Tank Journal Archive

[jashay]

New

Introduction: ​

this is my first marine display tank, it has been a learning process thats for sure. what I originally wanted was a fish system with a few corals. my attentions now I have really gotten into it have turned to a mixed reek system, live rock and fish, more so concentrating on the corals now. being mixed it will have LPS, maybe a couple SPS and softies (and possibly other stuff like inverts, clams, shrimp etc). I will add the pics as soon as I get them. unfortunately I dont have any of the original setup as I wasnt on forums etc. when I started and the tank was solely for me and my family's enjoyment. now I am online hopefully you guys can enjoy it too! and give some good advice which is welcome on any aspect of the aquarium.​

when I got into the marine side my wife did to, which is good as she wasnt into tanks or fish at all, so we have a hobby we can do together and go to the LFS (which can be a slight draw back as she is the restraint on my wallet which is usually needed lol). Once we decided to go with a marine setup, we started going through books borrowed from the local library. These books really only covered water quality and parameters, filtration systems and setups, light etc. and fish and misc. (like shrimp, crab, eel) and not really anything to do with corals. so we set the tank up, started cycling it adding live rock, getting salt levels correct etc. after parameters started to stabilise we added a couple of hardy cheap fish, a blue damsel and a chromis. these two helped in the cycling and not long after it had all settled. The wife was obssed with angels, which I cant blame her I love them too. She wanted a coral beauty so this is what we got, we had some trouble with this one and it eventually passed, I reckon it was due to being a fairly new tank, and not knowing a great deal about them didn't help. so we didn't add any more fish to the system for a while, only live rock every week to help mature the water. anyway. this is enough of an intro, and we will continue the story as I keep adding to the journal :D​

Reefing Since: march 2011 (freshwater fish keeping for around 15 years)​

System Objectives: build a display tank full of corals and colour that when looked at amazes the person. mostly corals etc. with a few fish as not to detract to much from the rest of the tank.​

Type of reef: mixed corals and a few fish and inverts etc.​

Display System:​

Initial Fill Date: around the start of april 2011​

Display Tank Dimensions: 1000mm L x 450mm D x 650mm H (blue planet brand)​

Display Lighting: intergrated hood unit (plug and play) 2 x T5 14k white and actinic, plan on adding more.​

Stand: flat pack stand made for tank (black)​

Hood or Rimless: intergrated hood (black)​

Sump Design: NA​

Filtration: intergrated "cannister" filter in hood ( driven by power head, with collection tube collecting from 1 third up from bottom) filtration box dimensions- 400mm long x 120mm wide x 100mm high app. filtration media from inlet to outlet - bio balls (coarse), ceramic noodles (med), carbon in filter bag (med fine), filter wool (fine). ​

internal cannister filter size - 250mm long, 80mm square. 350 l/h (I beleive)​

no skimmer as yet, plan on getting one​

Support systems:​

NSW or ASW: ASW at the moment, consdidering going NSW if water quality is good enough​

Display Water circulation: intergrated filter power head out let has flow control and direction. 3 power heads located in the display, hopefully will change to proper circulation power heads. power heads atm are around 500 L/H ​

Return Pump: NA (possible if I can work out a sump)​

Skimmer: NA (soon)​

Evaporation Top Up: manual, although it is quite good with evaporation taking a long time to lower ( around half an inch water level drop over a 2-3 week period).​

Chemical additions:​

Calcium Addition: purple up, calcium with hydroxyapetite (Im sure some of you will ask about this)​

Alkilinity Addition: NA ​

Magnesium Addition: NA​

Prodibiotics Addition: NA​

alk, mag, pro - is a trace element addition what covers this? as I am using one​

Coral Food Addition:corallife invert formula gumbo​

current parameters- ​

nitrites - 0 ​

nitrates - 0​

SG - 1.025​

ph - 8.1​

temp - stable 25c​

Fish list-​

1 x Pomocanthus imperator - emperor angel (starting to change to adult)​

2x A. occelaris - common clowns (had since 1 cm long, now around 2.5cm)​

1x chromis (had since 1.5cm long, now 3cm long)​

fish wish list - ​

2 x decora ​

2x mandarin dragonettes​

maybe a couple of others if I get interested. maybe clean up crew?​

Coral list -​

Heliofungia (plate - long tentacle) - around 75mm dia.​

wellsophyllia x 3 (open brain)- 2 toxic green 1 @ 100mm dia. 1 @ 140mm dia. , 1 purple with toxic green line @ 150mm long x 50mm wide​

Euphyllia x 2 (frogspawn) - 1 metallic greeny blue @ 50mm dia. , 1 purple/pink @ 70mm dia.​

capnella Imbricata x 3 (cauliflower) - 3 pieces around 30-50 high each with a head around golf ball size.​

a fair few of these softies that look like zoo but on a stalk - maroony pink with green centre. ​

some morphs - purple, blue, green, orange​

tube worms, all pretty small, yellows and red.​

some corraline algae of different types on the live rock, hoping this spreads a fair bit. ​

a small patch of caulerpa algae hidden behind the larger sections of live rock ( I beleive this helps with nitrates). ​

possibly a few other things in there that Im either not sure of or dont know.​

Ok have racked my brain a bit now. will continue on this some more later. still looking for the cord too!​

 

[MagicJ]

Great intro, thanks jashay.

All we need now are some pics :)

 

[MTG]

:poidh
Glad to see you put up a journal mate

 

[jashay]

thanks guys :D

as you can see in the main tank pic it looks like there is a lot of matter floating around, this is actually flake food :oops: I took the picture pretty much straight after feeding to try and get the fish out... obviously didn't work lol. normally the tank is pretty much crystal without suspended particles.
after seeing the pics I think the glass needs a clean too. the brown on the back wall is a little of the brown algae that is common from a fresh tank, it has basically been there since the start but I didn't mind it as it breaks up the solid colour back ground which is a touch up colour for powder coating it is the mountain blue/ocean mist.
unfortunately one draw back with the intergrated hood (blue planet plug and play) is that the filter box is intergrated aswell and the lighting is situated higher than the bottom of the filter box. which causes it to cast a shadow. I am thinking of setting up a LED strip that is water proof that will fit in between the filter box and the back of the hood as there is a gap around about an inch or so wide, enough to get a LED strip in anyways. I also intend on adding some extra LED to increase the light in general. the other issue is the down pipe that the filter pump draws the water from, the good thing about this is that I have built the live rock "reef" around this pipe which means that anything that is drawn to it gets caught by the rock too.

as can be seen there are some coral skeletons, to releive any worries these havent died will in my possesion, a couple have been bought, and others have been given to me. i am hoping these eventually turn into some nice live rock.

I will also be receiving some new corals in the next week or so (once I pay for the rest of it) which will help fill the tank some more, im not sure whether I should put to many more pieces in as these are going to grow and spread and it might get overcrowded?

I really like my frogspawn and open brains, speaking of which, could someone confirm that the green coral behind the purple is a frog spawn? its probably to blurry. will get another pic eventually :D I really like the open brains, when I turn of the daylight light and leave the actinic (pretty sure its atinic) the greens really stand out and glow :D I beleive this is the zooxanthellae doing this, is it likely to get brighter?

new additions will be - turbin with zoos on base, a duncan, a stylo and mili, cant think if there is another :D

so.. feel free to comment and I am always open to opinions, ideas and comments :D if it can make the tank better I will more than likely do what I can to do so :D

I have got a fair bit of cycling info with details and dates I need to type up, my little one has decided to jump on me while I have the laptop at the moment so it is a little hard to type lol.

jamie :D

 

[jashay]

dammit! double post again!! sorry!

 

[Luke]

Looking good mate , Nice work :)

 

[slin1977]

Keep it up,

Yes the zooxanthellae will become brighter, they reproduce all the time and as long as they are healthy and kept under sufficient light they will glow under the actinic light.

I had a coral that was kept in near dark and unloved conditions in a mates tank... he gave me this drab brown thing
and over a period of 4 months I acclimatised the coral to full light, to cut a long story short this coral glows bright green during the day and looks radio- active at night, have to say its one of my favorite too.

 

[jashay]

awesome :D

I figured that would be the case just needed confirmation! I think I could up my lighting some more but at the moment $$ is a problem. I was thinking going full LED but not sure yet. as the lighting system is intergrated into the hood and has its switches there Im thinking of just upgrading it from two T5 to a 4 bank T5 as modification would be easier with the switch box etc. I could just keep the two switchs for the current lights and put the 4 bank in, and have the two switchs control each of the two sets.

it will also be a better way as the T5 setup that come with the hood are an odd length and basically its been made so that they will only take the manufacturers lights, they are just under 2 foot so the standard two footer is around an inch and a half to long which makes it a prick!

I reckon 4 two foot T5 would be sufficient? two actinic and two daylight? or would you recommend having 1 daylight, 2 actinic and maybe a purple + ?

I find the daylight to be fairly yellow but with the actinic on it the yellow is completely dispersed.

 

[slin1977]

I upgraded to led over a year ago and never looked back, the ability to control colour temperature, to appreciate looking at coral for me is amazing ,I let the factory settings take over once I have had my fix.....

 

[MTG]

hey mate ill bring the talk to here. if you wanted to stick with t5's how many tubes do you have??
i dont run any "white tubes" coral colour redinition under my mix is great and makes the corals pop.
4x blue + "blue tubes"
2x purple + "purple tubes"
2x attinic tubes "dark blue"
overal i get a 16K look from this and coral responds well to it ;)
i found when i had white tubes it washed out the coral colouration. its all personal preference tho

 

[jashay]

gday guys :D

could someone ID these buggers for me? the second pic a little of in the colour, the first one (019) is more so to the natural colour. I have to learn how to drive the camera a bit better!

anyways, these ones come on the LR when I bought it. would like to know what they are.

 

[MagicJ]

Looks like a Palythoa to me :)

 

[jashay]

thanks Majic :D will do a google and see what it comes up with to double check :D they seem to spread very easy, after putting the live rock in when I got it a couple have some how come up from under the sand bed around 2-3 inches away from the LR

 

[jashay]

spot on Majic, your right they are palythoa (google is great! )

after the google search though and seeing how many different variations they are, mine look boring lol.

 

[DavidS]

Haha.. some people complain about palythoa being a bit too hardy :P
Just be wary of handling with open cuts on your hands - you'll see plenty of warnings about palytoxin.

 

[Luke]

I have some in my tank , I'm about to introduce them to my friend , kalkwasser mix ;)

 

[MagicJ]

spot on Majic, your right they are palythoa (google is great! )

after the google search though and seeing how many different variations they are, mine look boring lol.

If they were good looking ones you wouldn't be getting them free on your live rock :)

 

[jashay]

hehe true that! it actually had a couple of softies on it to but they were damaged on the way home due to bad bagging. wasnt happy bout that but considering i only paid for the cost of the LR i didn't complain.

 

[jashay]

damn! damn! damn! damn!

I knew I shouldnt have looked at my TJ!

am somewhat extremely depressed in how my tank looks now! will get a pic of it although I am extremely ashamed of it... brb with a pic.. need to clean the glass up a bit first though.

 

[MTG]

bring on the pics mate