JapanReef - 450 gallon In-Wall system

[jnarowe]

what are you dipping them in?

 

[TJcop]

I dip them into Iodine and/or FW exit to prevent bugs.

 

[ricordiaking]

You should get a pair of Wide Band Clownfish (Amphiprion Latezonatus), you would really love em.

 

[dgasmd]

Shouldn't be too hard for him to get them there. Here, that is another story altogether. I have had my eye out for a couple of years now trying to land a pair. If you know a source, by all means take me out of my misery!!!!!!!!!

 

[NexDog]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7185845#post7185845 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by melev
While live brine (nauptilii) will definitely help, mandarins need a steady supply of copepods in their diet. Hopefully you'll have enough of both.

Let me be sure to commend you on your research. Reading all you can will usually end in success more often than failure. However, our hearts, our eyes and those darn vendors are good at getting us worked up over some stunning fish or coral and we decide we must have it. So try to be strong, stick to your plan and resist.

So far, the Prodibio route hasn't really given me any reason to think it can reduce PO4 or nitrates, but I've only dosed twice. My Calcium Reactor is a problem at the moment, as the effluent is 1.0 in PO4, so I'll have to get that handled. The tank is .25 to .5, but the output of the Phosban Reactor is .03

You'll get that stunning display, and you'll have every reason to be proud of it. I'm just going to try to put a few ankle weights on you for a bit, to slow you down if possible.

I think I will hold out for a month or two and wait and see what the consensus is because alot of people have started using using due to Iwan's tank. He also states that his DSB is largely responsible for his denitrification. I'm thinking of doing a remote DSB in a similar plastic tank as to what I'm using for the RODI reservoir but as sand costs me $10 per pound (2kg) I will be getting the sand from a beach. The RDSB would have to be outside which makes me nervous. Some ill-minded individual could pour bleach in it etc. I'll probably make some neat box out of wood and house the DSB container in there along with the chiller. But this is down the road if I can't control nitrates. But with my mainly BB system and regular sand siphoning I hope I won't have a problem.

 

[jnarowe]

Keep in mind that the "sand" that is used in most captive reefs is crushed coral. I don't know what you have in Japan, but you need to collect from an area that has coral sand.

 

[NexDog]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7186185#post7186185 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dgasmd
The fish. I would certainly get rid of a few fish in your list. One is the clown tang. Along with the achiles and the sohal, they are the nastiest fish ever. In time, you will regreat it. Again, that time may be a year down the road when your reef is settle and growing well and you now have to tear it up to get it out. Along the same lines goes for Imperator Angel, Flame Angel, and Coral Beauty. They will in time start picking at things. I've had the same experience with the flame as have 3 other people local to me and 4 people I can think of where I lived previously. They may be fine now, but regardless of feeding and such they will develop to pick at things over time. The regal angel is a toss up. If you have no fleshy LPS like bubble corals, open brains, acanthastreas, etc then I would say OK. I only keep acros and montis and mine has not touched any. Greg Schiemer has one for 7 years and has had the same experience. My buddy in MD got one and it decimated about $10,000 worth of acanthastreas and other corals over night. Your choice though. I would also get rid of the 6-line wrasse. Extremely nasty fish as little as they are!!!

The coral beauty does seem to nip a bit. Nothing serious though and I can live with it for now. The juvie emperor is also nipping at the brain a little. The flame angel isn't nipping at all. I know what you're saying about the clown tang but I really want one. I've wanted one since before I knew what it was....

The 6-Line is one fish on the list that I'm not so keen on. I hear they like to eat flatworms so was thinking about one for preventative measures.

The mandarin. This fish is certainly doomed for demise over the next few weeks. Hardly any ever get to eat anything else other than copepods. Even when they do, they still need a healthy supply of copepods for their primary dietary needs. A single fish can easily consume over 2000 pods in one day. Copepods ahve a 30 day life cycle before they are of reproductive age, so if you are adding 10 bottles of the stuff you order, which I have used in the past and can tell you hardly contains many of them, you are still not doing much for them. Brine shrimp has very poor nutrional value unless ou are hatching them, gut loading them with phyto, and then feeding it to a fish within the first 2 days so the hatch still has the yolk sac attached to it (nutrional). The other alternative to make them nutritious is wait until the brine is larger and gut load them with cyclopeeze befor feeding to the fish. The real question after all this is: are you willing to do all this work daily with cultures and such for a single tiny fish and still an extremely poor chance of survival when you could just wait a good 9 months and then just simply add the fish??? The answer is yours........

I'm hearing you loud and clear and I'm already regretting it. The male mandarin is dead. Not sure what happened but it didn't look good from the day I brought it home. It was always gasping for breath and I'm not sure why. I have a powerhead and an airstone in that QT tank. I will do my best with the female and if I fail I will wait until the end of the year for sure. I think I might just put her straight in the display - I think her chances are better there.

 

[NexDog]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7190259#post7190259 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jnarowe
Keep in mind that the "sand" that is used in most captive reefs is crushed coral. I don't know what you have in Japan, but you need to collect from an area that has coral sand.

I'm pretty sure any type of sand would be okay whether its argonite or silica based?

 

[Hop]

Nice to see that this thing is up and running. When I left town for training, I think you were just getting rock in the thing

I'm trying to play catch up on all my subscribed threads! Between you, jnarowe and melev, I'm going to be reading for months

 

[NexDog]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7188621#post7188621 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ricordiaking
You should get a pair of Wide Band Clownfish (Amphiprion Latezonatus), you would really love em.

Not sure my resident Clarkii duo would be happy with that.

 

[NexDog]

Hey Hop, good to see you back! Did you ever decide what to do with your system? I seem to remember you were thinking about selling everything due to electricity bills and other things?

 

[jnarowe]

I don't think silica based sand has any buffering quality to it but I could be wrong. There must be some coral based beaches in Japan with all the islands around there. At least I would think so. here in the USA the left coast has silica based and the East coast, at least down South has coral based sand. I would put in a good effort to rty and get crushed coral. I can't imagine there is not market for it there but maybe that is what you were referring to that costs $10?

 

[Hop]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7190350#post7190350 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by NexDog
Hey Hop, good to see you back! Did you ever decide what to do with your system? I seem to remember you were thinking about selling everything due to electricity bills and other things?

Thanks, it good to back home and here on RC. For now I'm certainly keeping the tank. I have some issues to solve and now after returning from training and a new job description, I have some major time issues. So I'm going to try to keep things simple and manageable More of a FOWLR and some low maintenance corals for now.

As far as the cost of the tank goes, I pulled a few switcheroos and lowered the monthly operating cost down about $100 a month So that helps things out a bunch.

Keep up the good work, I'll be watching closely!

 

[NexDog]

I'm pretty sure it's all crushed coral around here but I can't be sure. The sand I use in my main tank costs $10 for 2kg which is about 4.4lbs (typed incorrectly last time) and I remember Anthony Calfo saying that an RDSB would need to be 50g for a system of my size. No idea how much sand that would be but upwards of 100kg I'm sure and I don't feel like spending $500 on sand.

 

[NexDog]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7190409#post7190409 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Hop
Thanks, it good to back home and here on RC. For now I'm certainly keeping the tank. I have some issues to solve and now after returning from training and a new job description, I have some major time issues. So I'm going to try to keep things simple and manageable More of a FOWLR and some low maintenance corals for now.

As far as the cost of the tank goes, I pulled a few switcheroos and lowered the monthly operating cost down about $100 a month So that helps things out a bunch.

Keep up the good work, I'll be watching closely!

Pray tell, what did you do?

 

[Hop]

Well for now I'm only running two MH and I shortened the lighting period across the board. Then I got rid of the Sequence Barracuda and replaced it with a blueline. Finally I just started tweaking the AC Jr and playing with various timing of key components and stuff and found a lower end of the "sweet spot" of the tank. It shaved a nice chunk off my electric bill I'm not certain that the tank is running perfect, but it's running and everything seems healthy. I just have a bit of an algae issue on the rear pane...

 

[jnarowe]

I put about 300 lbs. in my 50g RDSB and it's plenty deep. But I understand about the money believe me. If I could collect it locally I would have. See what you can do and just remember to sift it. If you rinse it too much you will lose the benefits of live sand...maybe going out on a boat and getting it away from shore would be the best idea. It would be a pain but then you would get true live sand and hopefully much less or zero pollutants.

Dreamy! Free live sand! DROOOOL...

 

[NexDog]

Hop, I got rid of one pump when I switched to gravity feeding my skimmer but it was only an Iwaki. I still have my big Sequence 1000 running 24/7 but the area under my rock islands is stunningly clean. I left an opening in each so I can just make out a small area and I can see the reflections of the loc-lines so it's doing its job. I just can't see a way to streamline down my bill at all....

Jonathan, I was just going to go down the beach and scoop up the dry sand in buckets. Then I can sieve any crap out of it. Sand doesn't need to be live as it's just there for denitrifying bacteria and those bacteria will soon colonise the sand (within a few months?).

 

[Hop]

Hmmm... Somehow I really messed up the headloss calc when I was planning mine. I expected the sequence to be the right pump, but found out that I was way over powered. I bet I was pumping 1000gph through a T, right back into the sump as it was too much for the drains in the overflow to handle. Now with running the blueline, I don't have a T going back to the sump at all... and it fixed my micro bubble issue to boot No more filter socks!

 

[jnarowe]

true, but you could get some good stuff in live sand. (as well as some bad stuff) But sand off the beach is bound to have a variety of pollutants I would think. Maybe you should, if you haven't already, do some research into that.

I know with my planted tank I did several "no-nos" like I used sand and rocks from the stream on our property, and I also used worm castings in a lower layer of the substrate. Most "pros" would tell you not to even think about that but I have one of the nicest natural FW Planted tanks around.