Tank Journal Archive

[mscott]

Rightyo, foam installed and tank is 100x quieter than it was, new scape, new heater and I've managed to silence my mp40. I finally got my hands on a test kit and have found my initial parameters to be pretty close to perfect. I have cyanno spreading quite quickly, but im guessing that is mainly because I've been having my lights on for close to 12-14hrs a day. Im having a lot of microscopic bugs apearing on my glass which is pretty awesome, and so far no bad creapie crawlies. Now as for CUC, what does everyone recommend?
Might get some photos up tomorrow is you all behave haha.
Also within the next few weeks im hoping to get a 2x18x18 tank for a new sump, i think it will help to make the sump look nicer and it will create a bit more play room down there. Im also looking to replace the return pump ASAP, as it is an old skimmer pump so i believe it is the cause of most of the micro bubbles in the tank at the moment. Hopefully by the end of the fortnight i will have both a new sump and a new return pump. And maybe a few new globes for the light.

 

[mscott]

Alright, so first inhabitants are in, and tank is running smoothly.
After next thursday (pay day) ill be looking to get some new light globes for my unit and ill also be looking to get a new return pump, as the pump im currently using is an old skimmer pump so it is throwing micro-bubbles into the water column. Im thinking ill be going around 4-5000 LPH. However instead of light globes i may look at getting a new sump tank and return pump, as my current globes will be fine untill i start adding corals. Which wont be until after the end of the month.
I may also look into getting a second hand mp10 (if one pops up somewhere) just to add some supplemental flow to the tank
But for now just cruising along

 

[mscott]

hey guuuuuuuuuuuys my tnk is currently growing something on my live rock, however i cant really see it yet, its green and looks like a fern-like leaf, ill keep up the updates but if anyone has any guesses im happy to look around cheers

 

[Buddy]

Does it look like bryopsis? If so, you wanna get it out ASAP. I've heard of it ruining tanks.

 

[mscott]

It looks kinda like freshwater ambulia if you know what that looks like

 

[Buddy]

Yeah bryopsis can look similar, it could also be long hair algae. When I cycled my old tank a had a few bits of bryopsis but it died off after the cycle. That was back before i knew it was a bad algae.

 

[mscott]

Alrighty, cheers, ill let it grw a little bit bigger then post a photo when i can finally focus on it, should only be a day or so at this rate

 

[mscott]

Hey guys, as im getting a new sump soon im thinking of jumping into a propper sump, i have uploaded a pdf with my current design thoughts and am looking for some feedback.

 

[Buddy]

Any backup plan if the filter socks overflow? Does your refugium feed in to the return as well as the skimmer section?

 

[mscott]

i was thinking of having the holder slightly/a bit slanted so that it ran straight into the return section (just a bit hard for me to draw that up.
No it would flow around the system, from socks to fuge to skimmer to return, however if i end up with a smaller profile skimmer i would be able to double the skize of the fuge section

 

[Buddy]

It would be a shame to skim out all the little critters that would be destined to go to your display tank through the return pump. But if that doesn't worry you then just ignore that haha

 

[mscott]

ahhh fair point, i should be able to swap it around, so that the long skimmer area is where the fuge is then along to the back wall, then the fuge then the return

 

[holly]

ahhh fair point, i should be able to swap it around, so that the long skimmer area is where the fuge is then along to the back wall, then the fuge then the return

I have some of my water go straight to the fugue-->return. My theory is it keeps some 'good stuff' in the water that I don't want completely removed by skimming and the phos/biopellets.

 

[mscott]

Right so the past month or so has been rather uneventful, with sad starts to fish etc. Im happy to say that reeflections replaced the sick chromis with some new ones which are looking much stronger/happier.
Had a very good (imo) test kit results today:
ph: 8.2
Nitrate:2ppm
Nitrite: 0.05ppm
Ammonia 0
Yet to buy the rest of the test kits, but im assuming my phos is going to be fairly high/higher than it should be, as im starting to get hair algae growth, and a seemingly unstoppable ammount of cyano.
Stock list so far is as follows:
1 clown
1 electric blue damsel
4 blue green chromis
1 bta (bleached)
1 (large) goni
1 (medium-large) fluro finger leather
3 (small) orange fungia plates.
4 nass snails
10 or so turbos snails
1 red star
1 blue linka star (or whatever their name is)
By the end of this week, im hoping to have updated my sump and also bought a reactor for phos and maybe another for carbon. But so far just cruising along.