Waterbox 20 first reef build

tinyfellows · Apr 4, 2022

To keep my ato from over filling I have set it up to turn on hour for 30 minutes because it fills fine for the first fill then it starts to overfill. His is hopefully a temporary fix since my wife works from home and probably won’t appreciate beeping every hour. But aqua xp is out of the office for holiday till the 6th so can’t get any support till then. I also moved my acan to a shaded spot in the tank as it’s not looking super happy after it started to bleach when I moved it up the rock work. The acans feeding tentacles haven’t been out at night and it didn’t open up when I fed reef roids yesterday

tinyfellows · Apr 6, 2022

Biggest thing I am still struggling with is light settings on my reef led 50 here is what I have my settings on. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. I am running a 27 day acclimation and am on day 12. Blues will peak at 75 and white will peak at 50. The plan for the tank is mostly easy lps. I may throw in a bta after a year or so we will see how full the tank is by then and if my clowns I’m going to get have hosted my Duncan.

tinyfellows · Apr 7, 2022

Seems as though my acan is recovering in the shaded spot I moved it to. It responded to polyp booster and ate some reef roids. I also noticed some aptasia which I took care of with aptasia. I didn’t go for a peppermint cause there was only two small ones currently so I didn’t want to have the guy starve. I’m starting to get diatoms in my sand so I may pick up some more Cuc this weekend. I also saw this little critter in my zoa frag so I pulled the frag and scrapped him off. I tried aptasia x on it but that didn’t do anything so I scraped him off out of the tank. My alk has been consistently low 6.5 to 6.9 range so I think I’m going to slowly start dosing tropic Marin all for reef which I will pick up when I make it to the lfs for more Cuc. Also my ato schedule to prevent over filling didn’t work out so I switched it to turning on for 3 minutes every two hours. I still haven’t heard back from the manufacturer and I’m getting annoyed so I’m probably going to get a tuner osomalator which I shouldn’t have been impulsive and bought the duetto cause I saw it in the store. I will repurpose the duetto to transfer water back into the tank after a water change and pull water out when I don’t need to gravel vac or suck out any algae.

tinyfellows · Apr 10, 2022

My alk has been consistently low 6.9 to 6.5 probably because I am using tropic Marin pro with no dosing. My original plan was just to let it ride low till I got more coral into the tank and start dosing all for reef. But doing some research I came across that coralline algae needs a higher alk to grow so I think I am going to start doing Red Sea coralline gro to raise my alk. My thinking is if I started dosing all for reef without a higher coral load for alk my mag and calcium would get to high. I am also going to pick up some more Cuc as I’m getting heavy diatoms in the sand and I have no clean up crew that address my sand bed

tinyfellows · Apr 10, 2022

Picked up two nassarius snails, two hermits, another turbo snail, and I got a frag of green star polyp to coat my back wall. I picked up the coralline gro and started to ti dose that I started with a dose to raise my alk .5 they recommended the most you could raise in one day was 1.5 but I’m not trying to set any speed records so I probably will wait a day or two to dose again and slowly bring my alk up to the 8.2 range. I also picked up the tunze osomalator nano as my duetto is just ticking me off and I haven’t heard from customer service. But I’ve seen people who have gotten responses from them say they were basically told oh that’s a normal fault they have.

tinyfellows · Apr 11, 2022

I moved my acan out from the shade yesterday as it looked to have recovered from being moved up too fast and it was the most puffy it has been since I got it. I think it’s also enjoying a little dirtier water than when it was first put in.

tinyfellows · Apr 19, 2022

Phosphates we’re starting to get high .5 salifert test and my nitrates are accepted at 10 salifert. So I am starting to run some gfo in a media bag. The phosphate is either Leeching from my rock or it’s from me feeding my corals too much. I just enjoy watching it but I will try to control myself so I can get phosphates to a more acceptable level

tinyfellows · Apr 21, 2022

Pretty sure I just caught my emerald crab chow down on my gsp if that’s all he gets a taste for he can stay but if he snacks on anything else I will have to figure out how to catch him and return him

tinyfellows · Apr 22, 2022

false alarm he was just cleaning it as all the polyps I thought he picked off are back out. Also between the gfo and a water change my phosphates are down to .2

tinyfellows · Apr 22, 2022

Going to check my phosphates again today omitting as I fed some reef roids about a quarter of what I was feeding after reading what other people fed I realized I was WAY over feeding. If my phosphate continues to drop over the next two days I will pull the gfo as I don’t want to zero them out

tinyfellows · Apr 27, 2022

GFO has been amazing so far been in the tank 9 days and my phosphates are hovering around .2 and nitrates at 5. So I’m glad to see things are where I want them as I hope to get my first fish next week. As going to put it on hold till things got lower as I will be adding to my bio load. I am also controlling myself to feeding reef roids only once a week the day before my water change and that paired with the gfo is doing great. I’m also starting to see some coralline algae pop up in places it hasn’t been so that’s exciting. Still frustrated my my ato as about once a week it will over fill. The company says that’s normal in a nano tank. But I have an osomalator nano that I’m sensing installing or returning. Does anyone with a nano experience much overfilling with theirs?

tinyfellows · May 2, 2022

My alk has been slowly raising over the past week or two with out dosing anything. I believe it’s my Rodi unit as I have poor water pressure. I was checking my tds but dropped my meter into the water but it wasn’t water proof so I won’t know. I’m ordering a booster pump and new tds meter. But everything else is going well. The Duncan has new 6 heads forming. My acan has what I assume is a new head forming. I have a very greedy hermit in my tank. It upgraded to an empty shell I added. The shell it moved into is big enough to accommodate its old shell. The hermit can barely move but I guess he’s happy with more room to grow. I believe I saw a spaghetti worm it’s in a hard spot to take a picture so can’t ask you guys to verify. But I will keep an eye on it and see how that goes. After listening to the reef therapy episode with Steve Weast. I have been doing more maintenance on my sand bed and blowing it and stirring it ever couple days. Before I trade out my filter floss

tinyfellows · May 5, 2022

Well today was a busy big day. I got my settlement from a work injury I cut my finger off with a chop saw in a work accident. So I treated myself at the lfs. I got a yellow watchman goby and tiger shrimp pair. I also picked up a pink hammer my wife said she wanted to see something pink in the tank so I figured I should make it as pleasing to all in the house. I also got a pink and blue rfa and a Anenome crab. While all the inhabitants were acclimating I glued my Duncan onto the rock work and glued my gsp onto the back wall as it was getting bulldozed by my turbo snail. The guys at the lfs threw in a dime size bta so we will see how that goes. I got my booster pump installed and it is amazing how much faster my Rodi unit is. Before I pretty much had to make water everyday just to keep up with wc and ato. But now I’m going to have all my containers filled tonight. I think tomorrow I will swap out my duetto for the tunze ato and get my zoas glued down into their rock instead of just sitting next to the rock.
I hope my yellow watchman goby finds his pistol shrimp buddy soon. I know it’s normal but I haven’t seen the shrimp since he got out into the tank.

tinyfellows · May 5, 2022

Here’s some pictures of the goby

tinyfellows · May 5, 2022

My yellow watchman are when I fed him which I am stoked about he hasn’t found his buddy yet but my pistol shrimp dug it’s burrow up front which i am also stoked about.

tinyfellows · May 7, 2022

Toby the goby (yellow watchman goby) hasn’t eaten mysis the last two days at least that I saw and I watch for 10 or so minutes. I do see him sifting through the sand and I have a very healthy pod population so I’m guessing he’s snacking on that. But I will keep an eye on him. I also ordered some pellets to offer him. We had hoped my porcelain crab would host my rfa but he has taken a liking to my bta. Some of the day he sits in the bta which looks funny since he is about the same size. The bta is still inflated and bubbled so I don’t think it kinda the crab being the same size as it. I’m doing a couple 20% water changes to flush out anything that was in my Rodi water before I got my booster pump. I got an of mummy eye chalice and a Jacko lantern lepto. I shouldn’t have impulse bought the lepto because it wasn’t until I got home it was an sps so I will be keeping a close eye on it as my tank has only been set up for 7 weeks.

tinyfellows · May 8, 2022

Toby has found his buddy creed (office references) which I am happy for but a little sad instead of perching on the rocks all day where I watch him he is now in the cave system. I saw him snack on a couple amphipods so I’m feeling better about not seeing him eat any mysis. I did see creed grab a shrimp so I don’t know if they share food at all

tinyfellows · May 16, 2022

The tank is now two months old things are going great my Duncan just keeps on growing. A new head opened up on my acan. I’m a little worried about my pistol shrimp cause I saw Toby hanging out on the sand which I hadn’t seen him do since he found the pistol shrimp so I will be keeping an eye out for him. I started dosing all for reef yesterday as my tank started to consume alk faster than my water changes was adding.

TheWB · May 16, 2022

tinyfellows said:
Well today was a busy big day. I got my settlement from a work injury I cut my finger off with a chop saw in a work accident. So I treated myself at the lfs. I got a yellow watchman goby and tiger shrimp pair. I also picked up a pink hammer my wife said she wanted to see something pink in the tank so I figured I should make it as pleasing to all in the house. I also got a pink and blue rfa and a Anenome crab. While all the inhabitants were acclimating I glued my Duncan onto the rock work and glued my gsp onto the back wall as it was getting bulldozed by my turbo snail. The guys at the lfs threw in a dime size bta so we will see how that goes. I got my booster pump installed and it is amazing how much faster my Rodi unit is. Before I pretty much had to make water everyday just to keep up with wc and ato. But now I’m going to have all my containers filled tonight. I think tomorrow I will swap out my duetto for the tunze ato and get my zoas glued down into their rock instead of just sitting next to the rock.
I hope my yellow watchman goby finds his pistol shrimp buddy soon. I know it’s normal but I haven’t seen the shrimp since he got out into the tank.

Sorry to hear about your finger. Thought I was following your build thread but apparently I forgot to push the button.