Rajkovich207's Biocube 29 With Sump

[rajkovich207]

Ok, time for a lengthy up date lol. first off, I used an HOB overflow, wish I had more flow going through it but no biggie. Now long story in a shorter form, I could not get the tank to cycle... I let it sit for nearly a month waiting for it to do something, and the nitrites wouldnt lower. Reading on the dr tims website I found out that it is possible to stall your cycle if 1) your pH is to low and 2) your nitrites are way to high. Thinking it was #1 even though my nitrites read off the charts I raised my pH from 7.8 to about 8.1ish, went to ace and picked up some 100% janitors strengh ammonia and did a first dose of I believe it was 3mL bringing it up to 2.5ppm, let it cycle out, then added 1mL untill it ate it up in under 10 hours... Yet the nitrites wouldnt budge... So a week later I said the heck with it im going to do a 5g W.C. tested the next day and nitrites were still way off the charts, so the following day I did a 2g W.C. from water out of my holding tank. low and behold nitrites read 0 the next morning. Making sure it was actually cycled I added 1mL more of ammonia bringing it back up to 1ppm, let it cycle out, did it again and the entire thing took about 30 hours to completely cycle out 1 ppm of ammonia, the ammonia part lasting less then 10 of it. As of 10/29/2012 I put in my first corals, let them sit for about a week and decided to take a couple pics to share with everyone!!

FTS

GSP that I will have growing over '"T" and "S"

MAGACIANS

LA LAKERS

I also have a pastel colored yellow and green ric I must not have taken a picture of in there lol.
More to come shortly!

 

[rajkovich207]

forgot to mention I ordered a clean up crew from reefcleaners that should be here wed or thursday. I had a few snails in my holding tank that I threw in there just to help clean up the mess, and let me tell you, I think I have found the perfect mix of different type of snails. The tank has had the nastiest think brown algea everywhere and between the 9 or so snails I threw in and the tank becoming more stable, the algae is going, and fast!

 

[rajkovich207]

Ok, so 10/20/2012 I attended a cmas frag swap with my better half and dad and came away with some awesome stuff. I got a pair of black lace misbar occ clowns for $10. I believe he said they were 3 months old and the biggest is about an inch long. as well as a true undata from windy-city reefs (a sponsor on here and some great guys) two acros from beefs reef, a sunset monit, rainbow monti, and another acro that didnt make it (i have terrible luck with sps but keep buying them lol). here are some growth shots of everything. originals were taken 10/21 and updated were taken today.

clowns 10/21 MJ 1200 for size referance

clowns today

unknown acro from beefs reef 10/21 (if anyone can ID this that would be awesome!!! I would love to know the "street names")

today

and a fun macro shot

 

[rajkovich207]

unknown acro #2 from beefs reef 10/21 (again ID and street name would be awesome, the skeleton is turning a bluish on the other side, being hit by light more and the tips are a flourecent greenish yellow)

and today

a shot of the sunset monti 11/4 (sadly I couldnt find a good shot from 10/21, I took this pic to see if anyone has an idea of how to get the algae off the coral, and when I got it most of the red had turned black, its coloring up very well)

 

[rajkovich207]

Montipora Undata 10/21 (not sure if this is a tyree undata or true undata, but its from Windy city reefs)

today

Rainbow monti 10/21

Today (the sekeleton is starting to fade some and turning a funny bluish black color for some reason, this was the best shot I could get for this guy, and he doesnt have any visable growth, IMO he doesnt look as good as when I got him, but PE still looks good so I moved him to a bit less light.)

I didnt get a chance to get a pick of the other acro I had, it was dead by the time I had it in the tank. All these are sitting in my holding tank with the rest of my corals, and will slowly be adding a few things every week untill I think the sps will be ok in the new tank. Nitrates are holding at 20 (higher than I want it, they avarage 10 in the holding tank running only carbon and weekly 20% water changes.) everything else in the biocube is holding steady, I added a baseball clump of cheato to the fuge as well as my hermit, a couple of shrooms, cloves, and will be putting a pulsing xenia in there hopefully tonight. I also added some purigan (I attribute this and the WC for the reason the tank actually finished the cycle). After getting the nitrites down the first time I took out the purigan and did the recomended replenish procedier. It smelled funny after words, I think because of the chlorine remover I used but I figured it was ok, and put it back in after the 2nd cycle. I am running 4 tbsp of GFO in a media bag in chamber one along with the purigan, but I plan on taking out the GFO when I get my nitrates down, and the algae settles some.

I think thats it for now, untill I remember something else lol. Hope everyone enjoys! and as always, Thanks for looking! :bounce:
Tony

 

[impur]

I'm starting to think this Dr Tim's One and Only isn't what its cracked up to be. My cycle is also stalled on my 40B, but i have been consistently adding 4+ ml of ammonia per day. The ammonia cycles out within about 18 hours, the nitrites are always the same, and nitrates are stalled out at 20ppm. Very odd.

Glad you got your tank thru it though!! Looks like a great start, love the clowns!

 

[rajkovich207]

Ok, so its been a while since I've updated this thread so I figured I would throw a few pics up of the tank. there are a few that I didnt get loaded I added a pom pom crab (I did know where he was living but the power head blew sand there and now hes no-where to be found lol), there is a pic of one of the acros in the holding tank that I was going to put up as a growth shot, but I cant seem to find it. Ive moved alot to the new tank, some zoas, rics, clam, clowns, and a few sps I got. I also added an mp10 ES (this thing is awesome! too bad they arent cheaper thought) and added a yellow "coris" wrasse to the holding tank. I thought he would eat the flat worms in there but so far hes only managed to eat all my snails making for very dirty glass lol and maybe a hand full of FWs. anyways enough of the rambling... Pics or it crashed right! -_^

first up.. here is a bad pic of the canary wrasse, hes super fast and hard to snag a pic of so I didnt try too hard lol

next here is just a quick shot to try to give you an idea of some of the growth in the holding tank (all the branches on the green sps are new (look at pics above) and the green tipped acro has encrusted very well) as a side note, I burned my undata and it has some algae growing on the skeleton so hopefully it will bounce back. and the rainbow monti is still barely hanging on

clam in the new home

I got this little guy from my dad, there was actually 2 mounted on the plug so I have one in the holding tank

this milli is suppose to develope a sky blue skeleton and have deep blue polyps, its coloring up now so we shall see.

 

[rajkovich207]

This is a mariculture milli that I just couldnt pass up. theres a new LFS here that has mari's priced at $25 each all the time

up close of the milli in the holding tank

Now this mariculture acro was eather hacked up or was destroyed in shipping. I could see a hint of blue coming through, and on of the little branches looked like it was going green. Normally these are $25 but this was in bad shape so he wanted 10 for it... I couldnt pass it up so I got it, and boy am I glad I did! I dont have a before shot but this is after 1 week in the tank..

and a up close shot to give you a better idea of the blue. all of the dark brown is going blue and the spots where you see the real light brown was actually white, it also is developing polyps in those spots!

I had a bit of H.A. on the gps so my dad gave me one of the mithrix crabs he got. it took him about an hour in a half to clear thick inch long algae from inbetween the polyps! (I bumped the T so its leaning over a bit lol)

 

[rajkovich207]

Last but not least the FTS. The clowns have nearly doubled in size!

I think thats all for now, will add more if I think of something!

sorry again for some of the bad pics. Thanks for looking and happy reefing!
hope santa brought you lots of goodies, and see you guys next year!!!
Tony

 

[alberthiel]

Looking good !

 

[rajkovich207]

Thanks! I'm a bit of a tinkerer with my tank but I've been Turing to keep my hands out of the tank, and I put gloves on when I reach in. It seems to be making a difference! I picked up an arduino starter kit with some Christmas money so that's been keeping me busy, the plan is to DIY an aquarium controller down the road. Still learning though lol.

 

[alberthiel]

Thanks! I'm a bit of a tinkerer with my tank but I've been Turing to keep my hands out of the tank, and I put gloves on when I reach in. It seems to be making a difference! I picked up an arduino starter kit with some Christmas money so that's been keeping me busy, the plan is to DIY an aquarium controller down the road. Still learning though lol.

Yes that sounds like a great plan for 2013

Happy New Year

 

[rajkovich207]

Thanks bud you as well!

 

[Singlefin]

Looks good. You have a 40b cycling also?

 

[alberthiel]

Thanks bud you as well!

Happy reef keeping in 2013 !

 

[Nam]

realy nice work Tony. i also have biocube 29g

 

[Zack]

I'm starting to think this Dr Tim's One and Only isn't what its cracked up to be. My cycle is also stalled on my 40B, but i have been consistently adding 4+ ml of ammonia per day. The ammonia cycles out within about 18 hours, the nitrites are always the same, and nitrates are stalled out at 20ppm. Very odd.

Glad you got your tank thru it though!! Looks like a great start, love the clowns!

hmmm interesting.... I used the Dr Tims one and only nitrifying bacteria and it worked good for me. the reason I got it was because I heard so many other people say it worked. Im still kinda new to the hobby so I hadnt really heard of cycles actually stalling. but im learning new stuff everyday....

 

[alberthiel]

Thanks! I'm a bit of a tinkerer with my tank but I've been Turing to keep my hands out of the tank, and I put gloves on when I reach in. It seems to be making a difference! I picked up an arduino starter kit with some Christmas money so that's been keeping me busy, the plan is to DIY an aquarium controller down the road. Still learning though lol.

Interesting ... why do you think wearing gloves makes a difference to the tank look ... of course it protects your hands but if your hands are clean before putting them nothing foreign would be introduced except for some oily matter on your skin but that seems to be really minimal, so wondering what your thoughts are on the difference you see

 

[rajkovich207]

I do not have a 40b, my dad does though. you are thinking of impur, he has the 40b. at the stalling. it took me a while to figure it out but even Dr. Tim says it can happen. and to Albert, I had my hands in the tanks ALOT. I figured all of the stuff that's on my hands would leach into the tank, and at the very least soap residue would make its way in there. there's actually a thread on here discussing this topic, and I knew how often my hands were in my old tanks. between that and how often I tinkered with various things, my other 2 tanks did not do so well. I figured I would give it a shot, and it really seems to be making a difference! I would advise anyone to try it for a month, and I bet they would see a great difference! thanks for the comments everyone!

 

[rajkovich207]

and to nam I would love to see pics of your setup, you should through some up! also welcome to R2R!!! you will quickly grow to love the friendly people here !!!