Jerone's 155 gallon reef tank

[jbfloor]

Yes, Hippo's are Ich magnets! Preventative treatment with copper would not be a bad idea also.

Maybe having a dither fish or two in QT will help get the Hippo more active. Most of my fish were perfectly happy in QT, but the hippo hid behind the pump intake most of the time. Aiming a pipet with food directly at him and blow food into his face got him to take the food. Once he was in the DT he learned quickly who the food-God was (me) and aggressively started eating like every other fish.

 

[jbfloor]

Some pictures of the new arrivals:

The Skunk cleaner shrimp is checking everything out. This guy is the most social animal in the entire tank. He follows me around, jump towards to front glass when get near and loves to clean my cuticles. I am glad my shrimp are now doing this well. I know lots of people do not believe Iodine is required for shrimp to flourish, but I lost 6 shrimp before I started dosing and have not lost one since.

Orange Crush Acan and Red Stripe Zoa


Turbinaria, Acropora's, Acans and a war coral

 

[jbfloor]

After I realized that an Apogee Quantum sensor will work with a normal multi-meter (and save myself almost $200), I finally got a PAR sensorso I can measure my DIY lighting system. Turns out I was running very low (which I kind of knew, but now I confirmed it). I took the opportunity to see what my light system is capable of. These are the results of running all LED's at 100%:



I am very pleased with being able to get 1000 PAR at surface level and 800 PAR at directly below the surface. It was surprising how much difference in light there is between dark and light spots and how hard it is to detect with the naked eye. I will definitely use these numbers to determine where my corals are going to go.

Note that I am not running at these levels, but now at about 60%-70%. I was running at 50-50-25 (Royal Blue, Royal Blue, Whites), but was getting browning and fading on most of my corals. I am going to bump this to 60-60-50.

Here's my nifty PAR sensor contraption. Used some spare parts from an Eheim pump . Also a nice view of some of the cyano that I am still battling.

 

[jbfloor]

Well, something is definitely eating my Acans. I did a little experiment last week with two new Acans I got for cheap. To see if it was water parameters or some kind of predator I decided to protect the acans with a plastic cylinder:



The cylinder was high enough so no fish, save the small clownfish could reach inside, but a shrimp could with some effort. The Acans stayed in this protective shell for over a week with no problems whatsover. Then I removed the shell yesterday and today the Acan on the right had its mouth completely eaten out. Something in the tank has a taste for Acan LordHowensis and only those. My Acan Echinatas are perfectly safe and so is every other coral in the tank... very odd and very annoying because Acan Lords are probably my favorite coral...

On a side note, I am still battling cyano. Noticed yesterday an ugly glob had settled and hid behind my pink birdsnest plug which might have played a part in all this. I blasted all my rock with a turkey baster and made sure all the gunk came out of the crevices. Then I changed my GFO and washed the filter sock. Phosphates are still undetectable and oddly enough the lit sump is cyano free. Crossing fingers that all this will help.

 

[jbfloor]

I caught the bugger in the act last night. It turns out it's the peppermint shrimp. Not one, but all were picking at the Acan late yesterday and this morning there was only a dead skeleton left.

I think I'll try to trap them after the lights go out tonight, because I like my Acans too much..

 

[jbfloor]

New additions for the tank were added recently

School of five Longspine Cardinalfish (or Blue Eye Cardinalfish):


They are eating well which I heard is a major issue with these fish.

Also, after a very long search I found a McCosker's female. Turns out the LFS had one that had jumped tanks and was hiding in one of the coral tanks. When I asked the guy if he was a she, he said yes and told me nobody ever wanted to buy her because the males look better... Little do they know that males look even better when females are around.

Finally a Zoa I picked up a month or two ago.


As you can see the battle with green cyano is still raging. Oddly enough the stuff grows in the shade and does not seem to be able to take hold on the top of rock. I am slowly winning the war (I hope) with water changes, blowing rock, wet skimming and GFO.

 

[kandaym]

you used eheim for return pump? is it can be used outside the water? sorry for this question, because i also have eheim pump compact 2000 for my 35 gallons reef tank, but im afraid to put it outside the water, so i keep it inside. that's why i want to ask you. is it okay for the pump? tq for your answer

 

[rlpardue]

Did you end up catching/removing the peppermint shrimp? One time I came home from a vacation to find my pepps eating my acans too.

 

[jbfloor]

you used eheim for return pump? is it can be used outside the water? sorry for this question, because i also have eheim pump compact 2000 for my 35 gallons reef tank, but im afraid to put it outside the water, so i keep it inside. that's why i want to ask you. is it okay for the pump? tq for your answer

The Eheim Compact 3000+ is in the return section of my sump, so it is in the water. I use a different pump for my closed loop system which is a Danner Mag-Drive Sumpreme 9.5. This is out in the open.

Did you end up catching/removing the peppermint shrimp? One time I came home from a vacation to find my pepps eating my acans too.

I have removed the two big ones and banished them to my sump (where they are happily hanging out). The two little ones I have been unable to catch, but they do not seems to be the culprits as my Acans are doing much better now. I actually do not know if these two are peppermints. They remain less than half an inch big, have bright blue markings on top of the regular peppermint pattern. They are not Camel shrimp, but I do not know what they are. I think Live Aquaria sold them as Candy Cane peppermint shrimp, but they are supposed to become 2" big and mine have remained tiny.

 

[kandaym]

this is what i asking for, it placed outside the water

 

[jbfloor]

Ah, yes, I replaced that one with the Danner pump later. I think I did it because the Danner has a higher flow rate (and the fact that I cracked the pump cover and my replacement came in).

On a side note, I finally managed to catch the two remaining "peppermint" shrimp last night. I decided to leave the inverted bottle trap in the tank all night with some food pellets and lo-and-behold... They were both trapped this morning . Although they left my Acans alone for a while, they attacked one on Saturday night, which caused me to put the trap out again.

So, as a warning... be careful with peppermint shrimp. I don't think I will ever add them again. As much as I like them... I like my Acans more.

 

[ZaPPPa]

(sorry, used wrong handle)

 

[jbfloor]

(ZaPPPa is an old handle that I didn't know still existed on this forum)

Wow, I just realized that tomorrow it will be exactly one year since the tank was first filled with water. After twelve months the tank is still the very first thing I look at when I walk in the door after coming home from work and all our friends love it.

The tank is not quite where I want it though. I have been battling little bits of green cyano for months now and the corals are not colored up and growing the way I want them to. Although my phosphates and nitrates read 0.0 on all my test kits, I do believe it is water quality that is causing it. Therefore I have ordered a major upgrade to my skimmer which will arrive next week.

Also, to celebrate the first year anniversary I have ordered a package of new inhabitants that will arrive tomorrow. It will contain a Mandarin pair and more McCoskers. (Pictures will follow, of course)

Some things I learned in the last year:

- Test often and learn the characteristics of your tank (I have learned exactly how much Kalk to and am now able keep my Kh between 9.0 and 9.5 without the need for daily tests)
- ATO is your friend!
- You will spill water... lots of it...
- Careful where you buy your shrimp.. Not all Peppermint shrimp are alike (or Peppermint shrimp at all) and some shrimp are pure evil.
- Hermit crabs are cute, but seem to have coral-tipping as their favorite hobby.
- Banggai Cardinals make clicking sounds!
- Wrasses will find a way out of your tank and in your overflow box or worse.

 

[jbfloor]

New pictures:

 

[jbfloor]

The cavalry has arrived in my battle with the last remnants of cyano:







This is the only skimmer that is rated for my size tank and will fit my refugium properly while still allowing me to still replace the filter socks.

So, for a quick first impression of the unit:

Interesting how this does not come with any form of proper manual. The only thing the pamphlet says is to "install as shown", which shows a very basic drawing of the unit. Even IKEA does a better job at explaining what part goes where. Also, the package material is very weak. The Styrofoam comes apart very easily and some of it had broken off and gotten stuck inside the pump housing. For the price of this skimmer, I'd expect a good solid box and a professionally printed manual.

The unit itself is solidly made. I think you can use the cone as a weapon for intruders and do major damage to the opponent with minimal damage to the unit. The collection cup is a bit weaker, but should hold up with daily/weekly handling.

The controller looks nice with bright LED's for speed settings and on/off switch. It is clear all R&D and manufacturing money went into the unit itself, rather than the packaging, which is what matters most.

The pump is silent, so silent that at first I thought it was broken until the bubbles started to appear. Even at max speed the pump itself makes almost no noise. The same cannot be said for the air intake which gurgles at high speed settings. I have read before that this is a common problem that can be resolved with mufflers which I'll look into. Still, I am happy I don't have the problems one of the other ReefCentral members has with the unit. I installed mine at about 6.5" water level and it runs smoothly.

The amount of bubbles produced by this unit compared to my Marineland Pro 100 skimmer is enormous.Where the marineland produced maybe one inch of bubbles above water level (when starting up), the DC1 produces easily 4 inches and the smooth cone shape really helps condensing the air bubbles. I can't wait to see the goop that'll come out of this thing once it has broken in.

In addition to the skimmer another inhabitant made it into the tank.


I ordered this little guy/girl as a pair, but unfortunately the other one arrived with a severely sunken belly and did not survive more than a day. Concerned about the health of his/her mate I put this one in the main tank to allow it to hunt for copepods which my QT tank has very few of. After a day his/her belly has filled up nicely and I am confident (s)he will pull through the ordeal and survive.

The nice thing about MarcoRocks Key Largo rock is that they are so porous that you won't need a copepod farm. There's plenty of space deep inside the rock where copepods can reproduce without fish being able to reach them.

 

[jbfloor]

24 hours worth of skimmate.. Not bad for a brand new skimmer that has not even fully broken in yet.

 

[houssic]

Glad to see the update. I have studied your thread avidly over the past few months and want to say that your thread has been the inspiration for my current build. I am following it pretty closely even down to inspecting my pier and beam construction. Fortunately where the tank goes, we have a large cement cross member down the whole house.

Going with a 100g DSA with 2 1" drains and 2 .75" returns and a custom stand and canopy. DSA stand is a little short for my skimmer and have a local aquarium builder, ADG, designing a stand and canopy to fit our modern decor. Of what I have seen around Houston, their stuff looks amazing. I only have 2 48" exocentric LED strips. May double it up if I have to. RKE Digitial Aquatics controller, 1200 gph return and a Skimz 201 skimmer. Still working on a 30 or 40 gallon breeder sump/refugium.
I am ordering the tank and stand in the next week or two so will keep you informed.

 

[houssic]

Still figuring out photobucket! sorry.

 

[ojonas81]

Looking good!

 

[jbfloor]

@houssic
I just saw your build thread. Looks very good. Yeah, you really can't go wrong with a DSA tank. I agree that the stand is a little low and the canopy may be fine for freshwater tanks (less maintenance generally), but does not give enough room for saltwater. I like the rock sculpts you're making, should give a good contrast of light and shadow.