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SaNChEzZ posted:Two and a half years ish. This one was sir smoochies the second. The first one went carpet surfing Do you think that you'll get another one or try something different? Also, how long after a move will it take your aquarium to get back to normal?
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Nov 17, 2013 04:00
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In the past moves its been squared away pretty quick. Usually all the coraline dies from air exposure, but everything else is fine. We may get a Sir Smooches III, but it will have to wait until we find one that's readily taking frozen food. That's the secret, finding one that doesn't eat just pods, especially for a tank that's not large enough to naturally feed a mandarin and a wrasse 
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Nov 17, 2013 05:01
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SaNChEzZ posted:In the past moves its been squared away pretty quick. Usually all the coraline dies from air exposure, but everything else is fine. We may get a Sir Smooches III, but it will have to wait until we find one that's readily taking frozen food. That's the secret, finding one that doesn't eat just pods, especially for a tank that's not large enough to naturally feed a mandarin and a wrasse Good to know about the coralline algae, I was pretty sad when I had to sell all of my stuff last month. But, it was dying of neglect since I've been gone so much lately. On the up side watching the non-salable hitchhiker populations grow and change has been interesting. I can see why I was able to keep so many fish that only ate live food now.
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Nov 17, 2013 05:43
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I was finally able to take a pretty good picture of a berghia nudibranch this morning.
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Nov 18, 2013 18:19
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So Google+ Auto Awesome'd up two of my videos of my gobies (it kept erroring out when I was trying to save it at 1080p, so 480p is all I've got): e: fixed link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK6DRIrnTWY VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Nov 23, 2013 |
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Nov 23, 2013 03:45
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Fish tank move went really well, both of my big colonies broke off of the rocks they were on, but whatever. Didn't lose anything. The only bad part is that we forgot the flame tip outside in the truck for about 2 hours so it was pretty stressed. However, once we got it back in the tank, the next morning we woke up and there were two v  vAnybody wanna buy one?
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Nov 23, 2013 18:09
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DrHub posted:Hi! Im a long time lurker here, and just bought my first saltwater all in one tank. I'm interested in any update photos you might have. Just began cycling my own nano-cube 28g CF quad with just two pounds of live rock, so I'm taking the month to read up and make decisions about how I'll want mine to look and run! In the meantime, just trying to figure out why one pump is audibly louder than the other. I'm OCD, I guess. Incredulous Dylan fucked around with this message at 07:21 on Nov 24, 2013 |
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Nov 24, 2013 06:55
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Incredulous Dylan posted:I'm interested in any update photos you might have. Just began cycling my own nano-cube 28g CF quad with just two pounds of live rock, so I'm taking the month to read up and make decisions about how I'll want mine to look and run! In the meantime, just trying to figure out why one pump is audibly louder than the other. I'm OCD, I guess. I had a condylactis anemone die on me this morning. Beautiful blue with neon green tips too. He was kind of a headache, but so gorgeous. He got beat up by one of my bubble tips and took a ride to the filter sock. I quarantined him and tried to get him back but he just kinda.. disintegrated on me. After having one for so long (almost a year) I do have to say that pretty much everything I read about them was very understated. "Moderate aggression" and "he moves around sometimes" are not at all what I experienced. They need a lot of space, and are 100% predatory anemones. Mine never stayed in the same place for very long, and was a serious hunter. It would come after the tongs to get the krill from across the tank. I never had him eat a fish or kill any coral like I see others have an issue with, but I kept him seriously well fed. RIP Filter Current Riding Condy!
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Nov 24, 2013 16:26
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SaNChEzZ posted:Fish tank move went really well, both of my big colonies broke off of the rocks they were on, but whatever. Didn't lose anything. The only bad part is that we forgot the flame tip outside in the truck for about 2 hours so it was pretty stressed. However, once we got it back in the tank, the next morning we woke up and there were two v P.m. me a price shipped to 44870 :-)
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Nov 26, 2013 00:55
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Anyone have problems with dusty water or water that is not super clear? All of my parameters are good but for some reason I feel like my water is not as clear as it should be. There always seems to be a very slight cloudiness that is really annoying. I thought it was my super active pistol shrimp causing it so I pulled him out but it doesn't seem to have improved much. Things look good I just cant' figure out how to get the water clearer. I'm thinking about trying a diatom filter. Any suggestions?
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Nov 26, 2013 19:09
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Are you running carbon in a reactor? If not, try that.
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Nov 26, 2013 19:40
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How's your mechanical filtration? If your sump is set up for it, or you can get an AC20 or something on the cheap, I'd toss some filter floss or a filter pad in the appropriate chamber and try to filter out particulates. If that's the problem. Otherwise, yeah, carbon.
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Nov 26, 2013 19:53
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As a heads up, you should limit running carbon if you have any Tangs in your tank. Granular activated carbon is linked to HLLE which is pretty nasty.
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Nov 26, 2013 20:35
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Forgot to post the new light hanging 
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Nov 26, 2013 22:29
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Nice. I just used bent conduit.
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Nov 26, 2013 22:50
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api call girl posted:Nice. I just used bent conduit. I should have gone that route, but being a stupid car enthusiast - "Where could I get bent piping, oh a muffler shop". 
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Nov 26, 2013 23:06
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Internet Explorer posted:Are you running carbon in a reactor? If not, try that. I am running carbon in a BRS reactor. I've got a single return coming down into a 4" filter sock that I clean and switch out weekly -- the same chamber with the filter sock holds the protein skimmer. I think before I try a noisy rear end and pricey diatom filter I might take API's advice and try something like an AC20 and filter floss. Can I just try shoving a bunch of filter floss somewhere in my sump? Not sure how or where it would stay but I guess I could rig something. AC20 or 30 might just be easier.
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Nov 26, 2013 23:24
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The problem with sticking filter pads "just anywhere" is that water will just go around it. Forcing water through filtration via pump is better. e: Unless you've got a flow route in the sump that you can entirely block off with a foam pad. This is the case for most "designed" sumps, or even a sump you've siliconed baffles in, but not so much if all you've got is a bare glass tank you put your electricals in. e2: See if you can simply rent a diatom filter from your LFS. You need to borrow the filter itself, and buy from them a cartridge of the diatom earth media. I had to do this once and was done with it in 2 days. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Nov 26, 2013 |
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Nov 26, 2013 23:33
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So I finally got around to setting up the AI Director unit I got as part of the beta program (their firmware has finally caught up to what I used their old The New Controller for).   Pretty cool. Weather feature is especially neat, you can take basically any city/location in the world and it'll pull sunrise/sunset information as well as weather information so it'll simulate thunderstorms and overcastness. (Not as useful to simulate non-equatorial sunrise/sunset information, I can tell you that...)
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Nov 26, 2013 23:50
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api call girl posted:The problem with sticking filter pads "just anywhere" is that water will just go around it. Forcing water through filtration via pump is better. Its an Advanced Acrylic sump with two large sections that are separated by three tightly spaced baffles. I think I will try shoving filter floss in between those baffles to see if that works though I think that'll restrict sump flow pretty significantly. I'll see if it works for a couple days.
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Nov 27, 2013 01:18
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visuvius posted:Anyone have problems with dusty water or water that is not super clear? All of my parameters are good but for some reason I feel like my water is not as clear as it should be. There always seems to be a very slight cloudiness that is really annoying. I thought it was my super active pistol shrimp causing it so I pulled him out but it doesn't seem to have improved much. Things look good I just cant' figure out how to get the water clearer. I'm thinking about trying a diatom filter. Any suggestions? Are you sure it isn't microbubbles? My sump is rather well, simplistic and occasionally I get microbubbles as a result of the skimmer output being close to the return pump.
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Dec 1, 2013 19:34
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visuvius posted:Anyone have problems with dusty water or water that is not super clear? All of my parameters are good but for some reason I feel like my water is not as clear as it should be. There always seems to be a very slight cloudiness that is really annoying. I thought it was my super active pistol shrimp causing it so I pulled him out but it doesn't seem to have improved much. Things look good I just cant' figure out how to get the water clearer. I'm thinking about trying a diatom filter. Any suggestions? I'm seconding that this sounds like it might be micro bubbles. Do you have a skimmer in your tank? They can be a source of micro bubbles. I've had nightmares in the past dealing with micro bubbles but one thing you can try is just turning off your skimmer and see if it clears up after a while. If so, well then at least you know where they are coming from.
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Dec 1, 2013 20:36
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So I might as well keep track of my progress in this thread over time! I already have a few questions I'm reading up on as well. Here was my tank the first night a bit over a week ago: I've got about half the live rock I plan to have put in (12 lbs. so far). A few pounds of more basic stuff and then some fancy branching or w/e depending on what they look like. The rock is cured from the LFS which is a small business that basically just deals in coral, saltwater supplies and a very small selection of fish. My guy at the LFS is a marine biology student and already steered me clear of a lot of money sinks I could have made during my first purchase. He loves to talk shop so I'm taking my questions to him as well as my reading on nano-reef and reef central. The posters there aren't exactly as tech savvy as you'd find here so the information is sort of spread out. I was told I could seed dry rock or sand but I was looking forward to a straight forward 4-6 week cycle. Plus it is just so cool to see your tank come to life in little ways over the days. I already spotted a few hitchhikers that have finally woken up. Here's the tank now after a week of roughly 8 hours a day of lighting:  I've already got diatoms showing up on my live rock and sand:   These are spreading rapidly and I understand this is normal for a new tank. Waiting on my magnet scrubber and testing kits from Amazon but I expect it all to sort itself out once the excess nutrients are all used. I'm planning on picking up the other half of my live rock throughout the week so the tank can just deal with all of the decay and go through whatever blooms are inevitable over the next few weeks. I'm trying to figure out whether or not the algae patches (I assume anyway) I've been seeing spread on my live rock are nuisance slime algae or corraline. Here's two photos with bonus hitchhikers:   One of the earlier photos shows them as well - little red/purple patches appearing on the rocks as well as some little clusters of purple. So a few things - right now I was planning to do my first water change at the end of the first month or so. I've been getting my RODI and seawater from the LFS at 50 cents a gallon but I'm thinking of getting a Typhoon III filter down the line depending on how it all goes. Thoughts on the algae or anything else? I haven't even started thinking fish yet - want to see how the levels turn out but I plan on having 2-3 max depending on the research in the weeks between adding them or my corals in. Incredulous Dylan fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Dec 2, 2013 |
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Dec 2, 2013 00:54
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Charliegrs posted:I'm seconding that this sounds like it might be micro bubbles. Do you have a skimmer in your tank? They can be a source of micro bubbles. I've had nightmares in the past dealing with micro bubbles but one thing you can try is just turning off your skimmer and see if it clears up after a while. If so, well then at least you know where they are coming from. He's said he's got baffles, and I'm assuming the skimmer is in the drain chamber and not the return, so he really shouldn't be seeing micros back in the display. I can more readily believe there's something else that's clouding up the water.
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Dec 2, 2013 01:17
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^ Yes exactly. It ain't micro bubbles. Haven't had a chance to pick up some filter floss yet but I'm hoping that fixes it. Also, I might just have unrealistic expectations of "clear".
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Dec 2, 2013 02:17
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Incredulous Dylan posted:So I might as well keep track of my progress in this thread over time! I already have a few questions I'm reading up on as well. Here was my tank the first night a bit over a week ago: That's a 28 gallon, right? Now that you've got some live rock in it, I'd recommend going with base rock for the rest: cheaper, and easier to aquascape with. My entry into the hobby was a 150 gallon with about 100 pounds of live rock; if I had it to do over, I'd do about 20 pounds live rock and the rest base. Working with the live rock can be such a crap shoot. For pre-made salt water 50 cents a gallon is an excellent price, but I'd still suggest investing in a good RO/DI unit. You'll want it for top off purposes too. From the photos the red/purple patches on your rock look like sponges to me, but it's always really hard to tell from photos. Sponges can be weird - six months into my set up I had literally hundreds of pineapple sponges; they disappeared almost entirely after another few months and were replaced with small feather dusters. Those gradually disappeared as well (except for in my sump) and were supplanted by an army of bristle worms. The tank now seems to have settled down and I haven't had any weird new things appear in abundance for the last year. I'm thinking of adding another few pounds of live rock just to see what grows; I'm with you on the "cool to see your tank come to life" thing. =)
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Dec 2, 2013 03:35
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So for anyone who's seen pics/videos from my mantis tank, you'd have seen the infestation of aiptasia (among other things that are also nearly impossible to fight with a mantis shrimp in the tank). For obvious reasons I can't play the peppermint shrimp roulette, because even if I find one that eats aiptasia, odds are better than even the mantis shrimp eats it. I tried berghia nudis, but I'm ~pretty~ sure the aiptasia or the brittle star are eating them, that or the one remaining peppermint shrimp that's not eating aiptasia yet manages to avoid the mantis shrimp. I finally bit the bullet and added a baby copperband butterfly last night.
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Dec 3, 2013 15:57
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^^^ Are you deliberately keeping the mantis in the tank? I thought they could break the glass or something if they grew. Yeah, it's the JBJ 28G Nano Cube CF Quad. I have a bunch of equipment coming in tomorrow that will be fun to check stuff out with - thermometer, refractometer and my test kits. I went with Red Sea for Calcium, Alkalinity, Magnesium & Nitrates. Hanna checker for Phosphate. I also bought a Hydor Koralia Nano 240 gph circulation powerhead to get a little current going around the lower back end to avoid any dead spots for flow. Looks like I am going to have to leave my lid slightly open to accommodate the cord, though, which is kind of annoying. I'm even excited for my little glass cleaner magnet since it floats! Funny how overwhelming all the reading seemed a week or so ago. I still have a lot of research to do but I was the kid who kept snails in his hess truck and loved bugs so it'll be so cool to get everything going. Even algae is fascinating for me on some level I didn't plan on having a protein skimmer which is why I am wondering about whether I should really "skimp" on the live rock. Planning on having 28 lbs all told (taking into account that a few of the 28 gallons are in my sump). I'm going to be relying on the sand bed and live rock in addition to the filtration housing in my sump that came with the tank. I don't plan on keeping chaeto since apparently it needs its own light. All the live rock I've gotten from that excellent little coral store seems light and porous - also it doesn't help that no stores in my area in South Florida sell base rock apparently. I'm paying $5 a pound for live. As a side note, I'm thinking about just loading all of the rest of the live rock in there now and just getting the cycle out of the way. I think it will cause more problems to introduce the other half of the rock load towards the end of the original cycle. Hoping the spike from the decay in the new live rock doesn't stress out the beneficial life I've been scoping in the rock already there! Incredulous Dylan fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 18:07
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Eh, there's plenty of places out in Florida that ship dried rock all over the US, I can't imagine you wouldn't be able to find some place that would let you do local shipping or pickup. OTOH since you're out there I would've just gone with a bunch of Tampa Bay Saltwater live stuff, and critters/hitchhikers be damned. For your tank lid, I would just do a little cutout in the back so you can fit your cord run. The lids are replaceable, and nobody cares about cord cutouts if you decide to resell. Depending on load you don't really need a skimmer, it sounded like you were going to keep the bioload pretty light for a 28gal anyway. Just really keep on top of the media basket filter replacements in that case. That tank is a deliberate mantis tank, yes. The peacock mantis is adult sized now, 4"-5", I got it as a little baby of 2.5" or so--it's still got a little bit to go to get to fully grown state. I had the tank custom built to my design (I hosed up a little with the filtration chambers, so I can't really fit any of the off-the-shelf nano skimmers in it) using 3/8" cell-cast acrylic, so there's no worries about shattering tanks. For chemical filtration instead I have a chamber with chaeto and a high powered LED grow light pendant. I actually also keep fish in it, he hasn't gone after them. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 18:17
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api call girl posted:So for anyone who's seen pics/videos from my mantis tank, you'd have seen the infestation of aiptasia (among other things that are also nearly impossible to fight with a mantis shrimp in the tank). For obvious reasons I can't play the peppermint shrimp roulette, because even if I find one that eats aiptasia, odds are better than even the mantis shrimp eats it. I tried berghia nudis, but I'm ~pretty~ sure the aiptasia or the brittle star are eating them, that or the one remaining peppermint shrimp that's not eating aiptasia yet manages to avoid the mantis shrimp. The bergias are really slow in my experience; you also need to have quite a few of them relative to the aiptasia population. If they are still alive, they eat the smallest aiptasia first so you ought to be able to monitor their progress that way. And aiptasia are definitely happy to eat them too although once the bergia are safely in the tank I doubt that will occur with any frequency. The bergias crawl right next to the aiptasia and then engulf them, even in the midst of a bunch of aiptasia, I've never noticed any reaction from the neighbors. Incredulous Dylan posted:^^^ Are you deliberately keeping the mantis in the tank? I thought they could break the glass or something if they grew. If your live rock is that inexpensive then I wouldn't worry about the base rock. You might want to reconsider the macro though. You need to have a fair amount of nutrient export and the skimmer fills that role for most people. I found that live rock alone was not sufficient for my aquarium. My other objection to having lots of live rock is aesthetic. A large pile of rock just doesn't look very nice in my opinion.
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Dec 3, 2013 18:23
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Yes, there's that: a ton of rock makes the tank really hard to scape and light, as well as to really get in and scrape down the glass. I deliberately kept my office tank light on rockwork and depend heavily on kalk-filled top-off and media filtration to keep the water clean and nutrients down. ^^^ I know, I've tried them on 2 occasions. Months later I will see one berghia crawling around on the glass, and then nothing. I can only assume that the in-tank predators have gotten the best of them. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 18:28
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api call girl posted:Yes, there's that: a ton of rock makes the tank really hard to scape and light, as well as to really get in and scrape down the glass. I deliberately kept my office tank light on rockwork and depend heavily on kalk-filled top-off and media filtration to keep the water clean and nutrients down. Or their short lifespan, they only live for a few months. I suspect that in order to eat all of the aiptasia in a tank they need to breed to really build up the population density. At any rate, I suspect that for aiptasia infestations like mine the only answer is a tear down.
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Dec 3, 2013 18:41
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Oh, that sounds interesting. Any current pictures of that custom mantis tank? The nano cube's filtration system is actually really easy to convert to a refugium since it has two chambers you can just grow chaeto in and the backs are clear. The last chamber would have carbon and a little mechanical sponge to keep algae from getting all up in the pumps. You mentioned an LED light for the chaeto - if you have any pictures of what that would look like or a brand name I might just consider that. I'm looking to keep the tank as clean looking as possible without any HOB stuff. As for aqua scaping...well I figured I would just pile things up as best as I could when I have it all together. I won't pretend that I have any idea of how to make it look nice or any experience gluing rocks together. I'm just going to try and provide something as a center piece (likely a large piece or two of the branching live rock) and figure out how I want to space it out for corals that will live on rocks near eachother versus corals that will need their own area of the tank. I also want to make sure there's a few areas for my 2-3 fish to hang out in and get their hiding itch scratched. That's another reason I am looking to get it all done now, so that I don't end up having to turn over a bunch of rocks that have been facing the light for a month and having some weird result. Thanks for all of the advice! Incredulous Dylan fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 18:51
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Ugh, I hate apstasia. I nuke the poo poo out of mine as soon as I spot them with Apstasia-X but I couldn't imagine going after a huge population of them that way. Personally or me the worst nuisance thing is bubble algae. I absolutely hate that poo poo. I once let it take over a 100 gallon mixed reef which basically ended the tank. Well that and my divorce. Probably more the divorce.
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Dec 3, 2013 18:53
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With regards to Aiptasia, I've had fantastic success with Acreichthys tomentosus: http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+30+2562&pcatid=2562 Reef safe-ish, and in my tank the Aiptasia population went from what I would estimate was close to 500 down to less than a dozen over the course of two months or so. They're also a really fascinating fish with a lot of personality. Of course, every fish is different and I've heard of plenty that have ignored Aiptasia in favor of expensive LPS. Your mileage may vary.
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Dec 3, 2013 20:09
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Same issue with the copperband, really. Though I hear the filefish is far more reliable with aiptasia control. VVV I'm one of the few that managed to starve out their bubble algae. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 20:12
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Castaign posted:With regards to Aiptasia, I've had fantastic success with Acreichthys tomentosus: I've heard of using these to control aiptasia before. The only 100% certain creature to eat aiptasia I've heard of is the bergia; everything else is hit or miss. Same with bubble algae, I have a green mithrax which ate most of it in the tank but some people would get several of them and none of them would eat the bubble algae. Which has to be one of the most frustrating experiences in reef keeping.
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Dec 3, 2013 20:15
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Want to see a grown man cry? Drop his two week Old Radion in his tank. Want to see him cry twice? Show him the pack of cigarettes that have been soaking in the water for the past hour and a half that he's been ripping apart his Radion. It's been a rough morning.
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Dec 4, 2013 18:58
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Henchman 21 posted:Want to see a grown man cry? Drop his two week Old Radion in his tank. Want to see him cry twice? Show him the pack of cigarettes that have been soaking in the water for the past hour and a half that he's been ripping apart his Radion.  That really sucks man. Good luck.
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Dec 4, 2013 20:11
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Welp, here's what I've come up with in the "stacking some rocks" department after picking the rest of the rock up: Water has cleared up since then. There's an open spot or two behind these rocks where I see particles moving slower. Since I plan on putting the koralia nano powerhead kind of low and in the back, hopefully that'll help with the flow. The rest of all of my stuff arrives today so I'll finally give the glass a little cleaning. I'm expecting to see a lot more algae pop up with the second half of the rock being popped in there. I feel like I shouldn't bother testing anything for two weeks or more. Probably just going to hit up the LFS then for a full test this one time since I didn't buy ammonia and nitrite test kits, just nitrate. Yesterday I did a bit of reading on reef keeper and learned a bit on the relationships between the things we commonly test aquariums for. At least I remember how solubility and saturation works now, hah. All of this research is keeping me busy enough that I don't feel any need to put anything in the tank anytime soon. vvv Was worried about that, too. Thanks for the advice! Incredulous Dylan fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Dec 4, 2013 |
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Dec 4, 2013 20:19
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