Jahmic's JBJ 28 build

[jahmic]

Gotta start somewhere, so here's the empty tank shot.

I'm going to take my time starting this up and deciding on livestock. As of now I'm leaning towards running the tank with a fuge in the back. It's the CF model, and I'll be sticking with zoas and softies to ease the learning curve as I make the transition from planted FW tanks.

 

[jahmic]

I was fortunate enough to have a local reefer hook me up with an excessive amount of live sand from an established tank, and a few pieces of live rock to get started. Staging area:

The sand is a mix of sugar and medium aragonite, I'm definitely liking the look...although I quickly learned how easily the water can cloud up when you disturb the sand bed. Found a couple hitch-hikers on the live rock...a zebra turbo snail and a cerith. I guess those 2 are my first livestock for the tank. They seem to be grazing actively so far...I've been keeping an eye on the parameters and the ammonia has stayed at 0.5 and I think I saw the first trace of nitrite today...I'm thinking they're hardy enough to survive a small cycle.

On day 2 I stopped by the lfs and picked up an additional 10lb of live rock and a dry base rock. They called it Tonga...not sure I can really confirm that, but it's limestone based and extremely porous. After soaking and rinsing the rock, I could here water gurgling inside the rock...which eventually trickled out...so I'm thinking it'll make for a great bacteria colony.

 

[jahmic]

Sandstorm #2 came when I pulled the live rock I tossed in on day 1 to make way for the base rock. It was immediately impossible to see in the tank, and so I decided to just place the base rock and call it for the night.

The base rock was shaped like a square-top mountain; it was placed in the tank "upside down" to give myself more of a shelf to work with, and limit the dead spots in the sand bed.

The rest of the live rock was tossed in the tank...and my decision to wait a day to finish the scape after the sandstorm was overcome by my curiosity and impatience.

I decided to see if I could place the rocks by "feel" since I'd likely be stirring up sand throughout the process anyway. The goal was to get a couple nice shelves and a few caves to keep the fish happy.

Here's what things looked like once the dust settled.

 

[boostd2valve]

Looks like your off to a good start!

 

[jahmic]

Here's the tank on day 5.

FTS

Left

I surprised myself with how well those 2 rocks ended up fitting together. I suppose there's something to be said about arranging rocks blindly and just going for balance

Right

I'm just running polyfil in the top and bottom chambers of the media basket with carbon in the middle. So far it's done a decent job of cleaning the water of particles...but I can definitely see the limitations of the stock basket as the spill from the overflow seems to be too much for the basket to handle, and a lot if the crud seems to bypass the media.

I hate to already be considering upgrades, but I may replace the media basket to fix the issue with the overflow not dumping into the basket...I'll probably also run a fuge.

 

[jahmic]

As far as stocking plans go, for corals I'm thinking mostly zoas, paly, and rics with a mix of softies like frogspawn, hammer, and some xenia.

For fish I'm leaning towards:

[Strike] orchid [/strike] Purple pseudochromis
Diamond goby
Black clown
(insert suggestions here)

I'm not entirely sure on the goby and clown sp that I'd like to go with, and I'm completely undecided on the final fish. I really wanted a coral beauty until I learned that they aren't too reef safe...so that spot's up in the air.

CUC is still undecided.

 

[ange062]

I like the scape, looks like you are off to a good start! Hard to tell from the pics, but it looks like your sandbed is really deep. This will become a problem long term, you should probably remove some now while it's easy. 1" would be good, 2" at the very most.

And, as much as you try to deny it right now, upgrades will be coming, it's inevitable!!

 

[jahmic]

I like the scape, looks like you are off to a good start! Hard to tell from the pics, but it looks like your sandbed is really deep. This will become a problem long term, you should probably remove some now while it's easy. 1" would be good, 2" at the very most.

And, as much as you try to deny it right now, upgrades will be coming, it's inevitable!!

Thanks! The sandbed is at 2.25 inches...I laid enough sand for a 2" bed, then added and buried the rock. It wasn't until after I finished the scape that I realized I had goofed in not accounting for the rock displacing the sand. I plan on siphoning out some sand with the first couple water changes to get down to 2"...we'll see how well that plan actually works. I'd like to stay closer to the 2" mark to keep the scape stable.

And yea...I'm already eying an MP10 and a protein skimmer. You're review convinced me to go with the Aquamaxx HOB; it's next on the list after the media basket.

 

[jahmic]

Salinity was at 1.023 yesterday, and I wanted to get it to 1.025 before stocking. So I grabbed some salt mix, did a water change...siphoned out some sand and got the sandbed down to about 1.5 inches up front and maybe 2 in the back. The pic did turn out to be a little deceiving since there was a nice depression in the cave that needed filling.

Parameters have been stable after the short, small cycle last week. The most I got was an ammonia reading that peaked at 0.5 and nitrite that was readable as a "trace" on api's scale. Getting sand and live rock out of an established tank was a huge help.

Parameters the last 4 days:

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0
pH - 8.2
dkH - 9

 

[jahmic]

After watching the parameters remain stable for a few days after stirring up the sand, I decided to go ahead and introduce a diamond goby.

I had received some varying advice from a couple lfs, but figured he would do well since the sand came from an established tank and he likely had plenty food to sift out of the sand bed. I've also been "injecting" frozen mysis under the sand with a syringe outside his burrow...and he's been venturing out of his cave to eat the strategically placed food.

Here he is moments after adding him to the tank. Poor guy was missing the sand I think...the lfs had him in a BB tank, and he got to work as soon as he was acclimated.

 

[jahmic]

...

 

[jahmic]

Coming from the freshwater world of planted tanks, where HOB filters grossly underperform compared to a canister...I found it difficult to stomach the purchase of an Aquamaxx HOB skimmer, especially given the price.

But I purchased one anyway...and, like many others, was thoroughly impressed by the build quality. Honestly, I didn't realize how large the skimmer was either...wish I would have paid more attention, but I'm pretty sure I primed it with close to a gallon of water.

I ran it in hot water for a couple hours and it has been running quiet enough since then....not as loud as the fans on my hood, but not without the occasional gurgle either. No complaints. It's been running for three days now, and the cup seems to be adjusted fairly well...the cup fills about 1/4 of the way over 24hrs. It took some patience, and I'm not sure if that's an ideal rate, but the other alternatives I've come across are: no collection; or cup full in 4 hrs.

It's slowly been pulling off less water and more skimmate, so I'm hoping it won't require more adjusting.

 

[AFRobert568]

I like the tank, I have one myself. I’m not sure if you’re interested, but I don’t use carbon and I only have pillow stuffing in the top hole. This allows me to walkup and pull it out when I think its dirty without having to make a big deal out of it. I also don’t jam it with stuffing but I’ve learned the right amount to clean the tank with only one pump at a time.
Lastly if you do upgrade be sure to measure the opening, because I was told that the aftermarket media baskets might not fit because JBJ does a terrible job with being consistent with their clearances.

 

[jahmic]

I decided to see how a few corals would do in the tank, and got plenty help through the generosity of some local reef club members.

Yesterday I added a frag of hammer coral, a couple ricordea yuma, an unidentified mushroom, and a large stone covered with a colony of nuclear holocaust palys.

The hammer coral took about a day to fully open, but is looking happy in it's corner. Actually, I initially placed it in the center of the tank in front of the live rock, and it didn't open at all after several hours. There seemed to be little flow there, so I moved it to it's present corner. It started to open literally a few minutes after moving it, so hopefully it stays healthy in that spot.

The palys started opening almost right away...which I was happy to see. I had spotted bristle worms and a few unknown hitchhikers living in that rock, so I decided to dip it in CoralRx before adding it to the tank. Followed the instructions, acquired a slew of dead bugs, and things appear to be doing well.

Both of the rics and the mushroom are being kept in tupperware containers with bridal veil lids. I placed some rock rubble and sand in each as they're both unattached. I'd like to get a couple small colonies going on small rocks in the sand, and plan on keeping them off the main rockwork. One ric yuma has opened up and is laying flat; it floats around some but stays upright and is looking great. The other is still curled up...I found it upside down today and repositioned it. Hopefully it finds its way to attaching itself and surviving. The mushroom, of all things, is not looking great. Unless its supposed to be swollen puffy...but it has at least tripled in volume since I brought it home. I do think I know why though.

I was told I could try to gently shove the mushroom into a hole in a piece of liverock to get it to hold. So, I attempted that. The mushroom didn't like the idea much and squirt...it was the perfect facial money shot.

I laughed. My girlfriend didn't...it almost got her in the mouth from across the room. In all fairness, I did make sure she was ok before I laughed, and she laughed too...eventually. Hey, it was her idea that I start a reef anyway!


Pics:

The palys toward the top of that colony have more brown and much less green than the ones toward the bottom, the polyps sticking out to the side have the most coloration. Could that mean the ones near the top got too much light in the previous tank? They seem to have colored up some in only a day...so if that continues I'll probably stop worrying, but I'm curious to know if there's an explanation for that appearance.

FTS:

 

[jahmic]

I like the tank, I have one myself. I’m not sure if you’re interested, but I don’t use carbon and I only have pillow stuffing in the top hole. This allows me to walkup and pull it out when I think its dirty without having to make a big deal out of it. I also don’t jam it with stuffing but I’ve learned the right amount to clean the tank with only one pump at a time.
Lastly if you do upgrade be sure to measure the opening, because I was told that the aftermarket media baskets might not fit because JBJ does a terrible job with being consistent with their clearances.

Thanks for the heads up on the clearances with that chamber.

I actually removed the carbon after the tank was up for a couple weeks and cycled. Just prior to adding the goby I switched the carbon for a bag of purigen since I had some extra laying around. I'm now running that sandwiched between the polyfil in the top and bottom chamber. I do like the of changing the polyfil without removing the basket, so with that in mind, if I don't run chaeto I may pull the floss out of that bottom basket and run another chamber of chemical filtration. Thanks for the pointer.

 

[AFRobert568]

It sounds like you got some cool club mates, and I have no personal experience with the mediabaskets, but that was recently a thread on this forum. I look forward to see this develop.

 

[jahmic]

I do think I remember seeing that thread now that you mention it...I may end up just making a basket. There's an acrylic shop here that will cut to spec for free...as long as you ask for basic squares/rectangles. I'd have to drill the dividers and assemble it, but if the materials cost less than $30 I may go that route

 

[IndexKey]

Hey! You and I are doing very similar build from the same situation, I too just came from fw planted tanks. I plan on doing a mostly Lps dominated tank though, maybe some sps and a few softies. You really can do just about anything with these tanks, just check on John miller's thread and ange's. Looks like you're off to a good start.

 

[jahmic]

My computer is currently out of commission (posting from work...shhhh), so I haven't been taking many photos with my D80. Luckily, my girl's camera phone takes much better photos than mine.

Here are a couple shots she grabbed of the Nuclear Holocaust palys on Sunday:

Can you spot the injured hitchhiker? (hint - he only has 3 out of 5 appendages left)


It appears that a couple asterina stars made it into the tank with that paly colony attached to the live rock. I grabbed a tiny keychain LED flashlight last night to check for any other hitchhikers and saw a few bristleworms crawling back into their holes in the live rock. Ugh those things gross me out, lol. The CoralRx dip did leave behind more than a dozen dead bristleworms, but these guys seem to have survived...they must have been hiding pretty deep in the rock. I had filled a bucket with about a gallon of water and used the 4 caps as per the instructions...but I did only agitate the rock by hand. I didn't see any dead "bad" hitchikers after the dip, and still have not spotted any in the tank, so I'm hoping that I just ended up with a few "beneficial" survivors. I know that some people tend to see asterina stars as a nuisance...but I'm hoping they just scavenge as they should and really don't go after living coral.

 

[jahmic]

I got home today and things seem to have improved with the ricordeas and the mushroom. Both rics are laying flat in the trays side-by-side adjacent to the rock that I'm hoping they attach to...both mouths are open so I'm thinking they will be fine. Last night after the lights shut off, the mushroom shrank back to its normal size, and is now attaching itself to the coral skeleton in the tray.