Fishroom Reality Check

[User]

Just playing with the gopro. Natural light, wedged against the side glass

 

[User]

Ok- planning out my big water change for nitrate reduction post cycle.

I currently have 165 g in the tank. It’s at 80ppm. The following calcs assume 80ppm as the starting number, but they might well be 132ppm for all I really know (API master test kit).

Plan is to move a 55gal drum upstairs next to tank, rodi fill it, add salt, then remove 100 gallon from DT. Add back the 100 gallons of nsw over 2 batches. This first change will put nitrates at 31ppm. I’ll know at this point where my numbers are at in reality.

Then repeat, for a final nitrate ppm of 13ppm.

At this point, I bring the 90 gallons of nsw sump water online — this will dilute the DT to 8ppm nitrate.

Then regular 15 % changes ongoing to keep things stable.

No livestock currently- but I’ll be adding QT’d fish in 6 weeks and the CUC graduate QT on December 18.

A bunch of the live rock will be exposed for however long it takes to drain and pump 50 gallons back in— around 20 minutes. No problem, right?
Reason for the quick drop in nitrates / aggressive water change is that wife is getting bored looking at rocks and saw some purple urchins at petco. She remembered I told her they are one of the few things that don’t need QT . I told her they’ll need nitrates <10 ppm and a bunch of nori to munch on and she said ‘yes’. Confused since it wasn’t a yes/no kinda statement, but here we are.

Any comments? Should I not be so aggressive and do smaller changes? Talk the wife out of the urchins and use the 6 week fish QT to get things squared away in the DT ?

Cheers

 

[User]

Oh- and all crabs accounted for- they are molting like crazy, but Big Blue is still doing crabby things that crabs do.

 

[User]

Got me some snail eggs too!

 

[User]

Moved my barrels up to the tank and am filling in preparation for my first big 85% water change to reduce my 120ppm nitrates.

 

[Janci]

Ok- planning out my big water change for nitrate reduction post cycle.

I currently have 165 g in the tank. It’s at 80ppm. The following calcs assume 80ppm as the starting number, but they might well be 132ppm for all I really know (API master test kit).

Plan is to move a 55gal drum upstairs next to tank, rodi fill it, add salt, then remove 100 gallon from DT. Add back the 100 gallons of nsw over 2 batches. This first change will put nitrates at 31ppm. I’ll know at this point where my numbers are at in reality.

Then repeat, for a final nitrate ppm of 13ppm.

At this point, I bring the 90 gallons of nsw sump water online — this will dilute the DT to 8ppm nitrate.

Then regular 15 % changes ongoing to keep things stable.

No livestock currently- but I’ll be adding QT’d fish in 6 weeks and the CUC graduate QT on December 18.

A bunch of the live rock will be exposed for however long it takes to drain and pump 50 gallons back in— around 20 minutes. No problem, right?
Reason for the quick drop in nitrates / aggressive water change is that wife is getting bored looking at rocks and saw some purple urchins at petco. She remembered I told her they are one of the few things that don’t need QT . I told her they’ll need nitrates <10 ppm and a bunch of nori to munch on and she said ‘yes’. Confused since it wasn’t a yes/no kinda statement, but here we are.

Any comments? Should I not be so aggressive and do smaller changes? Talk the wife out of the urchins and use the 6 week fish QT to get things squared away in the DT ?

Cheers

Comment, yes.



Lol

Sounds like a good plan.

 

[User]

Comment, yes.



Lol

Sounds like a good plan.

Dude- too late!!

Where were you yesterday?

Lol

FIL brought me another 55 gal drum, so I ended up prepping 2x55gal + 33 gal Brute for a total of 140 gallons.

I siphoned it down to the sand, and an in the process of adding back the 33 gal from the brute.

If my calcs are right- starting nitrate was 120-ish (i did a 1:3 dilution of DT water into nsw, and tested that. It was 40ppm.)

3” sand bed = 21 gallons of 120ppm, diluted up to 161 after I add back the nsw.

21/161= 0.13

120 ppm x 0.13= 15.6 ppm after change.

Once sump (90 g) goes online, this diluted to (161/250)*15.6= 10 ppm


I might do another 50 gallon change before I bring the sump online to drop that to 10 before adding the sump. After the sump goes online, it’ll dilute to around 6.5 ([160/250]*10)


Uugghh

 

[Janci]

Dude- too late!!

Where were you yesterday?

Lol

Sorry... was out for Halloween. Lol
Looking good!

 

[User]

Yay!! Just did the API nitrate test, and it came out at 5-10ppm.

I didnt account for the sand in the volume calculation after removing the water down to the sand level. I guess it was a bit less than calculated. It was on purpose so my valve would be worst case, but it’s better than anticipated.

Once I bring the sump online, that’s going to drop down to ~3.5ppm. A pretty decent starting level to be honest.

 

[IgnatiusRath]

Love the build! Make any progress diluting things down and bringing the sump online over the weekend?

 

[User]

Love the build! Make any progress diluting things down and bringing the sump online over the weekend?

Nope- I have a 2 year old, a 12 week old and a wife that travels 1 out of 4 weeks.

But I did get to scrub my sump clean, and I’m literally walking out the door to pick up my first fish...

 

[IgnatiusRath]

Fair enough, I figured with the family and new baby, (congrats!) you were busy, but was curious.

If you're walking out the door to get a new fish, how do you have time to respond to this thread!?!?! That's really exciting! Hopefully we'll get some pics of the first swimmer soon.

 

[User]

Got a couple of ora onyx perculas!!! Stay tuned

 

[User]

So- went to my closest LFS (Nemo Aquarium in Duluth, GA— it’s awesome) with the intention of picking up a couple of 0.75-1 “ Ocellaris clownfish. They had a few, but something else caught my eye. After talking it over with Simon, the owner, and talking about my tank, I settled on these guys—

A bonded pair of captive-bred ORA Onyx Perculas, for what turns out to be a total steal. But bigger at 1.5” each, so I didn’t pick up anything else as I didn’t want to stress my 10g QT.

Bagged them up, and I was home within 20 mins floating them in a 5gal bucket of NSW and a heater and air stone I prepped before I left. I know Simon runs his tanks at 1.023, so I had my salinity matched perfectly before I left.

Did a 90 minute dip in Ruby Reef Rally (5ml/ gallon) then into the QT after a quick NSW rinse.


Here they are 3 hours later, they’ve already eaten a bunch of brine shrimp soaked in selcon and are quite happily swimming around.




I’ll give them a couple days to eat and get comfy, then I’m ramping copper and holding for 2 weeks.


These guys are bonded, but Simon hasn’t seen them lay eggs yet. However, I can swear there is some early brooding behavior in that clip.

What are the chances of these guys laying eggs while in QT?

 

[Dubs83]

This is such a great build man.

No clue about the egg laying in QT, my pair of black Os are still really young and we haven’t had the birds and bees talk, yet.

 

[IgnatiusRath]

I can't speak to clowns laying eggs in QT under copper or anything like that, but I've had clowns get funky about a week after being added to a tank. Tank was thrown together quickly when a family friend was moving and needed his wife's reef torn down and shipped to them in a different state. Parameters were not perfect and the tank ran hotter than I'd like since it was in my garage for over a month during the summer. It may have helped that it was a 150g stock tank with a fairly low load of fish and a decent live amount of live rock, but those clowns had a clutch of eggs laid at about 8-10 days.

 

[User]

This is such a great build man.

No clue about the egg laying in QT, my pair of black Os are still really young and we haven’t had the birds and bees talk, yet.

Thanks man, appreciate it!

 

[User]

I can't speak to clowns laying eggs in QT under copper or anything like that, but I've had clowns get funky about a week after being added to a tank. Tank was thrown together quickly when a family friend was moving and needed his wife's reef torn down and shipped to them in a different state. Parameters were not perfect and the tank ran hotter than I'd like since it was in my garage for over a month during the summer. It may have helped that it was a 150g stock tank with a fairly low load of fish and a decent live amount of live rock, but those clowns had a clutch of eggs laid at about 8-10 days.

Thanks for the info, and thanks for following along. Appreciate it.

They keep doing their little dance and she keeps laying still against the inside of the pvc while he swims over her, so it’s looking like they are getting into it.

If they do, I just need to make sure the wife doesn’t notice- I’m not set up for phyto and rotifers, and I have a nursery to paint so can’t afford the additional distraction, lol

 

[User]

So, yesterday, I went by petco and picked up 2 short spine purple urchins. Got them home, drip acclimated from petco 1.021 (uugghh) to my 1.025, then rinsed them in 1/2 gallon QT (empty) water x 5 to wash away any potential ich or velvet freeswimmers. In accordance with the awesome thread here by Humblefish, they should be ready for DT.

However- they are covered in what I assumed yesterday was sand particles (not so sure today) so I put them in the empty shrimp QT.

Here’s what I’m talking about— is this normal anatomy or sand, or something else? I don’t recall ever seeing them in urchins, but all 7 in the petco tank had them

Today, I dropped in again and got a cleaner shrimp (didn’t have time to drip acclimate yesterday before daycare, so I held off). He’s drip acclimating and will spend the next several days/weeks in his own little 10g until he molts, then it’s into the DT he goes.

Also, my TTM station is now only 1 of 3 little QT areas in my basement. Inverts are Separated from the fish QT by 12 feet in accordance with the aerosol potential.

My workshop/water mixing / QT part of the basement also got fitted with a lock, so the wife doesn’t see my expanded fish hospital (j/k, she doesn’t care- she knows it’s for the well-being of the tank)

 

[User]

We have life in the DT! Ignore the lame temporary shop light...