My transition from lifelong fresh water to reefing

Brad Miller · Mar 16, 2019

After seeing what the industry wants for magnetic frag shelves, I decided to make my own and utilize my tanks back wall as I’ve seen some hobbyists do.

I bought some reef saver dry live rock from Aquacave since they said that you can request your sizes you want and try their best to meet those needs. I was happy with the sizes I requested and received.

I broke some and used my Gryphon band saw to cut a few shelves flat for the backside to go up against the tank wall.
I then used a Drexel to carve out a spot for the plastic coated earth magnets the K&J magnets offered for reef tanks. They have a selection chart based on the weight of your rock and the thickness of your tank.

After using JB water weld and aquarium silicone to mount the magnet in the rock, the first one is complete and am waiting for it to cure and dry.

Brad Miller · Mar 19, 2019

Let it cure for 2 days
Rinsed and soaked in saltwater for 1 day
Just put my Favia frag on it....
This is so cool to make my own mag shelves, now that this is a successful prototype, there are more to make !

Gaspipe · Mar 20, 2019

My wife would flip her lid if I built a kitchen in the basement for this hobby. I give you much props, it looks amazing!

Gaspipe · Mar 20, 2019

BTW I love that frag tank! Gives repurpose on an old QT if it's no longer used to acclimate new fish. I love that it looks super low maintenance.

samnaz · Mar 20, 2019

Fantastic work on this build so far. Taking a year to research before starting a reef tank is certainly the best way to go!

Brad Miller · Mar 20, 2019

Thanks evyone,
I do enjoy doing “clean looking” DIY projects on my reef tanks !
By the way....it was my wife’s idea for all the cabinets and everything, she must really love me

Brad Miller · Mar 27, 2019

So I’ve been dosing the big 3 for a couple months now and am seeing the stability factor really improving overall health of the livestock.

I’ve been looking at automatic dosing, mostly for more stability by dosing in small increments throughout the day, and being able to be away from the house for a few days.
I have settled on the Jebao DP-4, with a Simplicity 6L Dosing Container 3 x 2L and am in the process of installing it.

My only concern was putting the dosing containers and DP4 in my fish room and running the discharge tubing up above the ceiling, over about 30’, then down into my sump which is under my tank. (I don’t have the luxuary of a basement and the other room beside the tank wall is the laundry room....which my wife made clear, I’m not allowed to touch

)
It should be fine.

Brad Miller · Apr 9, 2019

Been working on my proper amount of leds for my photo culture jar....almost got it the keep a good temperature rise from room temp to water temp

Brad Miller · Apr 19, 2019

Update...
After a failure or two from trying to be too sterile, metal lids, too much heat from the leds etc...
I took the time to correct a few things.
I left plain water in my new “photoTank” impersonator jar and kept cutting off leds until I reached a constant 8*f difference between room temp and water temp (took quite a while)

I just started another culture and am expecting great things this time...(fingers crossed)

I bought bags to use inside the jar but forgot to use one this time...will incorporate that when I split this one in 7-10 days.

Brad Miller · Apr 24, 2019

Just added my 10 year old Grandson’s Reef Vase build thread to my signature....he is so excited

Brad Miller · May 5, 2019

8 days culturing that one.
Harvested 8oz bottle.
Rinsed out everything in tap water and dried off.
Put the rest back in the jar and added an equivalent amount of 1.019 sg saltwater with 2 ml of F2 fertilizer, but am using a bag now for the culture like PhytoTank does.

Awhile ago I ordered a bunch of 6’ long 1/4” od, hard acrylic tubing for the air entering and exhaust tubes, again, just like PhytoTank does to keep contamination to a minimum.

3 days into this new culture, it turned yellow.
I called Mercer of Montana and David helped me with my problem.
Seems I was doing the 16 hour lighting schedule, but neglected to take into account the drop in culture temp from 78*f while culture light was on, to room temp during the lights off time of about 70*f.
David said that the nano isn’t dead, that this would decrease the metabolism and cause it to turn yellow.
He also said to just leave the lights on 24/7 as that’s not as important as keeping a stable 78*f, and to give it a shot of F2 and leave it go for a while, may pull through.

Trial and error...not loving it so much anymore

Culture was very light yellow to white and was amazed to see it a bit greener each day !
Now it is doing really well again and looking great.
I wish I would have known this with some of my other cultures...if they turned yellow I threw them out, thinking it was dead.

Day 8 of culture is today, culture is still on track and ready to split.
Pics with light on and off to show density;

Trying something new since I have gotten a lot of feedback and information on how to sterilize equipment....
While the culture is still cooking, I am filling up my 2nd culture jar, dosing storage bottles, the pitcher I use to strain the culture into, and the 53 micron strainer in warm water with a little laundry bleach, taking care to swish around and get all surfaces, letting sit for about 1 hour, then letting completely air dry before using them;

Split went well.
We’ll see how my new sterilization technique works....
Am cuturing a full jar this time (using 64oz., lucky leaf Raspberry iced tea bottles to store in the refrigerator)

Brad Miller · May 5, 2019

Back to my auto dosing...
I ran my pump discharge lines in 1/4” od silicone tubing, up above the ceiling and over to the tank, about a total of 50’ for each run.
Mistake #1 was putting a cheap check valve on the discharge line right after the pump, these leaked at the body of the valve and allowed my alk and calc to slowly drain from the overhead line into my tank !
I removed the check valves and am doing fine by allowing the 3 rollers in the pump head to pinch off the tubing....seems to be doing a good job.
This allowed a spike in alk and calc in the tank, which stressed my 4 Lords out and I almost lost one of them. I took all 4 out, cut the exposed skeleton off of the really bad one and dipped all 4 in Melafix.
Happy to report, they are all doing very well again.

I ended up figuring out the amount of alkalinity my tank is consuming from my manual dosing notes and am now 2 weeks into spot on parameters of alk and calc by dosing 1ml 15 times per day of both (using equal amounts of both sees to be perfect)

Brad Miller · May 15, 2019

10 days after starting my last phyto culture....
Lights on 24/7 to keep temp of culture stable.
Just harvested a full 64 oz bottle.
Since this culture is so dark, I’m using 1/3rd of what I just cultured, then adding 2/3rd fresh made 1.019 saltwater with 3 ml of F2 for this next culture (I was doing 1/2 old culture with 1/2 saltwater previously)
When I harvested the last batch, I weak bleached everything needed to harvest and start next culture, let it air dry, then put it all in a cupboard above my culture station, so it was really easy to do this time.
This culture was rich and very dark compared to last one and it even got off to a rocky start ;Happy

Again, I’m weak bleaching everything for my next harvest and sitting it in a cupboard awhile.
When I first started dosing my cultured phyto, my coral and filter feeders perked up on the 2nd day.
Pods are multiplying rapidly on the glass and am having to clean the glass a bit more often.
Overall....VERY HAPPY with the process and end results so far !

I just got a male McCoskers Flasher Wrasse from Live Aquaria and he’s in my frag tank for observation....he ate all my pods crawling around the frag racks in 3 days...he’s so cool !

Brad Miller · Jul 1, 2019

So much has happened and plenty to keep me busy....

1. Turns out the Nanno I was culturing was actually Tetra.
Bought a microscope and looked at them.
Contacted Mercer of Montana and David apologized and sent me a 2 bottle starter set of Nanno which I’m now doing as well as the tetra

2. Wrasse jumped up and hit himself really hard on the egg crate top I made for him (I know...should have been a net) and broke his spine when the royal chased him.

3. Bought an Apogee MQ-510 par meter.

4. Switched back to my current ic led and bought another one with the brackets (loved the par values of the Hamilton t5’s but wanted the pop that led,s give you even though the growth rate might not be the same)

5. Now I’m gonna take some par readings with these leds and see where I’m at and if I need to come up with another led setup.

6. Jebao dozer turns out to be not so good....calc pump all of a sudden decided to start dosing exactly double what it has been set for since I got it and it turns for the same time frame as the other ones when set for the same, just doses twice as much. New head and everything doesn’t change it so I just programmed it for half of what it was doing to get the actual amount I need.

7. Both white worms cultures are growing and multiplying well.

8. Tank is 13 months old now and all the nasty are over with.

9. Just switched my BRS liquid Calcium Bicarbonate out with my baked baking soda mixture for dosing Sodium Carbonate, thanks to Randy’s article.
I will just cut that Bicarbonate dose in half for adding the Carbonate now.

10. Picked up 2 emerald crabs at my clubs frag swap a few weeks back and WOW.!!, they really pick the rocks clean of ALL algae.

11. Frag tank is loaded and everything is doing great with just water changes from my display tank.

12. Inherited my oldest sons 29 gallon freshwater tank for a while and will do some fancy planted aquascape sometime soon in it for him to eventually take back. I bought that awesome, Current Serene backlighting for it. VERY COOL!

13. Still soaking my grandsons rock work for the reef vase I’m building with him.

14. Picking up a used 29 gallon tank and stand from a co worker that I think I may give as a gift to my grandson so we can do something like a Nemo Harem, LOL, that would be so cool !

All in all, this has turned into a way of life for me instead of.....”honey, could I just startup a small saltwater tank ?” ;Happy

Brad Miller · Aug 23, 2019

I finally decided to use my coral feeders as a long turkey Baster for blowing things off as needed n my tank.

Removing the existing tube and replacing it with one of a length that I wouldn’t have to put my hands in the tank was the idea.

Using a heat gun, I bent the tip to get in areas I could never access with a Baster.

Using this one, the bulb is a bit small and I have to squeeze it a lot but it really works well.
I got the idea from @Paul B ....thanks for the idea buddy !

Brad Miller · Aug 25, 2019

UPDATED TANK PIC;

Brad Miller · Aug 25, 2019

I won an Ice amp 3K at our last club meeting raffle but even on low speed that thing is 1000 GPH...probably blow my tank away, so I’m saving it for when I upgrade

1. I repositioned and sped up my 3 Eflux, tank turnover flow pumps to full 100% now since things have grown out a bit more.

2. I took the time to scrape all the green and purple Coraline Algae off of the back wall and love the cleaner look !

3. Lost a couple higher light LPS and SPS corals due to changing back to the Current LED’s, but that’s ok. Calcium dosing isn’t near as much now.

4. Ready to move some grown out frags to the display tank now.

5. I think my berghia Nudibranchs May have survived since the biggest Aptasia. Had is MIA

Brad Miller · Aug 25, 2019

Changed a few things on my frag tank...still keeping t simple and low maintenance.
Seems to be doing pretty well this way.

Brad Miller · Sep 3, 2019

I really wish I knew more about torch corals before I put the one In I have now.
His tentacles are way to long to be in my little 55 gallon tank.
I’ve given him more room several times now, and it seems like he always wants more every time I look at him.

Gonna have to sell him off as a whole or break him up and sell him off in pieces.