Perseverance Reef

[Projects with Sam]

guess its too late to silicone a few ceiling tiles on the bottom 'eh?

 

[Fishy888]

I got about 20 lbs of sand cleaned and I added about 20 gallons to the DT. Part of that was make up water.

I found a leak so I had to drain about 3 gallons which did the trick. Tomorrow I’ll fix it. I’ll need more J. B. Waterweld. The leak is a medium drip.

Since I can’t raise the water level tonight I can’t get the aquascape done until tomorrow. The good news is that the area that needs to be aquascaped now has sand. I’ll use the rest of the sand too since I want a deeper sand bed than I had in the cube.

The deeper sand bed is necessary for…. WRASSES!!!!!!

I’ve been focusing on tangs lately but I know pretty much which ones I want. It’s time for wrasses. Oh how I wish surge wrasses were reef and invert safe.

 

[fishguy242]

What are you J B welding ?
pic ?

 

[Fishy888]

What are you J B welding ?
pic ?

It’s one of the solvent welds at one of the 2 inch to 1 inch reducer tees. I’ll get a better picture of it later. No leaks at the bulkheads and DEFINITELY no leaks at the seams of the tank.

I knew I might have had a problem though. I couldn’t get one of the thread/slip adapters in all the way so I ended up cutting it off and, using a new one I cemented it in and it made a surprisingly good joint. There was a slight gap evidently which I didn’t catch however. It’s an easy enough fix thankfully. It helps that once I fill the tank to just above the top bulkheads it’ll be 3/4 full. There won’t be tons of water pressure on the return line, at least not as much as the drain line has on it.

 

[fishguy242]

It’s one of the solvent welds at one of the 2 inch to 1 inch reducer tees. I’ll get a better picture of it later. No leaks at the bulkheads and DEFINITELY no leaks at the seams of the tank.

I knew I might have had a problem though. I couldn’t get one of the thread/slip adapters in all the way so I ended up cutting it off and, using a new one I cemented it in and it made a surprisingly good joint. There was a slight gap evidently which I didn’t catch however. It’s an easy enough fix thankfully. It helps that once I fill the tank to just above the top bulkheads it’ll be 3/4 full. There won’t be tons of water pressure on the return line, at least not as much as the drain line has on it.

PVC-PVC,better IME... ;):)

 

[Fishy888]

PVC-PVC,better IME... ;):)

I used that initially. Can the primer and cement adhere to old primer and cement? I figured it was like with silicone where new silicone can’t adhere to old silicone.

 

[fishguy242]

Yes , long as not dripping ,no primer needed, thin coat let dry 2-3 hrs ,then apply good coat ,Done forever... ;) :)

 

[Fishy888]

Yes , long as not dripping ,no primer needed, thin coat let dry 2-3 hrs ,then apply good coat ,Done forever... ;) :)

I’ll give that a try. Thank you.

 

[Fishy888]

The DT is 3/4 of the way filled now. I’ll add another 10 gallons or so but I’m going to leave it at that level for now. I still have some sand and rock to add so the water level will rise a bit.

I’ll be getting the pump and the rest of the plumbing when we get paid. In the meantime I have my nems and corals under decent flow and I’ll be adding my return pump temporarily to the DT in the meantime.

Dory doesn’t seem into nori yet but I got her to eat broccoli florets. She definitely likes them. It helps that they’re in my DIY frozen food. It likely tastes familiar to her. I’ll try peas soon too since they’re also in my frozen food.

 

[Fishy888]

I just had this thought. I want to reduce any vibrations the closed loop pump creates as much as possible. I’m going to add a 90 degree elbow to both the return and drain lines and the proper hose barbs and hose to and from the pump.

It occurred to me that I could take a couple feet of vinyl hose, cut it lengthwise, and use it to damp vibrations even more by using them as feet.

If I end up mounting it to the stand I think the hose “feet” would help a lot. The less head pressure I have to deal with the better for the system and I’d think that would help reduce the vibrations tremendously.

If I don’t mount it to the stand it’ll get mounted on a piece of wood which will sit on the floor. It wouldn’t be connected to the stand but would have the hose

 

[Projects with Sam]

You can also secure the vinyl hose to the stand and suspend the pump from its barbs into the hose?

 

[Fishy888]

You can also secure the vinyl hose to the stand and suspend the pump from its barbs into the hose?

That’s a possibility too. The weight of the pump might preclude that however. I guess I’ll know when it gets here and I have it all hooked up.

 

[Fishy888]

I finally got the second anemone to move. They are on separate rocks now and none are on the base rock now. I’ll get the Hawaiian feather duster off the base rock and into the sand bed today if I can get the rock scape finished. Then the base rock will be used in, well, the base of the scape, not far from where I have it right now.

To get the nem to move I kept it in low light and low flow. Once I saw it start moving I put the base rock it was on against the rock I wanted it to move to. Once it moved onto the new rock I immediately put the new rock next to the rock the first anemone settled on. Both anemones are now in decent light and flow now.

There’s still more to be done aquascape wise. I still have a decent amount of rock to go in. I also want to make the scape look a little more natural, for lack of a better way to put it. It looks a little too straight, a little too manicured. Then again I want there to be more swimming space around the reef. I think the changes I made so far help make the reef look less manicured and more natural.

The image below is of the two rocks the nems are on now.

 

[Projects with Sam]

so I was just thinking and then I went back and something makes me think you should add support for the plumbing on the back.

you could probably position a vertical 2x4 or 2x3 at each end of the pipe to handle any weight from the water in that pipe.

 

[Fishy888]

so I was just thinking and then I went back and something makes me think you should add support for the plumbing on the back.

you could probably position a vertical 2x4 or 2x3 at each end of the pipe to handle any weight from the water in that pipe.

I got some wood for that purpose. It’s not so bad with no water pressure or vibrations but once the pump goes online the support system needs to be in place. I’m probably going to incorporate a dosing shelf which will attach to the supports. I’ll attach all of it to the stand.

I’m thinking about mounting the two banks of outlets on the support system. If I do that I’ll also mount the MH transformers to it. Right now I just have the one transformer and reflector. I hope someone will put a couple more on Marketplace here in town or close by. If not I’ll probably have to just get horizontal reflectors and ballasts.

 

[Fishy888]

I added 4 gallons of water to the DT today. I was going to add another 4 gallons. With all the rock and sand that’ll be going in soon I’m going to wait on adding more.

This afternoon I chopped up some more broccoli florets and fed them to the tank by themselves. All four fish ate it like candy, especially Dory.

I’m going to try peas soon. I take the pulp out of the skin and add it to my DIY frozen mix when I make it. I’m going to try feeding them that way.

In fact I’m thinking about making a DIY frozen herbivore food mix. I know that certain vegetables need to be blanched before they can be frozen. I need to find out what terrestrial vegetables tangs can eat and digest.

Algae of course needs to be the bulk of an herbivore fish’s diet. The reason I’m thinking about terrestrial veggies for herbivorous fish is that they potentially offer nutritional profiles that complement those of the relatively few algae species we have access to.

I’m going to try cultivating several different macro algae varieties as well. Even though hippo tangs are omnivorous, zebrasoma tangs are herbivorous. I want several yellow tangs and a Sailfin tang. I realize they are both zebrasoma tangs so I still need to think on that.

I took this image just before the lights went off for tonight. The line in the image that looks like a crack or something is a reflection of the stepladder I’ve been using so I can work in the DT.

 

[Mschmidt]

If you feel like a deep dive into fish nutrition, here is a useful thread.

Fish Health Through Proper Nutrition (revised)

This thread is for the general discussion of the Article Fish Health Through Proper Nutrition (revised). Please add to the discussion here. Fish Health Through Proper Nutrition (revised) By @Weeb [This article was originally posted on February 24, 2006 with the title, Fish Health Through Proper...

www.reef2reef.com

I haven't made it veery far yet, but it is adjusting my diy frozen mix.

 

[Fishy888]

Yesterday my reefing friend gave me about 10 lbs of live rock from her DT. It’s got mushrooms, xenia, and waving hands anthellia on it.

I added my return pump (which I’ll use in my 75 gallon sump alongside another pump like it) to the DT last night. It’s on its side and positioned where the pump’s output hits a rock. The flow gets diverted around the rock and from there to the nems and corals that desperately need it.

My reefing friend also has a 6 foot light bar that has three 150 watt metal halide lamps (HQI) she’s selling me. I assume I can only keep LPS and soft corals on the sand bed if I use the stock ballasts. If needed I’ll upgrade the ballasts and run 250 watt HQI lamps. If I remember correctly HQI lamps are superior to SE lamps such that a 150 watt HQI lamp does as good a job as a 250 watt SE lamp. I’m going to research this but if so I might be able to run 150s and have it work out well. We shall see though.

 

[F i s h y]

Yesterday my reefing friend gave me about 10 lbs of live rock from her DT. It’s got mushrooms, xenia, and waving hands anthellia on it.

I added my return pump (which I’ll use in my 75 gallon sump alongside another pump like it) to the DT last night. It’s on its side and positioned where the pump’s output hits a rock. The flow gets diverted around the rock and from there to the nems and corals that desperately need it.

My reefing friend also has a 6 foot light bar that has three 150 watt metal halide lamps (HQI) she’s selling me. I assume I can only keep LPS and soft corals on the sand bed if I use the stock ballasts. If needed I’ll upgrade the ballasts and run 250 watt HQI lamps. If I remember correctly HQI lamps are superior to SE lamps such that a 150 watt HQI lamp does as good a job as a 250 watt SE lamp. I’m going to research this but if so I might be able to run 150s and have it work out well. We shall see though.

I used to run 150s. They grow stuff well. I've also used 250s and 400s.

 

[Fishy888]

I used to run 150s. They grow stuff well. I've also used 250s and 400s.

My tank is 29.5 inches deep. I have about an inch of sand though so it’s more like 28.5. I’ll either use 10000k lamps or even 6500k like I run now. I’ll eventually use ATI blue plus lamps.