Jahmic's JBJ 28 build

[jahmic]

Ok, so I have a question concerning temperature regulation in the tank. It's winter in Denver, so the issue isn't fluctuation from heat while the lights are on...

I have a reliable 100w titanium heater that I ordered from catalina aquariums as well as a medical grade digital thermometer and probe. Both were in use for over a year, so I thought it was odd when the thermostat seemed to go bad when I placed the heater in this tank. Thermostat was set to 78, thermometer read 75. I have another identical heater that I use to heat my r/o for changes, and figured I'd swap them.

When I placed my hand in the heater chamber, I figured out my problem immediately...the water in the chamber heats faster than the volume in the display, and thus cuts the heater off before reaching the target temp. I raised the thermostar to 80, tank temp is now 77.

What is the best solution? Can I just set my thermostat on the heater for 82 (in a couple days) to keep the display at 79? Or do I run the "risk" of allowing my tank to fluctuate that much daily. I'm used to my tanks being in the +/- 1 range, but am not sure how essential that amount of accuracy really is. I'm assuming this is why people use fancy controllers with probes...and though I'm just as attracted to the bright lights of new equipment, I'm hoping for a simple solution.

 

[jahmic]

Nevermind, I think I just solved the problem. There wasn't enough flow in the heater chamber due to the placement of the skimmer in the constant level chamber on the opposite side...basically the water was flowing toward the skimmer intake and a bit stagnant in the heater chamber.

I moved the heater next to the skimmer intake and things are back in order.

 

[jahmic]

It's been a while since I updated...I've basically just been keeping an eye on things as the tank settles in.

I noticed the diamond goby was spending most of his time hunting pods in the tank, and decided to cut back feeding to once every couple days to cut back on algae growth. Nothing out of hand so far, but I did notice some diatoms and hair algae popping up on the glass and back wall. I've been cleaning the glass every other day, and leave the back wall untouched...if the algae is gonna grow, might as well be there. The pair of asterina stars have since spent their time on the back wall; I haven't seen them venture elsewhere in several days.

Pics:

One of the yuma's has attached to a piece of rubble, I had transfered it to a smaller container to keep it from moving around too much...in an effort to force it to attach, and it seems to have worked. The other yuma is taking a bit longer, but it still looks healthy. I ended up losing the mushroom...it attached, then came lose, floated around, and hid in the cave. I attached it again, but the process repeated itself and it got caught in the overflow...I'm sure it would have survived, but I didn't want to lose it in the cave again and risk it taking over the tank.

Hammer coral is looking good, it's been fully extended daily, and I noticed that the skeleton started to heal a few days after target feeding it some of Elite's marine cuisine...you can see where it started healing on the bottom left.

Nuclear holocaust paly colony has started growing some new polyps...sorry about the crappy quality, still having computer issues, so no dslr images yet.

I plan on splitting that mixed paly rock to separate the colonies and hopefully grow them out. Spotted this...necrosis? on one of the polyps early on. Not sure if it is something I should be concerned about, or if it just happened during transfer to the tank. It doesn't seem to be spreading, and I haven't noticed polyps closing 'randomly' so I'm hoping it's nothing to worry about.

 

[jahmic]

Oh, almost forgot. So much for sticking with the PC hood. A local reef club member gave me a sweet deal on a hood + chiller in exchange for my stock hood. I'm currently running a 150w metal halide with 2x18w actinics installed as well. I'm pretty sure the increased light is what ****ed off my mushroom and made it shrink and detach...it happened the day after the upgrade and u hadn't touched anything else. I moved the yuma to a more shaded area as a precaution.

Not running the chiller now as I keep my house at 72 in the winter. My temps have fluctuated from 78-81, and things seem fine. I'll definitely have to plumb it before summer though, since my ambient temp inside has crept up to 85 in the past while I'm at work. This is with no a/c though, so I may just hook my window unit back up this year and run it. This would probably limit the spawning fest in my FW setup as well...had to give away a couple fish last year when multiple species tried to claim the same corner for their eggs.

Also worth mentioning...I placed a PAR meter under the HQI hood, and although the readings are higher than the PC bulb, they are lower than expected. It's a used bulb though, so I'll be replacing it. Figured it would only help to allow the tank to adjust to the increased light incrementally...so I plan on waiting a couple weeks to replace the bulb.

 

[jahmic]

Pic update.

Happy acan

Very unhappy acan

Not really sure what's going on here. Dipped before putting it in the tank and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Had some closed up zoas scare me early this week, but it turned out to be amphipods irritating the zoas as far as I can tell. Two days after adding the acans, a vermetid snail "web" was stuck to the acan and it had closed up. I rinsed the acan, killed the snails...but it hasn't opened since and the tissue has been receding. Also checked my levels today

Salinity 1.025
Alk 8.5
pH 8.4
Ca 430
Mg 1410
PO4 0.03
Nitrate. 0

Hoping I don't lose this frag, but it's not looking good.

 

[jahmic]

Haven't updated in a LONG while. I had been trying to do a build thread on 2 forums, and got lazy...ended up just keeping my local forum's thread updated.

In any case...just wanted to confirm that the tank is doing well. Here's the current FTS:

 

[jahmic]

Here's some eye-candy to make up for my absence.

 

[jahmic]

Apparently I can't edit my first post?

...so here's the current setup/equipment list:

-Lighting-
-150w phoenix 14k halide
-(2) 18w actinic pc-r bulbs

-Filtration and Circulation-
-Vortech MP10
-JNS VS-1 skimmer (more commonly seen as the Aquamaxx HOB1)
-Two Little Fishes 150 reactor running gfo
-In-Tank media basket (floss, carbon, purigen)

-Misc-
-Marine magic dual dosing pump
-JBJ 1/15hp chiller

No ATO...I bought one and ended up not using it. I just calculated my evap and matched the concentration of my alk and ca solution to make up for evaporation. I'm using seachem dry supplements so it ended up being easier to just mix the solution according to what evaporated. Salinity has been stable and parameters have been looking good...corals are definitely happy.

Ice eliminated a couple tiny pest outbreaks as the tank matured...hair algae, bryopsis, and aiptasia all appeared at some point but none survived my husbandry. Cyano appeared a few weeks ago though, and appears to be more stubborn. It started in a mini fuge I was running in the rear sump, then spread to the display. I'm just siphoning it out every few days and staying with my water changes. So far I seem to be winning the battle...it'll probably take some time but I'm confident it'll subside with some persistence.

I did modify the stock returns on the tank. I pulled off those deflectors and installed some 90 degree pvc elbows instead...they point directly behind my rockwork and I get some nice flow through the cave.

 

[coralsnaked]

Acans are sensitive to low Alk, I would suggest keeping tank at 10.0 - 11.0

Just a suggestion, but 5 ml of Salifert All in One weekly and test next day for Calcium and Alk levels for individual dosing. As your coral load increases you will find that routine dosing is a must on these smaller tanks. Also if you are using a quality reef crystal mix and change 10% per week with a salinity level of 1.024 -5 you can skip the monthly dosing of Iodine (1ml). But without regular changes you will need to dose this as well aspecially if you are skimming with the HOB skimmer. It will pull iodine out of water pretty fast, in fact when I dose iodine I stop skimming for 8 hours to let corals and shrimp aquire the needed iodine before it gets skimmed out.

Also dont let those Palys squirt you in the face like the mushroom. Could be horrific instead of funny LOL.

Happy Reefing

 

[jahmic]

Thanks for the reply.

Yea that issue with the acan was back in March and has since been sorted.

Turns out my salinity was too low as my refractometer was incorrectly calibrated. I made some 1.026 standard solution and things have been going fine since then...actually have an acan in there now that's doing great.

I've been keeping the alk at 8.5 and the Ca at 450. The autodosing keeps things nice and steady. With the smaller tank I'm fine with the potentially slower growth with my alk being on the low end. I've never tested for or dosed iodine, but I do keep up with my water changes...I use aquavitro salinity for my salt mix.

 

[jahmic]

My levels seem to be dialed in and stable now.

Alk - 8.6
Calcium - 450
Mg - 1410
phosphate - (not detectable)
nitrate - 2.0ppm

They remained at those levels consistently for the past 4+ weeks and the cyano is slowly disappearing. I had been using aquavitro fuel in the past and have gone back and forth on using it. When I do, cyano definitely rebounds; 3 weeks without it and after siphoning out the last remnants of cyano, I really don't see any coming back. If I go back to using anything similar to "Fuel", it will probably just be an amino acid product; it seems that the Vitamin C additive in the aquavitro product was providing carbon and allowing the cyano to thrive.

I've been able to get back to feeding more regularly; I'm feeding 2x per day and have been supplementing with reef chili 2x a week. I do get a little more algae on the glass, but the nutrients have remained low or undetectable and it hasn't seemed to increase cyano growth.

Should have a FTS update soon. I've been getting some nice growth out of my blue mille, and that group of mille colonies on the right of that top shelf has really colored up nicely.

 

[Shallow]

Nice tank, all looks very healthy.
I like your pink bits on the LHS, what is it?

 

[jlong11]

http://i1193.photobucket.com/albums/aa351/jlong112211/IMG_20121002_151953.jpg

 

[jlong11]

 

[jahmic]

Nice tank, all looks very healthy.
I like your pink bits on the LHS, what is it?

Growing against the left glass up front? Dragon's breath macro algae. It looks awesome under actinics...but hard to capture in a photo and do it any justice.