Caleb's first reef tank

[Impunitus]

Hi all,

This will be my build log/tracker for my 60 gallon AIO from Innovative Marine. It will also be my first reef tank but has been a goal to have one for as long as I can remember :)

I'll share more about the gear I have (still picking out what I want for things like powerheads and lights!) as I pick them up but will also likely be asking for input here as well.

For now, please enjoy some pictures of the tank being up on its stand and the rockscape that I have put together so far. I have not covered my expoy and glue joints yet so please keep that in mind! Would love comments and opinions on what I've made so far. Long term goal is mixed reef so left room up top for SPS growth in the long term. I will be starting with LPS and softies until I feel confident in adding SPS.

 

[mh0ward]

I think you're going to want to leave quite a bit more room between the rock structure and glass. It looks like it might already be a bit tight for trying to clean the glass, then add in coral growth and you may end up with no room to clean, or end up damaging coral trying.

 

[Impunitus]

I think you're going to want to leave quite a bit more room between the rock structure and glass. It looks like it might already be a bit tight for trying to clean the glass, then add in coral growth and you may end up with no room to clean, or end up damaging coral trying.

Pictures may not show it well but the closest anything is to the glass is 2 inches from the glass. There are not many places that close either. Plenty of room for a scraper :)

 

[mh0ward]

Ah, yea the pictures could be a little deceiving :)

 

[Impunitus]

Rockscape is all locked in and got the sand in!

Ended up using 2 bags of CaribSea Special Grade for around 1.5"-2" of sand bed. Getting water pumped up from the basement now to begin filling and mixing in salt.

 

[Impunitus]

I am looking to purchase my lights for the tank based on my long term goals. Those being to have primarily soft and LPS corals for the first year, before introducing SPS and having a mixed reef tank.

With those goals in mind I have come down to starting with a single XR15 Blue G5 and introducing a second shortly after or using a single XR30 Blue G5.

From what I have read and watched, the dual XR15s will have better overall coverage in the tank. The XR30 will have a stronger Hotspot in the center of the tank, but would still work in the tank.

Cost is about a wash between the two options. I'm trying to buy once and cry once for this purchase, but I am not married to these as the only way to approach this. The only thing I ask is that the light can be mounted on the tank.

Any thoughts, opinions, or guidance on this? Thanks!

 

[Impunitus]

Went with my gut and picked up an XR15 G6* (typoed for G5 in my last update) as well as an MP40.

Tank cycle is coming along well. Ammonia is currently around 0.5, nitrite at 0.5-1 and nitrate at 10.0!

Also got the ATO put in today, glad to have that working so I don't have to be worried about topping up daily.

Tank will be ready for stocking soon. While I won't be putting fish in until the middle-end of October, I am planning to put a couple of snails and maybe a shrimp or crab from the LFS in. These are all inverts I would be putting in as part of my clean up crew, and want to have some life in the tank between now and when I start putting fish in.

 

[mh0ward]

I didn't see your post Friday, but would have suggested to go with the 2 XR15s over the single XR30 (if you were set on Radion's anyway). My thought when setting up lights was that with 2, at least if one died, there'd be another to keep the tank going while the other was getting replaced. You can also space the two individual fixtures further apart to help eliminate shadows moreseo than the single fixture.

 

[JumboShrimp]

It's looking good-- steady as you go!

 

[Impunitus]

I didn't see your post Friday, but would have suggested to go with the 2 XR15s over the single XR30 (if you were set on Radion's anyway). My thought when setting up lights was that with 2, at least if one died, there'd be another to keep the tank going while the other was getting replaced. You can also space the two individual fixtures further apart to help eliminate shadows moreseo than the single fixture.

My thinking was along the same path as this, glad I was on the right path!

Update regarding cycle progress
Ammonia: 0.25-0.5
Nitrite: 2
Nitrate: 25-50 (it's darker than 25 but definitely not at 50)

Im going to hold off on a water change until we have ammonia/nitrite at 0 since I don't have any lifestock or corals in the tank right now. Thanks for following along all!

 

[Impunitus]

Light and power head got here this morning :)

Light is mounted, not in it's permenant spot right now but just wanted to make sure it was sitting over the tank where I wanted before putting it in the center. Power head is also in, not sure if I'll be leaving it where it is now, when it's at full power it does start to get a vortex going but doesn't meet with the head (on gyre mode right now)

Picture of the current setup. Will do a water test this afternoon to see where I'm at on nitrite but I know ammonia is at 0 now.

 

[BryanM]

Looking good!

 

[mh0ward]

It looks like that may be a wave maker? If it is... let it make waves! Seriously though, give it a shot, you may like the way it moves water better than using it more like a conventional powerhead. The Vortech's have an "autotune" feature that I've never used, but you can also do it manually using the 'short pulse' in Mobius. Just set some sort of max speed (i.e. 40%), then set the pulse timing. I started with the shortest timing interval (250ms on the MP10) and saved it, let it run for a minute... then bumped the timing interval to the next shortest interval, such as 260ms, wait.. repeat. Eventually one of those timing's will be the "tuning" for your tank and you'll get some waves going like this:

You can also get longer waves if you keep increasing the timing. You might also try playing with the 'expanding pulse' option, which is what i've recently settled on after getting a torch. With the torch it was easier to see what the flow looked like with all of its tentacles waving around like streamers, and I've found that if I set the expanding pulse near what my tank's short pulse 'tuned' timing was, I could still get the back and forth motion of the standing wave but with a little bit of randomness mixed in as it goes just slightly in and out of tune. So for example, on short pulse, my tank had nice waves at 410ms. So in the expanding pulse, I set the start time at 350ms and the end time at 450ms.

 

[Impunitus]

It looks like that may be a wave maker? If it is... let it make waves! Seriously though, give it a shot, you may like the way it moves water better than using it more like a conventional powerhead. The Vortech's have an "autotune" feature that I've never used, but you can also do it manually using the 'short pulse' in Mobius. Just set some sort of max speed (i.e. 40%), then set the pulse timing. I started with the shortest timing interval (250ms on the MP10) and saved it, let it run for a minute... then bumped the timing interval to the next shortest interval, such as 260ms, wait.. repeat. Eventually one of those timing's will be the "tuning" for your tank and you'll get some waves going like this:

You can also get longer waves if you keep increasing the timing. You might also try playing with the 'expanding pulse' option, which is what i've recently settled on after getting a torch. With the torch it was easier to see what the flow looked like with all of its tentacles waving around like streamers, and I've found that if I set the expanding pulse near what my tank's short pulse 'tuned' timing was, I could still get the back and forth motion of the standing wave but with a little bit of randomness mixed in as it goes just slightly in and out of tune. So for example, on short pulse, my tank had nice waves at 410ms. So in the expanding pulse, I set the start time at 350ms and the end time at 450ms.

Yeah it's a MP40QD. I just have it in to move water around at this point and just to play with the app and understand tuning it, placement, etc.

I'll absolutely take a shot at playing with making waves, just need them to not crash out of the tank I'm sure I'll play with it a lot more once I have corals in too.

Waiting until end of October for fish and starter corals is going to eat at me, but really don't want to saddle my SIL with the burden of watching a fresh tank with lifestock when we are out of town.

 

[Impunitus]

Happy Sunday R2R family!

Did a water test last night and read nitrite at 1.5. Reading it at 1 when testing again this afternoon. I also decided to do a nitrate test and see where things were at as I hadn't done one since Thursday and was more interested in my nitrite numbers yesterday. I'm reading nitrate at 59.7 which is down from what I read on Thursday at 75; both times using my Hanna as I wanted to be a bit more perscise than the color testing with Salifert tests...and wanted to use my new tool I wasn't expecting my nitrates to go down without a water change, and I haven't placed anything in the tank that I would expect to be consuming or exporting nitrates.

Maybe my Hanna test on Thursday was a little off? I tested with a Salifert test this afternoon and it's very much in line with 50 on the color scale. May be a little darker but not as dark as I have seen it before so I'm leaning towards I am somehow exporting nitrates.

Could the small pieces of seeded rock rubble from my LFS be contributing and processing nitrates? It was roughly a pound of seeded rubble, but nothing special just a few small pieces to help kick my cycle off. I do not have my light on currently, I wanted to prevent an algea explosion from anything I brought in with the rubble from my LFS. I do not see any signs of an algea bloom or anything resembling the uglies at this point in time.

I'm also curious on others opinions on dosing ammonium chloride again. My understanding is that my cycle is "complete" after both ammonia and nitrite are at 0 and the tank is able to process 1ppm ammonia in 24 hours. Should I dose to 1ppm after my nitrite has dropped to 0 completely, or dose the ammonia now? Or maybe something different than both of those options. I will not be putting fish or corals in until the back half of October at the earliest. Not in a rush to complete the cycle but also want to set myself up for success.

Thanks for any input y'all may have. Best of luck to your teams for those watching football this afternoon

 

[mh0ward]

There's probably several different opinions on this, but since you're not planning on adding any livestock for another month+, I personally wouldn't worry about dosing any more. It sounds like you've probably got enough in the tank to get the nitrifying bacteria established, it just needs a few more days or so. Instead, you might consider 'ghost feeding' a little every now and then. If that live rock rubble is porous with crevices, there might be some tiny hitchhikers that would appreciate a bit of real food.

 

[Impunitus]

There's probably several different opinions on this, but since you're not planning on adding any livestock for another month+, I personally wouldn't worry about dosing any more. It sounds like you've probably got enough in the tank to get the nitrifying bacteria established, it just needs a few more days or so. Instead, you might consider 'ghost feeding' a little every now and then. If that live rock rubble is porous with crevices, there might be some tiny hitchhikers that would appreciate a bit of real food.

As always, appreciate your input! Assuming you would use pellets for this. I don't have any yet but won't hurt to have some in advance to be ready for my lifestock.

 

[Impunitus]

Bump! Looking for additional input or opinions if anyone has them. Both around dosing more ammonia (which seems like it's not necessarily needed now and I could just ghost feed) as well as the nitrates dropping a bit without a WC or anything being dosed/added to intentionally pull nitrates out.

I'm not running the roller mat right now and do not have a skimmer at this point in time.

 

[Impunitus]

Afternoon and happy Sunday everyone!

I have started ghost feeding, and when I was picking up some pellets at my LFS it was recommended to start getting CUC placed in the tank that way they are there before they're needed. I didn't think to ask 'what kinds do you recommend?' but also didn't notice any CUC for sale in their tanks. I could have missed them, didn't look super hard as the wife and I were just enjoying all the fish they had and their multiple display tanks after grabbing some pellets.

I still do not have algae/uglies starting yet which I'm not going to complain about. I know I'm bound for multiple ugly stages and I have no problem supplementlly feeding until whatever grows in my tank will sustain them.

That being said, what are some recommendations for starting CUC and numbers? I figure snails, but there are lots of types of snails. I know they have different purposes, but just a lot to take in to determine what a good starting set of CUC looks like, knowing that I am going to likely be feeding them for a bit until an ugly stage really kicks off.

As always, very apprecative of any ideas/guidance the R2R family has to offer.

 

[Impunitus]

Did some research on snails and CUC and ended up finding this sticky in the invert section which was super informative.

Ordered the below from @reefcleaners and they got here Wednesday! Floated and then got them all placed in. Quite a few extras on the dwarfs, so thank you for that!

Everything seems to be coming around, but some of the turbans are what I would call lethargic/not moving much. They do not appear to be dead as they do move their foot when picked up, but they are not moving much on the sand if at all. The acclimation directions did note that the ceriths could take up to 72 hours to start moving, and the only ceriths that haven't moved are a few of the extra dwarfs.

Any advice for the turbans that aren't very active? Like I mentioned above they do not appear to be dead since they do move their foot if picked up, but they are not moving on the sandbed at least not to a noticeable degree. Maybe I'm just overreacting, but want to make sure I'm doing right by everything I'm putting in the tank.

Those that are moving have been taking to the sinking algae wafers, as well as the pellets that I was ghost feeding.

Thanks as always!