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optikalus posted:None of my hermits / snails would touch the poo poo. Probably added 50 hermits and 25 or so astreas over a few weeks and I can barely find 10 or so of each now. They just don't seem to eat my algae. Is something eating them or are they just getting lost in the rocks?
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Mar 29, 2011 00:20
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Emancipator posted:Is something eating them or are they just getting lost in the rocks? No idea.. I don't have tons of empty shells on the front sand, but there may be a bunch behind the rocks where I can't see. 
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Mar 29, 2011 00:40
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Astraeas and hermits (depending on type) are almost exclusively microalgae eaters, i.e. film algae, some kinds of cyano or diatoms, etc. Mexican reds and scarlet legged hermits have been known to go after just-sprouting hair algae. Hermits have their own problems, i.e. they're actually omnivores and will eat each other and other snails, and astraeas will simply fall off a rock and die because they can't right themselves under most circumstances. Mexican turbo snails and banded trochus snails are better at going after hair algae, and only Mexican turbos are especially known for it (and are too big and are bulldozers). Banded trochus snails are a good compromise and have a good countermeasure against hermit crabs. A good tang will keep new growth hair algae down and effectively eradicate it since the hair algae sucks up nutrients only to more or less completely die back due to not being able to grow or spread and then being outcompeted on nutrient uptake by your export method, but tangs may not be appropriate to your tank size. (I'm not from the tang police) (edit: you have a 90gal anyway so most of the mid-range good grazing tangs should work, do you have a tang? I have had good luck with yellows and powder browns) VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Mar 29, 2011 |
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Mar 29, 2011 02:49
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Ok I modeled this sump and I want to run it by you all as a concept, not a specific size/gallon kinda thing Basically in->protein skimmer->24/7 refugium with macro algae->frag keeper/food/whatever->animals I can't keep in main tank/alternate tank->additive adding chamber/extra water adding chamber->back to tank
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Mar 29, 2011 05:00
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Why not leave that last partition out, and make the return section larger? You won't have your top-off trigger as frequently with a larger return section.
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Mar 29, 2011 12:16
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Do you have that much width under your tank? And speaking of fuge/sump setups, this is my dream setup:   He (reefdrummer) has possibly the sexiest, neatest, plumbing and electrical setup ever. Really something to admire.
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Mar 29, 2011 16:27
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ludnix posted:Why not leave that last partition out, and make the return section larger? You won't have your top-off trigger as frequently with a larger return section. Good idea, I didn't know if I should make a separate additive section or not so I threw one in. Dono posted:Do you have that much width under your tank? Like I said: concept, not specific model.
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Mar 29, 2011 17:38
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Yawgmoft posted:
I understand that, but you have to factor practicality into your design. I mean if it's not going under the tank and behind a wall it looks good. You may want to not wake the flow from the skimmer to go right into your fuge (if I'm reading that right).
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Mar 29, 2011 17:53
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Yawgmoft posted:Good idea, I didn't know if I should make a separate additive section or not so I threw one in. If anything I would make the drain section slightly larger to make room for your additive lines or whatever you're using to dose. I think ideally you would want the greatest time to mix in the sump before reaching the display with most additives. You obviously would not want to dose any nutrient additives like phyto before the skimmer, but other chemical additives should be fine.
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Mar 29, 2011 18:53
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I've now spent nearly four hours trying to trap our flame angel. I've tried everything. I build traps and none of the fish will go in them, especially not the flame angel. I think I'm going to have to remove ALL the rock and coral and rebuild the tank just to get him out. This blows.
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Mar 29, 2011 20:15
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optikalus posted:FWIW, my non-GHA algae came back with a vengeance almost immediately after my first water change after I stopped dosing the Mg. Hopefully the normal clean up crew will take care of that stuff in time (or I can just keep Mg high continuously) The only thing I have is GHA and Chaeto, everything else is under wraps. I'm going to try this over the next week or so and see what happens. After it's died down a bit I'll toss in some more crabs and maybe a small turbo if I can find one.
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Mar 29, 2011 20:30
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Just out of curiosity, when you're adding 1oz a day to your tank, what's that in a ratio form. ie: 1capful to 20 gal, so how much do you usually add? Like what is that x the normal dose?
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Mar 30, 2011 22:16
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SaNChEzZ posted:Just out of curiosity, when you're adding 1oz a day to your tank, what's that in a ratio form. ie: 1capful to 20 gal, so how much do you usually add? Kent Tech M you can pretty much guesstimate based on the bottle label (it gives you a starting point to start boosting mag by ~50 ppm per gallon if I remember correctly) and just measure mag with some standard kit once a week.
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Mar 30, 2011 22:41
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So I was looking at RO/DI systems yesterday, and while cooking just now I had a thought: why don't people distill their own water and use that? I remember a guide I had read talking about how you can buy distilled instead of RO but it'd never be worth the money. The only thing I can come up with other than the cost of heat is that some contamination might still make it through, like if someone used copper parts to do it, or if some compound is in there that evaporates close enough to 100c.
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Mar 31, 2011 01:03
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SniperWoreConverse posted:So I was looking at RO/DI systems yesterday, and while cooking just now I had a thought: why don't people distill their own water and use that? I remember a guide I had read talking about how you can buy distilled instead of RO but it'd never be worth the money. The only thing I can come up with other than the cost of heat is that some contamination might still make it through, like if someone used copper parts to do it, or if some compound is in there that evaporates close enough to 100c. RO/DI systems coming in at the $100-$200 range are typically capable of doing 100 gallons a day and thus are perfect for making water for medium-large tanks. Think about doing that amount in distilling on your own.
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Mar 31, 2011 03:48
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Exactly, if you have the time on your hands and a nano sized tank then purifying your own water might be an option. But for someone like myself who does a 20gal WC every week, then a RO-DI is pretty necessary if you want to have a life.
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Mar 31, 2011 05:01
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Also a distillation system will not have consistent output in different climates due to humidity differences.
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Mar 31, 2011 14:05
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Okay, since my aquarium is still pretty new I think I have the answer to this question but not 100% sure. I'm getting a small layer of brown algae on my glass only. I am a little light on my snails right now because I had a hermit crab that apparently liked to turn snails over onto a position they couldn't get up. The causes of this I've concluded are either over-feeding, or phosphates leeching from rocks. I'm tending to lean towards over feeding because the tank has been up about 3 months and I wonder why I would see it now, and if it were silicates leeching out I think I would be seeing a worst outbreak. Currently I feed about 1 frozen mysis cube a day, and every other day I mix a very small (VERY SMALL) chip of rod's food into the mysis mix. Current stock: 40 hermits 10-12 trochus snails 5~ bristleworms (maybe less, but drat do they eat) 40~ baby brittle stars 15 Nassarius snails 5-10 spaghetti worms 1 yellow tang 2 ocellaris clown 2 blue-green chromis I'm going to do another 20 gal WC tomorrow and see if it affects it. The chaeto in my sump has been doing well but isnt showing a lot of growth, so I assuming it's competing for growth with something.
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Mar 31, 2011 15:52
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That's basically algae that shows up in any normal tank setup that's pretty much done cycling. It'll never entirely go away on its own and is why people have those magnet scrapers on the glass all the time. Trochus snails, astreas, etc., will go after that algae and can put a dent in it in sufficient quantities but will just leave you with jagged little shapes in the overall algae film. Fortunately if you scrape off that algae and it goes somewhere (into a sump with a refugium, say) pods LOVE that stuff when it's in their water column. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Mar 31, 2011 |
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Mar 31, 2011 16:00
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arioch posted:That's basically algae that shows up in any normal tank setup that's pretty much done cycling. It'll never entirely go away on its own and is why people have those magnet scrapers on the glass all the time. yup I've been using my magnet, but to control it at least I'm assuming I can buff up my snail population, and watch my feeding a little closer.
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Mar 31, 2011 16:03
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Dono posted:yup I've been using my magnet, but to control it at least I'm assuming I can buff up my snail population, and watch my feeding a little closer. Nah, if you scrape it off it grows back slower as your chaeto achieves more mass.
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Mar 31, 2011 16:05
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arioch posted:Nah, if you scrape it off it grows back slower as your chaeto achieves more mass. Very cool. I'll get to it then.
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Mar 31, 2011 16:09
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I'm very slowly planning out a saltwater setup. Just looking for advice here and there. Wanting a 40 breeder reef/20l sump. Would this size tank justify a RO/DI setup? Usually I would think yes, but I do live about 10 minutes from the Seattle Aquarium. They sell natural, filtered, UV treated water for 5 cents a gallon. details: http://www.seattleaquarium.org/NetCommunity/Document.Doc?id=933. A 60 gallon tank needing a 10% water change every week will need about 350 gallons of water a year. That costs about 15 dollars from the aquarium. RO/DI units are what, $150-200, plus salt? If I went this route, I know I would still have to top off with fresh water to account for evaporation. That would bump the cost up, but not a huge amount. The downside would be driving out there and the manpower to fill a couple buckets twice a month. The upside is what I figure to be a lower cost and a water supply I know is legit. I've been looking at RO/DI units online for a bit. From what I get is you hook up the unit to a hose, it spits out clean water, the water is dumped into a sterile container of your choosing, salt and heat is added and mixed for several hours, then dumped in the tank. The water level is maintained by a float valve. This seems like a pain in the rear end in my head. Is it as large of a pain in reality?
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Mar 31, 2011 17:23
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It's probably less of a pain than making a car trip with multiple buckets twice a week, yeah. Here's what I'd do, I'd get a timer valve, attach it to the RO/DI filter output, put the other end in a brute container on wheels, and just run it for 6 hours overnight. Bingo, that's all the water you need for a couple weeks, then you get a submersible pump of your choice to run it into a mixing container (another tank), do your salt mix, then transfer it via either plumbing or buckets while making your water change. Once you get into the groove of that it's really not much effort. If you want to keep lots of stony corals you'd need to look into supplementation anyway and with that you can go with a lower priced salt mix that's just reasonably consistent instead of something fancier like H+H D2O or the Seachem one. It's partly because I find that I have to use about the exact same amount of water for top-off as I would for my weekly water change, and that water has to be RO/DI. I mean yeah, of course I'd use natural salt water for my water changes if I could. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Mar 31, 2011 |
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Mar 31, 2011 17:28
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Ah, yeah I never thought about the time sink. RO is the way to go for sure. What's the deal with LEDs? Aquarium grade is supposed to be in the 10,000K range? I was trying to look for a few for DIY, but can't seem to find anything other than premade arrays. I was actually hoping to find some with the correct specs from digikey, even if they aren't made specifically for aquariums. I'm gonna be getting a lot from them soon and figured why not do two birds with one stone. I tried going on reefcentral to look at their stuff, but a day after I registered I couldn't log in anymore. I tried to recover my password, but they don't have any such email registered. Weird. They have a ton of good stuff, but a lot of poo poo posting.
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Mar 31, 2011 18:25
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You need high powered LEDs (standard usually referenced for those is the CREE 3W ones). Most pre-built LED arrays available at "reasonable" prices are using a large bank of 1W LEDs which are not sufficient for big/deep tanks. For CREEs you just mix the cool whites and royal blues to taste if you were doing DIY. Also, holy poo poo they finally finished this thing: http://www.nanotuners.com/product_info.php?cPath=73&products_id=669 
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Mar 31, 2011 18:38
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Here is my LED build thread: http://www.saltwatermasters.com/forums/threads/66 I doubt you can get the CREE LEDs from digikey, but rapidled.com is always a good source.
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Mar 31, 2011 20:03
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ludnix posted:Here is my LED build thread: I'll definitely be saving this. Cost about 800$ Im guessing but better in the long run and and it looks like it's outperforming the MH look. How long have you had them in and how are the corals near or on your sandbed doing?
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Mar 31, 2011 20:13
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I have some of the same 'glass algae' I was talking about earlier in my overflow box. It has gotten long enough that it looks like hair algae, even though it is not. My problem is light constantly flooding my overflow box w/o a CUC and on top of that my heater is in my overflow to allow my return pump water some time to cool down. I need suggestions on a clean looking cover for my overflow to cut out the light and not look like poo poo. Ideas go!
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Mar 31, 2011 20:27
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Is it the stock overflow boxes from megaflow? I found a seller on ebay who made black acrylic covers to fit them. The LEDs were about $800, They have been on for about six months now. The corals on the sand bed are doing fine, the only thing that didn't respond well to the LEDs was a candy cane which bleached out. I moved it down and now it's coloring back up. All the SPS corals just started growing faster once the switch was made. It probably took about a month before I started seeing a real growth difference. There are a few threads on RC with people doing PAR measurements on their LED vs MH. It seems that LEDs penetrate the water better resulting in higher PAR down low in the tank. They are not as bright near the surface compared to MH typically, but definitely distribute the light more evenly with depth.
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Mar 31, 2011 23:49
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ludnix posted:Is it the stock overflow boxes from megaflow? I found a seller on ebay who made black acrylic covers to fit them. Yea it is, do you have a link to the seller? That would save me a lot of hassle because I havent been able to find anything via google/ebay.
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Mar 31, 2011 23:52
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http://compare.ebay.com/like/370496099869
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Apr 1, 2011 00:13
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ludnix posted:Here is my LED build thread: Yep, they only have blue (that I saw), and minimum order is 1k for the type you used. So unless someone wanted to experiment with the weird little ones, or the entire forum did a ridiculous group buy... Actually yes, everyone give me four hundred bucks and I will mail you your leds. Think of the savings! Why does everyone seem to like Cree anyway? Why not whatever other guys? e: Does anyone know why these colors of light are good for aquaria? Anybody got a link on hand? SniperWoreConverse fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Apr 1, 2011 |
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Apr 1, 2011 03:56
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Stupid question Dono, but are you just dropping a cube of mysis in? That has a shitton of phosphates in it. If you are, melt it in some hot water then strain it through a brine shrimp net. I just drop the net in my tank from there to feed. I also only feed brine like 2x a week. I doubt that's your problem though. When I was dropping cubes in I had a massive red slime outbreak.
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Apr 1, 2011 03:58
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Melchior posted:Stupid question Dono, but are you just dropping a cube of mysis in? That has a shitton of phosphates in it. If you are, melt it in some hot water then strain it through a brine shrimp net. I just drop the net in my tank from there to feed. I also only feed brine like 2x a week. I rinse and strain my food properly with some extra RO/DI water I have.
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Apr 1, 2011 05:52
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Big day for me, I posted my first For Sale thread on my frags in my local club forum on RC -> http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=18578861
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Apr 1, 2011 06:16
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arioch posted:Big day for me, I posted my first For Sale thread on my frags in my local club forum on RC -> http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=18578861 nice! I cant wait for the day I graduate to SPS corals (i.e. have the budget for some added equipment). I dont get much for a lot of my softies, for the exception of some of my rare(er) zoas and my pom pom which grows like a weed and someone's always looking for frags of. Edit: go softie tanks!!
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Apr 1, 2011 06:19
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Is anyone going to MACNA this year?
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Apr 1, 2011 06:21
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I've decided on a basic outline of the upcoming build, with smaller details yet to be worked out. Display Tank: - 48"x18"x21" 75 Gallon - ~20% pond foam wall covering the back, rest of volume in base rock - PVC tunnels in wall to pull powerhead water from behind rock wall to prevent stagnation/detritus buildup - 6x T5 lighting with 4x ATI Aqua Blue, 1x Blue Plus, & 1x Purple Plus - Possible DIY moonlights - 2x Koralia Evolution 750 on wavemaker - Glass Holes 700gph overflow Sump: - 36"x12.5"x17" 38 Gallon w/ skimmer, refugium, & return sections - Reef Octopus NWB-150 - Mag Drive 9.5 return pump(675 gph adjusted for head loss) flowing through two return pipes to display - 2x 200W heaters rather than one 400W, since I've had a lovely overpowered heater turn my previous tank into fish stew Stock List: - LPS dominant, with a fair amount of softies and a few SPS - Standard cleanup crew consisting of snails, hermits, and a brittle star or two - A fairly standard set of easier fish: - 2x Ocellaris Clowns - 4x Scissortail Damsels (shoal like Chromis) - 1x Coral Beauty - 1x Bicolor or Midas Blenny - 1x Foxface - 1x Wimplefish Hoping this is all feasible, but I'm worried about the bioload being a bit high for a 75 gallon tank, even with a larger than average sump. Not too worried about SPS corals since LPS and polyps appeal more to me, but I still want to err on the safe side with a six bulb fixture rather than a four. edit: woops, post is not preview post TheFuglyStik fucked around with this message at 07:12 on Apr 1, 2011 |
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Apr 1, 2011 06:56
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TheFuglyStik posted:I've decided on a basic outline of the upcoming build, with smaller details yet to be worked out. Sounds good. You lighting is a little too white for my liking, but not all bad. If you're keeping corals you might be washing out a lot of color with that setup. I run 4 blue+ and 2 aquablue on my setup (same size) it I get colors that really 'pop'.
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Apr 1, 2011 07:08
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