Leyth's 17 Gallon

[Leyth]

Hey guys, I figured I would put together my build thread as my build is coming together. I originally started with a 5.5 gallon tank but I brought home a yellow watchman goby and he died 2 days later. It happened really fast and I think something was wrong with the goby. However, I decided a quarantine tank would have been at the least a good place to observe the fish. So I upgraded! I ordered a 17 gallon Aquamaxx low iron rimless tank from Marine Depot. The shipping and receiving of the tank was flawless. It was really well packaged and shipped very quickly.

I do about 10-20% water changes every 1-2 weeks.

Parameters:
PH: 8.0
Salinity: 1.026
Ammonia: 0-.25ppm
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 5-10
Calcium: 400ish
dKh: 8
Phosphate: 0

Equipment:
17 Aquamaxx rimless low iron
Aquaclear 70 - Running Purigen, biomax and Deep Blue filter floss
Aqueon Pro 150W heater
AI Prime with 12" flex arm
Red Sea Coral Pro Salt + LFS water
Hydor Koralia 240

Live Stock:
15lbs live rock from two different LFS
CaribSea Arag-Alive Fiji Pink
Tiger Pistol Shrimp

Corals:
Purple Stylophora
Eagle Eye Zoa
Jack O Lantern Leptoseris
Golden Pavona
Psammacora
Meteor Shower Cyphastrea

Clean up crew:
4 small nerites
3 Scarlet hermit crabs
10 dwarf cerith snails

I think I need more clean up crew and I will once I add more live stock. I have two snowflake clown fish that are in quarantine and should go in this weekend. So I will let things stabilize afterwards and decide what is next.

The purple stylo is showing signs of STN and I am not really sure why. I was concerned the light was to blame so I ordered a sBox Reef Lights 16" Extreme. It arrives tomorrow, but I also fed the corals Coral Frenzy yesterday so I think I will see how they respond to that before making any drastic changes.

You can see my QT set up next to the DT. I plan on taking it down when it is not in use.

Anyways, here are some pictures of everything:

 

[dbl]

Congrats...it looks terrific.

 

[Leyth]

thank you

 

[Duke4Life]

Very nice looking!

 

[revhtree]

Yes very nice!

 

[Leyth]

Thanks everyone. Does anyone have any recommendations about the lighting? I have a couple of SPS pieces in there and I am worried about the AI Prime not being sufficient enough. Currently this is my lighting schedule and it's on a 50% acclimation period for another 3 weeks. Is that maybe an aggressive acclimation that is starving the SPS?

 

[Leyth]

So, small update here. I upgraded my light to an sBox 16" Ultimate with the wifi. It's too soon to tell how the tank responds to it, but the Anemone moved into more shadow and the Zoas seem to have opened up even larger. I think they are all acclimating to it as I slowly ramp up. The light itself is definitely more powerful than the AI Prime. However, it's very bulky and heavy. The mount is ugly and ruins the rimless look of the tank so I need to find another solution if I am to keep this light in the long run. The app is terrible, but gets the job done. As a software engineer, I am going to look into building my own software that can control this light. I am not sure how difficult that will be, it will be easy if the light exposes some API that I can interface with.

I added my two snowflake clown fish from QT a few days ago. They are doing great, but don't seen to be that interested in mysis shrimp. I think they may have loaded up on pods because they were the first fish to go in the tank.

 

[Leyth]

Ok, I can't seem to stop spending my money. Mp10QD comes in tomorrow, Nanobox Duo ships out next week.

As for the tank, I can't seem to keep it clean. Some sort of brown hair algae is engulfing the tank. I don't know if it's diatoms, cyano, or dinos. Therefore, I have lowered my feeding amounts and shortened the length of time my lights are on. Also, I dunno why my RBTA is lacking the bubble part. It was bubbled at the fish store so that's weird. It seems happy though.

Here are some pictures

 

[Leyth]

A little update cross post from my nano reef thread:

Current Full Tank Shot: (8/3/2016)

Hey everyone. Starting another build thread since I have upgraded tanks. I originally had a 5.5 gallon, but I needed a quarantine tank so I used it as an opportunity to upgrade. I think the tank is pretty complete as far as equipment goes. I might add another fish and definitely more corals.



Equipment:

Aquamaxx 17.1 Gallon low iron rimless tank

Aquaclear 70 HOB running Filter floss + Purigen + 2 things of Aquaclear Biomax

Aqueon 150W heater (It's too big but works)

Mp10QD

Nanobox Duo Plus M

Tunze 3155 Osmolater ATO



Live Stock:

2 Picasso Clownfish

1 Tiger Pistol Shrimp

Rose Bubble Tip Anemone



Corals:

Eagle Eye Zoas

Purple Stylophora

Meteor Shower Cyphastrea

Jack O Lantern Leptoseris

Green Psammacora

Golden Pavona



Clean Up Crew:

10 Dwarf Ceriths

4 Florida Nerites

1 Florida Cerith

3 Scarlet Hermit Crabs

2 Nassarius Snails



Other:

Live Rock from 2 different LFS (Fiji? Caribbean? who knows)

Fiji Pink Arag Alive Live sand

RO/DI water + Red Sea Coral Pro Salt



So, this has been my first saltwater adventure and it's been nuts. I have had a blast going through the process of putting this tank together. There are a lot of things you can learn by researching, but a lot of things you seem to need to get a feel for first hand. As hard as I have tried to do things perfectly, I always find that I made some mistake here and there. Some things may not have been my fault, but I am currently battling green hair algae, dinos(could be cyano or diatoms) and SPS RTN(I actually took care of it). My zoas had zoa pox and I won that battle by the help of people from the forums.



So, more about the tank. I set it up on the counter in the kitchen. It's in a really nice location. It gets a lot of attention and is not an eye sore/in the way. Most importantly, the wife has not complained yet. Here are some pictures of the setup:

Cable Management:

Equipment In Tank:

Nanobox Duo Plus M:



So, I thought I would write a small review for this light. I've gone through a few lights and I think this is the one that I am finally satisfied with. I haven't had it long enough to comment on growth, but if I run into issues with growth we can most likely adjust the settings and position of the corals or investigate other causes. One of my favorite things about the light is how sleek it is. Now, how things look outside of the tank is usually lower priority for many of us, but for the location of my tank it is important that the light is not an eye sore.



As far as colors go, every light that I have owned has had different looking actinics. It's so hard to explain the look other than saying one is very blue and one is not so blue. I haven't messed with the settings too much, but my settings seem to offer a watered down version of how blue kessils are if that makes any sense. It's really cool looking, but I just have the hardest time finding the right words.



One thing I did not like was the mount that came with the light. It made me a little nervous as the Duo is almost too heavy for a gooseneck mount. I used a kessil 24" to mount it off the counter and I do not recommend this method. It's not as sturdy as I thought it would be. It works, but it's not the best. However, Dave already has better mounts so you don't need to worry about this if you are considering this light.



The bluefish controller is pretty good as well. I wish it had better night mode settings, but apparently a new app is in the works and that is a request that has been mentioned so maybe we'll see it. Here are some pictures:

Settings:


Lunar Cycles: On

Dynamic Sunrise Time: On

Light Easing: On



Morning 11:00AM 200 minutes, 50 minute ramp:

Day 30 minute ramp:

Evening 155 minutes, 90 minute ramp:

If you have any suggestions (especially with my light settings) please let me know!



Live Stock Pictures:

​

 

[Leyth]

Alright, so a bit of an update. I took care of the hair algae by toning down the lights ALOT and just increasing very slowly. In hindsight, this was a stupid thing to do because I really ticked off the Anemone and Zoas. However, we are back to very strong light amount and everyone is happy. Unfortunately, a lot of the Zoas' purple areas turned green, but not on the newly sprouting heads. So, the bad news is that I am moving in a month right when things started working out. The good news is that I bought this house, don't plan on moving in a long time, and I get my own office which will be loaded with tanks in time muahahah. Anyways, here are some pictures.

 

[Leyth]

My Pistol shrimp eating:

 

[Leyth]

More pictures after moving to the new house. Please excuse the mess.

 

[Elementalj]

I'm digging it! [emoji41][emoji122][emoji122][emoji122]

 

[Leyth]

Thanks!

 

[nate w]

its a nice nano

 

[Leyth]

its a nice nano

Thanks!

 

[nate w]

you like the AI prime?

 

[Leyth]

you like the AI prime?

Yea I really did. Shadowing sucked, but that's with all LEDS.

 

[SnookNRedZ]

You weren't kidding, our tanks are almost identical! Too funny. But every thing looks great Leyth!!

 

[Leyth]

You weren't kidding, our tanks are almost identical! Too funny. But every thing looks great Leyth!!

Great minds think alike! Your tank looks great as well.