Chasselti's ADA 60P!

[Chasselti]

Tank pic as of 26.11.2022

11.05.2022

Hi all! This forum has been invaluable to me so I thought it's about time I contribute a little something.

I put this tank together about about 6 months ago as an upgrade from my first reef attempt which was a 3.5 gallon pico. The initial plan was for a very simple setup with rock flower anemones and sexy shrimp but rfas have been impossible to come by where I'm based so I had to change course.

I really enjoyed the pico, which I ran bare bottom. I decided to go bigger for a few reasons 1) to be able to enjoy a couple fish 2) to watch my corals grow out and keep a wider variety 3) maintenance was actually a bit of a pain with the pico - it was my first reef attempt and my poor 'scape' made glass cleaning difficult 4) I wasn't convinced the lighting I had for the pico was sufficient for long term growth.

3.5g pico, was up and running for 4 months:

Overall I'm happy I started with the pico to learn the ropes and see if I really enjoy saltwater before investing in anything more major.

Now to the main event!

I decided to use an ADA 60P (60 litre, about 16 gallon) because it was the most readily available low iron tank of quality in my area. (I'm also a shameless ADA fangirl).

Equipment:

Tank: ADA 60P (16 gallon)
Lighting: Zetlight UFO 55watt LED Zetlight Qmaven II 60watt LED
Flow: Jebao SLW-10 wifi sine wave pump
Filtration: Seachem Tidal 35 HOB filter with Seachem Matrix media, a small bag of carbon & filter floss
Heating: Aquael Ultra 100Watt heater (maybe overkill but my house gets quite cold in the winter)
ATO: AutoAqua Smart ATO micro

Although I appreciate the practicality of a bare bottom tank, I prefer the sand aesthetic and used Seachem Meridian for this build.

For the rock-work I used the two pieces of marco rock from the pico along with more dry rock and I what I think is an old piece of pukani I was lucky to come across. I used the freshwater trick of superglue and cotton to secure the main rocks. I also purchased some Fiji rock from another reefer's fish only setup.

I try and do a 10% water change every week to fortnight which seems to be keeping things on track so far.

Progression pics:

After the initial transfer, looking pretty darn ugly! No points for guessing which rocks came from the pico.

More rock added and coral settling in.

Welcome home clowns!

That's enough for now I think. There have been a few changes from the last pic but I'll do another update soon!

Thanks for looking

 

[blaxsun]

Everything is looking great!

 

[Chasselti]

Everything is looking great!

Thank you! Trying to keep it simple and on an even keel!

 

[Chasselti]

Time to introduce some of the tank inhabitants. The first critters to take up occupation were 4 sexy shrimp that migrated over from the pico. I got into aquarium keeping through keeping freshwater caridina shrimp so I was very excited about the sexies.

Male sexy shrimp. Males have a solid white band across their body while females have a broken band. I have 1 male and 3 females. The females are regularly berried and when the larva hatch they become free fish food for one exciting night.

Sexy shrimp are endlessly entertaining and certainly charming little goblins but I have also found them to be fairly naughty. They have picked at zoas occasionally, but don't do enough damage that the zoa can't bounce back.

The same cannot be said of some sps though, which must taste irresistible to the sexies - they picked clean a small birsdnest frag and I've had to isolate my pocillopora in a little grow cup.

The poci is growing so nicely but every time I try and put it on the rock work it's like a magnet for the sexies. They pluck the polyps off and feast!

I do have a montipora setosa frag which they seem to ignore so I will persevere with some sps but for the most part I think this will be a softy/lps tank. Thanks sexies, good thing you're adorable or you'd be getting evicted!

 

[Chasselti]

Oh and the sexy shrimp have also taken to eating the small stomatella snails, which are my only clean up crew - I hope they don't wipe them out!

 

[Chasselti]

I had a mini heart attack today; while looking down the side panel I spied some white-brown tentacle-like things protruding from a cryptic nook in the back.

Immediately I of course thought either aptasia or mega vermetid snails. I've had one or two of both on frags but have been able to superglue them over and luckily keep them out of the tank...

I gave this uninvited guest a poke - it's soft and didn't react to touch - so I'm thinking it's a sponge of some sort. Phew! Maybe someone will recognise it and have some advice...

 

[Chasselti]

Hi hi! I did a little re-scaping for the first time the other day. One of my first corals is a pincushion leather that's been with me since the 3.5g pico - it was attached to one of the original rocks. However this rock has been tricky to work with in the 60P; no great places to mount corals and lots of shadow, so I figured it needed to go.

This was a bit scary because I had to remove the whole rock with leather attached (note to self, turn off ato next time) and break it apart outside with a hammer and screwdriver - I still get nervous handling corals which seem so delicate but can actually take a lot beating!

I'm really pleased with the result! More space on the sand bed, better light and the whole tank looks bigger/deeper in my opinion.

Gains and losses:

Traded my poci the sexies kept eating for a frogspawn but sadly broke my maze brain trying to take it off the frag plug - quite sad about that one.

 

[Chasselti]

This reefing adventure took an unexpected twist today - I had to set up a coral QT tank - not something I was planning on but I think it was the right decision.

I bought a couple frags from a local reefer and noticed the clowns in the tank had some white spot, probably ich I'm guessing. I didn't want to risk putting the corals straight into my DT so I quickly set up my 3.5g pico. It's super simple, a hob with seachem matrix, little strip led light, and a heater.

I know not QTing any of my previous coral purchases was also a gamble but I figured it would really be tempting fate not to today.

Best practice seems to be 76 days to eradicate all strains of parasites or 45 days with some appetite for risk. I might have a trip coming up in July and would like to take the QT tank down before then so I might have to go with 45... anyone have any advice on this front?

Do you quarantine your corals and if so for how long??

Edit: After more research (thank you Humblefish) it seems like 46 days at 27 degrees C is sufficient.

 

[Chasselti]

The new frags have been in quarantine for a week. The gorgonian has been happy and fluffy while the leather has been fully retracted until today. I was starting to get a bit worried that the dip damaged it (I dip in seachem reef dip followed by 5mins in an H2O2 dilution). Turns out it was just closed to have a little shed, as I was hoping - phew!

However I think the process of the leather shedding irritated the gorg because it's polyps have been less extended. As a precaution I added a small sachet of carbon to the filter and swopped them around so the leather is downstream, hopefully that perks the gorg back up again!

Typical reefing - stop worrying about one thing, start worrying about another!

Danger of the quarantine tank is I'm getting tempted to keep it going and make a tiny negative space aquascape for it... trying to resist that multiple tank syndrome!

I also did a water change in the DT today and cleaned my wave maker for the first time - ran it in a citric acid solution for about an hour. I've been noticing a few dead spots so figured it was slowing down; it's clearly pushing more water around now it's been cleaned. Changes to flow always make me a bit nervous, I know the ocean is powerful but the little glass box is much smaller I don't want any corals being battered! I ended up changing the sine wave setting to a longer frequency so it's a bit more of a gentle sway... I hope!

 

[Chasselti]

Just a little snap I took of my bounce mushroom eating. Impatient for that pellet

I'm also happy to report that the gorgonian in QT is finally opening up again. It too just needed to have a little shed. The QT tank itself is looking fairly ugly, some kind of algae on the glass - hoping its a type of diatom and not dinos. I might do a water change with some DT water to see if raising nutrients does anything...

 

[sturgesz]

How do you like the zetlight? I’m planning a 1 gal pick and like the mini zetlight

on a side note love the tank!!

 

[Chasselti]

How do you like the zetlight? I’m planning a 1 gal pick and like the mini zetlight

on a side note love the tank!!

Thanks! Good luck with the pico, sounds fun!

I'm not familiar with the zetlight mini but the ufo has been great. I'm impressed with the build quality, it's basically silent to run, and once you take a moment to figure out how the app works the adjustability of the colour channels/insensity/ramp times works like a charm. The main drawback to the zetlights is how strong the white channel is to the blue, I have the blue at like 70% and the white at like 7%, so a lot of its power is unutilised.

I actually need to do an update though because I have changed over from the ufo to the zetlight qmaven. I couldn't get the spread I wanted with the ufo through no fault of its own but because the tank is under a shelf and I can only mount the light so high. If I could have elevated the ufo higher I doubt I would have upgraded...

 

[Chasselti]

Little update: The frogspawn was starting to bother the duncan so I shuffled a few things around and created a little fimbriaphyllia garden/corner. My hammers have really put on size and it's looking full

Edit: Froggy has still got a sweeper out and I see a shrunken tentacle on the hammer with mesenterial filaments out. Think I better move the froggy??

 

[Chasselti]

Alrighty, a few updates and developments in the 60P: new lighting, corals out of QT & and H2O2 misadventures.

Lighting!
I've changed over from the Zetlight UFO 55watt to the Zetlight Qmaven 60watt. Not a huge jump in power but a massive improvement in spread and I've opened up a lot of new real estate for coral.

The UFO has been great, and I'm sure it would have been more than sufficient if I could raise it up higher, but I've got the tank on a racking system with the lighting mounted on the underside of a shelf.

I'm still dialling in the Qmaven, I had the intensity set a bit high initially not realising how many more blue leds it has, but I think I overcorrected and took it too low. Now taking it up and trying to find that sweet spot!

Spec comparison - Qmaven left, UFO right:

Just before lights out last night - the Qmaven is cool because it has no fan, the body acts as a heatsink. It's super sleek and very nice build quality.

Corals out of QT!
I made the executive decision to put the leather and gorgonian in the display last night, a few days shy of 6 weeks, so a bit of a gamble.

My country is in the middle of an energy crisis with multiple power outages a day at the moment, some up to 4.5 hours. I have a battery back up for the dt which is a massive help, but the qt tank is so small I'm worried about the temp instability, especially because it's winter and the house gets very cold.

I dipped them in mild H2O2 (used seachem reef dip before putting them in QT but I suppose I should have done it again, oops), scrubbed their basses and applied H2O2 directly to the rock bases. After a good rinse in DT tank water in they went.

Hopefully the gamble won't come back to bite me.

H2O2 misadventures!
I use hydrogen peroxide as part of my dip procedure most of the time and have had great success with it. There is a small patch of hair algae in my DT I thought I'd spot treat after doing my research. However my H202 is 35% and I think I applied it a bit overzealously because the corals were not happy! Slimed, shrivelled and had me biting my nails.

The worst affected were my xenia and cloves, which are still sulking a bit, though it seems like I got away with it this time. In the future, if I attempt again, I'll limit myself to 0.25-0.5ml. I must say the glass is looking extremely clean which is nice. I also added seachem stability the last couple days just in case there was some bacteria die-off.

Long update, thanks for reading if you got this far!

 

[Chasselti]

Just a quick update, the tank survived its first three week vacation! This was one aspect that made me apprehensive to get into reefing in the first place so I am super relieved; I really had no idea exactly how it would go. I've had this in the back of my mind while stocking, it probably helps that there are a lot of softies in the tank.

It went about a month without a water change and with a friend feeding the fish. Small amount of gha has popped up but I'm hoping to get it under control with some regular maintenance and light feeding... tips welcome!

 

[Chasselti]

Huge stupid mistake on my part recently - I was away again and left the tank in the hands of my husband, but after doing maintenance the day before I traveled I forgot to plug the heater back in! It was off for 5 days before he noticed and the tank dropped to 16C. Amazingly everything survived! Really can't believe it! We thought I'd at least lost my goby, he was apparently no where to be seen for two weeks, but happily I spotted him when I returned. There goes one of my 9 reef tank lives I think, yikes!

 

[Chasselti]

Been battling a little gha or turf algae over the last couple months. I've tried to keep to a meticulous weekly water change schedule and upped the volume a bit but it didn't seem to make a dent. After weighing up options like reef flux, adding a mollie, adding hermits etc. I eventually settled on an urchin - I think he is a pincushion/halloween urchin - and he has been a machine!

My husband named him Steve Urchin, look how he mows down to bare rock!

I was on the fence because of their thieving and bulldozery ways, also I've had to sacrifice most of my coraline algae, but overall he has been a real star and I'm very pleased! It took him less than a week to clear the bulk of the algae and I'm now feeding him nori about every other day.

I also added another interesting and entertaining invert...

... a conch to hopefully help keep the spaghetti worm population in my sand bed in check.

Coral wise I added a goniopora and alveopora frag. I'm happy to see them growing because I've read about them being difficult, gonis in particular. Going to have to frag that leather soon, I'm dreading it!

 

[dawi03]

love this tank any updates?

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Curious about updates as well!

 

[dawi03]

Would love to know how you stocked the seachem tidal