Mountains of sawdust (360g plywood, LED, Arduino build)

[der_wille_zur_macht]

One of the cave gobies:

Forgive the distortion, this was right near the bottom of the pane of glass and the silicone seam (which is out of focus) is obscuring the back half of the fish.

These guys have been fascinating in the last 24 hours. Kind of a mix between a dragonette and a hawkfish. They hop around the bottom and look pretty, but they have no problem eating regular prepared food. And I'm hoping they'll spawn at some point - not out of an interest in raising the young, but just because it would be cool to see them nest and lay eggs on the roof of a cave.

 

[amcarrig]

Wow! Did the clam ever close up with the clowns inside it?

Not that I know of. Gigas clams can't really close up completely so even if it had, I think that the clowns would have been fine.

Those cave gobies are cool DWIZM. Gobies have always been my favorite kinds of fish!

 

[Rhodes19]

Here is an interesting thread that back up your algae scrubber idea.
How to FEED your reef tank so that your corals will really GROW, instead of ho-hum...
You may have seen it, but I found it interesting. Not sure any of it is new, but an interesting summary.

Now that's a feeding frenzy. I couldn't get past the first 2 pages.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

Those cave gobies are neat looking fish, very unique. Those clowns have a great color to them - so tiny too!

 

[Rhodes19]

I love your clowns and your gobie. :thumbsup:

 

[TheFishMan65]

I admit to not getting all of it. But what I got out of it was algae is good, it feeds everything else. I think they said 90% of living stuff is algae. Then you want pods to eat the algae - the other 10%. Then you have everything else (yes less than 1% IIRC).

So would you believe we try and stuff too much in our tanks . They did not give any useful solution (or else I missed them).

It start off with trying to prove that feeding corals is good. And that they graze (is that the right word) constantly.

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

The first TS screen has been running since yesterday:

This was really so pitifully easy/cheap/quick to build, anyone with half an ounce of interest should at least try it. I'm playing with the flow rate trying to get an even sheet of water, and I will be putting reflectors on the CFL lamps. But otherwise, it's pretty much "in business."

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Feeding time this morning. This is the middle third of the tank. Teeeeeeeeny tiny little clowns. :lol: Two of the three cardinals and both cave gobies are in this shot too, but harder to find.

I have to say - by a large margin, my favorite livestock so far are the shrimp gobies/pistol shrimp. The shrimp on it's own is really fascinating, but with the two gobies, it's something I could stare at for hours. I've temporarily moved my "home office" (i.e. my computer) to a table next to the tank and I'm constantly amazed at the shrimp's industrious behaviors. That little guy is busy! And comical. When one of the gobies is in the hole with him, he'll get a handful of sand, climb onto the fish's back, and dump the sand off the other side. The fish just sits there contently.

The shrimp has dug two tunnels under the rock on the right side of the aquarium. The female (I'm assuming based on size) goby spends about half her time in the tunnel with the shrimp. The male goby spends about a third of his time near the tunnels, a third out hopping around, and a third in a tunnel he made about two feet away.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

I've got a tiger pistol too (goby-less atm). Very industrious little bugger. It's amazing how much sand it moves. I don't see it as much now that it's goby is gone, but see it's productivity every morning when the lights come on. If you haven't done so yet, place a bit of rubble and empty snail shells near it's burrow entrances for the pistol to use. Here's a crppy pic of one of the many renditions of "burrow improvement". The black piece on the top of the burrow is a broken piece of a Tunze PH holder. It's held up by rubble and snail shells. :lol:

 

[sammy113]

I'd love to see how the screen works for you. Very interesting

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Indeed, it's amazing how creative the bugger is. Sometimes he puts his claws in front of him and pushes like a bulldozer. Other times he cups them together and scoops sand up, carries it, and dumps it. Other times he just rapidly "digs" and flings sand everywhere. He seems extremely particular about where the sand ends up and changes methods accordingly.

There are about 50 empty shells in the tank, many near his burrow, but he hasn't used them yet. I'm really interested to see how he incorporates them. The rockwork was placed before the sand, so it's solidly on the bottom of the tank, so no worries about rockslides if he digs under a piece of rock. The sand where he's currently living is maybe 1" - 1.5" deep and that seems to be plenty for him.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

The depth of my sand bed changes every night. He's only got an 18" cube of sand that started out at about 1 1/2-2", to work with. Some mornngs I find channels leading from my one large base rock (his home base) to underneath the other large base rock. Fascinating little creatures for sure.

 

[tahiriqbal]

Coming along really nice..... What wattage and Kelvin rating CFL bulbs are you using?

 

[ISMANU]

First off Really nice Setup and build But i have to Ask what is a ts screen and whats it for.

Thanks

 

[[]V[]addog]

man very nice work i enjoyed following this

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Coming along really nice..... What wattage and Kelvin rating CFL bulbs are you using?

I dunno, I threw the package away. :lol: I want to say they were 25 - 30w and a touch bluer than most people use, but that's what they had at the store I went shopping at. Depending on how soon I play with LEDs for the TS, I may replace these with more-correct CFLs.

First off Really nice Setup and build But i have to Ask what is a ts screen and whats it for.

Thanks

TS = turf scrubber. Basically, it's a plastic screen with a thin layer of water flowing over it, that you locate under bright lights. The idea is that different species of algae (aka "turf") will grow on the screen, and suck undesirable nutrients out of your water, while at the same time oxygenating it and providing other benefits. You then remove the screen and scrape the algae off on a regular basis. Basically, it's an alternative to skimmers, macroalgae, biofilters, or other methods of nutrient removal. I'm trying one on this tank because a) it strikes me as a more natural method to remove waste from the system, b) it's really easy and cheap, and c) it's a concept that I find interesting, personally.

man very nice work i enjoyed following this

Thanks!

 

[TheFishMan65]

TS is a turf scrubber. The idea is that algae will from on it and be scraped of periodically removing nutrient form the system.

 

[Beaun]

Are you going to be doing any macros in the sump?

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

The "traditional" SantaMonica approach to turf scrubbers says to use no macroalgae for nutrient export, as the TS will out-compete it anyways. Though, there's a large ball of chaeto in the sump now, to "help" with nutrient export until the TS takes off.

There's also the one-penny sample macro I got from reefcleaners.org, which will probably end up in the sump. It's in the display tank for now because it's pretty.

 

[ISMANU]

Thanks for the info. Don't want to TJ but would that be in-lou of filter socks as well or would you still use a mechanical filter of some kind.