TexChuck's 32g BC

T

TexChuck

New member
Hi all -

I thought I'd start my own build thread. Very excited that there are a lot of us working on this tank right now.

I've taken all of my inspiration from others, and have a ton left to learn.

Coralife BC 32 LED
45# live rock
30# live sand

Back/filtration so far:

Chamber 1
Coralife Protein Skimmer
Aqueon 100w heater

Chamber 2
Intank media basket
--shelf 1 floss
--shelf 2 purigen? Figuring this out
--shelf 3 TBD
Intank Fuge basket - chaeto planned, cheap magnetic fuge light for the back.
Tunze ATO return
Temp probe

Chamber 3
100w aqueon heater
Tunze float sensor

Display Tank
PP-4 powerhead
Spinstream

I think my flow is looking good. I think I like my aquascape, I'm just wondering if I have the rock too spread out.

This is my first foray into SW, and it's a blast so far. Thanks for everyone's help.

I started the cycle 10 days ago. Considering dosing some ammonia since I haven't read any in a while to see how the bacteria is doing, but unsure about dosing pure ammonia with live rock.

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Thank you ... converted in < 24 hours to nitrAte.

I did a WC, tested everything, and added some critters yesterday :). 1 cleaner shrimp, 6 trochus snails and 2 frags - mushroom and echinita(?) - from the bargain frag tank.

I'm thinking now I might scrap the intank fuge box and upgrade to the tunze 9001 skimmer like others here have done, and then run floss and chaeto in the media tray.

I'm not doing chemical filtration now and feel silly with 3 shelves of floss in my sump :)


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Don't worry we all do things and feel silly when we look back. Looks good, seems like you have a pretty good plan. Keep the updates coming!
 
Had a great conversation yesterday with a LFS owner, and I'm going for a slight redesign. Now that I have a little bit of bioload (shrimp + snails), it's pretty clear to me that the CL skimmer isn't really doing much.

So, I ordered the Tunze 9001. I'll be following what many on here seem to be doing -- intank media basket in chamber 2 w/ floss on top shelf, second shelf out, chaeto in bottom section of media basket, sponge at the bottom of the media basket to keep chaeto out of the skimmer, and Tunze 9001 where I have my fuge box currently.

I have some purigen and "the bag" so I'm set up to run that if I need to on the second shelf in the media basket.

I'm getting very mild skimmate out of the CL skimmer. Is there any reason NOT to run both the CL and the Tunze?

Conditions are looking good:
ammonia: 0
nitrIte: 0
nitrAte: 5 ppm
KH: 4.6 Meq/L
Mg: 1320 ppm
Ca: 475 ppm

I picked up some frozen myso/brine/krill mix and will be feeding the shrimp very sparingly. (1 cube total per week) She (I have no idea how to sex a shrimp; all critters are anthromorphized by my daughters) molted last night which was cool. At first this morning I thought we had two shrimp!

In her molting I think she moved some of the rockwork around, and knocked the mushroom frag off it's perch. Whoops.
 
TexChuck said:
Had a great conversation yesterday with a LFS owner, and I'm going for a slight redesign. Now that I have a little bit of bioload (shrimp + snails), it's pretty clear to me that the CL skimmer isn't really doing much.

So, I ordered the Tunze 9001. I'll be following what many on here seem to be doing -- intank media basket in chamber 2 w/ floss on top shelf, second shelf out, chaeto in bottom section of media basket, sponge at the bottom of the media basket to keep chaeto out of the skimmer, and Tunze 9001 where I have my fuge box currently.

I have some purigen and "the bag" so I'm set up to run that if I need to on the second shelf in the media basket.

I'm getting very mild skimmate out of the CL skimmer. Is there any reason NOT to run both the CL and the Tunze?

Conditions are looking good:
ammonia: 0
nitrIte: 0
nitrAte: 5 ppm
KH: 4.6 Meq/L
Mg: 1320 ppm
Ca: 475 ppm

I picked up some frozen myso/brine/krill mix and will be feeding the shrimp very sparingly. (1 cube total per week) She (I have no idea how to sex a shrimp; all critters are anthromorphized by my daughters) molted last night which was cool. At first this morning I thought we had two shrimp!

In her molting I think she moved some of the rockwork around, and knocked the mushroom frag off it's perch. Whoops.
Click to expand...

For what it's worth, the Tunze 9001 is crap also. I started out with the Tunze 9001 in the middle chamber and it worked like crap for 5 months. I have an ATO so that wasnt the issue. It just didnt do much at all except make very very light green water at best. I am using the CL right now in chamber 1 and to honest, it's working better for me than the much more expensive Tunze 9001. I do weekly water changes so I may just stop skimming altogether.
 
Ha! Well, I kinda suspected that we're expecting too much from small skimmers...

SOooooooo What about running both the CL and the Tunze? 2 crap skimmers = 1 mediocre skimmer? :)
 
So the Tunze came in, and I went ahead and added it in Chamber 2. I moved my chaeto into the bottom section of the Intank Media Basket. I posed a separate thread, but I'm not sure if I punched a hole between chambers 2 and 3.

I'm running both skimmers now, and will see what happens.

I'm getting what I think is coralline, the rocks are coloring up, and my cycle is definitely complete. I think I'm going to hold off on adding anything else for another couple of weeks.

So far just the cleaner shrimp and 6 trochus snails, but the shrimp has been a lot of fun. Corals seem to be doing okay.
 
Ok not too much to update today, but did want to report an 'oh duh' moment -- I've had my powerhead and return pump on the same power strip to simplify cutting flow while I feed.

Today was the first feeding after installing the tunze 9001 skimmer. Flipped off the flow, heard a gurgle, then looked back as the skimmer lid floated off when the water level in chamber 2 rose. Oops !!

So, from now on I'll just use the powerhead controller to shut it off during feeding and just live with the return/spinstream.

Unless it would make sense to remove the collection cup from the skimmer, and then let it flood every time I feed? That doesn't seem too good for the skimmer long term.

I'm having a heck of a time dialing the tunze in -- fully open and the bubbles don't seem to make it to the top of the column.

I haven't pulled the CL out yet and am getting a little bit of skim there.

I guess I'll run both now for the time being; don't see the harm.

I'm happy with the chaeto in the Intank basket now; it's just a little but awkward to get the magnet mount to work. I might just remove the magnet mount altogether and just tape/Velcro the light to the back, since it really shouldn't move.

Resisting the urge to put more livestock in... current plan is to add more soft coral and our first fishies after spring break in a few weeks...


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I've been just using the feed feature on my powerhead and leaving the return pump on and so far so good.


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Thanks for that -- Just tried that, and worked very well. You have the dual PP-4's, right? I ordered 1 at your suggestion and love it so far; think I'm going to order another. Are you using the master/slave setup on the controller, or controlling them independently?
 
The second chamber will fluctuate the water level to much to keep the skimmer stable I think ( my skimmer is chamber 1 ) if the skimate goes back in the water it,s like you haven't skimmed at all, some ppl use a ato to maintain the water level stable but even that has a swing in water level
 
Yeah that's totally what happened when I killed the pump to feed -- thankfully I'd cleaned the cup out the day before so I only dumped 1 days worth of skimate back into the system

I have an ATO and have the water level in chamber 2/3 set at roughly where the first media tray is. I followed this video pretty much exactly:


Intank media basket / Tunze 9001 skimmer install

I think the water level is staying constant -- but I'll keep a close eye on it.
 
TexChuck said:
Thanks for that -- Just tried that, and worked very well. You have the dual PP-4's, right? I ordered 1 at your suggestion and love it so far; think I'm going to order another. Are you using the master/slave setup on the controller, or controlling them independently?
Click to expand...



Sorry for the late response I spend a little more time on the "other" reef forum [emoji51] sorry owner. But ya I have 2 pp4s but ended up taking one out as it seemed like too much flow. My fish never seemed comfortable. So it's out for now and we will see how it works as I add coral. If I need to put it back in I will, if not I'll just have a replacement when one goes bad.


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Great thank you for that!! I'm running the single PP-4 on the random mode with speed turned all the way up, and it seems to be generating very decent flow.

My cleaner shrimp and my 6 trochus snails don't seem to mind ;) I'm thinking invert only on this tank now, so the focus will be corals.

I just got back from a week of vacation, and noticed that even without a heater, with the house set at 75, the tank hits 81-82F during the day. I'm going to pull the CL skimmer and see if that makes any difference, but I can't imagine it would make that much of one. We'll see.

Lots more algea; think I need to add additional CuC critters. Daughter is not interested in fish, so an urchin is likely our next addition.
 
My temp stays 80 during day and 79 at night. I'm in Florida. House set to 74. I've got the CL skimmer and the cobalt mj1200 return which I'm sure helps circulate and keep temp down


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Hi all !

I installed the Steve's LEDs retrofit last night. I really like the way they put together the instructions, with the animated GIFs for each step. Hard for me to mess up. Unplugging and rerouting wires and hoses took more time than the actual install itself. I made the mistake of looking into the lights when they were fully lit... BRIGHT !

Pic attached. Bad iphone pic, but at least it shows the difference in color. I'm running in manual mode now set to 1235 / 30% per the instrux, and I'll be programming the HurricaneX controller tonight. I'm looking to turn up every few days to acclimate.

Current stock:

Inverts: Tiger Conch, Cleaner Shrimp, Peppermint Shrimp, Trachus Snails, Royal Urchin
Fish: pair wild caught Percola
Corals: Mushroom, GSP, Acan, Hammer, Zoa's.

Next plans: Yasha Goby + banded pistol shrimp, pretty corals TBD. :)

Thanks to all for the help, tips and inspiration !
 
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