Hakon's Reef

[Hakon]

Hey all! Thought I'd start a build thread documenting the lead up and my (very loose) plans for my new tank build.

Leadup:
About a year ago I got rid of my last two tanks, a pair of 50/55 gallon long tanks that were in my bedroom. I'd been holding onto them for too long and frankly maintaining them was too much of a chore, both were african cichlid tanks which meant a lot of extra maintenance and the tight confines were making it harder and harder to keep up with plus I was burning out on the whole thing, I'd had these tanks for like twenty years and more or less run them on old techniques the whole time.

Over the past year since I've been slowly rearranging and remodeling the space to be more livable, early on in my plans the idea of having a small AIO nano reef in between my workbench and desk entered my mind. I was eyeing a 12g bullnose peninsula tank from gankpike but as I kept moving things around I eventually ended up with my desk and workbench positioned such that there was a roughly 20 inch by 30 inch corner gap in between and I started looking around for something to fill it. With this my plan for a very small tank morphed into something a little larger.

The Plan:

After a lot of searching I settled on a Fiji Cube 38 AIO. Unlike a lot of AIOs at this size I looked at, it's setup as a peninsula style, it seems to me that a lot of the more standard designs give up a huge amount of space for overlarge filtration chambers for their size especially in my case since with one whole side of the tank against a wall I have room for HOB gear or plumbing down the back.

With my tank chosen I started looking for a stand, the dimensions for the tank are close enough to those of a 40g Breeder that it would be pretty simple. Local shops didn't have exactly what I wanted but a little bit of looking around on Wayfare and I found a metal framed black flat top stand that would fit the spot well. I got the stand setup last weekend and the tank came in on Thursday and I got it in place last night (the hardest part of this whole thing was lugging that thing up three flights of stairs by myself).

I'm really happy with the positioning of this, when I'm sitting at my desk the viewing angle is more or less perfect and it's just the same from the workbench peaking in from the left of screen. I've still got a lot of decorating and work to do to get the space where I want it but things are coming together!

Next Steps:

I've got 25 lbs of MacoRocks premium shelf rock coming in today, from what I know these pieces are probably simultaneously too big and not enough, but that's part of the plan, I'm no stranger to aquascaping and I've got a blacksmiths hammer and masonry tools to go to work on the rocks, my LFS also sells baserock at 3.99 a lb so I can get some of that and break it up for filler material and I may grab a couple bags of Marcorocks nano shelf to finish it off once I see where I get. The plan is for a limestone shelf scape. I've got a 21" AI blade (coral grow) which I'll likely supplement later but I don't think I'll need more than that starting out.

The Future:

Obviously I'm going pretty slow with this build and taking likely weeks to setup my rockwork before I even get water much less fish in the tank, I learned to be patient long ago and I know this hobby requires patience. That said I plan to do a fish in Cycle with either microbacter7 or fritz turbo start and either one or a pair of clowns (depending on what's available locally). I plan on using oceandirect live sand and some seeder media from a LFS that sells ceramic media from their own sumps to seed, and in addition I'll be seeding the tank with Ecopods early on as well.

I've got ideas for what I want to stock fish wise, less so with corals other than I'll start with softies and zoas and slowly introduce more demanding specimens as the tank matures.

Stock list:

• 1/2 clownfish
• Cleaner shrimp and other cleanup crew
• Royal Gramma
• Melanurus Wrass
• Flame Hawkfish
• Flameback Angel
• Pistol Shrimp gobi pair
• Mandarin Dragonette (I know, I know)

 

[tzabor10]

looks great. Can’t wait to see pictures.

 

[Hakon]

Just got in my first shipment of shelf rock and setup a mockup of the tank in cardboard to start working on my scape, I've also decided that 25 lbs of shelf rock is not nearly enough, gonna grab some baserock from my LFS and debating ordering a couple 8lb bags of nano shelf to finish it out or another 15-20 lbs of the same and just break it up.

Pictured here is the one stack I'm semi happy with the look of on the right and like three WAY too big chunks I'll need to get my masonry chisels out and break up on the left and some other bits.

The shelf rock is a lot thinner than I was expecting which is great though, I was worried they'd all be like three inches thick and with the water only ~14 inches of deep that wouldn't leave much room for many levels.

I may start another thread just to talk about scaping with shelf rock.

 

[Hakon]

So... Spent my early afternoon busting rocks today, then the rest of the day so far stacking and gluing the results (and my fingers).

What do you guys think, have my rockscaping skills atrophied in the last decade or so?

please disregard my unintentional dutch angles taking pics with my phone while leaning back in an office chair.

I'd say I'm about 40-60% done with the scape design, depending on how up my own butt I get as I get nearer to completion.

The structure on the right is mostly done with one last rock to glue down before I get to work with the mortar. the structure is mostly made up of stacked shelf rocks superglued at strategic points with extra bits of rubble glued in here and there awaiting final joins. Rather than sitting on the sand or using the machined base rock bits sitting on glass I made 'feet' out of rubble bits glued to the base of the structure, these will sit on egg crate light diffuser instead of directly on the glass to better distribute the weight protecting the glass.

On the left I'm only just starting to figure out what I want to do, my plan is to use the rocks I'm messing with as a foundation for a second stack that rises up and over the lower section of the stack to it's right. That way I have two structures that will look interconnected but not actually be one structure as the first one is pushing the limit of what I'd want to lift in and out of the tank should I have to.

Its hard to see in 2D but the way the scape is laid out there are lots of swim throughs, coves, overhangs and caves for various fish that are also designed to create a lot of different levels of light shadow and flow, I'm not exactly planning what will go precisely where but I want to create enough variety that I'll have a lot of options for a mixed reef/community in the future.

 

[Hakon]

MOAR PICTURES!

Final rockscape design, I'll need to apply mortar to the voids in the various contact points I glued to lock it in properly and then hide the joints with liquid superglue and the dust/sand/gravel mix I reserved from working the rocks into the proper shapes.

After that and some final assembly I should be ready to fill and cycle the tank.

 

[Hakon]

So! Back after around a month. The tank has had water in it for three weeks now, which was hell at first as I had some problems getting the tank as level as I wanted it (30 year old townhouse + carpet), but got it sorted eventually. Started cycling the tank with ammonium chloride and fritz turbostart do jumpstart the cycle.

Tank with water in it:

After the first week I started adding phytoplankton from Algaebarn in preperation for copepods. After two weeks ammonia was down to about .1pmm and nitrates are climbing so I was ready to add fish:

These two are a pair of ORA Percula Picasso pattern clowns, they've been doing great for a week, they'll be supplying the tank with ammonia and other waste products for the cycle.

At roughly 2.5 weeks the tank was showing a faint dusting of brown growth I'm fairly certain are brown/orange diatoms so with algae growing and phytoplankton being dosed I added a jar of Algaebarn galaxy pods (tm), I'm hoping these will survive and thrive in the tank and eat the uglys.

At three weeks I'm seeing a significant bloom in what I'm assuming are diatoms:

Please excuse the weird color correction I'm still learning to use the pro settings on my phone to compensate, the light is an AI "Coral Grow" Blade being run at roughly 30% intensity to encourage growth so that I can get the tank ready to support cleanup crew. I may cut this down again but for the time being the clowns only seem to get active when the lights are on so I'm going to have to use some light to keep them fed, one of the reasons I think the brown stuff is diatoms though is that they photosynthesize like craxy even under fairly dim light with this being only a 21 inch blade at low power.

With the tank showing this much growth I felt comfortable adding my first cleanup crew, 4 trochus snails and three red leg hermit crabs:

the snails can be seen on the rocks at the upper left and right below the top right corner of the structure on the flat bit, and the three hermit crabs are right down against the front glass in the middle. The crabs went to work instantly and have already made a big dent in the stuff on the sand, the snails moved a lot slower but seemed to start moving around after a couple of hours and stripping the rock with visible results.

I'd love to hear what people think, (before anyone says anything the window facing is such that the tank never gets any direct light and only gets direct sun on the window from dawn to about 10am so it's not a big concern). Right now the brown stuff is all I'm seeing for algae, so more cleanup crew will probably come when I see something new that looks like it needs cleaning. Possibly going to throw a cleaner shrimp in too for looks and low impact utility.

 

[dinosaur_1552]

I'd love to hear what people think, (before anyone says anything the window facing is such that the tank never gets any direct light and only gets direct sun on the window from dawn to about 10am so it's not a big concern).

I think setup is supercool, especially the scape I love, I personally would love if creatures would see the actual sun sometimes.

Looking at the pictures I though instantly felt the pain of working in those sump chambers while leaning over the desk, trying to be careful of the monitor, laptop etc water splashing on walls, desk, equipment etc

I know this feeling very well as I am myself trying to squeeze fish tanks into small spaces for many years

 

[Hakon]

UPDATE!

So it's beena bout two and a half months since I did an update, the tank has been humming along without many bumps, parameters are fairly solid with nitrates and phosphates staying pretty much at the bottom of the expected range which I'm guessing is due to the large surface area of the rocks affording a LOT of space for bacteria and algae to colonize.

Current state of the tank:

Since my last update there haven't been any real crisis, more slow adjustments as I notice stuff that's off track but not critical. I've taken the biome Cycle approach with this tank introducing elements as needed and when I feel it's ready. My own past experience and the absolute wealth of information and discussion available today has made this a really smooth experience. The rocks have predictably turned brown and green, but it's the expected ugly phase and frankly it doesn't look bad at all to me. No coraline colonization as of yet but I think I understand why, more on that later.

I started by dialing in cleanup crew, one of the Trochus I added earlier died possibly due to a temperature drop but I haven't lost anything else that I can tell. I decided to add six more hermit crabs, LFS was selling red legs at discount for multiples of three, I later determined this was a mix of red leg and blue legs but it doesn't really make a difference. Ostensibly there are nine hermit crabs in there but I've stopped trying to keep track of them, I was going a little mad. I added a bunch of shells I bought online for the hermits and have been gratified to see them moving into them, I even caught one in the act and got to watch the transfer.

First equipment adjustment:
During early December the tank started getting a little hazy, I tentatively identified this as a bacteria bloom, probably due to overfeeding the clowns (it's hard not to with the frozen spirulina brine shrimp I'm feeding since I can only really divide one pellet in half easily). After looking into it I took several measures first adjusting my flow to increase aeration by creating a lot more surface disruption and micro-bubbles. Second I added a small 25 watt in tank UV sterilizer (you can kinda see it at the back right corner against the glass and the AIO vault. Third I came up with a makeshift mechanical filtration solution by wedging some filter floss into a spot in the AIO, I've been trying different points in the vault and settle eventually on wedging some into the return vault over the return pump so the water is falling on it and forced through it. As of now I've turned off the UV filter as I was adding another Jar of copepods to the system and the water has remained pretty crystal clear save for when I do water changes which is definitely just dust getting stirred up.

First new Tank mate:
Just before Christmas I added a new tank mate, a Tiger Conch, mostly to solve two problems; the first was that the sand was getting a little grody, I've read a lot of different opinions but I wanted to avoid sand vacuuming if I could. I don't mind algae on the sand so long as it's not developing a mat, and the crabs were keeping it grazed down a bit but they needed backup, preferably something that wouldn't leave the sand. I went to my LFS looking for a solution and they happened to have some tiger conches in stock, I grabbed one figuring if he wasn't enough some nessarius snails would be next. The second reason for a dedicated sand mover was my clowns, who have demonstrated a penchant for excavation I've never seen in clowns before:

At the back left corner of the tank the clowns pushed out enough sand to create a pass through under the left side rock structure into the gap between the two. They pushed out so much that they exposed the eggcrate grid under the sand. This didn't worry me particularly because the rocks are designed to be dug under, I still hadn't decided whether a goby/pistol shrimp pair would be going in (still haven't) but decided that if I wanted that I should plan around it. Still it annoyed me aesthetically so I figured a conch would move sand around, and boy did he. He can be seen in the first pick on the lower right between a couple of rocks, quite a nice specimin IMO.

Second Equipment upgrade:
Originally when I bought my tank I grabbed a 150w Aquaready preset heater that had a recommendation from BRS, sadly I cannot recommend this product. While it does work it doesn't keep the tank at the advertised temperature of 78 degrees Fahrenheit. a 150w should be rated for a 50g tank, mine being a 38 gallon I figured that was plenty of overage. It was not. The heater kept the tank at something around 76-77 and even when I used it to heat water I was mixing in a six gallon bucket it would take 5+ hours to get it up that high. A few weeks ago I stopped in at a petsmart and bought a 200w adjustable fluval heater and swapped out, now I use the aquaready for heating water to mix and I set it going overnight so it's ready to go in the morning.

Various Blooms:
After my initial diatom bloom I'd noticed green patches on the rocks but couldn't tell exactly what I was looking at, it never seemed to grow out, just a light dusting. I'm fairly certain now that it's green hair algae and that the crabs are grazing it down because I realized about two weeks ago that there was large patches of it waving in the flow on the back glass, cunningly hidden from view behind the rocks. Alongside that I've had patches of cyano on the upper rock surfaces, both of these have been easily dealt with when I'm doing weekly water changes, I just suck them up with the water I'm pulling out.

Aptasia!
Bringing us to about a week ago I noticed my first pest, poking out from under the rocks on the right hand structure:

Hard to see from the picture but I was fairly certain and I confirmed anyway. So yesterday I headed over to my LFS to grab a peppermint shrimp and thankfully they had the right kind in stock. I saw another fish there that was on my list, but I wanted to deal with one thing at a time, so I grabbed the shrimp figuring I'd give it a week and if he didn't deal with the problem I'd take more direct measures. I woke up this morning and looked in the tank to find the aptasia gone, or possibly reduced to a nub. I wasn't particularly phased by the apperance of aptasia, anyone who's done this before knows it's a when not an if thing to deal with I'm glad my shrimp got a meal and to know it will hunt the things if more are in there somewhere I can't see from my limited viewing angles.

One more thing... or fish:
Those paying attention to the first shot probably noticed a flash of purple and yellow there, that's the fish I noticed while picking up the peppermint shrimp, a Royal Gramma Baslet. I love these little guys and I think he'll make a good addition, I put him in a few hours ago, I've noticed some very minor aggression between him and the clowns but nothing out of the ordinary, he seems to have chosen a spot on the right side structure that the clowns mostly ignore and IMO is perfect for him as it has a lot of little crevices and swim throughs and caves which basslets love. Crossing my fingers here but I think he's a good adition and he's got lovely colors.

Final thoughts and issues I'm dealing with:
So this tank has been up for about three and a half months, and frankly it's been a joy to work with, I've been taking things slow, and making sure to be measure in my changes, and I think that's a huge contributor to how smoothly it's going. I've grown a lot more patient in my time away from the hobby and coming back has been great. I haven't run into anything I'm unable to deal with easily and not trying to instantly fix things that aren't a critical problem means I haven't created any critical problems for myself.

My current issue with the tank is getting it ready for corals, which ties in with the lack of coraline, from what I can gather I need to get my PH up, right now it's at ~7.6 which is ok for fish but not for coral, I'm starting to track my levels of macronutrients for coral and I need to start dosing, the water here is exceptionally soft so I need more additives to get it up to par, and when I do I should start seeing the coraline growth I want. So the next month or two I'm going start dosing and paying more attention to salinity was also a little low, and since my water changes are a little more than 10% weekly that should let me get things where I want themrelatively slowly and evenly so I don't upset any balances I have now.