Build thread - converting 75 gallons fresh to salty

[Idech]

Bummer. This morning we had a power failure that lasted 1 1/2 hour. I put a battery operated air stone in the tank and it scared the kole tang. He stayed in his cave the whole time.

When it was over he came to eat and ate his 3 meals as usual. But in the evening I noticed he was dashing in the tank and doing a weird kind of dance. It looked like he was flashing but I’m not sure if I saw correctly from afar but he wasn’t touching the rocks.

I looked and there are no white dots on him, or anything suspicious.

I’ll be watching him close tomorrow. I hope it’s okay. I’m just about done dealing with the blenny that was in contact with brook in the hospital tank so I’d like to be done with that. Sigh.

 

[Idech]

The tang is fine. I think he’s just really sensitive to stress.

Today is when the 6 weeks fallow ended in my Evo. I also decided it was time the blenny got out of the hospital. He was in there six weeks as well and I did 2 general cure rounds on him. I am paranoid after the brook episode.

So before transferring the blenny, I transferred the last three rocks from the Evo to my DT (this tank). The plan was to first try the pulsing xenia that were on a rock and if they do well, transfer the rest of the softies.

While grabbing the rock I discovered some hosts under them. I believe they are bristle worms and for sure they are in my DT as well. After panicking a while, I calmed down and figured they’re part of reefing. I’ll get a fish or invert that eats them and I should be okay.

I was amazed that the little blenny got comfortable within 30 minutes, even chasing much bigger fish than him. I wonder if he recognized the smell and feel of the rocks he used to live in ? Maybe.

So here is what the tank looks like after adding the 3 rocks and my GSP (I had 2 as a test, so now have 3). I love GSP, even thought its invasive.

I’m not satisfied with the rockscape now and I will have to play with it some more. I had done enough for today.

 

[CanuckReefer]

The tang is fine. I think he’s just really sensitive to stress.

Today is when the 6 weeks fallow ended in my Evo. I also decided it was time the blenny got out of the hospital. He was in there six weeks as well and I did 2 general cure rounds on him. I am paranoid after the brook episode.

So before transferring the blenny, I transferred the last three rocks from the Evo to my DT (this tank). The plan was to first try the pulsing xenia that were on a rock and if they do well, transfer the rest of the softies.

While grabbing the rock I discovered some hosts under them. I believe they are bristle worms and for sure they are in my DT as well. After panicking a while, I calmed down and figured they’re part of reefing. I’ll get a fish or invert that eats them and I should be okay.

I was amazed that the little blenny got comfortable within 30 minutes, even chasing much bigger fish than him. I wonder if he recognized the smell and feel of the rocks he used to live in ? Maybe.

So here is what the tank looks like after adding the 3 rocks and my GSP (I had 2 as a test, so now have 3). I love GSP, even thought its invasive.

I’m not satisfied with the rockscape now and I will have to play with it some more. I had done enough for today.

Ya don't worry too much about the bristles, a fact of life for reefers for a long time! They are manageable and in some cases beneficial.

As for the rocks don't sweat it too much either. You look similar to my setup, I am always wanting to grow a bit higher with the scape, and I am sure you are same. It will come. You can play with it a bit throughout your reefing 'career' imo....key is species are thriving, and I'm seeing some life flitting about the reef. Great work thusfar!

 

[Idech]

Today I’ve transferred the rest of the corals from the Evo to this tank. There were 2 duncans, 1 frogspawn, 2 green rodactis mushroom and 2 orange discosomas + a tiny one. One orange discosomas isn’t glued and it won’t stay where I put; it likes to travel. I can’t even find it anymore.

There were 3 cerith snails and 1 nassarius that also changed home. When I get the courage, all that’s left to do is dismantle the Evo and put it back in it’s box. I want to put all my limited energy on my display tank.

I’ve also transferred the rest of the rocks, so that probably added 15-20 pounds of live rocks to what I had. This will help with diatoms I hope.

I tested Mag, CA and Alk with my newly acquired Red Sea Foundation pro test kit. One bottle had a broken seal and spilled into the case so they are sending me a new one.

Mag and CA are within the specs of Red Sea blue bucket. Alk is 9,1. Phosphate 0 (I’m not sure about this salifert test). Nitrates are at 11,7 so this is bugging me a little. I tested anmonia and nitrites, just in case there was a spike causing nitrates to rise. Nope, all is well.

It took forever to raise my nitrates just a little on the Evo so I was careless about feeding. I was feeding 3 times a day, sometimes 4, and giving Nori or spirulina rings on top. I think I was counting on my skimmer too much, lol !

Starting tomorrow I will feed twice a day and retest in 2-3 weeks.

I’ve seen a scarlet hermit have great interest in snails. It goes on top of them and seems to eat something from their shells. I thought it was also trying to get to them inside of it.

Yesterday I bought 15 snails for my CUC. One turbo was dead this morning. Not only dead, it looks like the shell is empty…. I suppose the hermit crab got to it. They’re so small though. I wonder if the nitrates killed the snail ? I also had a trochus die a few weeks ago.

 

[Idech]

Update : the turbo wasn’t dead, I forgot I asked the LFS for an empty shell….

Here is a picture of the tank from yesterday :

I have dinos and learned that even if you syphon them, they’re back just the same 1 1/2 hour later. I’m currently testing a temperature raise to see if it will have an effect on them. Apparently if you raise the temp to 82F it works, in certain cases.

I find 82F too aggressive but I’m raising 1Celcius to 26,5 (79,7F).

I had decided not to buy any supplies or live stock until after Christmas but I couldn’t respect my own wish, lol !

I ordered a Hanna Phosphate ULR and some Hanna high range Nitrate reagent so I can do the required tests to help with the dinos.

I also had to buy 2 bottles of tigger pods and a few corals : assorted acan, 2 varieties of candy corals and 1 blastomussa.

That should look nice in the tank !

I’ve also bought a skunk cleaner shrimp. I just couldn’t resist. I have to go pick it up this week.

 

[Mhamilton0911]

Hello! I'm late to your party, but I have a 75g fresh tank I'm entering to convert as well so this caught my eye!!! I'll be following along!

 

[Idech]

Hello! I'm late to your party, but I have a 75g fresh tank I'm entering to convert as well so this caught my eye!!! I'll be following along!

Yesss ! I will be looking for your build thread !

 

[Mhamilton0911]

It will be a while on the 75, my kiddos are attached to the freshwater fishies and I'd break hearts if I rehomed them. But it's allowing me time to research the things I'll need and things i don't. I'm getting lots of kinks worked out by trying things on my 20g. Trial and error on a smaller scale, so to speak.

Is your tank a Marineland High definition with the black silicone? This is the tank I have, and I thought it wasn't drillable? I was thinking of doing an all in one insert on mine. I'm scared to drill.

 

[Idech]

Is your tank a Marineland High definition with the black silicone? This is the tank I have, and I thought it wasn't drillable? I was thinking of doing an all in one insert on mine. I'm scared to drill.

My tank is a Seapora. I was told it wasn’t possible to drill it. After doing a ton of research, I decided to go sumpless. I’m using a Tunze filter, Tunze skimmer and Tunze ATO, all inside the tank.

They are sold as a kit and do a great job I find. You can learn more if you read the first page.

 

[Mhamilton0911]

My tank is a Seapora. I was told it wasn’t possible to drill it. After doing a ton of research, I decided to go sumpless. I’m using a Tunze filter, Tunze skimmer and Tunze ATO, all inside the tank.

They are sold as a kit and do a great job I find. You can learn more if you read the first page.

Yeah, i have no experience with a sump, and it scares me. LOL. Definitely will research your route!

 

[Idech]

I received the new corals and tiger pods I bought online. They all look very nice and I’m very satisfied with the store.

I also picked up my skunk cleaner shrimp at the LFS.

I acclimated everyone and dipped the corals. Unfortunately none of these creatures is going in the display tank. I wish I had known I had dinos before I ordered them. I thought they were diatoms until they started to look slimy.

ThankfullyI did not close down the EVO as I wanted to, so they all have a nice home.

While at the LFS, I bought Seachem Matrix for the Comline filter and a recharge filter for the Maxijet 1200. I knew micron filter can be used to help with dinos and after checking, those filters can work for particles as small as 1 micron.

So I tried to disturb the dinos as much as possible with a brush for the sand and tooth brush for the rocks, while running the Maxijet at full capacity. This thing is a beast and it caught a lot of dinos. The only thing is it makes a lot of noise and tons of micros bubbles (I use it with a venturi). So it stresses the fish a lot. I turned it down after about 90 minutes. The dinos have not been back as before 2 hours later.

We’ll see how everything is tomorrow.

Right now I have to put the pods in the tank.

 

[Idech]

This morning some of the dinos have reappeared, but I would say about 70% are gone.

I will do a daily brushing/lifting and run the Maxijet for 1-2 hours and go from there.

My Hanna phosphate checker is coming this morning, so I’ll be testing for that, and nitrates too. Last time I tested, nitrates were at 11,9 ppm, so not low at all.

 

[Mhamilton0911]

If you have the kind of Dinos that dissappear when lights out and reappear with lights on, you should 100% be using a uv sterilizer!! This is the time when they can be nuked while in the water column. It still takes time to get then all but a uv sterilizer really helps!

 

[Idech]

If you have the kind of Dinos that dissappear when lights out and reappear with lights on, you should 100% be using a uv sterilizer!! This is the time when they can be nuked while in the water column. It still takes time to get then all but a uv sterilizer really helps!

They do seem worse with the lights.

I had found a UV sterilizer strong enough, but since I have no sump, it has to be HOB and it would only fit over a 1 inch brace (mine is 1 1/16).

I have yet to find a setup that would work.

I tested my phosphates and they are 0.36 ppm. I still have to research if that’s okay or not.

 

[Idech]

What a long and awful day…

I got up and the dinos were about the same as the night before. I did the same thing as yesterday, stirring everything and catching it with high filtration.

This time it made things worse and I had many patches of dinos quickly form. I figured the next step was a UV sterilizer, since they do seem to appear worse during the day.

So I went and bought the Aqua Advantage 2000+ UV sterilizer, good for up to 75 gallons. I already had a sicce 1.0 which is the right size pump for It (251 GPH). I called the store I bought it from and they told me I needed 1/2 inch hose. Which was perfect, as I had some.

I picked up the UV sterilizer and quickly realized I needed a different hose. Went to the hardware store and they sold me some hose, metal clamps and an adaptor to hook up the 1/2 inch sicce to the 3/4 inch hose.

Got home and as I thought, the hose is way too rigid and the adaptors don’t work. I’m 0/10 handy so it took me a while to figure something out. Installation wasn’t quick either. Everything I do I have to double check, undo, start again. A real pita.

There was no way to do something half decent with the material I had. I just put it where it was easier, in front of the tank. It’s ugly, it‘s in the way and it’s not even certain to work. I basically hate it. There’s no way to even know if it works. Water is going through it, but no idea if the bulb is even light…

So this way my day. Mostly running around and being frustrated.

Here is a picture of the dinos that came back right after cleaning:

And here is the UV setup:

 

[Idech]

No change this morning on the dinos. The UV sterilizer is still running, I’ll leave it 24/7.

I disturbed the dinos to help with sterilizing. I’m giving it 3-5 days before I go to my next step, which I’m not sure about yet.

The shrimp in the Evo is staying on her rock all day, and doesn’t seem to be eating. I wish I could transfer her in the DT. :-(

 

[Idech]

All is well with the tank now. I have no more dinos and very little diatoms. I am gradually stopping using the UV sterilizer, as I don’t want a sterile tank with no algae. I’d like a little for my kole tang to much on. You’ve gotta be careful with what you wish for though…

The shunk cleaner shrimp has been transferred to the DT 3-4 days ago. It molted in the EVO and I target fed her for 8-10 days before transferring her.

I’ve also transferred all the frags I bought in early december from the EVO to the DT. There is just the kenya tree left in there and I’m debating (again) whether I keep the EVO running or not.

I am not planning on buying much for the tank in January. Except the essentials such as sand and filter floss. My son gave me money to buy corals for Christmas and I’m thinking of maybe a bigger one this time. Like a nice torch, or hammer. I’m waiting for new stocks to arrive at my LFS, as there are just the expensive ones left.

Here is the tank this morning. It’s 3 months old now.

 

[Idech]

The tank is still doing well. Not much has changed. No dinos and no visible algae (not complaining). I’ve gotten my calcium and magnesium pretty stable. The alk was slowly rising (at 9,2 last time I tested) so I’m adusting and testing my AFR dosing.

Nitrates are kind of high (around 25 ppm) and phosphate is 0,18 ppm. I’m not doing anything about it except trying to feed less (and less flakes, which apparently make it worse).

So I’m basically into a routine right now. Pretty easy, just enjoying the tank. New corals to come when budget allows.

The tang has a round white spot that appeared after I did maintenance on the tank (WC, glass cleaning and siphoning). He is always nervous and hides when I do. This time it lasted longer than usual because of the cleaning of the sand bed. I’ve been watching him for a few days and I see no changes, so I’m hoping he will fight it off, whatever it is.

Pictures from this morning :

 

[Idech]

Close-up of my corals this morning (with an ipad, not the best) but useful to monitor growth.

 

[dvgyfresh]

Close-up of my corals this morning (with an ipad, not the best) but useful to monitor growth.

Tank is maturing very nicely