Alan's Rimless 75 build

[AlanM]

The pH is such a weird thing.  I put some very old Rowaphos in a reactor last night to try to get down my 1ppm PO4.  I ran it into a bucket at first to get most of the rust out and then ran it into the sump like normal.  It isn't making a difference so far on my PO4.  Probably because it's so old and kind of dried out. 

 

The skimmer head dropped way down, the pH initially dropped and now it's climbing way up.  We have the windows all open today.  I had a hard time believing that fresh air made that much of a difference.  Does it really?

[Origami]

Fresh air can make a lot of difference, yes. It mostly has to do with clearing out higher levels of ambient CO2 in the air around the tank. This allows the tank to "blow off" excess CO2 which raises pH.

[AlanM]

I always assumed it might be people chasing at shadows around their tank parameters, but now Ive seen it happen.

 

[YHSublime]

Hows the skimmer sitting?

[AlanM]

It was skimming yellow goo, but the level dropped way down when I put the old rowaphos into the sump. Not sure why. I am keeping my hands off the valves to see if it comes back rather than risk overflows

[lnevo]

Most changes to your tank will affect the skimmer. It's good to keep your eye on it after every maintenance. It's good with the skimmate locker, but it sucks to dump a full locker with light green water cuz your skimmer exploded after changing a filter sock

[AlanM]

So I didn't make it without putting any life in there.  I just went to QR, got three turbo snails and three little conchs.  Parameters are all getting better.  The conchs and snails are both pretty amazing little guys and are bulldozing down the diatoms and other fur growing in there. 

 

The turbo snails seem like they won't be any help with cleaning the sand since they rolled around on each other on the sand until they made it to rocks or glass.  Do they not like sand or have trouble moving around on it?  I have three islands, basically, and ended up with a snail on two and one on the glass, so I pried him off the glass and put him on rock number 3 which he's now going all over.  Fun.

[AlanM]

I've got green stuff growing now!!  Little brush type structures and kind of bright green stuff on some of the rocks.  The conchs and snails lived through my week of vacation and ate all of the brownish stuff that previously grew in there.  I'm happy that I have another color of fur growing in there.  Seems like progress. 

 

For you Apex gurus.  I have the following statements on my return pump outlet:

Fallback OFF 
Set ON 
If Power Apex Off 002 Then OFF 
If FeedA 000 Then OFF 
If FeedB 000 Then OFF 

which should turn it off if power is lost on the 12V adapter that plugs into the head unit for 2 minutes.  I lost power this morning for 24 seconds.  The head unit never rebooted because it was still getting power from the EB8 which is on UPS, yet it still turned off the return pump, lights, and other stuff for those 24 seconds as soon as the power went off.  I also didn't get the email, but I suspect it may be because of the dodgy UPS that I have running my router.

 

Anyone know why my return pump shut off even though the power was only down for less than 1 minute?  All I can think of is that the fallback statement triggered, but that's only supposed to happen if the head unit communication goes away, which it shouldn't have done.

[YHSublime]

I don't have an answer to your apex question, but I can say congrats on your new found algae color! I'm working on letting the 150 go fallow for as long as possible, which should seem reasonable, seeing as I already have a perfectly good tank to play with. I hope I will start seeing all the different things you are going through. Have you tested your water lately, I'd like to see how things are going after your initial cycle. 

 

As per Tom's suggestion based on what Tony Vargas spoke to our club about, and I think Rob recommended a few pages back on your thread, I'm going to see if I can go fallow for 3 months. How far along are you? I guess adding a CUC isn't part of that process, but non the less, I still think you're doing an amazing job at letting it ride. 

[AlanM]

Rob recommended full light cycle.  Tony Vargas recommended no light.  So there's a difference already.  Also, CUC is a difference, but I think Tony was talking about live rock or lots of seeding with sand and microfauna from an established tank.  In a tank with only dry rock, dry sand, and bottled bacteria it seems like you can bend Tony's rule and add some small stuff.

 

I'd like to get some micro brittle stars, worms, and more copepods, amphipods, mysis shrimp in there somehow, but am not sure how to go about it.  Does anyone have a recommendation for local stores with extra grungy live rock bins to pull some of that stuff from or should I put in an order from IPSF for some of that stuff?

 

The lights are definitely driving growth of algae in my tank at the moment.  I'm going to do the full battery of tests today, but it was good before I left on vacation. 

 

You can see the timeline of tests, if you're interested, at

 

http://www.aquaticlog.com/showcase/dashboard?aquariumId=2732

 

I enter every result into there.

[smallreef]

I would say if you can get a few scoops of an established tanks sand...you'll have a lot of those things your looking for...

as far as pods...see if someone is clearing out some chaeto or other macro and it should be teaming with life...

use or build a critter cage to put it in in your tank (so you don't mmagically get macro where you don't want it) but that the pods and such can get out and colonize...

[YHSublime]

Rob recommended full light cycle.  Tony Vargas recommended no light.  So there's a difference already.  Also, CUC is a difference, but I think Tony was talking about live rock or lots of seeding with sand and microfauna from an established tank.  In a tank with only dry rock, dry sand, and bottled bacteria it seems like you can bend Tony's rule and add some small stuff.

 

I'd like to get some micro brittle stars, worms, and more copepods, amphipods, mysis shrimp in there somehow, but am not sure how to go about it.  Does anyone have a recommendation for local stores with extra grungy live rock bins to pull some of that stuff from or should I put in an order from IPSF for some of that stuff?

 

The lights are definitely driving growth of algae in my tank at the moment.  I'm going to do the full battery of tests today, but it was good before I left on vacation. 

 

You can see the timeline of tests, if you're interested, at

 

http://www.aquaticlog.com/showcase/dashboard?aquariumId=2732

 

I enter every result into there.

 

Thanks for the link, very cool. I might have to set up something like that!

 

As for a little flex, I believe you're 100% correct. I don't know if I'll be able to make it as long as you have. I don't expect you'll get a lot of "grunge" from a LFS to be completely honest. I don't think any rock or sand has been sitting around one long enough to host and collect all those goodies that lurk about. Also, based on the movement of fish and other animals that come through a LFS, it seems like you would up the chances of introducing something bad. You would probably get a better collection of things from a cup full of other members sand, like Kim mentioned above. Take everything I say with a grain of salt, btw, none of it is factual or based on any real experience, it's just ramblings on what I think might be a good way to do something. Taking a cupful of sand from anywhere, not just an LFS can add something you don't want in your tank. That being said, I've added a cup of sand from several local members into my 57, and it has really helped. I agree about the cheeto and pods as well, my cheeto houses a plethora of pods, ask Richard about how I wasn't exaggerating the size range of what lurks inside that green bush. It's also a possibility to contract aptasia that way, but I figure if it's in the sump, who cares? I sectioned off part of my sump with eggcrate to keep the cheeto from getting sucked back up via the return, and put a par 38 right above it. 

[AlanM]

I'm going to get some chaeto from monkiboy this week.  Maybe I'll sneak out some substrate from him too. 8) 

 

I may make it the three months, but it sure is boring watching the lights ramp up and down each day while the snails and conchs hunt for something on the rock, glass and sand.  The glass is pretty messy, but I'm leaving it alone for now.  it's full of those tiny little hydroids that will apparently go away with time.  I still have 4ppm NO3 and 0.16ppm PO4.

 

I seem to be using up alkalinity without using up calcium, which is really high at 480ppm.  From an old Randy Holmes Farley article I read that is expected in a new tank without any coral because alk is used in the nitrogen cycle, but calcium isn't.  One of the pieces of liverock I got from Congressional a while ago has a bunch of purple on it, which I assume is coralline algae.  I may take a scraper to it to try to spread it around and get it growing on the rest of the stuff since my calcium is so high.

[YHSublime]

I can't speak to the pattern in which coraline grows, but it took over on all my rocks fairly quickly when I finished my cycle as well. My plan was to coat my back wall in coraline, and the sides as well. I ended up getting the most growth on my glass front and center. I presumed the same, since I wasn't using all that calcium, it was building on the rocks. I don't know if scraping it and expecting it to spread will work? I have heard that there are people that don't like the coraline growing, as it consumes that extra calcium you could otherwise source towards corals. IMO I like the look of it and my calcium levels usually don't drop below 440, with my clam, and a few SPS pieces.

[DCReefer1964]

Rob recommended full light cycle.  Tony Vargas recommended no light.  So there's a difference already.  Also, CUC is a difference, but I think Tony was talking about live rock or lots of seeding with sand and microfauna from an established tank.  In a tank with only dry rock, dry sand, and bottled bacteria it seems like you can bend Tony's rule and add some small stuff.

 

I'd like to get some micro brittle stars, worms, and more copepods, amphipods, mysis shrimp in there somehow, but am not sure how to go about it.  Does anyone have a recommendation for local stores with extra grungy live rock bins to pull some of that stuff from or should I put in an order from IPSF for some of that stuff?

 

The lights are definitely driving growth of algae in my tank at the moment.  I'm going to do the full battery of tests today, but it was good before I left on vacation. 

 

You can see the timeline of tests, if you're interested, at

 

http://www.aquaticlog.com/showcase/dashboard?aquariumId=2732

 

I enter every result into there.

Well I have alway used full Actinic Bulb

 

 lighting during the cycle stage with coraline seeding and Tropic Marin Bio Calcium overdosing .

[AlanM]

ORLY?  So you turned on all the deep blues and purples and did full light cycle with that and no other colors? 

 

Well I have alway used full Actinic Bulb

 

 lighting during the cycle stage with coraline seeding and Tropic Marin Bio Calcium overdosing .

[DCReefer1964]

Yes it has work since the days of 40w Flor bulbs.

[Origami]

During the initial nitrogen cycle, when you're trying to mature your bacteria-based biological filter, I see little benefit to lighting up the tank as it may just stimulate competing algae growth. Tanks, like  live rock in a garbage pail, cycle just fine in the dark. Once the cycle has completed and you add microfauna, then turning the light on may be beneficial because it will help fuel food sources for the microfauna.

[AlanM]

During the initial nitrogen cycle, when you're trying to mature your bacteria-based biological filter, I see little benefit to lighting up the tank as it may just stimulate competing algae growth. Tanks, like  live rock in a garbage pail, cycle just fine in the dark. Once the cycle has completed and you add microfauna, then turning the light on may be beneficial because it will help fuel food sources for the microfauna.

Thanks, Tom. That makes sense. It is definitely fueling food sources. Not too much, though, because I am only feeding the tank a little bit. Maybe I should dump a bunch in there and see if I can get a nice crop of fur.

[AlanM]

Conch is trying to escape.

 

[AlanM]

I am still following my plan of not adding fish for at least 90 days, but Rob just dropped a ton of life on me today. I reconfigured my sump, and put the skimmer, and reactors in an upper 20L tank drilled for a glassholes box (which I kind of hate because it is so noisy and will cap off and put in a herbie or something). That gave me a bunch of room in the sump for a fuge, so Rob (zygote2k) gave me his box full of deep sand bed, weird sponges, a ton of feather dusters, a big pink crab of some sort, apparetly some fire worms and a pistol shrimp.

 

Probably other stuff in there too. i dumped some of the stuff rattling around in the bottom of the bin I brought it homw with into the main tank too. Ended up being kind of a lot of little tubeworms/feather dusters. Fun stuff. Thanks Rob!

 

 

[BowieReefer84]

Coming along great!  Looking forward to seeing it stocked.

[Mattiejay6]

Awesome grunge!

[smallreef]

awesome life!

i love tank grunge,lol!

[AlanM]

Cute crab from Rob's sump container of grunge. Now that's what I call a redbug.