29 gallon Reef tank build

[McCarrick]

Hey all! I'm starting up a reef tank build for my new tank. I upgraded to a 29 gallon standard size tank from a 16 gallon biocube. I decided to upgrade after moving from California and my tank crashed in a bad way. I picked up this setup from craigslist and it now has been up and running for just over a month. This will likely be a slow build since in a college student and dont have a ton of extra "tank money". Additionally, the tank community is Wyoming is painfully small. The end goal is a mixed reef. Tank is still going through its ugly phase. The green hair algae is dying off it seems and red cyano came and went. Now it appears that I have green cyano.

Equipment
Lights: zoo med fixture with 2 t5 coralife bulbs. 1 actinic and 10k white (I have LEDs to upgrade but dont have a way to mount them yet)
Powerheads: 2- koralife 240
In tank skimmer. Not sure what the brand is
Filtration: fluval 306 canister filter with chemipure, purigen, gravel and bio- cylinders (I assume they are like bioballs but cylindrical).

Hardscape- mostly dry rock, seeded with a few pieces of live rock from my previous tank. Sand seeded with live sand from previous tank.

Current levels
Ammonia- 0
Nitrate -0
Nitrite-0
Phosphate - 0
Ph- 7.8
Calcium-440 ppm
Kh- 179ppm
All measured with api test kit

Salinity- .1022 ppt

Livestock
One zebra hermit crab
Black bar goby
Coral (miraculously survived tank crash)
One head of neon green candy cane
Few polyps of green button plays

 

[BackToTheReef]

There's a handful of Wyomingites here (including this former Wyoming resident!). Looks like you've got a good start.

 

[McCarrick]

There's a handful of Wyomingites here (including this former Wyoming resident!). Looks like you've got a good start.

I did meet one other person on here from Casper!
Thank you

 

[McCarrick]

I am in the process of trying to get rid of the algae on the sand and rocks. I think that its green cyano, which I've never had before. I gave the sand a good stir but it had popped right back up. I'm not exactly sure what its feeding off of. I also seem to have hair algae only on the trumpet coral and its irritating the head that I'm trying to get to recover. . The plan now is to shut off lights for 3 days and see what happens. I have some chemiclean that I have used to get rid of red cyano, but does it get rid of green also? I also need to build up a cleanup crew. I've been thinking about a tuxedo urchin. From what I've read though, it seems some people love them and some people get frustrated with them. Any input is greatly appreciated!

 

[McCarrick]

Measured tank parameters today and discovered an ammonia spike. This is likely due to overfeeding. I only have the one goby and I was worried he wouldn't find the food. I dosed some extra bacteria to try to help until I can do a water change. Ph is low, about 7.8.
Phosphate, nitrite and nitrate are still at 0. Completed the 3 date blackout and nothing has really changed. It hasn't gotten worse but it's definitely not better. Sand and rocks are still a mess.
Anyone have any suggestions on getting rid of the cyano? I removed the little bit of what I suspected to be bryopsis. We shall see if it comes back.
Thanks for viewing my thread! Any input is greatly appreciated

 

[McCarrick]

Ammonia back to 0 ppm today! I'm hoping to take a trip to the fish store either today or tomorrow to pick up more cuc. I also see a refractometer in my future. I always relied on my fluval hydrometer and then I acquired an instant ocean in a box of fish stuff. The instant ocean one I believe was much older than my fluval. I originally set up the tank using the instant ocean one. Wrongly assuming they should be the same. As a test a few weeks later I put some tank water an both and the results were frightening. I went back to only using my fluval since I had success with it before I assumed that it would be the more accurate one. Tossed the instant ocean one.

 

[McCarrick]

I picked up a peppermint shrimp that is very pregnant! I was not originally set up to take care of shrimp fry. My sister gave me a packet of sea monkey eggs awhile ago and I never hatched them. I've read that the shrimp fry eat baby brine shrimp. They're impossible to get where I'm at. If the shrimp hatch before the brines, I'll try to feed them the dry phyto that came with the brine shrimp. Heres a picture of my thrown together brine shrimp hatchery. We shall see what happens.

 

[BackToTheReef]

Ammonia back to 0 ppm today! I'm hoping to take a trip to the fish store either today or tomorrow to pick up more cuc. I also see a refractometer in my future. I always relied on my fluval hydrometer and then I acquired an instant ocean in a box of fish stuff. The instant ocean one I believe was much older than my fluval. I originally set up the tank using the instant ocean one. Wrongly assuming they should be the same. As a test a few weeks later I put some tank water an both and the results were frightening. I went back to only using my fluval since I had success with it before I assumed that it would be the more accurate one. Tossed the instant ocean one.

Be cautious with that style of hydrometer. Make sure to rinse it with freshwater after every use. It's a good idea to have another way to verify or "calibrate".

The 1st salt tank I had I only used that style and had readings all over the place and wasn't terribly accurate b/c I would dip and just chuck it into the stand after reading. Learned my lesson for the 2nd tank. The LFS I worked at had a refractometer that we used for our tanks and to test customer water. I brought in my hydrometer and tested it against the refractometer. The hydrometer was a little off but b/c I had tested it against something else I knew it was .002 off (can't remember which way) so I could adjust on the fly.

 

[McCarrick]

Be cautious with that style of hydrometer. Make sure to rinse it with freshwater after every use. It's a good idea to have another way to verify or "calibrate".

The 1st salt tank I had I only used that style and had readings all over the place and wasn't terribly accurate b/c I would dip and just chuck it into the stand after reading. Learned my lesson for the 2nd tank. The LFS I worked at had a refractometer that we used for our tanks and to test customer water. I brought in my hydrometer and tested it against the refractometer. The hydrometer was a little off but b/c I had tested it against something else I knew it was .002 off (can't remember which way) so I could adjust on the fly.

Right! I find I have to rinse it every time because the salt will make it stick! I dont have a lfs, the closest is petco in Cheyenne or the petco in ft. Collins, they're both equidistant from where I'm at. I've started looking into finding one online that doesnt break the bank. I saw one on Amazon for I believe just under $20. I didn't really realize exactly HOW inaccurate they can be until I had two to test. Reading more I've realized why people always say refractometer are better. Of course it's certainly better than nothing!
I've always kept my salinity right at about .022 but lately have been reading about other reefers keeping it upwards at around .026. The only reason I kept it at .022 is because that's right in the middle of the "good" section on the hydrometer. And if you do a quick google search it seems to be what it comes up with, but it also doesnt seem to be what people prefer across the board. Thank you for participating in my thread!

 

[BackToTheReef]

The BRS ones are fairly reasonable at under $40 but it looks like they are both out of stock.

Well, having driven between Cheyenne to Laramie in a 26' moving truck w/ a car trailer in spring after/during a storm I think I'd prefer the drive to Fort Collins! It was less stressful from Laramie to Ft. Collins in a 28' w/ a car trailer and Ft. Collins is slightly bigger than Cheyenne! lol

 

[McCarrick]

Good to know! Especially now that we're heading into the snowy season here. The people in both stores are very friendly. Cheyenne restocked every week and it's easy to put an order in with them. Ft. Collins just redid their entire aquatic center and so far they have a nicer coral tank. Not that its wonderful, but it's not covered in algae and aiptasia. At least last I saw! Where did you move to from Wyoming? If you dont mind me asking!

 

[BackToTheReef]

I moved back to Ohio after being in Pinedale for a year. Getting ready to move to Wisconsin. I'm a gluten for punishment.

 

[McCarrick]

I moved back to Ohio after being in Pinedale for a year. Getting ready to move to Wisconsin. I'm a gluten for punishment.

My best friend lives in Wisconsin. You're already used to the cold so it probably wont be that much worse! Haha

 

[McCarrick]

My peppermint is much more active this morning. I started turning off the filters and powerheads overnight since I dont have anything that will be harmed by a few hours overnight. Her eggs arent green, but they're not as voluminous as I thought they would be. They're also not as dark as I thought they would be.

 

[McCarrick]

Stopped by Petco today and picked up a chestnut cowrie and a second peppermint shrimp. I'm hoping that petco will be able to get in a fire goby next week. They also had a small, maybe inch across, red tuxedo urchin. If I had seen it earlier I would have purchased it as well! If it is still there next week I may pick it up. Hopefully the cowrie will be helpful in cleaning up some of the algae off of the hardscape and sand. I read in another thread that they will eat briopsis, I hope that Is the case since I believe that there are a few strands of it hanging around. And have read that briopsis is more stubborn than hair algae. I never had it in my last tank but I certainly had my war with hair algae. Does anyone have experience with cowries?

 

[McCarrick]

We have babies! I noticed that my shrimp had moved to a new location after the lights went out and so I made sure to turn my filter off. Woke up and saw lots of little shrimp. I expected her to release all of her eggs but it looks like she still has most of them. I took all that I could see out with a turkey baster and put them into a 2.5 gallon tank. I will probably move her to the same tank that the babies are in. My brine shrimp eggs never hatched, possibly due to age. I have new eggs coming in the mail tomorrow. In the mean time, I took some of the food for the brine shrimp, which I believe is just phytoplankton, and mixed it with some mysis shrimp. I know the mysis shrimp are far too big for them but there are lots of little particles that are in the water also. Itty bitty particles of mysis. I took out any large pieces of shrimp. I have no clue how to tell if they're eating or not
On a side note, I have decided to name my two shrinp Fred and Wilma.

 

[McCarrick]

Okay so some mistakes were made. I lost all the babies over night.
1. Should have ordered my new brine shrimp eggs 1 day sooner.
2. Babies cannot touch the bottom or they die
I have my brine shrimp eggs now. Online says that you should enrich them but newly hatch bbs cant eat yet. So maybe the solution is to just add in some phytoplankton with the bbs. I expect the next batch in as little as 2 weeks since she has to molt every time. As far as circulation goes to keep them moving, I will place a fine mesh over the intake of the tank and hope they dont get stuck to it. If they do, I will switch to just putting an air stone in the pump compartment. The air should be enough to pull the water through the filter.

 

[McCarrick]

Happy thanksgiving!

Especially thankful for @BackToTheReef for always reading my posts on this thread.

 

[McCarrick]

I finally got the urchin that I've been thinking about for the last month. Hes about 1/2 inch across. Does anyone know how quickly they grow?
Hair algae got a little out of hand when I was gone over the holiday

 

[McCarrick]

Added fish! Bengaii cardinal, caramel ocellaris, normal ocellaris, and royal gramma. They're all pretty small. The royal gramma is hiding and I'm still battling gha.