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Hood Ornament posted:I want more pictures from everyone! Grr! I will post pictures...in four or five weeks when my brand new tank gets constructed and cycled v  v
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Jul 26, 2008 00:30
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 02:15 |
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Posting pictures of the setup and assembly of my new 3 gal nano tank so Hood Ornament doesn't die of deprivation  I bought a 3 gal Picotope a couple weeks ago, intending to use it as a betta tank in my office, but after browsing Reef Central I decided to make it a nano reef in the general style of Sandeep's 5.5 gal with in-tank refugium. I didn't go the full refugium route, but I really liked the idea of partitioning off the hardware with the addition of an overflow.  The bare Picotope, it's about 11" x 8" x 8".  The piece of plexi I cut for the partition. It's 3/32" thick, with slats for overflow and a hole for the return powerhead. It's about to be painted with Krylon Fusion flat black and set in the tank with GE Silicone I.  The tank is masked off and ready for the equipment area to be painted with Krylon Fusion satin black. I ended up masking off the bowed part of the equipment area so I had a place to look in and make sure things were working okay.  Looking into the equipment area after the painting. The powerhead (MJ400 or 600, I forget) and the HOB Taam Rio Nano skimmer are visible here. Note the plastic screw on the skimmer - that's not stock. I didn't like the way it was hanging on the back, so I got some little rubber stick-on feet and fixed them to the skimmer against the glass, then used a securing screw from an old HOB skimmer to get a tight fit. No rattling = good   The tank on its stand in my living room. The lamp that comes with the Picotope is a 9 watt PC 50/50, which I may be upgrading at some point.  Water + sand + rocks from an older tank added. There are a lot of microbubbles, which will hopefully go down as the skimmer activates.  Already churning away For stocking, when the time comes, I'll probably stick with ricordea and zoas.
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Aug 4, 2008 18:45
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crudnugget posted:Nice setup. Are you using an auto top-off setup on that tank? Funny you should ask, just this afternoon I started making an auto top-off using a sun tea jar. The jar holds about a gallon, gallon and a half, which will be perfect for filling and not worrying about for a week or so. I'll be mounting a shelf on the wall behind the tank and placing the top-off jar on it. Pictures tomorrow, hopefully
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Aug 9, 2008 23:03
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monkeyman posted:The only real issue I can see is a reliable water source. Do you guys use an RODI system? or do you buy pure water from the store or what? I use this RO/DI system, which I highly recommend to any new reefkeeper. It's inexpensive (relatively) and is much cheaper than buying RO/DI from the store in the quantities you'll need.
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Aug 11, 2008 14:40
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Psimitry posted:That one is nice in that it IS inexpensive.. at least for the initial investment. Note that it doesn't use standard filter cartridges, so you have to use the ones designed for it. This one on the other hand, produces almost twice the water, and uses standard filter cartridges and has almost double the water output for $60 more. In the end, I think it'd worth the extra 60 bones. The full set of replacement filters, including DI for the Mighty Mite is about $30, as opposed to $55 if you order through Melev...and what in the gently caress, he runs a referral program for reselling RO/DI units? He doesn't even say where they come from, or if there's a warranty. I like Melev's tanks, he gives very good advice, but personally I'd rather order factory direct.
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Aug 11, 2008 15:28
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bobbert posted:especially if the testicles get longer. This is either the best Freudian slip I've seen recently, or the most hilarious long-time misunderstanding of a word ever
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Aug 23, 2008 16:57
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I feel your pain Hood Ornament. My tank is finally done cycling, and last Thursday I introduced a Randall's goby...it seemed to acclimate just fine and spent the afternoon/evening exploring, but drat if I didn't find one dried-up goby on the floor the next morning. My lid had one gap to exploit, but exploited it was 
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Aug 25, 2008 18:33
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I haven't kept zoas before, so I'm not sure if this is normal behavior. I got a couple of colonies on plugs from a local store on Wednesday. As has always been my policy with new corals, I gave them an RO/DI freshwater dip before introducing them to my tank: matched the temperature, pH buffered it, dip for 5 - 7 minutes, then into the tank they go. This has worked great for rics, xenia, and GSP in the past, but on both of the new zoa colonies most of the polyps are still clenched up. A few have opened up and seem happy enough, but I'm a bit concerned about the rest of them. Should I give them more time in the tank before I get worried that the closed polyps are dead?
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Aug 30, 2008 19:40
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One of my zoanthid colonies has opened up nicely, and the other is getting there slowly but surely   Any ideas on what variety they are? The full tank shot as of last night: 
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Sep 4, 2008 16:26
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Psimitry posted:Ruh-Roh. So I woke up to find that my 90G tank is dripping. I had actually hoped to find that one of my bulkheads was leaking, but they aren't. A crack is all but confirmed. Hood Ornament posted:My duncan coral died, what the gently caress. What the hell, was this the 24 Hours of Tank Problems? The powerhead supplying circulation from the overflow chamber in my 3g broke down last night (naturally about an hour after stores closed). If I had the financial means, this would be the perfect time to upgrade myself to a 10g, but a replacement powerhead is all I can manage at the moment.
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Sep 17, 2008 18:23
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Hood Ornament posted:I'm wondering what it would cost to go up to a 10 gallon, possibly with a fuge as well. I ideally want 2 powerheads, I know nothing about overflows and top-offs and fuges. Ugh. If you used an in-tank overflow design - basically partition off one side of the tank with plexiglass, one side with overflow teeth and the other with a return pump - it wouldn't cost that much. Clear plexiglass is cheap, cutting can be done with hand tools (if you're patient), and you can put partitions in the overflow area to create a low-flow area for a fuge. Now, if you're thinking about drilling the tank for a sump+fuge, and the plumbing involved with that, yeah it can get kinda pricey and messy pretty fast. I'm trying my hand at drilling holes in glass this weekend, because I have an empty 10g, a twelve gallon sump, and the pumps for it all sitting around doing nothing, and that is a crime
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Sep 17, 2008 20:46
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Psimitry posted:An overflow/sump/fuge on anything less than a 30 gallon tank is a complete waste of time, unless you're well aware of how to set one up and run it efficiently. A sump and an out-of-tank-into-sump overflow, yes (arguably). The setup I posted to hide equipment, and a refugium in general to cultivate critters and
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Sep 17, 2008 20:54
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Graperape posted:I look around my stores for plastic heaters, and I only saw glass heaters If you can't find them locally, you can order them online from many retailers. So I went to replace my crapped out powerhead last night, but the smallest powerhead I could find locally was a MJ900. Aside from the friggin' typhoon in the display area of the tank, there's so much water being pushed out of the equipment area that it raised the water level in the display area significantly...which caused the little hang-on lamp I have to wick water over the edge So now I've got flow restored, but seriously gimped lighting because I had to sit the lamp on the tank stand shining in the side. I think a 10g upgrade, in tank as well as lighting apparatus, is going to have to happen sooner rather than later.
csammis fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Sep 18, 2008 |
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Sep 18, 2008 15:34
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streetlamp posted:I really wouldnt want a big ugly bucket of water just sitting in my bedroom. Should I abandon this now since I cant have this bucket setup constantly? I have no problem pulling it out of the closet and mixing it the night before though. There's nothing saying you need to have a bucket of saltwater sitting around all the time*. Premixing saltwater can be done five minutes before you actually change the water. The important part is to make sure the temperatures match. quote:Is this normal for so much to evaporate in a day for a salinity change in a small tank? Any amount of evaporation changes the salinity, but a three gallon tank is so small that the swings are that much more severe. This is true of pretty much every water parameter in a nano tank. quote:I would really not have a ATO mostly just because I like to keep it as simple as possible. If I really need an ATO then what do you guys recommend? If you're going to be out for a few days, and your room is at all dry, you'll almost certainly need to have a topoff solution of some kind (this could even be a roommate making sure the levels are okay, if your roommates are that trustworthy). Most float switches are way too big to fit comfortably in a nano tank. You could use a gravity/pressure driven solution like the one on my tank. I wouldn't recommend a three gallon to start with, to be perfectly honest. A 10 gallon or one of the self-contained cube tanks in the 12-14 gallon range would be much more realistic for your situation. It'd be more stable in pretty much every conceivable way. * That said, I have a two gallon bucket sitting next to my tank stand full of fresh water for topoffs. Since I use RO/DI water, it's much more convenient to make a bucketful once a week and then just dole out from that instead of running the filter every day.
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Sep 30, 2008 20:37
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streetlamp posted:I have seen these and loved the concept but I saw many posts about people have problems with them leading to overflowing. Have you ever had a problem with it? Actually I have the opposite problem, sometimes it stops refilling even when the release line is open on the tank side. I'm fairly sure something's pinching it shut but I'm not sure where. quote:You filter your own water? Is this the most cost effective solution instead of buying jugs at the grocery store and the such? Over the long run, absolutely. I got my filter as a gift, but even if I'd purchased it myself in the first place, after the first year it would easily be around 25 cents per gallon. I don't know how much pet stores charge for RO/DI, but if it's that low I'd be amazed. PS, unless it's specifically advertised as reverse-osmosis/deionized, the filtered water from the grocery store may not be RO/DI. Distilled water isn't the same thing. quote:e: I just read earlier in the thread where you talked about your filtration setup. How often does the filter need to be changed on that?  I haven't had any diatom explosions so I guess my TDS is still fairly low, but I haven't done any filter changes in about two years of running the filter on a regular basis. My city tap water isn't terrible to begin with, that's probably helping.
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Sep 30, 2008 21:16
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I agree with every single word Psimitry said except these two:Psimitry posted:steel rods ...will corrode like a motherfucker in an aquarium. Rock formations like the one you posted are put together using PVC or some other type of acrylic rods as the backbone.
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Nov 10, 2008 15:59
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Vigilantly Vigorous posted:Just found out that ALL coral and anemone in Hawaii is illegal. What complete bullshit. That doesn't stop everyone from doing it though; there is a huge community of coral traders. I am still determined! Plus the fish are amazing! Do coral just randomly pop up on live rock sometimes or do I really need to get frags? Going for the "I didn't know it was there" defense? Interesting corals are fairly rare to find on bulk live rock, except sometimes nuisance corals like Psimitry said. If the coral trade community is that large, you should have no trouble getting frags from other aquaculturists. This lets you get what you want in your tank, and it's environmentally responsible.
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Nov 11, 2008 15:11
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I finally upgraded my nano tank's autotopoff from a sun tea jar to a DIY electronic solution. The writeup is here: http://csammisrun.net/blog/?page_id=229 I'll get better photos of the tank itself at some point.
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Dec 8, 2008 17:14
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VyperRDH posted:He claims that the fish store told him they were polyp coral and brain coral. These are mixed types of zoanthids. The ones with the green fringe and alternating gray/orange circles look like the same species I have in my tank, they're really nice-looking
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Dec 23, 2008 00:43
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Psimitry posted:There's a good chance the fish store was wrong. Yes. Invertebrates are especially intolerant of spikes during a cycle, which you will have as the organisms in the live sand and live rock die off. Google isn't telling me what "biomix" is, but unless it's something like BioSpira (a refrigerated colony of live nitrobacters), you're going to get a cycle. The best bet you have now is to watch the ammonia / nitrite / nitrate levels like a hawk and do water changes to keep things under control.
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Jan 20, 2009 17:05
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What kind of water are you using for changes? How often are you changing it? Is it hairy green algae or hard (diatoms)? Any skimming involved? There are critters that'll eat hair algae. I believe emerald crabs do a good job on it, as do lawnmower blennies. The trick is feeding them after the algae's gone
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Jan 20, 2009 17:26
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supercheesy posted:^^^ Sorry, meant to put that info in. I do 20% water changes every other week. I use tap water treated with AquaClear to remove chlorines and chloramines. I know it's not the best but I don't have a store around here that sells RO and I can't really afford a unit. I am not trying to do corals or anemones now. When I do, I will pick one up and get a more powerful light. No hair algae but I do get some hard algae occasionally. I scrub it off and it doesn't come back for another month or so usually. Diatoms are pretty common with tap water, and AquaClear or Prime or whatever won't get rid of them. The only thing you can really do about it in the long term is switch to RO/DI, otherwise scraping + water changes will mitigate the growth. You could also try cultivating some macroalgae like caulerpa. I think they absorb phosphates as well as nitrate/nitrite, but I'm not 100% sure on that.
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Jan 20, 2009 19:22
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Vitae posted:It's an experience, we learn as we go. I don't want to lecture, especially because I used to be guilty of this too, so I'll say it just once and let it go: there are enough reputable resources on the Internet, and likely near your home town, that you should never have to learn at the expense of the life of your tank and its inhabitants. Ask first, then back it up, then do.
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Jan 20, 2009 22:32
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Psimitry posted:They're not hard to build, but they do take some know-how, and precise measurement and cutting of your baffles as you can't really shave them down to get them to fit. Unless you use thin sheets of acrylic/plexi, in which case shaving them down is as simple as a Dremel with a sanding drum. I use this for baffles all the time and it works great. Baffles are also used to reduce flow in large areas, usually for in-sump refugiums. This is the general layout of my acrylic sump. code:csammis fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Jan 27, 2009 |
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Jan 27, 2009 14:18
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Vigilantly Vigorous posted:But I'm just so CHEAP:(! Then you, my friend, are going to find keeping a saltwater aquarium a living hell. This can be an expensive loving hobby if you're going to do it the right* way. *right being the way that causes minimum stress and maximum health to your tank
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Jan 31, 2009 02:09
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Four years ago I bought a Sea Clone skimmer for my office 10 gallon (shut up, they're not completely useless for small applications). I ran it for about a year with great success, but in that time it collected a ton of crap in the body - sediment, some coraline, calcifications, etc. Fast forward to today. The skimmer has been sitting in a box for three years and I neglected to clean it out after removing it from the tank because I am a giant tool. I'd like to get it clean now, but the drat thing doesn't come apart and there is a good deal of surface that I can't reach with a brush. I soaked it in very hot water last night, but that didn't help a lot. Any tips for something I can soak it in that won't etch the plastic or poison the poo poo out of anything the skimmer touches afterward? csammis fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Feb 24, 2009 |
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Feb 24, 2009 19:33
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Bah, my 10g is crashing and I'm not sure why. Over the past week both of my zoa frags have curled up and died, my mushrooms are looking pretty unhappy as well, and the water surface has developed an extremely noticeable film that a pair of Koralias aren't breaking up enough to be skimmed out. Water parameters are nominal except for slightly elevated nitrate that I've been combating with weekly water changes, but to no avail. I'm going to step it up to every-other-day changes and keep an eye on my cats to make sure they're not putting kitty-litter feet in the water Hopefully the tank rights itself - there's very little in it right now so I'm not worried about losing denizens, but I'm moving fairly soon and I'd like to get it stabilized before that particular trauma.
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Mar 16, 2009 15:44
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I wouldn't leave it sitting out all day, but you can make life easier for yourself. I take one of those cubes and one of those seven-day pill dispenser things, and divide up a week's worth of food. Then I put the pill dispenser back in the freezer and thaw what I need when I need it.
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Mar 24, 2009 16:43
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 02:15 |
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Kill_Discussion posted:I'm in the process of setting up my first SW tank. I had a freshwater tank for a couple years... Did you ever use copper-based medications? Even trace amounts of copper can kill invertebrates (snails, crabs, corals). I wouldn't re-used a FW tank for SW if I'd even suspected that it came into contact with copper.
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Sep 15, 2009 23:48
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