rollermonkey Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 Oceanic Biocube 29 HQI Currently running: Cobalt Aquatics MJ1200 EcoTech Vortech MP10 (So much flow at max setting...) Eheim Jager 75 watt heater three tier inTank media basket (Floss over ChemiPure over Purigen) JBJ Unibody 54w LED JBJ LED Fuge Light AquatiClear 115 Skimmer inTank media basket refugium tray Apex Lite Controller There is about 33 pounds of LR in the tank, with a couple-three pieces glued and epoxied together to form an arch. I've got just under 40 pounds of sand in the bottom which is about 3 inches when it stays put. Water generation rig: in line TDS meter for the RODI SpectraPure 90gpd RODI Quarantine Tank: Mr. Aqua 7.5g cube AquaClear 20 HOB filter Eheim Jager 50 watt heater Ecoxotic PAR38 in an IKEA desk lamp for coral lighting 2.5" PVC "T" 2.5" PVC elbow Backup stuff: Hydor Koralia 425 (this will be the backup if the MP10 dies) Stock Pump Stock MH light (will be the back up if the LED ever dies) Aqueon Pro 100 watt heater Hydor Theo 100 watt heater Hydor Theo 50 watt heater Aquavia 100 watt heater Oceanic V2 UV sterilizer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rollermonkey Posted June 27, 2012 Author Share Posted June 27, 2012 Plans: In addition to the CUC, I want one fire shrimp, the ones in the lfs are beautiful. CUC: 5 Dwarf Ceriths 3 Nassarius 4 Florida Ceriths 3 Assorted Hermits 3 Small to Medium Nerites 1 Chiton 2 Limpets The fish plan: One Helfrichi Firefish, One Blue Assessor (Macneill's Basslet), One Dracula Goby / Red-banded Pistol shrimp pair and One Ocellaris Clownfish. That is the order of adding I plan to use, too. The Fire Shrimp will go in after the Assessor. If, after everybody is in the pool, they are playing nicely, I might/maybe try to get a second juvenile clown. That would be a fairly heavy bioload, so I probably will stop with just the one. Coral Plan: This is the list of corals I'd like to eventually add to my DT: Blue Ridge Coral - (Heliopora coerulea) Red Candy Cap Coral - (Montipora capricornis) Candy Cane Coral (Caulastrea furcata) Lemon Tree Coral - (Stereonepthya sp.) and one Zoa/polyp colony, preferably something with purples and blues... Reef Goddess Purple Fission and / or Teal Rings ? I'm keeping the number small so they will have room to expand, and so I don't have to think about ten million things. Mods: Like everyone, I cut the tab out of the wall between chamber one and chamber two. To get the LED light clamp on the tank, I cut the fins off. If I was paying attention, I would have left the outer one on each side and only cut the 7 in the middle. Live and learn, I guess. Next, I made another cut from the tank rim, with the light clamped on, (stock or the LED I substituted) I couldn't get the media basket out without removing the light. Annoying. I extended the center notch all the way to the right side of chamber 1. Now I can lift the media basket straight up to replace the filter floss, chemi-pure or perigean and the skimmer fits much better. Yay. If I move the light off center about 1/2", I can get the fuge basket out, too. I'll probably do that if I can get over the lamp being off center all the time. Finally, the fuge light magnet is in the fuge basket, annoying. I may scrape a little paint so I can center the light on the fuge basket, but I think I'd need to rotate the light 180 degrees and have the magnet in the media tray to do that. Not exactly a better solution, so I'm holding off on this for now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rollermonkey Posted June 27, 2012 Author Share Posted June 27, 2012 The Gucci Quarantine Tank Holds water, light looks good, now can I buy something alive? Crud. The DT is still cycling. :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rollermonkey Posted June 27, 2012 Author Share Posted June 27, 2012 The most recent FTS picture I took is a couple weeks old... I'm at 28 days into the cycle, my ammonia has never really spiked, but only went to about 0.25ppm, but it got up to that level twice and stayed of a few days each time. Nitrites started at over 5ppm, and stayed there for quite a while. It's been down by zero for about a week now. Nitrates started about 60ppm and have spiked to over 100ppm three times and dropped to 10ppm for a couple days between each spike. I've done three partial water changes. Twice at 12% and once at 18%. I'll be doing another one tomorrow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matty Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 Looking good! The only thing I might suggest is a different fixture for the par38 bulb above your QT. With the bulb enclosed in the shroud the bulb will get extremely hot and it won't last near as long. I removed the shroud around mine because of this issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derbird Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 Nice setup This is going to be a sweet tank I think you said your amonia and nitrites were both at zero so your cycle should be done. Time to set up some macro and do a water change. If it were me I would have a fish in QT tomorrow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rollermonkey Posted June 27, 2012 Author Share Posted June 27, 2012 ...and that's about where I am. I had a temperature gremlin that really delayed my start for a while, but I think I finally have that licked with the Apex and the 75 watt Eheim instead of a higher wattage heater. I have a couple 100 watt heaters if I need the extra juice when colder weather comes along. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rollermonkey Posted June 27, 2012 Author Share Posted June 27, 2012 ^^I would have my first fish (the Helfrichi Firefish) in QT already, but the LFS doesn't have one right now. I've bought so much online that I kind of want to get something from them! I hadn't dropped the sponge filter for the QT into the DT yet, because I was waiting for the cycle to be finished. That will go in right after the water change tomorrow. Looking good! The only thing I might suggest is a different fixture for the par38 bulb above your QT. With the bulb enclosed in the shroud the bulb will get extremely hot and it won't last near as long. I removed the shroud around mine because of this issue. Hmm... I was hoping that it won't be as big of a problem because in the QT it will be running a shortened photoperiod. I'll have to look at it and see if I can drill some holes... I did run it for about 8 hours the day I got it and it didn't feel all that hot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Z Reef Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 Digging the color your getting from the Ecoxotic PAR38 on your QT, is this the one with the Red leds also? Nice setup! If your looking for teal or neon green candy canes, I have both as well as some LA lakers zoas (purple with yellow rings) and TUBBs for some blue. Feel free to PM me when your ready for corals and i'll make ya a deal! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rollermonkey Posted June 27, 2012 Author Share Posted June 27, 2012 I might take you up on the neon green candy canes... Do you have pictures posted? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Z Reef Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 I might take you up on the neon green candy canes... Do you have pictures posted? I have several colonies of the neon green varying in size from about 8 to 15 heads. Here's a pic that shows a few of them and you can see the two large teal colonies as well (they make almost a full dome). Still wondering which Ecoxotic PAR38 you bought? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rollermonkey Posted June 27, 2012 Author Share Posted June 27, 2012 Those neon greens are nice... My PAR38 is the Ecoxotic model with 2 reds, 4 white and 6 blue LEDs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burningbaal Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 as soon as you see some algae or diatoms, you can get the CUC (if you haven't already), and I don't think I know anyone that uses a QT for a CUC, btw. they so rarely cause an issue (I've never heard of a CUC item being officially blamed for bringing in a disease). you might be careful with the ABS pipe and inverts. sometimes (and it's hard to know when), the manufacturer of ABS pipe puts a fungicide in the plastic to reduce mildew growth and that could hurt (and probably would stress) any inverts (think corals) that are in the tank. regular sch40 PVC is generally a safe bet. Also, I'd buy an ammonia badge for that QT, I lost a $65 tang in quarantine once because the ammonia spiked overnight. One evening a did a 25% water change 'just to be safe', 24 hours later, there was a nitrite spike and a dead fish. also a good reason to make sure you've got thorough bacteria going in the QT. I'd (personally) do more than just the AC20's filter, thought that's a good start. I'd get a sheet of filter floss and soak it in the DT for a few days (a week would be great) and let it float in the QT with the fish. remember that even though your DT is cycled, it's operating off a mimnimal bioload and is still brand new, so the free floating bacteria are close to 0, meaning you won't move very much over to the QT on a little piece of filter foam. so, looking good and enjoy. sorry if I'm firing off too much unsolicited advice (nono)(hitme) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rollermonkey Posted June 28, 2012 Author Share Posted June 28, 2012 ^No, it's all good. I won't be QT'ing the CUC when it gets here. I'd be worried that they'd starve. The PVC pipes won't be in the tank when I QT corals. I'll just have some egg crate in there for stability. New egg crate for each period of coral QT if I don't get everything from the same place. The corals will all get a dip, followed by a one week QT, with the photoperiod ramping up over the course of the week. I'm going to do a 100% water change between each QT and I'm thinking 33% water changes every other day unless ammonia is running high, then I'll increase it to 67% every other day. The fish will go into QT for one month each, with no other tank mates. All new filter materials will be used for each QT. New sponge, new carbon, and I have enough of the bio modules to use and change those every time, too. I am NOT in any rush, and I will do my absolute best to not introduce disease into the DT either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burningbaal Posted June 28, 2012 Share Posted June 28, 2012 sounds good. heads up that the red bugs I got on my acro showed up two weeks after I added it to my tank, I didn't notice them earlier. they may have been there if I inspected more carefully, but still...I'd recommend keeping corals in QT longer than a week, or just don't bother. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rollermonkey Posted June 28, 2012 Author Share Posted June 28, 2012 Well, (the corals) they are going to get a nice little bath before starting the QT: Coral Revive from Two Little Fishies, Flatworm Exit from Salifert and Interceptor heart worm medicine. A second dip will be conducted on day 5. Of course, they will also be inspected again before transferring to the DT. You could say I'm a bit of a planner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rollermonkey Posted June 29, 2012 Author Share Posted June 29, 2012 30 days, and still no hitchhikers aside from algae and bacteria. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rollermonkey Posted July 2, 2012 Author Share Posted July 2, 2012 CUC arrives tomorrow. Good thing, the algae is starting to get thick... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rollermonkey Posted July 4, 2012 Author Share Posted July 4, 2012 The CUC arrived from Reef Cleaners today. I asked John not to go overboard, but he still can't count. 4 hermits ordered became 5 arrived alive, 6 small ceriths became like 30, etc. There's 5 nassarius, 6 florida ceriths, 30-something small ceriths, 3 blue-legged hermits, 2 striped-leg hermits, about 20 nerites, 3 limpets and one fuzzy chiton. The chiton is a MACHINE. It doesn't move fast, but it leaves a trail of bare rock behind it and doesn't eat the coralline algae. I love it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rollermonkey Posted July 15, 2012 Author Share Posted July 15, 2012 Here's a positive development: It's in QT now, only 4 weeks of that to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derbird Posted July 15, 2012 Share Posted July 15, 2012 Now thats a beauty (clap) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rollermonkey Posted July 15, 2012 Author Share Posted July 15, 2012 I tried a little brine in the acclimation box, no joy. I dropped a couple mysis in the QT, no luck. Tomorrow morning, I'll try a little cyclopeez. Hopefully it will eat that, otherwise I need to go find some of that garlic stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rollermonkey Posted July 15, 2012 Author Share Posted July 15, 2012 It loves the cyclopeeze, and will now eat brine, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rollermonkey Posted September 16, 2012 Author Share Posted September 16, 2012 Wow. I need to update this. OK, The Helfrichi made it through QT, no problem, and it was followed through by this guy: Just about a week before the Blue Assessor was due to come out of QT, Diver's Den had exactly what I was looking for next, a Dracula Goby and Randall's Pistol shrimp. With the weekend and the two day maximum delay in shipping, the Assessor only came out of QT 3 days early when these arrived: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derbird Posted September 17, 2012 Share Posted September 17, 2012 Wow that dracula is a nice looking fish. I don't belive I have seen one before Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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