Waterbox Peninsula 15 gallon Build Thread

[RDtrack]

Hi, I was just reading your tank journey.

Are you still dosing AFR? I personally don't know if I would dose anything. Your parameters shouldn't really change that much as it appears you don't have any thing that would be uptaking that much alk or calcium.

I've had my share of the ugglies.

I read your post about your experience with corals. I personally would stick to some of the easier corals; softies or LPS and wait on the SPS. Unfortunately SPS are not the forgiving and you can just end spending a lot of money.

I've always went by...if I have coraline algea on my rocks I can have coral. Now that takes awhile but patience is true in this hobby.

In addition I'd be now more concerned about your ratio between phosphates and nitrates. In my opinion I think you need to feed more. Unfortunately you can chase at a lot of numbers in this hobby. But stability of any numbers will get you more success. My current tank is running nitrates at 40 to 50 and phospates at .1 to .14. Does it bother me that phosphates are under. 1 a little but all more corals are doing good. I'm seeing growth.

When I started my first reef tank as a bio cube I didn't dose anything granted my tank was mostly softies and a few LPS. But I religiously did a weekly 5 gallon water change. And I had great success. Even today with a calcium reactor I still do a 100 gallon water change every 2 weeks on my 280. Water changes can cover up a multitude of sins.

In my opinion your tank is still really new. A tank under a year old is just new. Need to count months not days.

Good luck though and feed that tank. In my opinion dinos thrive on low nutrients. You think the opposite but feeding the tank helps.

 

[trevorhiller]

Hi, I was just reading your tank journey.

Are you still dosing AFR? I personally don't know if I would dose anything. Your parameters shouldn't really change that much as it appears you don't have any thing that would be uptaking that much alk or calcium.

I've had my share of the ugglies.

I read your post about your experience with corals. I personally would stick to some of the easier corals; softies or LPS and wait on the SPS. Unfortunately SPS are not the forgiving and you can just end spending a lot of money.

I've always went by...if I have coraline algea on my rocks I can have coral. Now that takes awhile but patience is true in this hobby.

In addition I'd be now more concerned about your ratio between phosphates and nitrates. In my opinion I think you need to feed more. Unfortunately you can chase at a lot of numbers in this hobby. But stability of any numbers will get you more success. My current tank is running nitrates at 40 to 50 and phospates at .1 to .14. Does it bother me that phosphates are under. 1 a little but all more corals are doing good. I'm seeing growth.

When I started my first reef tank as a bio cube I didn't dose anything granted my tank was mostly softies and a few LPS. But I religiously did a weekly 5 gallon water change. And I had great success. Even today with a calcium reactor I still do a 100 gallon water change every 2 weeks on my 280. Water changes can cover up a multitude of sins.

In my opinion your tank is still really new. A tank under a year old is just new. Need to count months not days.

Good luck though and feed that tank. In my opinion dinos thrive on low nutrients. You think the opposite but feeding the tank helps.

I am still dosing All For Reef, my Alk was the problem, it was dropping by around 2-2.5 a week. I had stopped doing water changes at the recommendation of people on here because of the low nutrients and it was the only way to keep Alk stable while not doing water changes. It was dropping to low 5s. Parameters are actually pretty stable with the AFR dosing, so it is being used up somewhere. Since turning on the lights after the Dino treatment my coralline growth is booming.

I was feeding very heavy to try to get N/P up about a nickle size spot of pellets a day. Finally I started seeing some phosphates, but by that point...Dinos. It wasn't until I shut the lights off that the rocks started clearing up and the nitrates started coming up as well.

I am working on the stability of the Nitrate/Phosphate, but like you said tank is new. As for counting the days, it keeps me busy and I think this build thread might be helpful for other impatient people like myself in the future to have a detailed log of tank progression in year 1. That's why I try to update so much.

The SPS I bought were literally supposed to be beginner SPS, monti caps, stylos, pocillopora, etc. All things I have heard are hardy and I kept successfully in my previous nano years ago. I'm not on a specific acro path, just a nice mixed reef.

Appreciate you taking the time to respond! It's so challenging balancing everyone's different philosophies and experience with what you are seeing with your own eyes, but I do really appreciate the advice.

 

[lubeck]

Are you still running your algae scrubber? Curious if the Tank is too young to run a scrubber because your biological filter truly isn’t developed yet.

good news is your Dino’s are on the way out. Keep on trucking.

let’s see a full tank Shot.

 

[trevorhiller]

Are you still running your algae scrubber? Curious if the Tank is too young to run a scrubber because your biological filter truly isn’t developed yet.

good news is your Dino’s are on the way out. Keep on trucking.

let’s see a full tank Shot.

Nope, my filtration is floss, activated carbon, skimmer.

 

[trevorhiller]

Upgraded my lights to the Kessil a360x and Reef Brite XHO combo. I'm probably not going to use the Reef Brite on anything but the lowest setting. They are going to be used in the future when I can get a larger tank. Still working on figuring out the settings I want for the Kessil. I see a lot of people crank the violet up and the color down (more blue), but I honestly prefer a whiter tank. Somewhere are 50% for the color seems good to my eye.

My DIY stand isn't holding up as well as I would have liked. The paint around my "seamless" seems is cracking. The stand is rock solid, but I think its just the nature of wood adjusting to the humidity of the house. It doesn't look as good as it did orginally, but it will do just fine.

Unfortunately all my frags from my recent online order died, so I'm back to just my pair of mushrooms. I seem to have a Diatom bloom going now that my Dinos are gone.

I keep finding new spots of coralline every few days, so that's something. I think I am going to hold off on any more coral deliveries until the weather warms up after losing $100 on my shipment. I do have my eye on a tail spot blenny, again, just waiting for warmer weather to order him.

 

[trevorhiller]

Tank Day 112

It's been a few weeks since I last updated the thread, so I figured I'd do that (and score an extra entry into the Orphek giveaway). A

Livestock - No changes
Equipment - Removed CO2 Scrubber recently

Dinos have remained gone since my treatment & diatoms now seem to be fading away. I'm coming up on the four month mark and the rocks are starting to look more like live rock although they still have a way to go. Coralline algae seems to be continuing to grow. I've got a few spots that look nice and thick now, haven't seen any on the powerhead, glass or return line ironically, only the rocks.

I've started dosing some nitrate and phosphate to keep the tank's levels up and that seems to be working well. I had to dose quite a bit of phosphate before I even saw any detectable level, however, that seems to be normal from what I've read.

I'm still dosing All For Reef and using Kalk in the ATO and that seems to keep my alkalinity fairly stable, although it's mostly an exercise in learning the tank's trends since I don't have any real corals in there.

I did remove my CO2 scrubber as my pH kept testing >8.6 with the white Hanna pH photometer. Without the scrubber it is now around 8.2-8.4 with just the Kalkwasser and AFR and that seems fine for me. One less thing to worry about as far as consumables.

Everything except the Candy Cane coral from Fish of Hex shipment died. Never even saw any polyp extension on the GSP. However, 1 head of the candy cane coral still has a bit of tissue left on it. I still have some hope that it may recover.

I've already got tank upgrade fever and have started collecting pieces for a CADE 600 build. I'm probably going to move my aquascape from this tank into that one whenever I buy it and add some more rock since it's a little bigger. The plans for this tank are unknown, maybe a spare QT tank long term?

 

[trevorhiller]

Tank Day 121 Update:

I’ve still got massive amounts of green algae growing on the glass still. Comes back a few hours after scraping it off. I’ve continuously been dosing nitrates and phosphates to keep the levels above zero and that’s been working decently. Nitrates are pretty stable in the 4-6 range. Phosphates continue to hit zero some days, but are usually in the 0.02-0.10 range.

I added an extra piece of brand new Marcos rock I had laying around to get it cycling for the upcoming CADE build with the anticipation that I’m going to need more rock to fill in that tank. About 3 days later, it seems I have a small patch of Dinos growing on the adjacent rock again. Right now, im leaving it be to see what happens, but I might have to do another blackout/peroxide dosing treatment.

The tank is looking pretty ugly! However, I’m posting some pictures for any new reefers to see what the ugly phase looks like. Forgive the crappy pictures, but there was no way these were going to look good anyway so I didn’t bother with the lens or trying to control reflections.

On a positive note, my candy cane coral seems to be growing back from the brink of death. The one head that survived my Fish of Hex order fiasco is looking way better than it did and now has about half of its head covered in tissue again. I think it might survive and it’s nice to see it making a come back, it’s kind of reassuring that despite how ugly the tank is, I must be doing something right!

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Keep pressing on, man. Algae is frustrating, but you'll get a handle on it.

 

[trevorhiller]

Keep pressing on, man. Algae is frustrating, but you'll get a handle on it.

Thanks! Putting that piece of stark white rock in actually made me realize how much progress has happened in 4 months. I’ve gone through a couple of these nuisance blooms and at the end of every one, it seems something positive comes from them, so I’m just riding the algae wave knowing that the tank is doing what it’s supposed to do.

 

[Sean Clark]

Following along.

 

[trevorhiller]

Tank Day 131 Update

Lost all 3 Trochus snails during the several Dino outbreaks/treatments, leaving me with just 1 hermit crab, a peppermint shrimp and a urchin for CUC.

Today I added some extra hermits, 2 Turbo Snails, 3 Trochus Snails and some Nassarius snails as well as a Tiger Conch.

I'm probably overly stocked for CUC at the moment, but I didn't want to have to reorder in a month or two when the Cade 600 arrives. Plus, I've got plenty of algae growing at the moment. Tank looks like garbage. I had to do another blackout/peroxide/bacteria treatment for Dinos last week as they were getting out of hand again. My nitrates and phosphates have been higher (no longer 0/0) but the Dinos came back. After turning my lights back on, the algae is back in full force and it appears there is another patch of Dinos developing on the extra white Marco rock I added. These things are relentless, but I'm watching closely to make sure they don't get out of hand and replacing carbon weekly now to try to prevent them from killing my snails.

I've shortened my photo period and adjusted the lights down a little bit hoping to help keep them at bay but we'll see. I did buy a UV sterilizer for the new Cade tank because I am annoyed with them. I wouldn't mind the uglies if I didn't think the Dinos were likely killing my clean up crew, but I believe that to be the case.

 

[lubeck]

Have you considered buying some live rock? I suppose you are probably on your way out of the uglies for good but it wouldn’t hurt to build on the biodiversity.

 

[trevorhiller]

Have you considered buying some live rock? I suppose you are probably on your way out of the uglies for good but it wouldn’t hurt to build on the biodiversity.

I’ve contemplated it several time actually.

I made a custom DIY marco rock scape only because I couldn’t find any live rock for sale (everyone was out of stock). So now I’d kind of like to use that after spending the time on it. Im not opposed to adding some live rock, however, I wouldn’t need more than a piece or two and most sites sell 10# minimum unless I trashed my whole custom scape. 10 pounds is a lot for 15 gallon tank

I am planning on upgrading to a larger tank, when that happens this might be doable, however, it’s still hard to find any in stock last time I looked.

the other thing I looked at was ordering some stuff from IPSF. Do people still use them for sand and critters? The website doesn’t seem like it’s been updated in a while….

 

[lubeck]

I’ve contemplated it several time actually.

I made a custom DIY marco rock scape only because I couldn’t find any live rock for sale (everyone was out of stock). So now I’d kind of like to use that after spending the time on it. Im not opposed to adding some live rock, however, I wouldn’t need more than a piece or two and most sites sell 10# minimum unless I trashed my whole custom scape. 10 pounds is a lot for 15 gallon tank

I am planning on upgrading to a larger tank, when that happens this might be doable, however, it’s still hard to find any in stock last time I looked.

the other thing I looked at was ordering some stuff from IPSF. Do people still use them for sand and critters? The website doesn’t seem like it’s been updated in a while….

Gulf live rock . Com has amazing live rock. the guy has tons of it.

I contribute where i am today because of it. We started our tanks about the same time. I never went through the ugly stages. I don’t run a skimmer.

I would consider buying live rock when you upgrade.

 

[trevorhiller]

Gulf live rock . Com has amazing live rock. the guy has tons of it.

I contribute where i am today because of it. We started our tanks about the same time. I never went through the ugly stages. I don’t run a skimmer.

I would consider buying live rock when you upgrade.

The last couple times I looked at them, they were sold out of everything. But I see they have some in stock. I might just have to follow your advice get a shipment to add.

I also looked at the ARC Reef premium coralline rock, but they've been sold out as well.

What kind of process did you go through to make sure the rock didn't add large organisms you don't want in the DT? Their pictures look like the rocks come heavily populated with organisms.

 

[lubeck]

The last couple times I looked at them, they were sold out of everything. But I see they have some in stock. I might just have to follow your advice get a shipment to add.

I also looked at the ARC Reef premium coralline rock, but they've been sold out as well.

What kind of process did you go through to make sure the rock didn't add large organisms you don't want in the DT? Their pictures look like the rocks come heavily populated with organism

from what I remember, I didn’t have any live stock yet and I was cycling. The rock was chuck full of life, crazy amount. There was one bad hitchhiker that I removed. The rest is history. It’s my main filtration of the tank. I bought 35 lbs and then added another 10lbs of dry Rock to the fuge.

The guy at gulf live rock dumped a cargo ship full of rock into the gulf and its been there for over a year.

 

[trevorhiller]

from what I remember, I didn’t have any live stock yet and I was cycling. The rock was chuck full of life, crazy amount. There was one bad hitchhiker that I removed. The rest is history. It’s my main filtration of the tank. I bought 35 lbs and then added another 10lbs of dry Rock to the fuge.

The guy at gulf live rock dumped a cargo ship full of rock into the gulf and its been there for over a year.

For the new tank I’m planning to switch the substrate to two little fishies reborn media. Right now I have that cycling in storage container with saltwater and a bio brick for the sump. I ordered 10 pounds from gulf live rock to try out last night. I figure I can just throw it in this temporary holding tank to quarantine it for any nasty critters and then combine it with my existing live rock when the new tank arrives.

I’m hoping by the time the new tank gets here the current tank will be 6 months old and the rock should be of the ugly stage. Plus I got a UV sterilizer for the Cade tank. So the extra time, UV and live rock addition will hopefully leave me a more stable tank that I can actually make it more than half a day without massive algae outbreaks and Dino’s growing everywhere.

I’ve really wanted to add corals for a while now, but the dry rock is taking so much longer to become stable than I expected and it seems kind of pointless to add stuff now while it’s in the state it’s in.

Im really questioning the whole philosophy of dry rock. I know people like it because they can control what organisms are in the tank, but I get the feeling it’s all those organisms that bring about a balanced ecosystem.

 

[lubeck]

For the new tank I’m planning to switch the substrate to two little fishies reborn media. Right now I have that cycling in storage container with saltwater and a bio brick for the sump. I ordered 10 pounds from gulf live rock to try out last night. I figure I can just throw it in this temporary holding tank to quarantine it for any nasty critters and then combine it with my existing live rock when the new tank arrives.

I’m hoping by the time the new tank gets here the current tank will be 6 months old and the rock should be of the ugly stage. Plus I got a UV sterilizer for the Cade tank. So the extra time, UV and live rock addition will hopefully leave me a more stable tank that I can actually make it more than half a day without massive algae outbreaks and Dino’s growing everywhere.

I’ve really wanted to add corals for a while now, but the dry rock is taking so much longer to become stable than I expected and it seems kind of pointless to add stuff now while it’s in the state it’s in.

Im really questioning the whole philosophy of dry rock. I know people like it because they can control what organisms are in the tank, but I get the feeling it’s all those organisms that bring about a balanced ecosystem.

When are you getting the new rock. Please post pics

 

[trevorhiller]

When are you getting the new rock. Please post pics

I ordered 10 pounds Saturday evening. I'll definitely get some pictures posted of it when it arrives. I actually just emailed him tonight to see when he plans to ship--I'm not sure what his normal processing time is.

I'll try to get a updated picture/video of my tank tomorrow night too. Turning the light settings down, shortening the photo period and adding the new clean up crew members seemed to really put a dent in the algae in the tank and the Dinos that looked like they may be trying to come back as well seem to have remained only the new piece of rock I recently dropped in to begin getting it cycled. That's a win. Nitrates and Phosphates have been around 5 ppm and 0.05-0.09, dosing them PRN.

 

[trevorhiller]

When are you getting the new rock. Please post pics

He emailed me back today and said that they are currently sold out of live rock. Their inventory must not be updated on their website because it said it was in stock when I ordered, however, he said they are getting more in on Monday. Should have it next week.

I found my new (6 day old Halloween hermit) dead today out of his shell. Not sure what happened to him, he seemed fine and everything parameter wise on the tank looks good. EDIT: Apparently this was just the molt. I found the halloween walking around again tonight (3/28/22)! It's crazy how much the molts look like the animal invert itself! Glad he's still alive. Also my little Mexican Red leg that I had in jail for attacking my other hermits somehow escaped. I couldn't find him on the floor or in the tank, no clue where he went. I seem to have really bad luck with hermits, think I'm probably done trying to keep them until I get the bigger tank because other than being interesting, I don't know how much value they add.

I tried to take some pictures of the tank to get you all an idea of where the live rock is at, but between the lighting and the algae on the glass, it's hard to get clear pictures. I literally clean the glass and within a half an hour I have noticeable green algae film on the glass. It's crazy. Currently have my a360x at 20% intensity, red and greens at 5 and Reef Brites off completely. The pictures are crappy, but you can get the idea of where the rock stands. Here's a video walk around too: