Serious REVAMP being considered - thoughts?

mwp

mwp

In Memoriam
OK guys, here's my dilema. The 24 gallon that sits to the right of my desk is just bumming me out..it used to be PRETTY! I'm considering a revamp of the tank, and looking for good ideas.

It's currently a 24 gallon nanocube, mostly stock, purigen added to the chemical arsenal, running hoodless, air pump feeding to the back middle chamber, 24 watt internal UV sterilizer etc.

The tank went downhill through a serious of unfortunate events. It used to be a 14-fish reef tank that ran at 0 nitrates, was full of tridacnas, SPS, and happy fish. I won't bore you with the details (already PM'd those to a fellow reefer), suffice it to say I've replaced a major piece of equipment that was giving me nothing but trouble (the lighting). Current inhabitants include:

1m/1f Bangaii Cardinalfish - yup, this is the pair that never holds more than a couple days and the male hasn't eaten in probably over 100 days now....unreal that he's still alive. Seriously, I can tell he's getting thin, but 100 days without feeding?!

1m/2f Glass Cardinals - my breeding group of Apogon leptacanthus. I made it to 45 days out on larvae, not really a true success. I want to try them again and get their offspring to full juvie status (miniature adults) but otherwise, I think they're causing some issues for my Bangaii pair AND well, after a year +, I too am starting to get bored of their "subtle" coloration!

1m/1f Black Ocellaris - OK, I'm pretty content to say at this point that the formerly "Halfblack" Ocellaris proved to be regular Ocellaris just waiting for the right conditions to fully color up. While I greatly appreciate Joe donating these fish to me to work with, I also already have a stunning pair of Black Ocellaris that appear to be closer to breeding AND have better color (for black ocellaris). The pair has just ended up being "duplication" that I'm not sure I need in my current "breeding" situation.

1 Firefish - I never see it other than at feeding time, it's mate jumped, never got confirmation of any spawns...just ready to move on.

1 Juv. Black Saddle Clownfish in a breeder net - used to be 2 juvies, a future pair. It's current status is up in the air!

1F mandarin - she's not going ANYWHERE, she just needs a new mate (male #2, Fatboy, jumped the other night - grrrrrr)

1m/1f Red Scooter Blenny - also not going anywhere, through 1 murder and 1 vanishing act, this is now technically our #2 female and #2 male. Male #1 was more impressive, but #2 seems to be keeping our current female happy...now if they'd just throw some darn eggs.

1m/1f Greenbanded Goby - another pair that's not going anywhere but I think is no longer breeding...not sure if it's due to a rock shift that "exposed" their former nest site, or if they're just hitting old-age now. No worries, I'm keeping 2 or 4 of their offspring to form a new pair.

Other than that, the tank consists of lace rock that is pretty well encrusted with life and would pass for really interesting live rock. Pom Pom Xenia has run rampant, although Silverbar Xenia is barely hanging on. 1 large Red Cynaria takes up the bottom floor of the tank, and there are a few orange ricordea (kinda shaded by the breeder net but still doing OK). This tank used to be full of SPS that were growing well, as well as clams that for a while did great (before the great perkinsis epidemic).

I want to get the tank back to it's former glory...not sure where to start. I'm thinking of lightening the load to help, removing all 5 cardinalfish (4 of whom are by far the most glutonous feeders in the tank...waste producing machines), removing all 3 clownfish, and removing the firefish. I might go a different route with a new clownfish pair (or maybe a Starkii Damselfish pair?). Have also thought about bringing in a pair of Centropyge argi or the African Flameback (to help with algae control in addition to being a new spawning pair).

Bottom line, the tank used to have tons of color, ran extremely well (0 nitrates), and all the fish were happy. While the fish are still happy for the most part, the surroundings have turned into a pretty boring scene. I know how the tank got there, and considering the situations it went through (including no light for almost a month and an SPS-eating nudibranch population explosion out of nowhere), well...you get the jist. The tank went from my favorite to an eyesore. My 2 other broodstock tanks and the 6 gallon mushroom/baby clown tank haven't had any of these problems (I chalk up most of it to lighting issues). A few fish have worn out their welcomes (but then again, I REALLY want to get bangaii babies going...but may need to humanely put down the current male and start fresh considering his current refusal to do anything other than not die....)

So, what do you all think? I know, you all think I'm nuts. Be a fish breeder or a reefer, not both, right? ;)

I have some tough decisions to make in '07 regarding this tank...something has to change (or I could just let it go and see what happens on it's own)

Matt
 
Hi Matt,

I will be honest being a reef keeper and breeder is tricky, I am doing both currently. I though am just working with clowns so not navigating through uncharted waters like yourself with the mandarins and everything else. Luckily though my finacee loves the reef part of the hobby so the reef tanks are "our tanks" and the back room with all the clowns is my thing, she supports it just not itnerested in learning about it at all :)

I would think lightening the load would help but I have never first hand ran a nano tank. I can only imagine how hard it will be to decide what to part with.

Good luck! I am excited I think 2007 will bring many new accomplishments in this wonderful breeding hobby/interest.

Also congrats on getting thread of the month!

Scott
 
Remove alot of the fish like your thinking.
I have a 24g Aquapod with a superskimmer HOB. Two months ago I upgraded its PC lighting to a 150w HQI sunpod fixture and its the best thing I ever did for it. That and adding the coralife skimmer.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8934454#post8934454 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Baalz
Your never gonna have the tank you want with that kinda fish load.
Click to expand...

Perhaps, except for a good long time there I DID have the tank I wanted WITH 14 fish running around. Clams and macro and the rest of the coral life seemed to really help take up the nitrates, it's only now that they're all gone and nitrates have started to rise.

Hmm.

Matt
 
Keeping clams and Sps in a nano is one of the hardest things to do. A larger tank can handle small changes etc but a nano will go to toast very easily. Your tank may have been doing great but it could of been as simple as missing one water change to cause a downward trend. 14 fish is a huge bioload in a nano.
 
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=776659

Matt its easy to see from the excellent picture you provided at the begining of this thread (above) why you did well despite the high bioload. You had a ton of macro-aglae. That's where the excess organic nutrients were going and why your water quality was stable and pristine.

Very heavy bioloads are possible so long as nutrient export is equally impressive. Fast growing plants are the key. Turf algae is the fastest you can get. If you are doing this for the purpose of breeding fish not looking in the tank, just let the algae go and the water will be perfect all the time.

I experimentally kept a 20 gal reef very heavily stocked and fed for about 8 months filtered with a 10 gal caulerpa refugium. I fed heavily 3 times a day frozen, flake and pellet foods. This included 12 green chromis, 3 blue yellow tail damsels, 1 four-stripe damsel, 1 domino damsel, 1 kole tang, 1 convict tang, 1 yellow tang, 1 falco hawkfish, 2 chalk basslets, 1 royal gramma, 1 six-line wrasse, 1 atlantic pygmy angel, 2 large Hawaiian hermits, 5 red reef hermits, 12 blue reef hermits, 2 emerald crabs, 3 peppermint shrimp, and 1 skunk cleaner shrimp. On ATS filtered fish farms densities of over 1 lb of fish per gallon are achieved for tilapia.
 
Baalz, to recap the problems very quickly. The tank ran for months with Compact Flourescent...things grew slow, but they did grow. Then I got hit with Clam Perkinsis, which wiped out a large collection of tridacnas (assuming they were largerly responsible for nitrate removal).

Things still ran OK. The next change started with an upgrade to MH lighting. Things did so-so, color wasn't great (10k bulb), switch to 14k bulbs. Things took off. But the first 14k bulb burned out in a month - we replaced the capacitor in the ballast and put in a new 14k bulb. Burned out slowly again over the course of a month and while waiting on a replacement 10k bulb, the tank sat dark other than 2 18 watt actinics for nearly a month. Back to the 10k, corals started browning out. Water quality still fairly good at that point. Caulerpa growth slowed dramatically. Then, out of nowhere, some wierd nudibranch showed up and multiplied like rabbits and in the course of a couple days ate most of the SPS in the tank before I could even figure out how to get rid of them (they were EVERYWHERE). Tank has since run for a 5-6 months on 10k and while Xenia grew like a weed, the a handful of SPS slowly kicked the bucket one by one. Caulerpa growth all but halted, and nitrates started flying sky high. Then the hair algae showed up ;)

I look to my left, and see another tank similarily full of fish yet the water quality remains great...of course it's LUSH with Caulpera prolifera and a few other types of macro. While the nitrates no longer remain at the 1-2 ppm, they rarely get above 10 ppm. Curently houses 2 mandarins, 2 Allardi Clowns, 2 Black Ocellaris, 3 Barbouri Seahorses, and 2 Rusty Gobies....that's 11 fish in a 24 ;) The few corals in there are doing well, as is one particular gorgonian species (the "Rusty"). Some microalgae has come about, as well as bryopsis (since the lettuce nudi's kicked the bucket after their natural lifepans)..it DID cause problems for the gorgonians (except the rusty) but in general, the tank is quite healthy with little maintenance.

I attribute MOST of my problems to the lighting issues...improper quality combined with multiple blackouts for vastly extended periods caused some systems to collapse. I'm now looking at trying to reestablish the tank to it's former glory and wondering how I best go about it!

Matt
 
I have an aquapod 24g with 2 clowns, 3 roses since one just split. This rose variety always stays small. But I have decided not to try SPS in it. I just have some very colorful Zoantihids, some Pom Pom xenia I keep on the sand and a few other things.

I did go from the PCs to a Sunpod 150w and it made a huge difference. Also I put a coralife 65 superskimmer on it and now this tank look pristine.

You did mention going to MHs. If you went with the 70w thats really not enough you would need at least the 150w. I know I could keep SPS in this tank but I learned a long time ago not to mix sps and zoas.
Besides I have a 180g full of sps

Of course the Macro will always help but you don't really want all that in your display do you?
I would suggest a 150w MH if you don't have one already and a corallife superskimmer HOB
 
Baalz, I did go to 150, originally a fixture that also had 2 18watt actinics. Currently, I replaced that with a Viper (bye bye actinics) as I was in a pinch for an affordable, locally accessible replacement rather than waiting a week or two with no lights again.

I've been thinking about a skimmer as well...none of my tanks run with them, of course I know what they do and how they work. I of course was snagged by the Fission, which turned out to be a bubble nightmare, but with the tank's current location, a HOB skimmer woudl actually work (I think). Thanks for bringing up the skimmer...I had thought about it, forgotten about it, but yeah, that's probably a great first step to help clean up the water quality (with some repeat large water changes).

Of course, my reason for posting this to the FBF is with regards to the Fishy residents of the tank. Which fish should stay, which should go, what should be added?

Matt
 
Crapola, I think I figured out what's goin' down...mated pair of starkii's? I located a new young pair for what I consider to be a very reasonable price. I think the bangaii's just earned a trip out of the tank...maybe to one of my other tanks or for sale....

HMM

Matt
 
This included 12 green chromis, 3 blue yellow tail damsels, 1 four-stripe damsel, 1 domino damsel, 1 kole tang, 1 convict tang, 1 yellow tang, 1 falco hawkfish, 2 chalk basslets, 1 royal gramma, 1 six-line wrasse, 1 atlantic pygmy angel, 2 large Hawaiian hermits, 5 red reef hermits, 12 blue reef hermits, 2 emerald crabs, 3 peppermint shrimp, and 1 skunk cleaner shrimp.
Click to expand...

:eek1: :eek1:
That´s a lot of life ! Not even Matt did that ! :D
What happened ater the 8 months ?

Anderson.
 
Summer vaccation and the move back to my parents house discontinued the experiment. I felt that I had already proved it worked so I moved on to try other things. It would be nice if we could just leave things up forever. On the other hand, the fish were cramped and at the end the hawk ate one of the peppermint shrimp despite constant feeding. I've had a lot of people just not believe me. I should have taken pictures I guess, but I didn't have a camera...still don't. I'm pretty cheap. I like have a lot of DIY stuff.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8936616#post8936616 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Galilean
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=776659

Matt its easy to see from the excellent picture you provided at the begining of this thread (above) why you did well despite the high bioload. You had a ton of macro-aglae. That's where the excess organic nutrients were going and why your water quality was stable and pristine.

Very heavy bioloads are possible so long as nutrient export is equally impressive. Fast growing plants are the key. Turf algae is the fastest you can get. If you are doing this for the purpose of breeding fish not looking in the tank, just let the algae go and the water will be perfect all the time.

I experimentally kept a 20 gal reef very heavily stocked and fed for about 8 months filtered with a 10 gal caulerpa refugium. I fed heavily 3 times a day frozen, flake and pellet foods. This included 12 green chromis, 3 blue yellow tail damsels, 1 four-stripe damsel, 1 domino damsel, 1 kole tang, 1 convict tang, 1 yellow tang, 1 falco hawkfish, 2 chalk basslets, 1 royal gramma, 1 six-line wrasse, 1 atlantic pygmy angel, 2 large Hawaiian hermits, 5 red reef hermits, 12 blue reef hermits, 2 emerald crabs, 3 peppermint shrimp, and 1 skunk cleaner shrimp. On ATS filtered fish farms densities of over 1 lb of fish per gallon are achieved for tilapia.
Click to expand...

How did I miss your response sooner?! Actually, the tank even got BETTER looking before it's "downhill slide"...that was only set up for a few months at that point (I think...I've moved so much stuff around). Anyway, yeah, macro algae + clams = high nutrient export.

As you may notice in my earlier recap, even caulerpa growth came to a halt with the 10k bulb. I'm totally blaming my change in lighting and hoping that the Viper's 14k will help bring things back in line. Protien Skimmer may go on as well....

Matt
 
Matt, when you're ready to get rid of the Banggai pair and the secondary pair of black ocellaris, let me know, I'd be interested. I could even make arrangements to pick them up one of these days (need an excuse to head back down to Chitown!).
 
RCS, I'll keep that in mind! See my Black OC thread, the "secondary" pair became my only "pair" today...male #1 vanished without a trace (and I literally tore the tank down to find him)

Matt
 
So my latest feelings on the "Revamp" are that I'm simply being impatient. My first step will be to get a working protien skimmer on the tank (puchased a Fission a while back specifically for this tank but can't stand the amount of bubbles it puts out...may try the first chamber of the back filtration today). The fish in the tank...as much as I'm frustrated with them I'm also having a hard time making the call to simply give them up! I really still would like to complete the life cycle on Apogon leptacanthus but after that, they are GONE (although they're looking much better lit by 14k than the old 10k!). I REALLY also want to get the Bangaii's going (CITES is in the future), even if that means a new male or new pair.

The halfblacks went from my redheaded stepchildren to my only current pair of Black Ocellaris. I'm having a hard time "judging them" as broodstock Black Ocellaris...if they had stayed Halfblack they were worth breeding to hopefully get halfblacks. Had I known they were going to lose their halfblack coloration, or if I was looking at them now as Black Ocellaris, would I have picked them as my broodstock? Probably not. But they DO come from really nice parents, so the question has to be considered - how much of their undesireable traits (slow coloration, misbarring, weak barring, slightly flaired gill on the female etc.) are GENETIC vs. environmental??? I *may* just have to breed the pair a few times to see what I actually have!

Matt
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8958373#post8958373 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by caseyjaydarling
how do you get away with keeping 2 pairs of clowns in a tank? don't they get fiesty?
Click to expand...

The only tank that "had" (notice past tense) two clownfish pairs is the Seahorse tank which has a juvenile pair of Allardi and had a pair of Black Ocellaris (the male went missing Wed. morning - simply vanished). Things work because they're non-breeding young pairs...I suspect that if both pairs had been breeding the Allardi would have eliminated the Ocellaris....part of the reason why I was hoping to move the Black Ocellaris pair to the 6 gallon around Feb. 1.

FWIW,

Matt
 
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