The Reef Central Corner Club Thread

[boret]

Clams are pretty Calcium hungry... do you have any Ca supplement plan or going to rely on Water changes only? I am not sure how it works on small tanks, but that 150 might heat up that water quite a bit. Maybe a 70watt one will be enough. I have a 400 in a 92, lets say I have about 80 gallons of water (deducting for LR and sand) that's 5 watts per gallon, and I am getting great growth. For an 8 gal you would only need around 40watts and for a 14gal around 70w.

Remember the smaller the tank the more difficult it is to keep stable. Any little thing will produce a large swing... dosing, top off, water changes, etc... So it will require more attention than your main tank.

Again, I have never had a Nano tank, so I could be wrong.

 

[reefscape15]

Man Boret you really reminded me why i switched to a larger tank to begin with! I had my 20high set up for about 4 years mostly with LPS/Soft/Shrooms/Zoas. I forgot how often i had to mess with it. I agree that a 175 would be a little much, which sucks cause I have 2 175 ballasts unused (earlier post I said 150....oops ). Maybe a clam in a nano that small would be a little challenging. I have only used supliments for calcium, but have been thinking about doing something different about it. What are some good suggestions? Reactor or just keep going with the additives? When I get the sump built for my 54g, I would be able to take off the HOB fuge and add that to the bio cube. Also i'd be able to get an in sump skimmer and move the Prizm onto the bio cube. Just a little idea that i've had going for a while.

 

[Misled]

I just stuck together a small tank out of old stuff I had laying around. Stuck it in the lobby downstairs.

 

[Michael]

pretty cool jesse, thats some tank from bits laying about, id suggest 3 or 4 blue tangs, they would be great in there:hmm2:

 

[reefscape15]

HAHAHAHA!!!! I can hear the sirens of the Tang Police whistling already! I do still have my 20high with stand in the basement, but i'd like something cube like for the boy's room. I have thought about setting up the 20gal in the office, but can't find a nice spot to put it, (and have a hard time talking my wife into another tank!). It is pretty cool that you have enough extra stuff laying around to set up another tank Jesse. I have also thought of just getting something cheap and small for a freshwater tank for my son's room, but at one point I had a Brackish 30gal, Freshwater 20gal, and SW 10gal all running at the same time. THAT WAS TOO MUCH!!!! Mixing different types of water and changing all the time was such a PITA! I don't think it would be as bad if I had 2 reef systems set up cause water changes could happen at the same time, and dosing, feeding, etc.....

 

[boret]

When you are not sure just go bigger!!! lol
It is quite amazing the fact that you can actually put together a complete system out of spare parts!! Good job Jesse. I just don't find it worth the hassle. Everyday there is something with my main tank. First my CL decided to stop working (had to open and clean up the Oceans Motions 4).
Then that tube inside of one of my peristaltic pumps broke. I didn't loose a lot of water, maybe 1/4 of a gallon. I am glad I had a spare. Today I woke up to low pH values, which means I have to refill my Kalkwasser stirrer.
I was having issues with blue coloration so I've been slightly changing my light schedule.
I've been fighting high Alk (~12) I have it under control now. Still, what a PITA sometimes.
I think I would go nuts if I have to deal with 2 separate systems.
I think thats why you end up opening a LFS, you have so many tanks that you better make it your job, right?

 

[lotusstar]

Boret,
thanks a million for the advice. A couple things there I hadn't thought about, especially the poly pad. I wouldn't think I have copper or anything since my cuc is still alive and working, if I'm right in thinking wouldn't copper usually kill those things first? Anyway I will get a pad and test it out all the same.

Oxygen shouldn't be an issue, or lack of oxygen that is. I have 2 tunze 6025s and 2 K3s so flow in the tank is good. Have quite a lot of ripples on the surface. I will try the air stone as well since I'm sure I have a couple just laying around from my boys freshwater tank.

Water changes yes are done with an rodi filter as well as top off water. The water changes I check to make sure temp and salinity are the same but admit I've never checked ph levels of water changes. It just always seemed to stay similar before and after changes so never thought about it. I will test at the next water change Monday. TDS on the rodi water reads .1 so changing out the filters before this next water change.

And at last not sure about power outages I would think I have none because the VCR clock stays current and when I do lose power that always goes out. So I would assume no, but not a definitive answer. I however do not have a UPS or backup air stone. That's another good idea. Thanks for all the help, I will post results from the water change Monday. Would rather do it this weekend but work 32 hour weekends so that's a no go.

Thanks!

 

[boret]

Seeing that you are having fish deaths I am more inclined to think it's a disease and not a tank husbandry issue but it is always good to double check on those.
If we can narrow it to disease then I have a couple of questions:

1. Do you buy your fish from the same source?
2. Have you tried acquiring a fish from an established tank from a fellow reefer?
3. Are you buying online?
4. Do you think you are shocking them when you transfer them from QT to Main tank? Different pH, salinity, temp, etc...
5. Are you using anything unusual for your rock work? Something that could be leaching unwanted chemicals in the water.... like a manmade rock, some type of weird glue or epoxy that shouldn't be used for reef tanks....

Glad to help.
B.

 

[boret]

A few more pictures.
I cleaned the back glass of coraline.

And a few close ups:

 

[kelso1980]

...WOW. That is awesome! I love the caps on the wall, I never even thought about doing that. my favorite is the ric garden though! Are those daisy polyps under the clown? I love them but cant seem to keep them alive.

 

[Misled]

Tank looks really sweet boret. Have you ever considered putting a few different color caps somewhat close and allowing them to grow together? I have a couple and am looking at a couple other colors to add right now.

The tank in the lobby is fairly easy. It gets most of it's water from the apartment tank when I do water changes. It only has some lps, shrooms and zoas right now. It's something I've done in fresh for the residents of the apartment building for the holidays in the past. I had someone give me most of the stuff in her tank when she tore it down, and I don't want shrooms in my tank. All the rest of the corals are already in my tank, and the wife even made me keep some shrooms since she liked them. At the end of the holidays, we'll just have to wait and see what happens. That was supposed to be my clown, nem tank!!!!!!

 

[boret]

...WOW. That is awesome! I love the caps on the wall, I never even thought about doing that. my favorite is the ric garden though! Are those daisy polyps under the clown? I love them but cant seem to keep them alive.

Those cloves used to be cyan when I got them. Now they have mostly a green tint. They are doing great on the left side of the tank with moderate to low flow. Here its a close up:

And from above:

Misled, I have indeed considered it, as you can see on this picture from above:

The orange cap grew too fast. I moved it and you can see where the purple was dying. The green one is finally developing the purple rim. Once it goes to about half an inch of purple it will be very sweet.

I also have these green one with blue polyps, and a huge Tyree Blue Chalice (growing like a cap):

 

[lotusstar]

Boret,
Most of my fish have come from the same source. The only LFS within 60 miles of me, except for petco. Which I've bought a pair of black clowns from petco back in summer. I've always QT'd and before transferring to the DT I've made sure that sg, ph, alk, ammonia are the same and acclimated them over about an hour. Oh, temp is also the same between the tanks.
Haven't tried a fish from a local reefer, haven't found a local club or anything since I'm in a fairly remote area.
I haven't bought any livestock online, I buy supplies sometimes but no live stock. My sps frags I bought online from a seller on here, but no fish.
I don't use anything unusual for rock work, I have a couple small pieces of wooden dowel rods used to hold a few rocks together. I didn't think that would be a problem could it be? I did the dowels about a month or so ago, so the first wipe out of fish didn't have any dowels in there, but this one does. Could the wooden dowels be a problem?

 

[boret]

I really don't know if the Wooden Dowels will have any effect... no clue. Maybe someone can chime in for that question.

I am a bit confused about matching ammonia levels. You need to have 0 ammonia. I understand some NO3 (nitrate) 0 to 10 is not unusual... as a matter of fact I have never been able to reach 0 and my livestock is doing great. But ammonia will kill all your fish if not kept at zero.
This is a great article about ammonia:

article

Some quotes from the article:

Ammonia is very toxic to marine fish. The mechanisms of toxicity are complicated and are an active area of continued investigation by researchers. Its effects include damage to the gills, resulting in poor gas exchange, ion regulation and blood pH regulation.14 Other effects include hampering oxygen delivery to tissues, disrupting metabolism and toxicity to the nervous system that causes hyperactivity, convulsions and death.14 Ammonia can also be very toxic to many other organisms found in reef aquaria.

also

Because ammonia's toxic effects appear at levels significantly below those that are acutely lethal (0.09 to 3.35 ppm NH3-N or 1.3 to 50 ppm total NH4-N at pH 8.2), and because some organisms in a reef aquarium may be more sensitive than the few organisms that have been carefully studied, it is prudent to err on the side of caution when deciding what concentrations of ammonia to allow in a reef aquarium or related system.

My suggestion is to take some sort of corrective action if the total ammonia rises above 0.1 ppm. This suggestion is also made by Stephen Spotte in his authoritative text, Captive Seawater Fishes.6 Values in excess of 0.25 ppm total ammonia may require immediate treatment, preferably involving removal of all delicate (ammonia sensitive) organisms from the water containing the ammonia.

About source of fish.

Same source... and always the same problem.
Not bashing your LFS but you might need to look into that. Do fishes from them have a good survival rapport among local reefers? Maybe try a different source... maybe a hardier fish. I love blue/green chromies. They are cheap, they school around the tank and are pretty hardy.

Maybe look into your quarantine technique.

Quarantine (QT) is a delicate matter. The overwhelming majority will tell you to QT everything, and it is such a taboo that I see a lot of people outright laying saying they do when in reality they never do (or hardly ever).
The problem with QT is that if it is not done properly you are probably stressing the fish even more than it already is. I have quarantined fish that I bought online (6 anthias), and a couple of fish (neon gobby and scopa tang) from an LFS that doesn't QT. The anthias died while in QT. The other fish survived the QT and made it into my system. I have risked my system by only acclimating fish and then adding them to the main tank. I've been lucky, they survived.
I only remember one case of some type of Ich in my Yellow tang, that went away because its immune system was able to fight it. (I kept lacing his food with garlic... maybe snake oil but he survived)

This is a great article on QTing:
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-10/sp/feature/index.php

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying don't QT... I am saying that unless your are doing it properly your are not really increasing the chances of survivability of the fish, maybe even decreasing it. And if your fish are arriving with some type of sickness from the LFS the QT won't do much unless you treat them for it.

Just food for thought though... don't do anything radical yet.

 

[lotusstar]

Good points Boret. And when I said I make sure ammonia is the same I meant they are both testing 0. What I do is test SG, I do water changes on both the QT and the main tank in the same fashion just on a smaller scale so put in the same water. Ammonia I always be sure to test the QT as well as the DT and they come up 0. Nitrates in the DT are 5 and usually in the same area on the QT. Sometime just a bit above, sometimes a bit lower, but nothing too drastic.
I am starting to wonder if it could have a little to do with the LFS, not necessarily the end cause but maybe I will head to Austin one day to try and buy a hardy fish to see if it can survive?

 

[Misled]

I would be concerned about the wood dowels. If possible remove them and put plastic coat hangers in their place. You really don't know what can be released from the wood, but it probably is leaching something in the tank. I would think they will also break down over time and not do what you want anyway.

 

[reefscape15]

I agree with that Jesse. Wood can be infused with many types of chemicals that are designed to make it less prone to decompose. May be that some of these chemicals are leaching into your tank. I don't know if the two different crashes/wipeouts are related, but i'd have a hard time thinking that they are not. But either way, you should get those dowels out. Replace with some sort of plastic/acrylic.

 

[Jagarang]

Must better...

Must better...

A few more pictures.
I cleaned the back glass of coraline.

Wow, it looks killer without the coraline!!

I was on the fence as to whether I preferred w/ or w/o coraline, but this seals the debate! Without is the way to go!

Aside from aesthetics, what are the pros and cons of leaving the coraline?

 

[reefscape15]

I'm not sure on the benefits of coraline other than it acts as a natural "glue" for corals to get a hold onto a rock. It is however and algae, so i'd have to assume that it has some photosynthesis occuring, and may release small amounts of oxygen. Good question!

Ok......so i've been thinking and thinking about this canopy for a few months now and never found a good time to get around to doing it. Well, this afternoon I had enough waiting around and finally did something! Here's a few pics to track the build.

Top and back corner bracing:

Simple bracing is constructed of 1x4's. 4 screws down the edge of the two pieces, and 5 screws through the top into the brace:

All 3 corners and a front/center brace on:

Same as above just from the front view:

Bracing is finished! I ran stringers between all braces, screwed in. Should I screw the top down to the stringers as well or is it enough having the 3 corners and the front center brace screwed to the top?

Just another view from the front. Also, I wanted to leave the back sides with no bracing just in case I don't get rid of my HOB fuge or if I wanted to hang anything else on. Do they need an extra support or will it be okay as is?

 

[boret]

When I built mine I didn't use a piece in the front but two on the side, that left a wide opening through the front. But I didn't that way because I couldn't access the canopy from the sides.

Something like this:

These are some images from my canopy:

In the garage with a temporary light: