jgranata13
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Joseph's 37gal FOWLR Tank Journal
I had to nuke one of the rocks - can you tell which one?? Lol
I had to nuke one of the rocks - can you tell which one?? Lol
Joseph's 37gal FOWLR Tank Journal
- Thread starter jgranata13
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jgranata13
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My first tank-related injury! I bought a royal gramma a month ago and have been quarantining/treating for some strange disease that I still haven't been able to identify. Unfortunately, she died yesterday, and water splashed in my face while taking down the QT. Now I have an eye infection!
Joseph Granata
Joseph Granata
jgranata13
New member
Some updates as we approach the two-year anniversary of this tank!
First, the most exciting news: I have since started living more or less full-time in one place (my previous living arrangement was mentioned in some earlier posts in this thread) and I just moved my tank a couple days ago; now that I'll have it with me all the time, I can really start doing some things that I've been looking forward to for a while.
I was really down before the move because nothing had been going my way livestock-wise for about a year and a half; my flame angel died of HLLE, my royal gramma jumped out of the tank, a firefish I bought died the first day of quarantine (which I expect was due to cyanide poisoning), another royal gramma that I bought died of some unidentifiable illness (that's the one from the last post that gave me the eye infection), and all my snails kept disappearing because of that damn flatworm (these are all covered in more detail in previous posts except for the firefish). I was basically at the point where if my next livestock purchase didn't survive and thrive I was going to give up altogether.
I think my unlucky streak is finally over, though! Six weeks ago I purchased my second firefish and a green chromis - my all-time favourite fish because of the way their colour changes depending on how the light strikes them - with the goal of moving the tank by the time quarantine was over. They seem to be very healthy and are eating well, so I added them to my main tank yesterday. They already look incredibly comfortable and are getting along perfectly with my clowns! I named the chromis Isosceles and the firefish Carmen, and my mom gave them the dual set of names Godzilla and Vanilla, respectively.
I also had the chance to clean my tank really well during the move: I took out almost all the sand and gave it a really deep clean and took out all the rocks and scraped all the coralline off those hard-to-get spots on the viewing panes. Moving was fun and I enlisted my friend to stand by the tank with a spray bottle at all times and mist the coralline with saltwater so it wouldn't dry out and die
.
For now, my only plan is to add a sun coral to the tank. I need to do some more reading, but I think it's pretty much the only NPS (I don't have any special lighting so even the really low-light corals are out) that doesn't need pristine water conditions (I don't have a sump either so intense filtration isn't possible on this setup). Regardless, I'm happy because I think they look great; and now that I have the tank with me, I of course can keep up with the feeding schedule that they require.
Enter the 65gal column "Experience" tank. I call it an "experience" because this is the setup that I mentioned in my first post in this thread, which has now been in the planning stages for four years. I'm finally putting that together, and when it's up-and-running I'll be transferring everything from my current tank over to that one; then I can start with more demanding animals because I'll have the capability to customize the setup to suit their needs.
Pics to come tomorrow.
First, the most exciting news: I have since started living more or less full-time in one place (my previous living arrangement was mentioned in some earlier posts in this thread) and I just moved my tank a couple days ago; now that I'll have it with me all the time, I can really start doing some things that I've been looking forward to for a while.
I was really down before the move because nothing had been going my way livestock-wise for about a year and a half; my flame angel died of HLLE, my royal gramma jumped out of the tank, a firefish I bought died the first day of quarantine (which I expect was due to cyanide poisoning), another royal gramma that I bought died of some unidentifiable illness (that's the one from the last post that gave me the eye infection), and all my snails kept disappearing because of that damn flatworm (these are all covered in more detail in previous posts except for the firefish). I was basically at the point where if my next livestock purchase didn't survive and thrive I was going to give up altogether.
I think my unlucky streak is finally over, though! Six weeks ago I purchased my second firefish and a green chromis - my all-time favourite fish because of the way their colour changes depending on how the light strikes them - with the goal of moving the tank by the time quarantine was over. They seem to be very healthy and are eating well, so I added them to my main tank yesterday. They already look incredibly comfortable and are getting along perfectly with my clowns! I named the chromis Isosceles and the firefish Carmen, and my mom gave them the dual set of names Godzilla and Vanilla, respectively.
I also had the chance to clean my tank really well during the move: I took out almost all the sand and gave it a really deep clean and took out all the rocks and scraped all the coralline off those hard-to-get spots on the viewing panes. Moving was fun and I enlisted my friend to stand by the tank with a spray bottle at all times and mist the coralline with saltwater so it wouldn't dry out and die
.For now, my only plan is to add a sun coral to the tank. I need to do some more reading, but I think it's pretty much the only NPS (I don't have any special lighting so even the really low-light corals are out) that doesn't need pristine water conditions (I don't have a sump either so intense filtration isn't possible on this setup). Regardless, I'm happy because I think they look great; and now that I have the tank with me, I of course can keep up with the feeding schedule that they require.
Enter the 65gal column "Experience" tank. I call it an "experience" because this is the setup that I mentioned in my first post in this thread, which has now been in the planning stages for four years. I'm finally putting that together, and when it's up-and-running I'll be transferring everything from my current tank over to that one; then I can start with more demanding animals because I'll have the capability to customize the setup to suit their needs.
Pics to come tomorrow.
jgranata13
New member
I haven't gotten any satisfactory pics yet but here's one for posterity:
Today I finally finished tying up all the loose ends from the move. I installed some shelves in my stand, cleaned my sand and put it back in the tank, and made some "jump blockers" to close the small but irregular holes at the back of the canopy so my firefish can't jump out. When I was moving her from the QT, she jumped more than two feet out of the bucket!
Also, I was looking in the tank tonight to see how much micro fauna survived, and I guess my clowns' most recent clutch of eggs hatched because I saw the fry! It was very cool and I definitely want to try raising a couple batches at some point when I have the time.
Joseph Granata
Today I finally finished tying up all the loose ends from the move. I installed some shelves in my stand, cleaned my sand and put it back in the tank, and made some "jump blockers" to close the small but irregular holes at the back of the canopy so my firefish can't jump out. When I was moving her from the QT, she jumped more than two feet out of the bucket!
Also, I was looking in the tank tonight to see how much micro fauna survived, and I guess my clowns' most recent clutch of eggs hatched because I saw the fry! It was very cool and I definitely want to try raising a couple batches at some point when I have the time.
Joseph Granata
jgranata13
New member
I think I lost most of my pod population during the move, which kind of sucks considering I added a $40 bottle of Canada Copepods just a few weeks earlier. Since the sand was so dirty, though, I had no option but to take it out and clean it once it got stirred up. Obviously I didn't lose everything since my rock stayed wet and some sand was left in the corners of the tank, so I'll just have to wait for the populations to replenish again.
One thing, however, is that I only put about a third of the sand into the tank that I had previously. I did that because so much of the bottom of the rocks were covered before and keeping it lower left some excellent caves exposed for my firefish to hide in. I'm wondering if this change will have an impact on the maximum population sizes for the pods, but I guess only time will tell. I'm also curious to see how my nassarius snails react. They still have enough sand to completely bury themselves, but the change is like downgrading from a mansion to a bungalow.
Finally, in hopes of creating some semblance of a refugium for my copepods with no sump/external refugium, I'm going to set up a rubble zone underneath that powerhead in the bottom left corner. I figure that they can reproduce in there safely since nothing can get in, and then those that swim out to to the top will be carried away into by the flow and enter the water column for the firefish and Chromis to snack on.
I also decided to stop using PhosGuard for a while just to see what my phosphate does on it's own because I could never really figure out if/how the media was actually working just by testing the phosphate level over time. It always seemed to start climbing immediately after changing the media, but I have no problem algae whatsoever, so it would be great if I can get away without it (since I only have a FOWLR system right now) and save some money.
Joseph Granata
One thing, however, is that I only put about a third of the sand into the tank that I had previously. I did that because so much of the bottom of the rocks were covered before and keeping it lower left some excellent caves exposed for my firefish to hide in. I'm wondering if this change will have an impact on the maximum population sizes for the pods, but I guess only time will tell. I'm also curious to see how my nassarius snails react. They still have enough sand to completely bury themselves, but the change is like downgrading from a mansion to a bungalow.
Finally, in hopes of creating some semblance of a refugium for my copepods with no sump/external refugium, I'm going to set up a rubble zone underneath that powerhead in the bottom left corner. I figure that they can reproduce in there safely since nothing can get in, and then those that swim out to to the top will be carried away into by the flow and enter the water column for the firefish and Chromis to snack on.
I also decided to stop using PhosGuard for a while just to see what my phosphate does on it's own because I could never really figure out if/how the media was actually working just by testing the phosphate level over time. It always seemed to start climbing immediately after changing the media, but I have no problem algae whatsoever, so it would be great if I can get away without it (since I only have a FOWLR system right now) and save some money.
Joseph Granata
jgranata13
New member
jgranata13
New member
It's been 12 weeks since the move and I finally did a water change. The water pressure at my mom's (where the tank currently is) wasn't high enough for my RO/DI unit to work properly, so I had to order a booster pump. Would you believe it took three months just to get one? My LFS has terrible customer service when it comes to special orders, and I wasn't even willing to try Big Al's. So I tried a Canadian water systems supplier a few hours outside of my city, and I was supposed to have the pump within a week; four weeks later, they still didn't even have it in their warehouse. I was so furious that I decided to cancel and order from BRS, regardless of all the extra charges, because I knew that it would arrive quickly, and I could also throw in some other items that are also hard to find in Toronto. I'm kicking myself for not just ordering from them at the beginning because I *knew* this would happen. (I didn't want to use tap water because my house is very old and I'm not sure what the pipes are made of, and making the water at my Dad's (where the tank used to be) and transporting it proved to be a disastrous endeavour last time, so my only option really was to wait for this pump.)
A little on the state of the tank as of now: right before the water change, nitrate was sitting somewhere between 16ppm and 32ppm, which is actually a lot lower than I would have expected it to climb. Considering it's a FOWLR, I'm not really worried about any negative effects going forward. In the last week, though, I did start to notice my hermit crabs becoming very inactive, and I'm wondering if the water became "too dirty" for them, since inverts are so much more sensitive. I also lost a few snails and a hermit at some point in the past month (can't really pinpoint when because school has been VERY busy and it's all been a blur), which was probably also due to the water. I changed 50% today and I plan to do a few more changes over the next week to try and bring everything back to normal. Surprisingly, brown and green algae really only started to show up in the last two weeks.
The thing that I'm most sad about - and I don't know whether this has to do with the water quality or not - is that it seems like my pod population still hasn't rebounded from the hit of the move; at least I know they aren't completely gone, because I still see a few every time I clean the filter. Like I said, I'm still not sure whether this is just a normal time-frame for the population to blossom again or if there's some other factor that's keeping them at bay.
Anyways, that's all for now. Pics to come once the water clears up!
A little on the state of the tank as of now: right before the water change, nitrate was sitting somewhere between 16ppm and 32ppm, which is actually a lot lower than I would have expected it to climb. Considering it's a FOWLR, I'm not really worried about any negative effects going forward. In the last week, though, I did start to notice my hermit crabs becoming very inactive, and I'm wondering if the water became "too dirty" for them, since inverts are so much more sensitive. I also lost a few snails and a hermit at some point in the past month (can't really pinpoint when because school has been VERY busy and it's all been a blur), which was probably also due to the water. I changed 50% today and I plan to do a few more changes over the next week to try and bring everything back to normal. Surprisingly, brown and green algae really only started to show up in the last two weeks.
The thing that I'm most sad about - and I don't know whether this has to do with the water quality or not - is that it seems like my pod population still hasn't rebounded from the hit of the move; at least I know they aren't completely gone, because I still see a few every time I clean the filter. Like I said, I'm still not sure whether this is just a normal time-frame for the population to blossom again or if there's some other factor that's keeping them at bay.
Anyways, that's all for now. Pics to come once the water clears up!
Last edited:
jgranata13
New member
Well, it turns out that my pod population *is* ok, after all. I went away for four days, and I don't have anyone who can come to the house and feed the fish on a daily basis, I decided to just black out the tank so that the fish would basically sleep and conserve as much energy as possible. When I got back home and turned on the lights, there were pods *everywhere* on the glass! My chromis was so excited and immediately started eating them all up! I thought it was pretty cool, so I took a video, but Tapatalk isn't giving me the option to upload videos for some reason 
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
jgranata13
New member
jgranata13
New member
Just shy of the tank's three year anniversary, the tank has been decommissioned to upgrade the entire system! Here's a link to the new thread: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=25179989#post25179989
