29 Gallon Reef Startup ...lotsa pics

[dodo99]

Day 1 of my 29g reef
(Aprox Feb 1st 2006)
So it begins. I’ve just been able to hook up my RO/DI under the sink in the kitchen. There’s still a minor leak, but a bucket under the leak works nicely for now. It took 2 trips to Rona and 2 to Home Depot.

So now, maybe 25 gals on fresh water in the tank. I added about 2 pounds of IO salt that I had left my last setup. I’ll go to the LFS later today to get some sand and salt. I think all they have is Kent stuff, if I remember correctly. We’ll see.

The pic above is from my previous setup. My ocellaris clowns loved their open brain. Silly clowns...

 

[dodo99]

Day 2 : Salt & Sand
Ok. I’ve just added my IO Reef salt and dumped in some fine grain aragonite sand. The water is realllly cloudy!

I threw in my 150w heater and an MJ600 & MJ900 for some
flow. I also setup my Coralife Super Skimmer, 65 gal version. I really wasn’t getting much foam at first, but it was pulling out sand dust quite nicely a few hours later. On my last setup, I wasn’t using the bubble trap (once dialed-in, there’s very little bubbles that escape), but I installed it to help clear the water somewhat.

I’m a little weary of having water so close to my Mac, but we’ll try. I’m a bit sloppy when fiddling with the tank. “I’ll be careful, I promise....”

 

[dodo99]

Day 9: Live Rock
Thursday, February 9, 2006
Okay. The first two pics are from Monday 02/06/06. I added a HOB filter to help clear up the water. It took some time, but the water cleared up nicely.

The next ones are from Tuesday 02/07/06. After work, I stopped at the LFS, which is quite impressive. It’s called Aquarium Illusions. They have a full selection of Softies, LPS, SPS, and Frag tanks too. They do custom tanks/hoods as well. They know their stuff too. Very helpful staff.

They had three types of LR in stock. Some from Haiti, Tonga & Fiji. I’ve never seen the Haiti variety so I picked up two rocks totaling about 6 lbs. It was a pretty fresh shipment as it was still curing. A bit of hair algae here and there. It looks very porous, some beginnings of purple and pink corraline.

 

[dodo99]

Day 11: Cleaning up the water
Saturday, February 11, 2006
The live rock has been in there a few days. Tested the water, nothing but a trace of ammonia. I doubt I’ll get much of a cycle. The LR looked pretty cured already.

I might get a smaller ammonia spike because I pulled the bio-balls from the HOB filter. I replaced it with a Purigen filter pad. Wonderful product. Sucks up DOC similar to carbon. The neat thing is that it’s rechargeable. Just soak it in bleach for 24 hrs and voila, brand new pad. On my previous setup, I needed to recharge it every 5 weeks or so. When exhausted, the beads are a tan color, rather than bright white.

I haven’t yet installed my ceiling hooks for my MH hood. In the mean time, I’m using an old 2x20 watt NO lamps. I have a 10K and an actinic in there.

I might install the hooks later today. I’ll have to hunt down my chains. There are still some boxes to go through left from my move from Ottawa, to Edmonton. Hopefully they’re in one of those boxes.

I noticed some pods scurrying over the live rock. Other than those, I haven’t noticed much life from the LR. No interesting hitchhiker...

 

[dodo99]

Day 12: Evil Bacteria
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Well I’ve moved the pumps a bit to increase flow over the sand bed. It’s sorta kicking up dust, but that’ll end soon. You can clearly see some brown diatoms on the sand. I see a few patches of reddish cyanno.

 

[dodo99]

Day 23: New critters
Thursday, February 23, 2006
So what’s new. I haven’t had much time to update the blog. I haven’t added more live rock. Probably won’t for a couple of weeks at least. In the mean time, things are progressing well. There’s tons of pods and amphipods now, and a few days ago I noticed an explosion of tiny (1mm long) snails. I’m not sure if they’re good or not, but for now I’ll leave them be. There’s also some star-shaped critters on the glass. Again, not sure what they are. Time to google I guess.

There’s still some cyanno here and there. Nothing scary, just a few patches. I went through about 3-4 weeks of bad cyanno on my first setup last year. I’m not worried. I’ll probably get some Phosban soon though.

I also had to clean the air inlet/venturi for the skimmer. It was caked with salt. I have the day off tomorrow, so I’ll go to the LFS to browse. Maybe I -will- get some LR... I’ll look for some base rock, I think.

 

[dodo99]

Day 25: Let there be LIGHT!
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Today, I installed my hanging light hood. It’s a DIY, not the best looking thing in the world, but it’ll do for now. Now that I’m so far away from my parent’s place in Ottawa, it’s difficult to do my projects without my dad’s workshop. (I’m 4000 Kms away now.)

The light is a basic aluminum batwing reflector, mogul base connected to a PFO 400w metal halide ballast. I’ve got a few different bulbs: a PlusRite 10K, which I found a bit too yellow, even with 65w PC Actinic that’s also mounted in the hood; an ARC (LFS’s own brand) 20K, which is obviously quite blue, but I got Zero growth from it; the last one is a Venture/PFO 10K lamp, but looks more like 13K. The Venture lamp was over $150 CND, and I was quite pleased with the color and growth.

Even though the tank is an open top and the lamp is over 12” from the water, the halide puts out quite a bit of heat. I added a 12” fan behind the tank, blowing through the hood. It keeps the tank about a degree cooler than when the fan/lights are off. It’s quite dry here is Edmonton, so I get about 1/4 to 1/2 gal of water evaporation per day. I tried to find a smaller clip-on fan at a couple of stores yesterday, but the fan selection in winter is quite limited. I can also put a couple of 4” computer fans on the hood, but I’m not sure if that will be enough...

I also made a trip to the LFS and purchased about 4lbs of Fiji/Tonga LR. One of the smaller pieces has quite a bit of macro-algae.

I noticed I have some flatworms here and there, quite small, about 1.5mm across. There’s still hundreds of tiny snails on the sand bed.

I also bought some Phosban at the LFS. I added about two tbsp and some fresh carbon to my HOB filter. Hopefully that’ll minimize the time it takes for the cyanno to die off. I was going to add a small clean-up crew, but I think I’ll wait another week or two.

 

[dodo99]

oh, and levels are Zero for amonia/nitrite, nitrate is below detectable limits. (~10)

 

[dodo99]

Week 7:

Just finished a 30% water change. All levels of ammonia nitrite/trate are undetectable. CA is around 390, and SG is 1.026. I added another 13 lb. of Kaelini LR last week. One huge piece. I also replaced my MJ600 and MJ900 with a Seio 1100 gph pump. I’m not fond of where it’s placed, but I’m trying to keep all my equipment to the side of the tank that’s against the wall. This way I can view the tank from the back when I’m on the computer as well as the right side and the front. I’ve got more cyanno growing on the small rock that is covered in macro algae.

Today I went to the LFS to buy a small cleanup crew. About 4 snails and 10 small hermits. As you can see most of them are huddled on the small rock covered in cyanno.

The Coralife skimmer is really pulling out some nasty skimmate...

 

[dodo99]

More pics:

 

[garvondavis14]

any updates?

 

[dodo99]

So what's new you ask?

I haven't added any corals. Things are really stable, not much algae, just a few spots of HA and a bit of cyanno on my rock that has the macro on it. Purple corraline is starting to show up on the glass and on the Seio. I dose with Tropic Marin Bio-Calcium. Works great for me...

A few weeks ago I was at the LFS browsing, and $60 later, I had a pair of ORA 1.5" mis-barred black & white ocellaris. Very cute... The pair was through QT'ing at the LFS. They acclimated quickly and eat very well so far. The female is darker and only mis-barred on her left side. The male is a bit smaller, a bit more orange, especially his nose. They've never faught yet, and the male does his lil' twiching thang... Here's the pics.

 

[dodo99]

Oh... and the Rainford Goby is doing well. Terribly shy though... I need to be at least 5 ft away from the tank for him to scury about the tank without feeling threatened. Loves cyanno this one... I turned down the output of the Seio 1100, to make sure flow was low enough to have cyanno grow a little, for the goby.

About a week ago I was at the LFS again, just to browse I told myself... $100 later I came out with a lil' 2-3" GBTA with pinkish tips. It was in very good condition, firmly attached to some LR, fully expanded bubble tips and all. Expensive lil' thing though.

After drip-acclimation. Into the tank it went. I placed it close to the clown's sleeping spot. It was firmly attached about an hour later. Here's the pics...

An hour later:

 

[dodo99]

Here's more of the BTA. I think this was the next day... don't remember.

And here are the clowns... not paying attention as usual.

 

[dodo99]

Later that night after lights out, I found the male hanging around the BTA.

More of the BTA the next day. It moved a little, but not much.

Again the clowns, not paying attention...

More of the BTA.

 

[dodo99]

Here's the next day. That morning I found the female sleeping in the BTA, shooing away the male if he came too close.

and here's a lil' video of 'em:

http://s18.photobucket.com/albums/b149/ ... sPair2.flv

 

[dodo99]

Just a quick update. The BTA isn't doing too well. It's was being loved to death by the female ocellaris, so I purchased a sebae from the LFS about a week ago. I was thinking of bringing back the BTA to the LFS right away, but it's already looking much better. It was lost it's bubble tips and the tentacles were short and stubby. Color was still good though...

Here's a couple of pics of the new nem: