Tank Journal Archive

[TJReid]

Introduction: So I bit the bug and converted from a fresh water tank I adopted of a mate around 3 years ago and decided to start up in marine, learnt a lot started off with a 3x2x2 and downgraded to a 2ft cube in a hope to save money and spend more on tech side of thing's and easier maintenance.


Reefing Since: About 3 years to date.

System Objectives: High tech, automated / easy maintenance dosing.

Type of reef: Mixed reef soft/sps/ric & zoa gardens

Display System:

Initial Fill Date: 10/1/2012

Display Tank Dimensions: 600 x 470 x 510

Display Lighting: Maxspect G2 Led

Stand: Custom white gloss, timber, extra braced.

Hood or Rimless: Rimless.

Sump Design: 500 x 380 x 410, 3 stage bubble trapped, tiny crowded, need more room.

Filtration: 200 micron filter sock.

Support systems: Aquamedic Blue 1000 Skimmer.

NSW or ASW: NSW.

Display Water circulation: Un-calculated.

Return Pump: Ehiem Silent 3000LPH.

Skimmer: Aquamedic Blue 1000 Skimmer.

Evaporation Top Up: Guppy's Float valve / pump.

Chemical additions: Rowaphos via reactor.

Calcium Addition: Kent Turbo Calcium or Reef Advance Calcium.

Alkilinity Addition: Kent Coral Builder.

Magnesium Addition: Kent Tech M Mag.

Prodibiotics Addition: None yet.

Coral Food Addition: Marine Snow + Reef roids, New Life Spectrum + Mysis (Fish)

 

[TJReid]

Current FTS:

 

[TJReid]

 

[Sarg]

Wow that is NICE. Well done!!

What type of anenome is that? It is BIG :worship

 

[Sidd]

very nice mate :)

anenome is huge :)

 

[TJReid]

Ah I believe his a type of magnifica ? He is quite large... takes up most of my 2ft I cant bare to part with it, it's such a eye catcher and everyone is always amazed by it... you wouldn't of guessed I picked it up from a fellow reefer who's tank had crashed and cracked and threw the towel in and brought him for $30... It was only the size of a small plate when I picked him up now its close to larger then a dinner plate... eventually it'll get time for him to go and maybe I can downgrade to one slightly smaller but at the moment I cant bare to part with it.

It's been such a good nem, hasn't moved an inch from his rock even through 3 tank moves and resetups and only ever eaten two copper bands which I decided to give up on an figured they where quite dumb fish anyway ha ha.

Thanks for the lovely comments !

 

[Sidd]

30 bucks???????????? bargain!!

 

[TJReid]

That's what I thought when I got him, he was badly bleeched and turning white but after feeding him plenty of squid and getting priority lighting under the led's bounced back like you couldn't believe... The underside of it is amazing with purple dotted pattern and blue foot ill try get a picture in the future.

 

[TJReid]

Pic of the nem close to when I first picked it up.

 

[MTG]

Looking good mate good to finaly see this system. Is this the new one or are you making another new one?

 

[rockerpeller]

Wow tank looks amazing mate.

 

[chimaera]

Nice tank and amazing 'nem!

 

[TJReid]

Cheers !

 

[TJReid]

So after a bit of reading around decided to cut back the lighting on my maxspec to see if this will help improve with my corals...

previously i was doing 12hrs from on to off with blue's then whites then 30w whites on for what i'v found out is way to long.. they where getting close to 8hrs on the 30w's which i hear can burn out corals which is what it seemed to be doing.. on my 3x2x2 it seemed to have worked ok but having not changed the timing setup since they where on it was wondering why my 2ft cube was not flourishing like it should.

so now the timing has been set to the below and hopefully thing's start to improve...

11am Blue on
1pm White on
3pm 30w on
5pm 30w off
9pm white off
10:30pm blue off

anyone else have any suggestions does the above timing seem about right... I like to have the tank start later then earlier as with work i'd never get to see it other wise..

cheers

 

[TJReid]

Well things are starting to look a ton better quicker then I expected.. Morphs extending alot more then they where, everything seems big, bright and colourful and acan i recently brought hadn't opened up properly till today so I think a mixture of things have helped...

Lowered lighting
Feeding reef roids
Changed over the Rowaphos (assuming it's back down very low yet to test)
Dosing the Alk up slowly
Heating bumped up a little to 27c
ATO to keep salinity fluctuations to a minimum

And a day later everything is looking twice as good.. Might see if my phone will take semi decent photo's to post up later..

 

[Koopa]

great tank mate. :)

 

[TJReid]

Thanks !

some what i'll call preview pictures of some corals I picked up over the weekend / last week ... camera on phone doesnt do the colours any justice.. first acan too & sunrise morphs still adjusting to the led's !

 

[chimaera]

Nice pieces! Where did you get those?

 

[TJReid]

the sunrises off a fellow reefer... and the superman morphs/rodacts from mentone they had some awesome strange morphs i'v never seen come in dunno whats left though.. the acans colours are alot better too like a rainbow ill have to wait for a good camera to show some justice but glad you like them so far !

also just did a water check up

Temp: 27c
Salinity: 1.026
PH: 8.0
Alk: 9.5
Calcium: 420
Mag: 1200
Iodine: unknown (anyone close to frankston got a test kit ?)
Nitrate: 15ppm (working out a plan to get this down and keep it down.. considering red sea's nopox potion or bio pellets or vsv dosing anyone had any experiences with any ?)
Phos: Just hit 0.10

Dosing reef roids twice a week + feeding mysis and pellets

 

[TJReid]

oh no over the weekend made a ghetto frag rack haha might opt for a smaller profile magnet down the track but it's what was lying around..