Perseverance Reef

[Fishy888]

In about 3 hours I'll be picking up the cube tank. I am excited about the possibilities for that tank.

Today I had an idea. Since I have 1ppm of phosphates it will take 116 ppm of nitrates for the chaeto and other algaes to absorb. If I took some distilled water and cycled it with ammonia I should have water with high nitrates. At that point I should be able to dose it to the reef. I might be wrong though.

The dinos are still here. I'll try to ID them later.

 

[tbrown]

In about 3 hours I'll be picking up the cube tank. I am excited about the possibilities for that tank.

Today I had an idea. Since I have 1ppm of phosphates it will take 116 ppm of nitrates for the chaeto and other algaes to absorb. If I took some distilled water and cycled it with ammonia I should have water with high nitrates. At that point I should be able to dose it to the reef. I might be wrong though.

The dinos are still here. I'll try to ID them later.

There are DIY NO3 recipes on here that cost about $10 for about 200 gallons worth. I've used it in the past with good results.

Question about Spectracide Stump Remover dosing

I've seen a few threads on this topic in concerns to raising Nitrates. I picked up a bottle but haven't the slightest clue on how much to dose. Im not the best with math so the few calculations I have seen provided online don't allow me to come to my own conclusion.. afraid it will be off. So...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Fishy888]

That's even better. Thank you.

 

[Fishy888]

Thankfully green algae is growing on the glass again and cyano has taken over the places where dinos were growing. I haven't tested the phosphate levels again yet but later this evening I'll get that done. I'll post the results when I get that done.

My wife decided to get into saltwater also. That's awesome news! She is taking the cube and it's going in our bedroom. We have everything needed to start it except sand and rock. The rock part of things might be taken care of. It won't be 30 lbs worth; probably more like 10. We'll set it up together. I'm going to lug the water around and dump it in. I'll also show her how to measure salinity, etc. She's excited which makes me happy. I'm going to try and get her to make an account here. There has never been a reefing forum I've ever felt as welcome in as R2R. I want my wife to have that too.

My cabbage leather is shedding for the second time in 2 weeks. It hadn't shed in the month that I have had it until last week. In all fairness the clowns kicked all manner of sand on it and it shed the next day. The cabbage leather is likely shedding since there were dinos and now cyano has rolled out its own red carpet. Otherwise the corals are doing well.

 

[Fishy888]

It looks like my wife and I will have to wait until tomorrow to set up her tank. It's been a busy day. I didn't get the new phosphate test done either. Tomorrow is another day.

I can see where some of the cyano is dying off. This is a good thing. Green algae is coming back not just on the glass. It's also growing on the rocks too albeit slowly. Hopefully my chaeto is growing again too.

I did top off the sump tonight. I also got to watch the pods which are all over the newly grown green algae. Also my waving hands anthelia are doing better. They had been closed up for several weeks most likely due to the lack of nitrates. Today they opened up about halfway.

 

[Fishy888]

It looks like my wife and I will have to wait until tomorrow to set up her tank. It's been a busy day. I didn't get the new phosphate test done either. Tomorrow is another day.

I can see where some of the cyano is dying off. This is a good thing. Green algae is coming back not just on the glass. It's also growing on the rocks too albeit slowly. Hopefully my chaeto is growing again too.

I did top off the sump tonight. I also got to watch the pods which are all over the newly grown green algae. Also my waving hands anthelia are doing better. They had been closed up for several weeks most likely due to the lack of nitrates. Today they opened up about halfway.

 

[old_lady_4am]

Man, you’ve been through the ringer. I’m so afraid I’m going down a nightmare road too the more brown and green hair algae I see in my tank. I’m praying for both of us lol!

 

[tbrown]

Man, you’ve been through the ringer. I’m so afraid I’m going down a nightmare road too the more brown and green hair algae I see in my tank. I’m praying for both of us lol!

Grab a nice tang and Lawnmower Blenny or Starry Blenny? You might even be able to get a Foxface... What size tank?

 

[Fishy888]

Man, you’ve been through the ringer. I’m so afraid I’m going down a nightmare road too the more brown and green hair algae I see in my tank. I’m praying for both of us lol!

I am fortunate though. I have a nice bloom of pods. I just picked up some potassium nitrate today. My chaeto will start growing more and I'll end up with plenty of pods. I want to get a mandarin dragonette. I have some duncans, a candy cane coral, and some ball anemone who would love some pods as well. The phosphates will come down at a safe pace and the corals and pods will benefit as well as my Mexican turbo snail.

 

[old_lady_4am]

Grab a nice tang and Lawnmower Blenny or Starry Blenny? You might even be able to get a Foxface... What size tank?

It’s only a 75 gallon. All my fish get along and are happy and healthy, so I don’t want to rock the boat.

 

[Fishy888]

I dosed nitrates to the system. All the soft corals look awesome. The xenia opened up so widely that the polyps were nickel to quarter sized. My anthelia is coming back from the brink. I thought it was a goner. I'm glad I was wrong.

My candy cane coral which was opening up closed up when I dosed nitrates the first night. Literally within seconds. It did open more today so that's a good thing. As for the shrimp I haven't seen them the last 2 days. I assume they are just hiding. Time will tell. All my other inverts are doing well.

The sump has tons of new algae growth on the glass. It was thinning out before I started dosing the potassium nitrate and dinos were starting to grow on what little algae there was. Now there's a thick coating on the glass. I'll check the chaeto tomorrow to see if I need to turn it.

My wife's 30 gallon cube has water in it. Tomorrow some sand will go in. I got some dry rock for her tank and surprised her with it. She loved the pieces I got her. Those will go in tomorrow also.

 

[Fishy888]

Last night the 75 sprung a leak. Thankfully the 30 cube had water in it so I moved everything to the cube. Hopefully I'll be able to find another 75 soon (at an affordable price). In the meantime I am concerned about the fish. The damsels especially need 4 feet. Right now they have 20 inches. I am going to figure out a way to rig the lights up over the cube later on. I'm in the emergency room right now so I have to wait until I get home. I am going to transfer the circulation pump to the cube when I get home. I will of course keep things updated.

 

[Fishy888]

It amazes me how resilient our reefs can be. I haven't lost anything yet despite having to quickly transfer my animals to the 30 gallon. They went the whole day yesterday with no light or flow since I was in the emergency room for 10 hours give or take. Today the cube has both. All the animals are looking good.

As much as I want to find a 75 or larger I'm going to take advantage of situation. I am going to cook the rock that had no life on it. My phosphates were at 1ppm. I'll place the rock in distilled water (our tap water is quite low in phosphates so I use it but around the new year my wife and I will get a RO/DI unit). I'll test the water every couple of days for phosphates. If I can get those rocks down close to 0ppm it will be a huge help. The 3 rocks in question probably account for 2/3 of the total weight of the rocks from the 75.

 

[Fishy888]

So today I noticed the water level in the tank never dropped below an inch. That was as far as I got in draining it. Since I didn't see anything leaking I thought I should see if maybe it just looked like a leak. I did spill some water while working on the tank Sunday night. I got it filled about halfway with no issues. After 4 more gallons it started leaking again. I drained the 4 gallons off and so far so good.

I might try to fix the tank but honestly I am not sure it's worth the effort considering the best I can hope to accomplish is removing the outer silicone bead. I don't have the equipment to redo the structural silicone. That's where the issue lies. They say that every long term aquarist has at least one tank spring a leak. Hopefully this will be my only one.

All the animals in the cube are doing about as well as can be expected. I don't see any dead coral or other animals so far but I don't know how long the four fish and two shrimp can live in such a small tank.

I restarted the heater and lights on the sump last night. I added the circulation pump with the broken suction cup to the sump as well so the chaeto will survive.

Unless an utter miracle occurs there's no way I can get a new tank before November at the earliest. January is more likely. I just hope everything makes it until then.

 

[Fishy888]

As I was looking at the reef in it's new digs I saw something that made me smile inside. My duncans have clearly grown some. My GSP has some new polyps and the mat has expanded a bit. The cauliflower coral and xenia are looking good too. The candy cane coral looks better tonight than it did Monday morning. That coral still worries me some but everything is looking better. The damsels aren't fighting nor are the clownfish.

I am going to check the sump tomorrow. I want to clean the algae off the glass. Most likely I'll scoop it out into a bowl and save as many pods as I can. Of course there should be plenty of pods in the chaeto. If I can save the pods that are living in the algae on the glass I can transfer them to the cube.

I put my wife's rock in the cube. Hopefully pods and other beneficial creatures will colonize it before I get another tank. If I somehow end up with a new tank before the new rock becomes live I will leave some of my rock in with hers. The sand will go live no doubt.

Tomorrow I'll take the larger rocks that are still in the old tank and transfer them to a couple of buckets. I was going to do it earlier in the week but I figured the freshwater I used to leak test had less phosphates than the rock so I am letting that balance. Sadly a few larger bristle worms came out of the rocks and died. I don't want to leave them like that so I'll clean the tank a bit better. I also want to keep the sand so it too will need to leach phosphates and be cleaned well.

Depending on how everything goes tomorrow I'll try to test the cube for phosphates. As good as things look in there I doubt the levels are high but with no sump, skimmer, or chaeto my corals are the only export mechanism. There will be a sump for the cube but probably not until I get a new tank and we get more rock for my wife.

 

[Fishy888]

It's not official yet but I might be getting a 90 gallon cube. It's still available so I'm just waiting for a pickup time. If I get it then my wife can have her tank back. I feel bad I've had to use it but hopefully I can get it soon.

Regardless I'll be leaving some live rock in her tank once I get another tank. There are frags I'm giving her also. The candy cane coral is one. I honestly don't think it'll survive another tank transfer. I am giving her xenia as well. Once my GSP hits its stride I'll give her some of that.

 

[tbrown]

Another upgrade already!

 

[Fishy888]

Haha yes. I could think of tons of things I can do with that tank.

 

[Fishy888]

It's official. I am the proud new owner of a 29" x 29" x 25" inch cube! More details incoming when I get home.

 

[Fishy888]

Ok I'm home, the tank is in the house, and a few pictures have been taken.

First impression was (still is...) Wowza! It's bigger than life and I'm loving it! I don't have water in it, not even a stand for it (yet, but by tomorrow night I will have one built for it) but I'm loving it! Especially considering the price ($75.00) I am over the moon.

So this tank came from a LFS about an hour or so north of us. They had more coral and live rock than one could shake a fist at. I will definitely shop there once I'm ready for more LPS and eventually SPS. Anyway as meticulous as their store was (even in back it's as immaculate as can be) I knew that when they said it would hold water it would hold water. Stores like that won't risk their reputation on selling a leaky tank unless they say it leaks upfront. Think of all the lost sales and bad press they'd get. Just to make sure however I made a cursory glance at the seams and when we got it in I looked closely at the seams with a flashlight. The seams are perfect.

The 75 had a piece of super adhesive tape down the leaky seam and we were dealing with the move at the time I got it. As a result when I saw the three visible seams were intact I figured so was the fourth. WRONG!!!! Lesson learned.

Back to the new tank I'm not sure why they have it plumbed the way they do but I may have to redo it to a degree. There are two issues. One is that there are two screws that attach to a piece of PVC that looks to keep the plumbing from vibrating at the top of the overflow. That's easy enough to deal with. The second is a little more complex. The bulkheads are mounted with the threaded end out on one and with the threaded end in on the other. It probably won't be an issue but there's plenty of silicone to scrape off if I ever had to undo them. They look to be in good shape and the silicone job doesn't look bad but I will keep a close eye.

Tomorrow I'll start working on the stand. Even though I could probably get away with 2x3s I'll stick to 2x4s. The new stand is going to be about 6 to maybe 8 inches taller. It's hard at the height of the current stand to do maintenance in the sump. Another 6 to 8 inches and I should be able to touch the bottom rear of the sump. Return pumps need maintenance too lol.

Sadly my last turbo snail is dying. It keeps falling off the rocks and glass. Once the cube is set up and gets green algae on the glass I'll get a couple more but first I need to build a healthy pod population once again. Bristle and spaghetti worms too. I think I've lost all my asterinas sadly but once the cube is up and running things will get better. If all goes well this tank will be the best and most successful setup I've ever had.

What will be truly neat is that fish will have an equal amount of room front to back and side to side. I wonder if they'll display behaviors that they don't don't in a rectangular tank. There will be deeper caves and many more hiding places.

I am adding the pictures of the cube I took earlier. I measured the dimensions of the glass panels excluding the frame. It holds 91 true gallons. Admittedly I didn't take the thickness of the glass into account but I am quite sure the tank holds a good 85 true gallons.