Ten Gallon Journey! PICS!

[badgers034]

Hello everyone,

I am getting back into saltwater aquariums/reefing after being out of the hobby for about 5 years. Here is my old 29 gallon tank that I took down due to cost and being too young to be able to keep up with the responsibilities that come with owning a reef tank.

And my old 125 gallon FW tank

Now, I am back in it with a 10 gallon nanoreef.

Equipment:
Heater: Stealth 150W
Flow: AC 70, QuiteOne 1200, Zoomed Power Sweep - Total of 5.5x/hr turnover
Lighting: Single 12 LED Par 38 bulb purchased from RapidLED
Biological Filtration: About 15 lbs of Live Sand and 8.5 lbs of Live Rock, also soon converting my AC70 to a fuge sometime next week.

Params as of 6/20/2012
Nitrates 5.0
Ammonia 0.0
Nitrite 0
Alk 250 KH
pH 7.8
SG 1.021


Pics:

Setup 5/29

Par 38

Can anyone ID this algae growing on my front glass??

Also, what is this thing? Button polyp?

Some questions:

1. What is a good beginner coral to put in my tank that my clown will host? Frogspawn?

2. Notice how blue my lighting is. Is there a way that I can make it "whiter" and less blue and shadowy without adding another expensive fixture?
I was thinking maybe some under cabinet LED lighting from home depot or walmart.

3. What is the Algae pictured above and how do I get rid of it?

 

[badgers034]

Can somebody ID this algae? It's getting worse and Im not sure if it is just part of my cycle or something I should remove.

 

[zero26]

Looks like Hair Algae or Bryopsis.

 

[secrest]

Looks like hair algae to me as well.

 

[sponger0]

Looks like bryopsis

 

[badgers034]

Hair Algae: 2
Bryopsis: 2

Im gonna optimistically assume its only hair algae and not bryo. I guess Ill just wait it out and see what happens.

EDIT: Actually, I just checked my email and John from reefcleaners.org said it is just hair algae. Good!

Two more questions:

1. What is a good beginner coral that my clownfish may host in?
2. How big of a bioload do snails add? I am getting 23 assorted snails from reefcleaners and was curious if adding all these at the same time will cause a spike...

 

[badgers034]

Today I went to the LFS and made some purchases:

1. 4 hermit crabs. I will watch these closely and see if they eat any snails. However, they are quite small, so I am not too worried about that just yet.
2. A single mushroom polyp. It was $6 and a nice blue color so I said what the hell. It'll be like my canary in the cave to see if it survives or not. It is currently attached to an empty snail shell and I am now to get it attached to the LR. It's currently sitting in the snail shell in a glass cup in my tank. The guy at the LFS said to do this so it will attach to a piece of LR. However, I am not sure if I should've detached it from the shell first or not. Oh well, we'll see. Like I said, it is an experiment.


I also re-did the aquascaping, did a water change, and cleaned off some of the Hair Algae off the fron of the tank. It all looks good. I'll post some pics tomorrow.

 

[Veganbrian]

You can cut the lights for 3 days or shorten the lighting period to 3 hours a day for 3 days to get rid of the algae. Do a water change after the "lights off" method. its worked for me every time. Anemones are what clown fish like to host usually. Some people have sucess with some torch LPS but its not guaranteed ever. hope that helps a little

 

[sponger0]

Lights out isnt a solution to nuisance algae. You arent solving the problem. Nuisance algae problems are caused by nitrates and phosphates. That needs to be addressed not turn the lights off. You will only have the problem reoccur.

Mushrooms are difficult to get to attach to anything. They sometimes move and so on. They cant be glued as they secrete slime that makes it impossible. Most people put it a container with rubble rock and them once they attach, glue the rubble to live rock in your tank.

Anemones and clowns host, but you really need to be up to par on keeping water parameters in check for them especially in a nano tank. But clowns have been known to host all sorts of things.

 

[badgers034]

You can cut the lights for 3 days or shorten the lighting period to 3 hours a day for 3 days to get rid of the algae. Do a water change after the "lights off" method. its worked for me every time. Anemones are what clown fish like to host usually. Some people have sucess with some torch LPS but its not guaranteed ever. hope that helps a little

Lights out isnt a solution to nuisance algae. You arent solving the problem. Nuisance algae problems are caused by nitrates and phosphates. That needs to be addressed not turn the lights off. You will only have the problem reoccur.

Mushrooms are difficult to get to attach to anything. They sometimes move and so on. They cant be glued as they secrete slime that makes it impossible. Most people put it a container with rubble rock and them once they attach, glue the rubble to live rock in your tank.

Anemones and clowns host, but you really need to be up to par on keeping water parameters in check for them especially in a nano tank. But clowns have been known to host all sorts of things.

Alright, I manually removed a lot of the algae, and the remaining bits do not seem to be spreading at all. Good!

Anyways, it's Petco's $1/gallon sale, and my tank is a 10 gallon tank (20" long) on a stand that is 24" long...
With that being said, I am seriously considering moving up to a 15gallon tank. I really like the dimensions
10g: 20.3" x 10.5" x 12.6"
15g: 24.3" x 12.5" x 12.8"

The extra 4.3 inches and 2 inches of width really make a difference IMO.
If I get this tank drilled and add in a 20 or 10 gallon sump, would the difference in water volume be worth it?

 

[Travis55]

Imo more water volume is always a plus, also if u like the dimensions another win. Also, MORE PICS! lol

 

[badgers034]

Well, some things have changed since I last posted. For one, the mushroom polyp got unmounted and must have blown to some dark recess of my 10 gallon tank.

Well, yesterday I was at petco and saw this one really cool frag and decided to get it. Not sure what it is, but here's some pictures:

I was gonna mount it in the tank, but since idk what it is, I decided to keep it on the sand for now until I figure out what kind of light/flow it needs.

Another purchase I made was Kent marine Iodine. The guy at petco says with regular weekly water changes and dosing the iodine, it will keep my Magnesium and Calcium in check. I have seen other thriving tanks that use this hands off approach and really like the ease and simplicity of it. The bottle says 8 drops for a 50 gallon tank. So 4 drops for a 25, 2 for a 12, and 1 for a 6. I figure that with my LR and Sand, that my water volume is closer to 6 gallons than 12. So I will do 1 drop the day after my weekly water change.


Here's some updated FTS.

Oh yea, I also added a surface skimmer attachment to my AC70. It just needs to get painted with Krylon Fusion to look nicer.

 

[shovelrider]

That is a ricordia. Let us know how the iodine works out but be careful with it... its easy to overdose with that stuff.

Welcome back to SW!

 

[badgers034]

Well guys, bad news I had to take the ten gallon tank down... Oh well, that's life I guess. :uzi:

 

[Patricklong]

3 days from new frags to teardown???

Sorry to hear that.

 

[secrest]

Wow bummer, sorry to hear you had to break it down.

 

[badgers034]

Well, I had to break the ten gallon down since I didnt see the point of having both a ten gallon and a 20 gallon long in my room :rollface:

I took advantage of petco's $1/gallon sale and upgraded. I am currently in the process of transferring the tank sand, LR, etc. I should have pics up within the hour.

 

[badgers034]

Alright here's what I have been up to the last 15 hours or so.

1. Went to Petco, returned a sh!tty algae scraper, and bought a 20 gallon long tank for a total of $14.
2. Bought 10 gallons of distilled water.
3. Assembled tank and added some (dead) sand.
4. Mixed up 10 gallons of SW.
5. Added those to the 20 gallon and let it sit overnight.
6. Slept.
7. Woke up, checked salinity and temerature and made sure they matched tank.
8. Removed 5 gallons of tank water from 10 gallon to 20 gallon.
9. Moved PH's, light, heater, AC70 from 10 gallon to 20 gallon.
10. Moved LR and most live sand.
11. Moved my clownfish
12. Moved my single ricoordea frag.
13. Filled up 20 gallon with remaining tank water from 10 gallon
14. :dance:

Ok now onto some questions:

1. I just doubled my tank volume. This obviously means I can mostlikely add 3 fish instead of the two I originally planned on. With the existing ocellaris in mind, what would be a good stocking list?

2. The tank looks very bare with only 10 lbs of LR in there. Should I add another 5-10 lbs of LR (and risk an ammonia spike), or save some money and lessen the risk with some base rock. I think I just answered my own question.

3. Also, what is a good LEDtric bulb? There are so many options...
http://ledtric.myshopify.com/collections/all?page=2

 

[badgers034]

 

[badgers034]

Hey guys, one more question.

I have a Coralife super skimmer rated for 65 gallons that I used to use on my 29 gallon reef tank. Would it be worth setting it up on this tank? I dont see how it can hurt, right?