Aquastudent

Awesome. Thanks Sublime. I didn't realize chalices were known for sweeper tentacles. I'm surprised it and the sinularia haven't had issues yet. I'll see if I can better place the chalice. The sinularia has done well to dig in. I did recently pick up some instant ocean epoxy. I think I'll be able to take a dremel and grind off the pin on the plugs. Then I can more easily mount it somewhere with the epoxy. It's tricky trying to visualize how everything will grow. Thanks for the guidance. Eventually I would like to have something like a hammer or a torch for that extra movement, color, and anemone-like features. I'll see if I can clear up space for that. Not sure if I'll be able to do it.

It's been a quite a few months since the last update. Had the opportunity to see some of you at the Winter meeting. It was fantastic listening to Wayne Scott speak. He's got a great story to tell. I am still using stock lighting and return pump. As rt502 said, the tank settled down and the algae blooms stopped. It's not quite as well balanced as my freshwater tank but getting there. Fauna is currently only at a Picasso Clownfish. The Fire Red shrimp never seemed to flourish. My tank may not have been mature enough. He went through one molt but died shortly after (the molt didn't seem to have failed so I think I rushed things). The corals seem to be doing well. Current stocking includes Sinularia Zoanthids Blastomusa Green Star Polyp Hollywood Stunner Chalice - Thank you to whoever donated these at the Fall Meet-up. Green Mushroom Ricordea Blue Ridge Coral Trying to keeping it nice and simple as I learn the basics of this hobby. The Zoanthids and GSP have grown quite well and are already spreading onto the rock. The Blasto has just recently started sending out another head. My current challenge is finding the best way to secure the corals to the rockwork. I want to get everything in a good position so I can stop having to pick them up off the substrate if they get bumped. I do not think I got the best rock for mounting coral because the holes aren't large enough to fit the frag plugs. I created some custom frag mounts using airline tubing and magic-sculpt. They still need some work. I'm considering taking a 3/8" drillbit and putting in a bunch of holes around the rock. Thoughts?

Another crazy idea. If you know this is going to be a permanent addition then empty the tank and remove it from the stand. Place the sump underneath the stand by either going in through the top or placing the sump in the spot and putting the stand on top of it (go through the bottom). Doing it this way means you don't have to modify the stand but means your only way of ingress or regress is with the tank removed. Still, it means the stand will work as designed. I would be concerned about removing the center support. You don't necessarily need a center support on a 4 foot tank but I prefer one. If you decide to go the reinforcement method your focus will be figuring out how to transfer the force from the center to the outer edges. A frame of 2x4 resting on top of 2x4 supports in the corners would likely work. One final thought is to consider how the doors would be affected.

Everything has been a bit stagnant over the past month. I am concerned that the GSP and mushrooms aren't doing well. There is something off in the tank and I'm not sure what it is. Nitrates are still reading negligible. I'm currently fighting blooms of cyanobacteria but fortunately (or perhaps not) much of the previous algae variants seem to be under control. My stocking is currently 1x Picasso Clownfish 1x Fire Red Shrimp CUC of mostly snails. I added a couple of small hermits but I haven't seen them for awhile. One of the upgrades I would like to do in the near future is to turn the second chamber in the filter into a mini refugium. I'd like an area to grow some macros and may try to find some bits of the super porous cube rock for it. Attaching a light to the back wall could give the energy required for the macros while I can cover up the panel so I don't have to see it. Additionally, I want to close up some of the top baffles to improve the flow through the filter. I feel it's rather poorly designed as the first block can be nearly entirely avoided. I also don't have many places to place coral plugs in my current reef rock. I built some custom frag plugs that use an airline tubing as the stand. I think taking a drillbit to the reef rock will provide a bunch of places to move corals around while retaining the look of the rock. Questions for the forum: 1) Is there a usual indicator/trigger for cyanobacteria (flow, phosphates, calcium, gold (jk))? 2) Is the best course of method for fighting cyanobacteria/red slime waterchanges (to restore/remove whatever the imbalance is)? 3) Are there any recommendations on building the refugium? Thanks!

Thanks much Rt! It's funny how tanks stabilize like that. My 75G has a huge Central American cichlid in it who is super messy but I barely have to clean the glass, maybe once a month. Big waterchanges there help though. I'm hoping the zoas are able to rebound and open up. I'm thinking this weekend I'm going to turn the lights off before I do my waterchange. That way this algae will melt away into the water column so I can remove at least some of it. Make some room for some new algae to grow :D I'm all for learning all the lessons that everybody receives with their first tank...I'd just prefer to not learn the hard way! Thanks again for the help!

Before I get into the text here are the results from my latest water test. I tested the params using an API liquid test kit (high range): Temp:78 degF (I would like to lower this to 77 or 76) Specific Gravity: 1.026 (I hope to get down to 1.024 in the next month or so) pH: 8.2 Nitrate: Reads 0 ppm or near 0. Calcium: 400 ppm Carbonate Hardness kH: 179 ppm, dKH: 10 Phosphate: 0.25 ppm (could be less, I could tell there was at least a little color) Ammonia: 0 ppm Nitrite: 0 ppm My first marine fish is in the tank! I picked up a nice looking Davinci Snowflake clown (B Grade). The movement of a clownfish is definitely fun to watch. The CUC now consists of two trochus snails, two cerith, and one each of astrea and nassarius. Most of the corals from Fragfest seem to be doing well. The mushrooms still look green and mushroomy. The blue ridge coral spits out some tentacles when the lights are on, and whatever the whiteish soft stem coral is (I'm thinking it's a Sinularia coral) is doing well but keeps getting pulled from the plug. It got knocked over by one of the snails and now needs to be reattached. The coral I was calling a "blue star polyp" disintegrated pretty quickly. I wasn't able to get it on a plug the first night and I don't think it ever really recovered. A couple weeks ago I added a green star polyp (definitely doesn't look like what I was calling a "blue star polyp" before) and a small set of zoanthids. The zoas don't seem to be adjusting as well as I would have hoped. It's not in a heavy flow but the polyps don't seem to be fully opening and many remain closed. I'm a bit concerned. I am having trouble with an algae bloom. It's a green dusty algae, looks like diatoms but not as dark. The algae melts away when the lights turn off which clouds the water. I find it strange that Nitrates are so low. They have steadily been declining since the cycle finished. This is definitely different that freshwater and there shouldn't be any anaerobic bacteria yet, right? I'm thinking the algae is consuming the nitrates.

That's looking awesome. The colors look great!

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I think I'm going to go with a single/pair of Clowns. I was looking at some of the variants ocellaris. I love the snowflake and regular ocellaris clowns. If adding a pair is it best to add at the same time or just make sure that they are two different sizes when the second is added? I don't want to overload the tank but it's also easier to get two at once. It was great meeting some of you at Fragfest this weekend! I dipped the corals when I got home but didn't have my plugs until today. Got them secured down as best I could. The corals are sitting on the sandbed receiving light water cirulation. Figured that would be the best place to start and I can move them to a higher location after some adjustment time. Unfortunately, in all the chaos I forgot a couple of the names of the corals. I believe this one is a Green Montipora. I hope I attached it in such a way that it'll be able to expand. This one I think is a Blue Ridge Coral. Stupid me. I think I had the wrong picture in my mind and should have glued it vertically instead of horizontally. Should I adjust it or did I get lucky and not mess it up? The next two I'm completely stuck on. I tried looking through a list of common corals but most of them are pictures with polyps out. Are these Blue Star Polyps? Most of the stems seem to have fared ok. One step at a time!

Thanks for the update! Congrats on the new one coming! I bet they're going to love the tank. It's understandable that life takes over :D The tank still is looking great. This is super helpful for me because I can see what the possibilities are. The softies and LPS seem to be doing quite well! Will you be attending Frag Fest?

This tank looks incredible! How has it been doing over the past half year? I was thinking of modeling my Evo after your tank. The stocking is exactly what I had in mind long term.

I tested the parameters and the cycle is done. I can't believe how quickly that went! I picked up a Trochus snail to start with my CUC and help expand the bacteria colony. Diatoms have definitely latched on. I expect they will go away once the tank stabilizes. Now I must be honest. I don't know what I'm going to stock the tank with. My original idea was a firefish (either standard or purple) but I do love the movement of oscellaris clowns. I'm open to suggestions For CUC I plan on going with a couple of a few different snails (trochus, asterea, cerith) and eventually a fire shrimp or red cleaner shrimp.

This setup looks fantastic! You're definitely going to have fun with this project! The tank looks clean. I would think the rinse with tap water would have cleaned out most of the dust/junk from the factory/shipping but a bit of acid probably wouldn't hurt. You're in Leesburg so as long as you don't get your water pumped from NW DC I would think you'd be fine. That's going to be a lot of RODI...

This sounds like an awesome project! That's a bummer that there was water damage in the walls. Are you able to get some support from the previous owners or is that all cleared? Good call with keeping the 55G away from the mess. It'll give you space to work.

Perfect. I started feeding the invisible fish in my tank a bit ago since I assumed there needed to be an ammonia source. I literally was going to mention the peeing in the tank method on my previous post because I had heard of folks doing that in the FW hobby. I don't think I want to go that far for my hobby. We have to draw a line somewhere. My ammonia was up around 1 ppm and I had measurable nitrite a few days ago. I'm going to be testing the water again today to see how things are progressing. I also picked up some of the "bacteria in a bottle." I have always been able to use cycled media when I started a new freshwater tank so I have never had the opportunity to try this style product. I wanted to see if this will have a big effect on the cycle. I don't really have a control so it's not really an experiment...but perhaps something will stick out. The aragonite is the sugar grained version. I love the way it feels and looks but it does blow around quite easily and still isn't perfectly dust free. I'm having trouble getting the flow through the tank to work just right. The pump from the "sump" is not pushing water around much. I added a Hydor 425 but I probably should have gone with the 240. It would be nice to have two pumps that I can hook up to a controller and get a more turbulent action. Those are great potential upgrades for the future. I'm hoping to get this cycle completed before the July meet-up. It will be close... Thanks all for the help and suggestions.

Awesome! Thanks for the advice guys! I will try and pick up a small piece of live rock this weekend. I'm curious though, what feeds the cycle if there's nothing in the tank? I'm guessing there's some decaying organic matter even on the dry rock while it's curing but is that what's required to start the cycle? I would have thought there would need to be external nutrients added to feed the bacteria colony. What I'm really interested to learn with this hobby is the chemistry involved in these tanks. Origami, that's an interesting thought that didn't occur to me. I don't remember seeing anything precipitate out but I still have the second 5G bucket of 4x concentrated water in my closet. I can check to see what's precipitated out. I don't have a powerhead or pump running in it so I wouldn't be surprised if something has settled out.

Thanks. I'm looking forward to tracking the progress. If I add a piece of live rock will that give the tank an extra boost to the bacteria? I have seeded new freshwater tanks by using filter media from an established tank but don't know if it translates.

I'm creating this to hopefully limit my inevitable mistakes as I explore this hobby. I'm limited on space at the moment but am going to gain some experience with this Fluval Evo 13.5. I picked up a bit over 13 pounds of uncured dry rock and too large of a bag of fine aragonite sand. I washed it about 10x over but probably should have just taken it outside and used the hose. The tank was cloudy for about a day. Now for the funny story. I have a few 5G buckets that I plan on keeping fresh/salt water and doing any mixing in. To fill up the tank I read the instructions. For the reef crystals they say, "1/2 cup for every gallon." Well, I quickly did the math in my head. I have a degree in mathematics so this was just simple arithmetic. 1/2 cup for every gallon, that means 10 cups for the 5 gallon bucket. I'm scooping this salt and thinking to myself, "This is a crazy amount of salt..." After the first 5 gallons went into the tank and I nearly emptied the bag of salt on my second 5 gallon bucket I rechecked my math. Yup, I'm an idiot. Well, getting the concentration down from 4x the limit with a limited number of buckets was quite a fun time. After a bit of problem solving I now have a super concentrated bucket of saltwater that I'll be diluting down for the forseeable future. DUMB DUMB DUMB DUMB! The dry rock was fun to scape with. These rocks are definitely more difficult to manipulate than the river stones I'm used to in freshwater. Fitting together puzzle pieces which don't really fit together to make something stable is...tricky. I hope this scape gives something interesting to look at, caves for any future inhabitants, and coral spots for the future. My test kit should be arriving soon and I'll keep close tabs on the params and check the salinity with the refractometer. My remaining purchases include a better heater (one that fits in chamber 3) and an RODI unit. Please let me know if you have any recommendations. I'm going to be searching the marketplace for an RODI unit and seeing what Ebay has to offer. I also need to build the filter chamber. I'm out of bio media since my move so I'll have to rebuild my stockpile...unless I can just throw in some Kordon Kaldness and call it a day (no fluidized action). This is the start and I'm looking forward to getting the cycle going. I hope I can get everything done before Frag Fest.

This is such a crazy and snagging story. Keep going and best of luck to you! Coyote you have just corrected water right next to the boat launch to satisfy the trooper (of course that could just %$#* him off)?

I've been looking for a new (to me) local shop. Looking forward to checking y'all out. I'm coming alone. Let me know if y'all need any help. Thanks for hosting this event!

Hello WAMAS. Looking forward to next week's meeting. I have been brainstorming and researching for the past few months on building a custom aquarium controller using an arduino. This first build would be for a freshwater tank but the concepts can be expanded to a marine system in the future. Right now the design would be to: monitor tank temperature (possibly at multiple locations, perhaps top and bottom) monitor room temperature use the tank temperature to control the heaters and prevent over-heating temperature status lights to visually alert if the temperature is out of the desired range (Blue=cold, green=happy, red=hot) float-switch to notify if water level drops (leak) webcam image of the aquarium organize all the data into an excel file and automatically email daily updates, track changes automatically send an email alarm if one of the above triggers fires Other features I would like to include but am not sure of the best way to do it is a pH, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate probes. If used on a planted tank the gH, kH, and dissolved C02 would also be nice to track. Some measurements that may be nice to track over time or features to include on a reef monitor that I could think of would be: Salinity Conductivity Calcium PAR meter (although this may be difficult to hide) Some alert on a protein skimmer? light controls (this wouldn't work with my current systems but if you built them together from the start this would be nice) pump controls I'm curious, what would you like to have automatically tracked in your aquarium? If anybody has any experience with this type of project I would love to discuss it with you.

These are awesome!

The build threads are one of the most dangerous places on this forum! I can't wait! One of the reasons I decided to get into fishkeeping was the diversity of the hobby. There are so many DIY projects that one can encounter and the problems that arise are so much fun to solve.

I'm so happy this is such an active group! I would go FOWLR but I don't think that would satisfy me long term. I would rather go straight to reef because that's the way it works, right? The fish get you into the hobby but the coral keeps you coming back! I'm fine with taking it slowly. I've been watching videos by Bulk Reef Supply and Tidal Gardens on the youtubes. I'm finding them both quite enlightening. I was thinking about it more and I really like the dimensions of the 4' 120G tank. The extra 6" from front-to-back makes a huge difference. A 4' tank is also easier to find wallspace for. I suppose that's more of a down the line decision though. It's tempting to build a tank too. I helped my dad put together his ~120G acrylic tank. We definitely learned a lot. I'm more of a glass person than acrylic though. Will take a good look at Tony Vargas' book. Looks like a good read and is cheap on Amazon! I'm all for that!

Hello WAMAS, I've been keeping freshwater fish for a bit over seven years, not including the 10g I had growing up. My current tank is a 75G with an Amphilophus trimaculatus. I hope to get him in a 6' tank this summer once I can expand my space a bit. Sometime this year I hope to expand into saltwater too. I can't wait to read up more on the info here and hopefully get to meet some of you next month! Will be joining the official forum ranks soon. $20 is a small investment for such large gains. I haven't been in the hobby long but I do appreciate that it's not an entirely solitary endeavor. The goal would be to have a tank cycled by the end of the year. If there's anything I learned in the freshwater hobby is it's best to do something right the first time and be patient. I want to start with a 90+ gallon tank (preferably a 6' 125 or larger), with a designated QT, and the ability to make easy waterchanges. My current locale isn't good on space so until then I'll absorb knowledge like a sponge. Other than browsing the topics and journals on here, does anybody have any websites or literature (I would love a book with pictures!) they would recommend? The amount of information available is a bit overwhelming and, while techniques need to be adjusted for individual tanks, I'd like to learn about standard practices to start from. To make this post somewhat pretty here's my Trimac named Ragnar (yes, I broke the Cardinal rule of not naming fish, but he's a wet-pet). I hope I'm not breaking two rules of the forums 1) Posting a picture of a FW fish and 2) the fake plant in the tank! This is the first time I've had a fake plant in any tank I've owned. Had to see if I like the green. I think it's coming out next waterchange. Thanks!