Stocking for a 30 gallon with 20 gallon refugium Soft Corals/Macroalgae

[jt8791]

Ordered 2 captive bred Banggai Cardinals from la, hopefully I don’t have any issues with them coming from the California facility. Debate on grabbing another pico pump and hooking up my 15w UV sterilizer to be on the safe side. The Photon 24 v2 light is ordered from fish tanks direct, best price and rewards.

 

[jt8791]

Just stumbled upon a few threads about the issue with the gyre pumps and water wicking down the wire, have been nervous and not a big fan of electrical wires in the tank. Yikes, think I might just save my money and go ecotech to get the wires out of the tank. May have to forget about the hob fuges after buying 1 or 2 mp10qd and the battery backup, suppose I could look for used mp10 but think new is the best bet, as well as the nemprotect guards.

Would be nice someday if money was no object to get the same brand lighting but I can't justify $900 on lights, might even see how one wave pump will do. Get one mp10qd and the battery backup to start, only have 850gph with 2 koralia 425 and the mp10qd does up to 1500gph. The piece of mind in case of a power outage will be worth the expense.

 

[jt8791]

Anyone running the neat aquatics urchin wide flow pump guards? Does it improve the flow any vs the standard nemprotect guards? May try both, plan to get an extra wet side anyways.

These are pricey in comparison but think it's worth the price premium to not have any wires inside the tank.

 

[jt8791]

Parameters shot up quickly, according to the gf and api tests nitrate is 10, phosphates .25, kh is 8 and calcium is 300, ph is low looks about 7.8. Will bump the fuge light back up to 10% and will pick up more saltwater tomorrow for another big water change to bring calcium back in line.

Got the two banggai cardinals and dozen micro brittle stars coming in Thursday so want the water quality right beforehand.

 

[jt8791]

I did the calcium test again, got 340 this time, gf did it as well and got that too. Turned all spectrums up to 10% on the fuge light and opened the living room windows and will retest ph. Picking up another 15 gallons of saltwater from petco in the morning, may take quite a few big water changes to bring the calcium level up. Changed 30 gallons in the past week, 15 on the 11th and 15 on the 15th, will do another 15 tomorrow and hopefully that will be enough to get calcium up higher. She tested ph after the tank light was off so will have to test ph in a bit and probably tomorrow when the display light is on.

 

[jt8791]

Went right to 25% all spectrums for the fuge, after an hour the ph is definitely above 7.8 but not quite 8

 

[jt8791]

Retested and got a solid 8 on ph and 9 on Kh, not sure if the gf lost count on kh earlier or if it fluctuates. Will keep the fuge lights where they are at, not a ton of nutrients and I'm doing a big water change in the morning.

Bringing fuge light up to 50% intensity to see if it makes any difference. Hoping to avoid any high tech equipment like a skimmer or co2 scrubber, just more stuff to maintain and I'm kind of lacking on space. Skimmer might be nice for the extra air exchange but at the moment I don't have the nutrients to be running a skimmer.

 

[jt8791]

Have been looking over information on the light I ordered and worst case if I feel I need a bit more light I can always add a lumen bar or two. Curious if they are controllable just like the light itself. No idea which one would be good to get, but the light itself might be plenty even for rose bubble tip anemones.

Think the only thing that really pops out on the lumen bars is the 385nm true uv and 405nm violet but no idea if I would need them. If possible maybe even go with 36" lumen bars to get rid of shading on the ends but if I center the light over the rockwork it probably won't be too severe. Biggest concern is getting the best growth and color out of the rose bubble tip anemones as possible with the lights I have.

Trying to push it out to around December when the tank is a year old anyways, get my stocking level back up and upgrade these wave pumps. After dropping $500+ for one MP10wQD and battery backup I will probably forget about hob refugiums and debate if I can get by with just one wave pump for now but not sure how well that would work. Gets even pricier after you factor in the extra wet side too but by the sounds of it it's worth it for the convenience.

 

[jt8791]

Hmm, looks like I have more than chaeto growing in the fuges. What an odd place for aiptasia to sprout up, under the filter basket in the refugium. Haven't seen any in the tank itself but I also have 4 peppermint shrimp. I am picking up saltwater today so guess I will have to pull the basket out and get them out of here before more sprout up, looks like two of them from what I can tell. Will probably lose all sorts of other critters in the fuge but the rubble has gotten kinda nasty anyways, might be due to scrub it all off in the bucket again. All sorts of bristle worms in the fuge so I'll have to get gloves for that one.

 

[jt8791]

Left the aiptasia where they are, didn’t feel like tearing down that fuge and potentially losing all the copepods and bristle worms in it. Worst case if one makes it into the tank the peppermint shrimp will get it. Reminds me I have try to bait them out with food to get a count on them, had four but they hide a lot so question if the six line picked a few off. At least two but they aren’t out enough to see if all 4 are still in there.

noticed a few of the peppermints molted so calcium must be heading in the right direction. Micro stars came in, tiny and all white but seem alive, didn’t bother counting them. Another 15 gallon water change for a total of 45 gallons in a week. Would say everything should be back to normal now but will test later tonight to be certain.

 

[jt8791]

Yeah 45 gallons of water changed in a week and calcium didn’t budge past 340. I’m done buying saltwater at Petco. Gonna buy premixed saltwater at the lfs from now on, change 5 gallons a week and see what changes parameter wise. Will harvest chaeto depending on nutrients.

Not gonna start chasing numbers based on cheap api test kits. Gonna go simple and pickup the hydor wave pump controller, probably 2 of the 565gph nano pumps and a foam filter for the ac110 to make prefilters/nem guard. Debate if the high flow of these ac110s will work well for bta.

Maybe running wave pumps intermittently at the surface will help break up the flow a bit but really can’t justify spending about $800 or so to go ecotech without also doing proper hob fuges. Haven’t even gone for an ato yet, hard to justify jumping into high tech expensive equipment. May have to try a few different options with different wave pumps, betting sponge will cut flow extremely.

 

[jt8791]

Petco is on my **** list now, I lost the last tuxedo urchin and I’m betting it’s from the lack of coralline algae. Thought it would only be because of the weak plant lighting but really thinking it’s more due to the low calcium content in the water.

Hardware store next to me has 5 gallon water jugs, hopefully they are good and sealed well since I can’t find them anywhere else. Thinking I will grab 8 of them eventually, but will probably start with 4. I have 8 2.5 gallon jugs for rodi so seems fitting to have 40 gallons of saltwater on hand.

Betting their water is way different as far as parameters compared to the Petco stuff so I might want to slowly change the water out and not go for big 15 gallon water changes right off like I have been doing. Maybe 5 or 10 gallons at a time.

the pair of captive bred banggai cardinals came in today and look good and healthy. Fingers crossed they will eat some sort of prepared foods. One of my favorite fish but the wild ones seemed like they would starve.

 

[jt8791]

Had the gf test the last of the Petco saltwater, imagitarium or whichever the name is. Garbage, going down the drain and never buying it again. No wonder the company won’t list what is in their water, no one would buy it then.

calcium 340
Ph 7.8
Kh 7

 

[jt8791]

Have been debating if I have too much flow, the 3 filters are rated for 1200gph total. I can’t imagine the prefilters and rubble rock cut the flow down that much, maybe 25%. Even still without factoring that offset and the wave pumps I’m pushing 2000gph.

Pulled the wave pumps out to see how the fish respond, see if I end up with any dead spots. Will see how bad it is, if nothing changes for the worse I’ll leave it for now. Think I will focus on getting one mp10 for the left side for now and the power backup, can worry about the right side later when it comes time to upgrade these filters for hob refugiums.

 

[jt8791]

Sticking to the pre programmed custom light schedule until I figure out how to use this remote better. Spooks the fish every time I try to make changes.

 

[jt8791]

okay so guess I’m going with watermelon and rainbow bta’s. Went to check out a new lfs and couldn’t pass up a rainbow bta for $80, watermelon was $60, granted it may be a bleached green but It looked better than the green ones they had.

 

[jt8791]

Will retest everything tonight, all the Petco water should be gone. Filled 6 5 gallon jugs of prepared saltwater at the lfs, didn’t realize how much they held filled to the neck. Ended up doing 2 15 gallon water changes followed by an almost 10 gallon water change. Only thing tested so far was salinity which is right a 1.025

 

[jt8791]

not quite settled in but the 1st nem didn’t care for the blueS, so just switched to the preset schedule until acclimation is over.

 

[jt8791]

The watermelon hasn’t been looking very good and realizing it was bleached so I didn’t want to gamble it nuking the tank so I pulled it out. Sticking with the rainbow bubble tip and letting it spread across all the rock work as it splits and grows. Looking way better today, granted camera doesn’t do well with the blue light.

Edit: was talking to my lfs today and she said she had the option to buy these but didn’t want to pay the price they wanted. Said they came from a tank raised nem and I got a really good price on it though.

 

[jt8791]

Hid under the rocks most the week but starting to come out into the light. Slowly turning the lighting intensity up, also trying 10% royal blue at night for now to see how it reacts. Shifted to 8 hours no light after doing some reading on the forum.