LandLockedJones
Active Member
Ahoy
As promised I am putting together a thread for my 10g aqueon build. Got the idea from a build on YouTube by inappropriatereefer. I will do a separate thread for my smaller 6g later as it’s kinda my experimental tank right now.
Apologies for the crumby photos I use an ancient phone for now. But getting to it;
The tank:
-10 gallon aqueon plasti-dipped on 2 sides.
Current Parameters
-Salinity: 1.023-1.024sg
-PH: 8
-Ammonia: 0ish-.2ppm (will explain)
-Nitrite: 0.5ppm
-Nitrate: 20-50ppm
-Alkalinity: 7.5 dkh
this is all I have kits for presently.
Test kits
-BRS LED refractometer
-RedSea basic starter set
ATO
-Reefbreeders exo (hoping my light does not interfere with it because I’m a fan of optical sensors, but I have a prism unit sitting around as a back up)
-small Betta transport I drilled a few holes into.(my next upgrade will be a larger resevoir I think)
Salt mix
Tropic Marin SynBiotic
Aaaaand whatever my LFS puts in their “premium” SW mix. (Also why salinity and alkalinity so low, I presume)
Filtration:
-Aquaclear 70 with InTank acrylic media basket
-stage 1: filter floss(green stuff can’t remember it’s exact specs)
-stage 2: small amount of sand with marine pure bio balls. Fit roughly 6 or 7
-stage 3: stuffed with bio balls and another piece of floss. (will be a mini refugium running chaetomorpha which is in my 6g being quarantined for now)
-1.5-2” sand-bed carribsea Bahamas Oolite
-Not nearly enough dry rock, but I think it ended up with about 8-10lbs of the 20 I purchased.
Heating
-Inkbird itc-306a temp controller
-BRS 100Watt
Additional power head
-Jeboa Sow3 w/controller(was not used in YouTube build, but I was considering going for sps domination for this little thing. So wanted option of more flow)
Lighting (still in blackout period)
-Reefbreeders nano led (which appears to be identical to a spectra 36w aqua knight v2, I believe reefbreeders acquired this design at some point, saw good things about the spectra though it was certainly cheaper than the reef breeder model.figured I’d give it a shot)
-acke 12w grow light(not actually attached to this tank yet.
Additives (all from brightwell aquatics currently)
-microbacter fastartm: (just under 1/2 cap daily)
-microbacter 7(now dosing once per week ~16 drops mixed with 250mL of tank water)
-chaetogro (just began light dosing a few days ago)
Livestock
-2 juvenile clowns who will be moving up to a new aquarium shortly.
-Soon to introduce chaetomorpha in the filter compartment.
The tank has been running about 5 1/2 weeks, unfortunately it has not been the best intro to the hobby. But I’ve persisted through some early downs and am hoping that the worst is behind me.
I went to the LFS to pick up my first batch of RO to mix as I did not want to invest in an RO unit at the time. I wanted water, and microbacter 7. Through a bit of miscommunication ended up bottling their premixed saltwater and decided to use it, I also left with microbacter 7 and a fancy smancy gold nugget maroon clown.
They knew the tank was brand new, and advised me to use a fish to cycle, I had read that this was an old school mentality, but they seemed thoroughly confused by my choice to cycle without a fish. (Actually both of my LFS’s did)
So the race began, to get home and setup a tank before my fish died in his bag, I was successful…I thought. I added the bacteria with the fish as instructed, but I dosed for 10 gallons. As there are not 10 gallons of water in a 10 gallon aquarium (more like 8 in mine) it created a bacterial bloom in the tank which devoured all the oxygen and the little nugget did not survive.
So I sulked a day or 2 while trying to figure out what happened. Once I discovered the issue was overdosing I got another fish as “you must have an ammonia source” I was told.
This time I went cheap as I was nervous. The clown I named Sanka, (cool runnings lol) and she luckily survived the cycle. Though, the longer I observed, the worse I felt for the fish being bathed in toxins. And my ammonia was higher than my kit could even read I believe.
reviewing microbacter 7 on brightwells website I learned about fastartm, which was designed to work in conjunction with microbacter 7 for cycling tanks (was not at either LFS)
Each night I tested, each night nitrites and ammonia were off the charts. I was reading basically nothing on nitrates. My fish was obviously stressed and would barely eat. Started dosing fastartm end of week 2 probably.
Finally in week 3 my alert badge was yellow and my ammonia and nitrates seemingly vanished overnight. I was stoked, and the change in my clowns behavior was unmistakeable.
She barely ate though I bought 5 types of food, 3 different frozens, a can of flakes and pellets. Suddenly she was just devouring anything that hit the water. And has since.
A few days with no ammonia I did my first 50% water change, attempting to reduce my nitrates, and this is where I think I messed up.
Turns out while I was working, my aquaclear 70 was less than half full of water, leaving all of my bio balls exposed.
After that water change, I seem to have some ammonia present in my tank again. It’s low, around .2mg/L and pretty consistent, and some days my readings are back to 0. But I fear I killed off some of my bacteria in the process.
I added the second clown even knowing there was a minute amount of ammonia. But I had too, I saw sanka my solo clown trying to feed its reflection a couple times. Maybe not what I really saw, but it had a pellet in its mouth and kept trying to let it go in front of its reflection and made me think she was lonely, so I did some research on pairing and brought in another clown who’s name is calcifer.
Where I am now is trying to wait out this little ammonia spike, feeling bad, but not as bad as I did before. And I am doing small water changes trying to up my salinity with my tropic Marin salt mix.
Though I did add a second fish, I will never cycle with a fish again. The change in behavior from the day the ammonia dissipated just broke my heart.
I am just trying to be patient and get my basic feeding, testing, and water change schedules down pat before I start adding any coral, also I want my salinity up as I’m worried adjusting with them in place is a mistake.
Hope I didn’t ramble so much they delete my account, but as always I guess I’ll just sail away.
Happy Reefing!
~LandLockedJones~
As promised I am putting together a thread for my 10g aqueon build. Got the idea from a build on YouTube by inappropriatereefer. I will do a separate thread for my smaller 6g later as it’s kinda my experimental tank right now.
Apologies for the crumby photos I use an ancient phone for now. But getting to it;
The tank:
-10 gallon aqueon plasti-dipped on 2 sides.
Current Parameters
-Salinity: 1.023-1.024sg
-PH: 8
-Ammonia: 0ish-.2ppm (will explain)
-Nitrite: 0.5ppm
-Nitrate: 20-50ppm
-Alkalinity: 7.5 dkh
this is all I have kits for presently.
Test kits
-BRS LED refractometer
-RedSea basic starter set
ATO
-Reefbreeders exo (hoping my light does not interfere with it because I’m a fan of optical sensors, but I have a prism unit sitting around as a back up)
-small Betta transport I drilled a few holes into.(my next upgrade will be a larger resevoir I think)
Salt mix
Tropic Marin SynBiotic
Aaaaand whatever my LFS puts in their “premium” SW mix. (Also why salinity and alkalinity so low, I presume)
Filtration:
-Aquaclear 70 with InTank acrylic media basket
-stage 1: filter floss(green stuff can’t remember it’s exact specs)
-stage 2: small amount of sand with marine pure bio balls. Fit roughly 6 or 7
-stage 3: stuffed with bio balls and another piece of floss. (will be a mini refugium running chaetomorpha which is in my 6g being quarantined for now)
-1.5-2” sand-bed carribsea Bahamas Oolite
-Not nearly enough dry rock, but I think it ended up with about 8-10lbs of the 20 I purchased.
Heating
-Inkbird itc-306a temp controller
-BRS 100Watt
Additional power head
-Jeboa Sow3 w/controller(was not used in YouTube build, but I was considering going for sps domination for this little thing. So wanted option of more flow)
Lighting (still in blackout period)
-Reefbreeders nano led (which appears to be identical to a spectra 36w aqua knight v2, I believe reefbreeders acquired this design at some point, saw good things about the spectra though it was certainly cheaper than the reef breeder model.figured I’d give it a shot)
-acke 12w grow light(not actually attached to this tank yet.
Additives (all from brightwell aquatics currently)
-microbacter fastartm: (just under 1/2 cap daily)
-microbacter 7(now dosing once per week ~16 drops mixed with 250mL of tank water)
-chaetogro (just began light dosing a few days ago)
Livestock
-2 juvenile clowns who will be moving up to a new aquarium shortly.
-Soon to introduce chaetomorpha in the filter compartment.
The tank has been running about 5 1/2 weeks, unfortunately it has not been the best intro to the hobby. But I’ve persisted through some early downs and am hoping that the worst is behind me.
I went to the LFS to pick up my first batch of RO to mix as I did not want to invest in an RO unit at the time. I wanted water, and microbacter 7. Through a bit of miscommunication ended up bottling their premixed saltwater and decided to use it, I also left with microbacter 7 and a fancy smancy gold nugget maroon clown.
They knew the tank was brand new, and advised me to use a fish to cycle, I had read that this was an old school mentality, but they seemed thoroughly confused by my choice to cycle without a fish. (Actually both of my LFS’s did)
So the race began, to get home and setup a tank before my fish died in his bag, I was successful…I thought. I added the bacteria with the fish as instructed, but I dosed for 10 gallons. As there are not 10 gallons of water in a 10 gallon aquarium (more like 8 in mine) it created a bacterial bloom in the tank which devoured all the oxygen and the little nugget did not survive.
So I sulked a day or 2 while trying to figure out what happened. Once I discovered the issue was overdosing I got another fish as “you must have an ammonia source” I was told.
This time I went cheap as I was nervous. The clown I named Sanka, (cool runnings lol) and she luckily survived the cycle. Though, the longer I observed, the worse I felt for the fish being bathed in toxins. And my ammonia was higher than my kit could even read I believe.
reviewing microbacter 7 on brightwells website I learned about fastartm, which was designed to work in conjunction with microbacter 7 for cycling tanks (was not at either LFS)
Each night I tested, each night nitrites and ammonia were off the charts. I was reading basically nothing on nitrates. My fish was obviously stressed and would barely eat. Started dosing fastartm end of week 2 probably.
Finally in week 3 my alert badge was yellow and my ammonia and nitrates seemingly vanished overnight. I was stoked, and the change in my clowns behavior was unmistakeable.
She barely ate though I bought 5 types of food, 3 different frozens, a can of flakes and pellets. Suddenly she was just devouring anything that hit the water. And has since.
A few days with no ammonia I did my first 50% water change, attempting to reduce my nitrates, and this is where I think I messed up.
Turns out while I was working, my aquaclear 70 was less than half full of water, leaving all of my bio balls exposed.
After that water change, I seem to have some ammonia present in my tank again. It’s low, around .2mg/L and pretty consistent, and some days my readings are back to 0. But I fear I killed off some of my bacteria in the process.
I added the second clown even knowing there was a minute amount of ammonia. But I had too, I saw sanka my solo clown trying to feed its reflection a couple times. Maybe not what I really saw, but it had a pellet in its mouth and kept trying to let it go in front of its reflection and made me think she was lonely, so I did some research on pairing and brought in another clown who’s name is calcifer.
Where I am now is trying to wait out this little ammonia spike, feeling bad, but not as bad as I did before. And I am doing small water changes trying to up my salinity with my tropic Marin salt mix.
Though I did add a second fish, I will never cycle with a fish again. The change in behavior from the day the ammonia dissipated just broke my heart.
I am just trying to be patient and get my basic feeding, testing, and water change schedules down pat before I start adding any coral, also I want my salinity up as I’m worried adjusting with them in place is a mistake.
Hope I didn’t ramble so much they delete my account, but as always I guess I’ll just sail away.
Happy Reefing!
~LandLockedJones~
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