since i added it. Tank parameters are still pristine. The sick frogspawn that i got is healing very well and the heads are extending much better.
New additions:
Got a Fish ! a little six line wrasse, hes doing good at keeping the polychaete worms at bay.
acropora echinata(teal-ish) still on frag rack.
Forest Fire Digitata
superman disco mushroom
mush
digi
6
fts
BioCubeGuy
New member
Looks great man. You running RODI water yet?
G_Sanab922
New member
looks great just read your build. following along
Greyson
New member
@biocubeguy not yet .. because i just got news that i may be moving soon ...so i am just going to hold off for now. been using the distilled/rodi from the store. a gallon lasts me a week for top off, and i been doing a gal a week change so its no sweat.
@g_sanab922 thank you !
@g_sanab922 thank you !
Greyson
New member
my two stomatellas were trying to mate, i had eggs floating around all over the tank lol hopefully a few will survive. Everything is still good, i had a little PH scare earlier, it dropped kind of low so i had to fix that issue but nothing to worry about.
My dendros that i got in bad condition are healing amazingly well, they had 1 row of tentacles when i got them, now they have 4. The color has gotten better as well, and the tissue that was receding is fully healed and looks like it may sprout a new head soon.
dendros
My dendros that i got in bad condition are healing amazingly well, they had 1 row of tentacles when i got them, now they have 4. The color has gotten better as well, and the tissue that was receding is fully healed and looks like it may sprout a new head soon.
dendros
