Low Bookshelf/Entertainment Center 180g SPS Build

[clownfish4]

Been 9 days since I got my first fishes from TSM and they are all doing amazing! The anthias are greedy pigs. I'm feeding 5 times a day and every time I walk by the tank they all swim right up to the front pane expecting food. I ran out of phosphate reagent and my LFS doesn't carry it, so I placed an order and added the BSD brine shrimp hatchery disk to get free shipping. Should be here by end of next week and I am going to start feeding live brine as well. Even though I've only had the fishes for 9 days, I am positive the anthias colors are more prominent and the clownfish are bigger.

Since I only have fishes in the tank right now I added my Cad Lights PLS-100 skimmer to the sump. I have it wide open and the foam breaks a lot when I'm not feeding, but it is still pulling out a lot of gunk. It smells horrible after 2-3 days of not being cleaned. Below pic is after about 3 days.

I am changing my filter socks 3x a week; every M, W, F. They clog after about 3 days, so I bought 24 more to go with my 6, so now I can go about a month. I switched to spraying them down with hydrogen peroxide instead of using bleach and am happy with the results so far. Below is after 1 day.

I am developing diatoms, as well as a weird dark green algae I can't quite put my finger on. It is hard to see below, but it is very dark green and stringy. I don't think it is cyano, but that is the closest thing I can put it to. There is some flat slimy looking growth as well, but definitely stringy as well. The only live things to go in my tank have been Dr. Tim's One and Only, Microbacter7, AlgaeBarn 5280 pods, AlgaeBarn purple and pink helix coralline, and the quarrantined fishes, so I'm at a bit of a loss on how this even got in the tank.

I mentioned previously how my pH fluctuates heavily based on when I have the windows open. In the pic below, I switched to AC on 17th, then turned the AC off and opened my sliding door late on the 19th and had it open all day today, the 20th. I'll also open it for a few minutes in the morning if it is cool enough, which causes some of the blips.

And finally, here's a pic of my anthias in a ball. They are awesome fish, highly recommend.

 

[DeniseAndy]

Could be dinos. Yuck. Love the anthias though. They look great! Nice build so far. Love all the work you do yourself.

 

[clownfish4]

Could be dinos. Yuck. Love the anthias though. They look great! Nice build so far. Love all the work you do yourself.

Hmm, I’ve never heard of green dinos. Everything I have ever seen has been brown. I really hope it isn’t dinos, that would not be fun!

I love doing the DIY work, it’s just hard to make the time for it with a full time job, maintaining a house, etc. But I powered through the necessary steps to get the tank filled so I could slow down a bit on the less important parts. I really need to finish the bookshelves and stand skirt

 

[clownfish4]

Another week down and all the fishes are fat, healthy, and active. I am full on in the ugly phase and have tons of diatoms, a little cyano, and I think some green stringy/mucousy stuff I still am not positive on, but I'm thinking maybe turf algae at this point :/. I'm going to try and siphon some of it out today and may consider turning the lights off if it continues to spread. I have also been looking into snails, but I haven't found any pre-quarantined ones available. Everything on AlgaeBarn is out of stock and I won't come anywhere near the min order for TSM. I really wish I had ordered from ReefCleaners when I started cycling the rock and quarantined them myself. I'll likely place an order with ReefCleaners now and put them into quarantine, as well as try to get a handful of pre-quarantined ones ASAP.

The sump is pretty gunky. I will likely add a small power head to keep the surface a little less nasty. The skimmer is also having fun.

I got the BSD brine shrimp disc hatchery and this is by far the easiest hatchery I've used. I've been thinking about ways to utilize this design with a dosing pump for automated live brine feeding. I used the BRS eggs and they started hatching in under 18 hours. Below is after I already harvested once.

And FTS

My parameters are all close to what I want, but still having some random swings and making minor adjustments to dosing schedules each week. This week the alkalinity tanked after being stable the previous week. The past two weeks it tested at 8.9 with 4.5 ml soda ash dosed daily. Today it was 7.1, so I increased the dosing to 5 ml/day.

Params today:
Alkalinity - 7.1 (targeting 9)
Ammonia - 0
Calcium - 450 (4.5 ml/day Ca chloride, down from 465 last week, letting drop to 420)
Magnesium - 1470 (2.2 ml/day Mg liquid mix, down from 1485 last week, letting drop to 1285)
Nitrate - 0
Phosphate - 0

 

[New&no clue]

Following along. I’m just starting a 180 and would also like some anthias. I’m concerned about their feeding requirements and having high phosphates and Nitrates. It looks like yours are zero and wondering what your are using for filtration. I see a skimmer and socks, is there anything else?

 

[clownfish4]

Following along. I’m just starting a 180 and would also like some anthias. I’m concerned about their feeding requirements and having high phosphates and Nitrates. It looks like yours are zero and wondering what your are using for filtration. I see a skimmer and socks, is there anything else?

Currently I am only running socks and the skimmer. I am not doing water changes, not using carbon, not using phosban, etc. Keeping up with the filter socks is the biggest impact, in my opinion. I change them every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so effectively every other day. When I had my 18g tank running, my nutrient levels plummeted when I started using filter pads and replacing every other day. Another part of it is that I have 11 fishes in a 180g with a 90g sump (half full) and they have only been in for ~2 weeks. I don't think I've added enough food to cause a significant build up even if I wasn't swapping the socks three days a week.

I'll also say that in my 18g I had to cutback on swapping my socks and running my skimmer to keep my SPS alive. They did not react well to 0 phosphate/nitrate, so I will not be targeting 0s with this tank, I am just keeping nutrients low now until my tank settles in.

 

[New&no clue]

Currently I am only running socks and the skimmer. I am not doing water changes, not using carbon, not using phosban, etc. Keeping up with the filter socks is the biggest impact, in my opinion. I change them every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so effectively every other day. When I had my 18g tank running, my nutrient levels plummeted when I started using filter pads and replacing every other day. Another part of it is that I have 11 fishes in a 180g with a 90g sump (half full) and they have only been in for ~2 weeks. I don't think I've added enough food to cause a significant build up even if I wasn't swapping the socks three days a week.

I'll also say that in my 18g I had to cutback on swapping my socks and running my skimmer to keep my SPS alive. They did not react well to 0 phosphate/nitrate, so I will not be targeting 0s with this tank, I am just keeping nutrients low now until my tank settles in.

I agree on changing the filter socks. In my 75 gallon if I change the filter socks every couple of days my phosphates are around 0.16, but if I’m lazy and do it weekly they jump to 0.26. In the 180 I’m going to do a roller mat instead of filter socks.

 

[clownfish4]

I agree on changing the filter socks. In my 75 gallon if I change the filter socks every couple of days my phosphates are around 0.16, but if I’m lazy and do it weekly they jump to 0.26. In the 180 I’m going to do a roller mat instead of filter socks.

I'll be interested to hear what you think about the roller. I've never used one for a few reasons, though I completely understand the benefit of not having to change the socks every other day.

- With socks I know for a fact that 100% of the water going to my sump flows through the socks. With the roller, all of your drain pipes would have to plumb into it for the same effect, which means you may need more than one. I also don't think this guarantees 100% water passing as the roller seems to use more of a "sticky" method than pass through.

- The rollers are way more expensive than socks, both upfront and in maintenance since the rolls aren't reusable. I like to keep costs and waste down as much as possible so that my methods are scalable. I know for a fact the 180 isn't big enough for me long term

- I've don't think I've read anything about how they smell, but I fear they will smell pretty bad. When I remove my filter socks I rinse them then put them into a bucket to dry. The next day the bucket smells very foul. Since the roller is constantly allowing the decaying matter to dry out and holding it, I suspect the smell gets pretty bad.

 

[New&no clue]

I'll be interested to hear what you think about the roller. I've never used one for a few reasons, though I completely understand the benefit of not having to change the socks every other day.

- With socks I know for a fact that 100% of the water going to my sump flows through the socks. With the roller, all of your drain pipes would have to plumb into it for the same effect, which means you may need more than one. I also don't think this guarantees 100% water passing as the roller seems to use more of a "sticky" method than pass through.

- The rollers are way more expensive than socks, both upfront and in maintenance since the rolls aren't reusable. I like to keep costs and waste down as much as possible so that my methods are scalable. I know for a fact the 180 isn't big enough for me long term

- I've don't think I've read anything about how they smell, but I fear they will smell pretty bad. When I remove my filter socks I rinse them then put them into a bucket to dry. The next day the bucket smells very foul. Since the roller is constantly allowing the decaying matter to dry out and holding it, I suspect the smell gets pretty bad.

Those are some good points about the roller. Currently I have two sock holders, but only one with a filter sock, so I’m already not filtering all the water. I have a bag of carbon in the other.

I never thought of the smell, my sump is in the basement so I’m not terribly worried about it, but something to definitely think about if you had the sump under the stand or in another room you don’t want stinky.

 

[clownfish4]

I've had my anthias and clownfish for a month now and everyone is still active and healthy. The clownfish are growing like weeds, nearly double their original size, and one of them has definitely become the aggressor. In the pic below the one in the back is the dominant one.

My anthias seem to have ousted one from the group. The ousted one spends the majority of its time hidden highest middle rock. During feeding time it will dart out to eat and back into the rock. Occasionally it will rejoin he group in the open and the group frequently goes into the rock work with the ousted one. This has been going on for nearly two weeks now, but since it is eating and fat, I'm not concerned.

At this point I believe the green algae is actually blue-green cyano. The hairiness was just from it clumping weirdly, but now it is clearly dark green, slimy, and growing in a mucous mat.

I hate my skimmer, but since I'm not intending to use one longterm, I'm not going to replace it. I've also gone back to using bleach to wash my filter socks. It is way easier and I'm confident it all gets out. I turn the socks inside out and wash them with bleach and an extra rinse, then I turn them back out and run them again without bleach.

I've updated my pump schedules to spend more time on the higher settings, however I still only run the pump near the clowns at 55% max and leave it off at night. For feeding, I still feed five times a day, but changed the foods a bit. I switched from LRF reef frenzy to LRS nano as none of the current residents like anything bigger than tiny particles. I add live brine, New Spectrum pellets, and Coral Frenzy pellets to every feeding. The first and last feeding gets froze mysis and the three middle feedings get the LRS. There's a chance I may get my tang gang in the next week or so. If I do, I'll go back to LRS reef frenzy, but I really need to start making my own due to how much I feed.

Last week I got a handful of trochus, cerith, dwarf cerith, and nassarius snails from ReefCleaners. They are all in QT and will remain their until mid may.

Ammonia, nitrate, and phosphate continue to test 0. My alkalinity consumption continues to increase. It is still relatively low (dosing 6 ml/day), but definitely increasing. I will likely add a bag of carbon soon as the water is getting a bit cloudy.

I finally started staining the next set of shelves for the bookshelf and hope to have them installed Monday if I don't fall behind.

 

[clownfish4]

A little light reading anyone? Two more shelves down, two to go.

 

[New&no clue]

When you've ordered from TSM , what was your acclimation process? I recently placed an order with them and was told that they ship in 1.021 salinity. My DT is 1.025-1.026. Typically when I buy fish, I have my QT match the salinity the fish was currently in and slowly brought it up to match my DT over a couple of weeks while observing and medicating. I'm concerned about the big jump if I add directly to the DT. I was wondering if you've had any problems.

 

[clownfish4]

and was told that they ship in 1.021 salinity

That is strange, their website says "We maintain our systems and ship our livestock at a salinity of 35ppt." on the WHY TSM page. My fishes all arrived at 1.025, so I floated for 15 minutes then dumped in.

Below is what they responded with when I asked about acclimation.

"As far as acclimation goes just float for temp first. If the salinities are within 1-2ppt you can add the fish directly to your tank. If the salinities are significantly off, it would be beneficial to mix up some clean salt water that matches the salinity in the bags, move the fish into that water, and then drip acclimate to your system. The shipment should be arriving at 35ppt +/- 1ppt."

 

[New&no clue]

That is strange, their website says "We maintain our systems and ship our livestock at a salinity of 35ppt." on the WHY TSM page. My fishes all arrived at 1.025, so I floated for 15 minutes then dumped in.

Below is what they responded with when I asked about acclimation.

"As far as acclimation goes just float for temp first. If the salinities are within 1-2ppt you can add the fish directly to your tank. If the salinities are significantly off, it would be beneficial to mix up some clean salt water that matches the salinity in the bags, move the fish into that water, and then drip acclimate to your system. The shipment should be arriving at 35ppt +/- 1ppt."

Oh good. Maybe the rep I was talking to misspoke. I asked about anthias and the best approach to groups, all females or females and one male. I had asked what the salinity they usually ship at, and he said 1.021. I plan to test when they came in, but hoping it's 1.025-1.026 so I can float for temp and then drop in.

 

[clownfish4]

Oh good. Maybe the rep I was talking to misspoke. I asked about anthias and the best approach to groups, all females or females and one male. I had asked what the salinity they usually ship at, and he said 1.021. I plan to test when they came in, but hoping it's 1.025-1.026 so I can float for temp and then drop in.

What did they say about the all females vs 1 male? When I ordered my ignitus they only had females and I figured it would be more interesting to watch the transition, however I think that also has the potential of mortality if more than one shows any dominance. I would think as long as you avoid the aggressive species like lyretails, or have a very big tank, you’ll be fine either way.

 

[New&no clue]

What did they say about the all females vs 1 male? When I ordered my ignitus they only had females and I figured it would be more interesting to watch the transition, however I think that also has the potential of mortality if more than one shows any dominance. I would think as long as you avoid the aggressive species like lyretails, or have a very big tank, you’ll be fine either way.

He said pluses and minuses with both. Just because you add a group of females and one male doesn't mean the females will accept him, and one might still transition and fight for dominance. With a group of females, there is a chance for multiple trying to be dominant. I decided to go with one male and seven females, but the males were all gone when I went to order. The rep I talked to said if one transition while in QT, he would send a male with my order.

 

[clownfish4]

He said pluses and minuses with both. Just because you add a group of females and one male doesn't mean the females will accept him, and one might still transition and fight for dominance. With a group of females, there is a chance for multiple trying to be dominant. I decided to go with one male and seven females, but the males were all gone when I went to order. The rep I talked to said if one transition while in QT, he would send a male with my order.

Seems like justification to upgrade to a tank large enough for multiple groups

 

[clownfish4]

Lots of fun stuff going on today. I woke up to a very quiet tank because my return pump stopped. After lots of tinkering, I discovered the COR-15 was not able to communicate with the Apex through my DOS any longer. I pulled out my broken energy bar (it died again a week or so ago) and plugged my COR into it and it fired back up. So now I am using my broken energy bar as a power transformer for my COR. I've decided to start migrating things off of the Apex, so I am going to buy a second return pump and plumb it in parallel to the COR for redundancy. I am likely going to get either a Reef Octopus Varios or Simplicity pump. I am also going to pick up a Tunze Osmolator as redundancy for my Apex ATO.

I got fed up with the CAD skimmer and decided that since I feed so heavy I would get a slightly undersized skimmer that I can adjust down when I want to raise my nutrients. After perusing the for sale forums for a couple of weeks I ended up buying a new Simplicity 320DC. It is slightly underrated for my tank size under heavy load and was very reasonably priced. It arrived today and is sleek!

And it replaced this mess

I kicked up a bunch of detritus in the sump and now my tank looks horrendous. On a plus note I finally found some ceriths in stock at AlgaeBarn, so I ordered 20 that should be delivered tomorrow and will hopefully provide some relief until my first batch of snails finishes QT in May.

Ammonia, nitrate, and phosphate are still all testing 0. And now, the best news I got today is that my QuarantinedFish order should ship on Thursday and be here Friday. That one has a yellow tang, powder blue tang, yellow eye kole tang, and fire shrimp! Very excited for that one.

 

[clownfish4]

My tangs arrived Friday from Quarantined Fish! All three of them were fat, active, and healthy looking. Unfortunately the kole did not survive the first night and I am not sure why, but the powder blue and yellow are doing great. I contacted Mike at QF and he immediately offered to try again on the kole or give me a refund. I asked for store credit instead as I turned around and put it into snails and shrimp. The fire shrimp in my initial order also wasn't healthy enough to ship, so Mike immediately gave me a full refund for that as well. Overall great experience and I highly recommend!

They aren't quite interested in nori yet, so you can see in the second pic I am using the pouch in reverse with the nori hanging out the top, cut into strips. They picked at it a bit yesterday. I am currently changing it out every morning, so it stays in for 24 hours. My nitrate and phosphate are still testing 0. Once I get the cleanup crew established (ordered 10 nassarius, 25 cerith, 25 trochus, 1 fire shrimp, and 1 cleaner shrimp from QF), if they are still testing 0, I am going to remove one of the filter socks so that half the water goes through a sock and see if the nitrate/phosphate come up into my desired range.

My Simplicity skimmer is still breaking in. The below pic was taken about 14 hours after cleaning it. My sump level is 11" and the recommended water level is 7.5" - 9", so I have the pump running at a low speed. The next time I clean it I am going to turn down the air flow a bit and see if I can get a good balance so it doesn't bubble out the lid. If that doesn't work I'll look at safe oils to prevent the foam from sticking to the lid.

Another anthias was ousted from the group, so there are 6 in the group now. I haven't found bodies for the other two, but I did see one swimming very erratically a couple days ago. I expect they will likely get buried in the rock work, so I want to get the shrimp/nassarius in quickly. I'm hoping the tangs will put some pressure on the remaining 6 to back off a bit. I'm trying to determine if it was a misstep to add the anthias first, or if I should have added more fishes sooner after the anthias went in.

 

[clownfish4]

Found the body of one anthias but not the other, but haven't seem more than 6 since finding the body. The group of 6 is still together, so really hoping they're accepting the hierarchy now. From an overall perspective, while the tank is still a bit cloudy and embracing the ugly stage, it actually appears to be getting better. The green cyano is nearly all gone and I didn't do any manual removal of it, happened on its own. In the picture below, this area use to be completely green. Now it has some brown diatoms and a few lingering pieces of cyano, but mostly cleared.

I saw one of the AlgaeBarn ceriths for the first time yesterday, so at least one survived. Pinky for scale; it has a lot of work to do! My invert order from QF should be arriving this week with a cleaner shrimp, fire shrimp, nassarius snails, cerith snails, and trochus snails. Given I can see the algae is starting to clear up a bit, I think this is a good time to get them in, though I still wish I had a few snails ready to go in when the fishes did.

I raised my skimmer so that it is in the appropriate water level range and tuned it, but still having issues with it foaming out the lid vent holes and pushing the lid up and foaming over the edge. The below is minutes after cleaning it and lowering the internal water level. I am going to try running a drain pipe into a separate container to see if that has any effect.

I also had one of those "why didn't I think of this before" moments. I was trying to figure out how to deal with all the scum on the surface of the sump, then realized this is literally why I have filter socks. So I took a clean sock and manually pulled it across the surface, skimming all the gunk. The below picture is the after math, there should be a before pic somewhere in this thread. It is still a little dirty looking, but the surface of the water is crystal clear.

I think my yellow tang has lymphocystis. I haven't seen anything on the powder blue or any of the other fishes. There was a mass on its nose that has sense disappeared, but the edges of its dorsal, pectoral, and caudal fins all have the white spots. It is hard to get a good pic, but in the below you can see the white on the top of the caudal and back of the dorsal fins. No white spots on the body, and given the source, highly doubt any ich probability.

Due to this, I picked up some vita-chem and NLS Algaemax pellets. New feeding schedule is below.

9 AM - Mix of LRS Reef Frenzy, 1 cube PE Mysis, pinch of NLS Marine Pellets, pinch of NLS Algaemax, pinch of Spirulina flakes, pinch of Coral Frenzy Reef and Fish pellets, and live brine

9:15 AM - Half a sheet of nori with a couple drops of vita-chem smeared in the middle

12 PM - Mix of LRS Reef Frenzy, pinch of NLS Marine Pellets, pinch of NLS Algaemax, pinch of Spirulina flakes, pinch of Coral Frenzy Reef and Fish pellets, and live brine

3 PM - Mix of LRS Reef Frenzy, 1 cube PE Mysis, pinch of NLS Marine Pellets, pinch of NLS Algaemax, pinch of Spirulina flakes, pinch of Coral Frenzy Reef and Fish pellets, live brine, and a few drops of vita-chem

6 PM - Mix of LRS Reef Frenzy, pinch of NLS Marine Pellets, pinch of NLS Algaemax, pinch of Spirulina flakes, pinch of Coral Frenzy Reef and Fish pellets, and live brine

9 PM - Mix of LRS Reef Frenzy, pinch of NLS Marine Pellets, pinch of NLS Algaemax, pinch of Spirulina flakes, pinch of Coral Frenzy Reef and Fish pellets, and live brine