The saga continues

[ViciousDlishus]

New here on r2r and hoping I can share my journey with the rest of you while keeping track of my new build.

My first foray into salt started as a poor student back in 2005. Mixed results with minimal effort, lost the tank after a poorly planned move and I've been out since about 2009.

For this tank I'm looking to establish a stable, healthy, and pest free oasis for my critters. Looking at a mixed reef with plenty of fish. I'm wanting to put a greater emphasis on the chemistry side of things and hope this will help me find the sweet spot for coral growth.

On to the equipment...
Display is a 40 x 20 x 20 3 pane starphire with black back. Almost coast to coast overflow with a Herbie overflow and dual returns.

Sump is 36 x 24 and relatively boring so a picture will do.

Filled 'er up on Saturday and have about 90 gallons total water volume.

Have 2 200w ehiem heaters and a jaebo 4000 return feeding my manifold.

Still on the lookout for lights, skimmer, ato and water mover. Leaning towards 2x ocean revives, bubble Magus curve 7, tunze osmolator and gyre 230. Thoughts?

Parameters as of today
Temp 79
Salinity 1.022 (at time of tests, have brought it up to 1.025)
Ph 7.6
Ammonia .2
Nitrite .05
Nitrate 0

Wondering if my ph is low cause I'm not running a skimmer at the moment or my low salinity or just cause hasn't cycled yet.

Should I keep testing all these daily or just focus on ammonia and Nitrite untell I see some spikes.

Introduce yourself I'd love some input! Now photos!

 

[KJ]

Welcome to R2R!!! Looking good

 

[Idoc]

Looks great! Can't wait to see it fill up with some life after the cycle.

 

[prsnlty]

Welcome to Reef 2 Reef! Looking good so far

 

[Tahoe61]

Welcome to R2R.

 

[ViciousDlishus]

Ammonia still at .2 and Nitrite .05. Appears Im getting a bacteria bloom and was hoping that my numbers would have changed as a result... No such luck.

Ive done some more research and Im hesitant to go for the bubble magus given reviews. Sounds like they are rather touchy. What are thoughts on the reef octopus classic models?

In other news I actually fixed an old 48 inch 6 bulb Tek light I had laying around. I dont think this is a long term solution given the tank is only 40 inches long and bulbs for a year are equivalent to 1 Ocean Revive.

Lastly I have some questions about Coral QT lights. Are there any issues with using old bulbs? Im assuming that QT lights just need to be enough to keep things alive for 76 days.

 

[ViciousDlishus]

Still not much activity on the chemistry front. I think I was expecting a magic bacteria fairy to smell the bio s. No such luck.

In the meantime I've found the red sea tests to be fairly simple and like them over the salifert ones I've used in the past (ten years ago).

Getting started on the stand "skin" and will get some photos out once I've cleaned up my workspace a bit.

Threw the salvaged tek light on so I could get some pictures. It felt real when I saw those beautiful blues light up for the first time. I don't know what I'm going to do at this point as I was leaning towards led to avoid bulb purchases. Also not too keen in a 48 inch fixture on a 40 inch tank. Wonder if a 36 inch setup would provide enough coverage.

Anyways. Photos.

 

[ViciousDlishus]

Still not much activity on the chemistry front. I think I was expecting a magic bacteria fairy to smell the bio s. No such luck.

In the meantime I've found the red sea tests to be fairly simple and like them over the salifert ones I've used in the past (ten years ago).

Getting started on the stand "skin" and will get some photos out once I've cleaned up my workspace a bit.

Threw the salvaged tek light on so I could get some pictures. It felt real when I saw those beautiful blues light up for the first time. I don't know what I'm going to do at this point as I was leaning towards led to avoid bulb purchases. Also not too keen in a 48 inch fixture on a 40 inch tank. Wonder if a 36 inch setup would provide enough coverage.

Anyways. Photos.

Photos didn't appear to work. Lets try this.

 

[ViciousDlishus]

Ammonia is up to .4 today nitrates still at .05... And the wait continues.

Working on the stand today, starting to take shape. Should fill and sand tomorrow and hope to paint shortly. Looking for recommendations on paint at the moment. Would like something with a lacquer type finish. Probably end up using something oil based.

 

[ViciousDlishus]

Levels as of today (day 13 with shrimp)
Temp 77.5 (I did add 5 gal of top off prior to testing)
Ph 8.0
Ammonia .2
Nitrite .1
Nitrate 2

Should I leave the shrimp in there or pull it out and watch my ammonia levels in the coming days?

 

[mcarroll]

Looking at a mixed reef with plenty of fish. I'm wanting to put a greater emphasis on the chemistry side of things and hope this will help me find the sweet spot for coral growth.

FISH
A smaller fish load will be much easier to manage....work slowly up to your theoretical max fish population so you can stop adding if things get to be too much for you or the tank or the design. (Going slow rules! Makes everything easier and helps you learn more.)

CORALS
Corals are easy if you don't get into the trendy methods. Get a dosing pump – any dosing pump – for your alk, calcium and magnesium.

NUTRIENTS
Do not starve the tank or buy into the "UNLS" concept in any way shape or form, IMO. Use any nutrient reduction tools infrequently and with extreme moderation.

A persistent need for additional nutrient reduction probably indicates a bio-load that is too large. Fast-growing algae + a good CUC should be able to handle things. Under low nutrients it seems like most algae become less palatable to CUC and sometimes actual harmful (toxic) algae will bloom with preference to low nutrient environments.

 

[ViciousDlishus]

Ive posted my work in progress fish list in the fish section (albeit in the wrong subsection) and here is what Im thinking so far.

Midas blenny
Clown (TBD) gold stripe maroon or lightning maroon (single) OR Darwin or Picasso (pair) - leaning towards the less aggressive pair options sadly
Hawkfish (TBD) flame, long nose, geometric pygmy or falco - who is going to be less murderous
Wrasse (TBD) mystery, leopard, yellow coris, potentially a flasher/fairy - would these 4 be to many? if too many ill probably skip the flasher
Purple tilefish
Male lyretail
Copperband butterfly
Angel (TBD) African flameback, lemonpeel, eible, flame or rusty (pick two)
White Tail Bristletooth or similar Ctenochaetus

Looking for some suggestions on potential green or blue fish.

Thoughts on the order? any other comments appreciate!

 

[ViciousDlishus]

Day 24

Ammonia 0
Ph 8
Temp 82 went up cause I threw some lights on today
Nitrite 0.15
Nitrate 0

Put a temporary gravity fed at with eshopps float on today. Looking for a used tunze and will replace when I find one.

Stand is getting painted and almost ready to go. Ended up doing 2 panels rather than the 3 I originally had drawn up. The one against the wall will be used to mount electronics and the other will be detachable for access during maintenance. Used dowels to fix the two together and magnets to hold the front panel tight to the stand.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Welcome to R2R! Looks like you've got a good start going!

 

[ViciousDlishus]

Ammonia at 0, Nitrite still above 0... Tick tock ...

Got the stand finalized. Or so I thought. Hinges I used weren't perfect for the application. Should get that sorted in the next few days.

Electrical is coming together but I'll need to work on the extra cords. Planning on mounting the components and controllers on the left panel of the stand.

 

[ViciousDlishus]

Getting a film on the top of my water and some scum around the overflows and tank edges. Think I need to get a skimmer running sooner rather than later.

Im also starting to see some small green algae growth sporadically throughout the rockwork. Never thought I would be happy to see algae.

In other news I have a 30 gallon with a HOB filter that Im going to be using for a fish QT. Have a sponge in my overflow at the moment hopefully soaking up as much bacteria as it can handle.

Hoping to get some electrical work completed in the basement so I can get the QT up and running and get some fish going!

 

[ViciousDlishus]

Starting to get some algae growth! A few months from now this will be the last thing I'll be celebrating.

 

[ViciousDlishus]

Nitrite is rising which is odd because i was at 0 and havent added any ammonia source since. I stopped testing ammonia because i was waiting for Nitrite to fall. Maybe ill do a test and see or ghost feed and see what i get.

I also picked up some more rock and rescaped. I think i added some more depth and focal points. Best of all more room for corals.

Also picked up some equipment that Ill update later!

 

[ViciousDlishus]

Its been a minute since my last update so lots to say.

Im still seeing Nitrites so Idont think I had enough nutrients to get the spikes required. Really itching to get at it considering I'm around 60 days.

Picked up the following equipment.
Vertex omega 150 - major PIA getting this tuned. Very touchy and not overly quiet.
Tunze osmolator
Gyre xf 230 - im surprised by how loud this thing is but its doing a good job pushing water
Evergrow it5080 32 aka reefbreeder photon v2 32 - the preset modes arent great IMO. Going to have to find a schedule and program it. Overall looks very well built.

Spent a ton of time fishing and untangling wires which is why they recomend setting everything up before water I suppose!

Also installed a vintage piece of equipment known as the aquacontroller jr. Temp ph and timers. Should do the trick for now!

 

[ViciousDlishus]

Ive set up a few differnet scenarios on my controller.

1 feed - skimmer, pumps, ato shut offs
2 dosing - skimmer off
3 photos - pumps off
4 maintenance - everything but heat and lights off

Anyone else have recomended "macros" or scenarios that they find helpful?