I am setting up a 65 gallon display with a 35 gallon sump/refug. I have been planning this tank for what seem like forever and I am finally getting a little closer so I thought I would set up a tank journal.

I started my research a couple of years ago and discovered Talkingreef while I was living in Australia at the begining of a year spent there. I can already say I would have been lost without it.

I have done a good ammont of travel in my life and have always had a facination with the ocean. Which is the main drive for the tank. After living in Thailand and Australia I got used to being close to the ocean... and well, now, being back in Canada that part of my life is missing. So this is my way to keep it.

I have been back from Aus for about 6 months now and I have accumulated most of the stuff I need. Now I guess it is time to dive in and see how it goes.

Alex.

I will be posting pictures of the point I am at soon...

I have had some live/base rock curing for the last couple of weeks in a big food grade container with heat, light and flow. It had sat out of water but moist for about two months before I bought it, which is why I called it live/base.

It will be going in the tank once I get my sand for my sand bed.

sounds nice. how about pictures? always nice to see a tank in its stages. are you going to do fish only or ??

Hello Alex and :welcome: to TR. This is the best time to start a tank journal. Too many of us *raises hand* wait a few months and then try to go back and fill in the blanks.

Hello and welcome, always nice to have another Alex hanging around :p

I just started my tank about 4 weeks ago, i'll be excited to see how you set yours up. And i second the request for pictures, i love visual aids!

Hey alex. Where abouts is kingston ontario??? Maybe if your close enough i could help u out with some frags once ur tanks up :D

Welcome to TR and hope all goes smoothly

BTW, what are u planning to do with the tank??? Reef, FO, FOLR??

Here are some pictures...

1. Tank in the stand (65 gal).

2. Sump/Refug (35 gal) with the sump on the right and refug on the left.

I put in 4 baffles to make sure I don't get any micro bubbles going back up to the tank and put the refug on the left so I can control the amount flow.

Right now I have a 950 gph internal pump but I am considering adding another pump if I feel I need more flow in the future. So by having the refug on the left it won't be affected.

3. This is a little shelf that I made to set some of my rocks up on and get some flow at the back of the tank.

4. A post I made that I will use to set rocks around using a bit of fishing line to try and create some interesting shape (it actually sits vertical in real life).

Tim,
It is going to be a reef tank. As for corals I am going to start mostly with soft corals and depending on how it goes work towards hard corals in the future.

Hey Small Fry,
It would be good to get some frags from you... I was checking out your journal and your tank looks awesome. But Kingston is pretty far from Windsor - about 2 hours east of Toronto on the 401. If I am ever up your way I might have to take up on that though.

I know this is probably going to open a can of worms but I figured I might as well see what people thought...

I have always had the plan of going with a DSB after hearing the benefits of it and now I am trying to buy the substrate for my tank.

For aesthetics, I would like something that is about medium grain size.

I am afraid to go with something that is too fine, because I have heard a lot of people taking out fine sand beds because it becomes so compacted that it eventually becomes problematic.

On the other hand a really grainy substrate doesn't seem like it will work as well for filtration purposes.

At this point I am thinking about going with all Caribsea seafloor reef sand. Or 80% Caribsea seafloor reef sand and 20% Caribsea crushed coral

Any opinions???

Check out theses articles on DSBs.

DeepSandBeds (http://www.wetwebmedia.com/deepsandbeds.htm)

http://www.ronshimek.com/Deep%20Sand%20Beds.htm

I ended up using Caribsea sugar fine based on the info, but my DSB has only been in for a few months, so I can't really speak to how it will eventually mature.

BTW, the clouding cleared up in a week or so.

It did take a couple months before the sand clumped some and filtered out the finer stuff from the top layer before I could run my full circulation in the tank without stirring things up.

I use sugar fine sand. My DSB has shrunk by about .5" over 20 months or so. I think that some of this may be compaction but aragonite also disolves slowly to buffer your tank. I would start with 5-5.5" if I was doing it again. I am going to add another 50# which should plump it back up. I would not mix the 2 types of substrate.

Thanks NaClFinatic, that first article was actually really helpful!

Thanks for the advise CarmieJo. I was thinking of a 5" sand bed in the display and maybe a bit deeper in the refug. I think I am going to go with the Caribsea seafloor reef sand, it will be bigger - 1 to 2mm but I think it will be good for what I am looking for.

Alex

Sounds good. I don't think that grain size matters a lot just so is not so big as to become a detritus trap.

Thanks for the advise CarmieJo. I was thinking of a 5" sand bed in the display and maybe a bit deeper in the refug. I think I am going to go with the Caribsea seafloor reef sand, it will be bigger - 1 to 2mm but I think it will be good for what I am looking for.

I have now added my substrate, which was a total of 160 pounds of Caribsea Aragonite. Generally about 1-2mm. It has given me a bit more then 5 inches worth in the display and over 6 inches in the sump. I assume that both of these are going to compact a bit so hopefully I will end up haveing a full 6 inches in the sump and around 4.5 - 5 in the display.

I have also added the live rock. I haven't been able to fit the full 90 pounds in yet and I don't think I will be able to get all the peices in. I have 1 really big, flat, tonga style rock that regretfully won't make the cut because of it's size. hopefully I will be able to fit the rest of the peices in.

I have also set up my protien skimmer and it seems to be doing a pretty good job so far.

I am starting to get a little anxious to put some livestock in soon so hopefully my parameters will level out to 0 soon.

Just remember that only bad things happen fast!

I have encountered one of my first issues... my lights just stopped working all of a sudden!
They are VHO Ice Caps and all 4 bulbs went out at the same time.

Its a little worrisome, because I was hoping these lights would last me a while (until I was ready to upgrade). My first reaction was to check the fuse and it was blown, but thus far I haven't been able to find a slow blow fuse that works without just blowing immediately. I am keeping my hopes up that I can find a fuse that will solve this problem but I am a little afraid that the ballast is dead.

I am also thinking I may have caused this program because when I bought the tank and stand (used) I moved the ballast closer to the back of the hood, so it was more out of sight. But this did move it closer to the evaporation from the tank... To be honest, I am not sure if this is what could have caused my problem, maybe other people do???

Just remember that only bad things happen fast!

I know, I know...:) I have managed to keep my patience for at least two years now so I think I can hold out a little longer.:up:

So I looked into getting a new fuse, and the guy at an electrical store was skeptical if the fuse was actually the problem... like I thought, he was leaning more towards the fact that my ballast is tgetting too much moisture from the evaporation off the tank.

I have tried a fast blowing fuse and a slow blowing fuse (the slow blowing won by lasting a total of about a second). So now I am in the market for a new set of T5 lights. I was hoping not to have to have to fork out the cash for this so soon... but, oh well no option now..........

I will post pictures later of where my ballast is located.

Rrrr! Keep us posted. There were lots of T5 systems displayed at MACNA but I didn't look closely at any of them.

If you can afford them I would advise you look into LED's. They cost more to buy but run cool and the LED's last for years, not months! Here is the thread http://www.talkingreef.com/forums/lighting/4313-look-what-ups-brought.html on my Solaris.

So I looked into getting a new fuse, and the guy at an electrical store was skeptical if the fuse was actually the problem... like I thought, he was leaning more towards the fact that my ballast is tgetting too much moisture from the evaporation off the tank.

I have tried a fast blowing fuse and a slow blowing fuse (the slow blowing won by lasting a total of about a second). So now I am in the market for a new set of T5 lights. I was hoping not to have to have to fork out the cash for this so soon... but, oh well no option now..........

I will post pictures later of where my ballast is located.

Hey Hiero?

Sorry to hear about your lights:(

Is everything on a seperate circuit for the tank. I am wondering if your load was too much for the circuit to handle. Often with Metal Halides the power surge right at start is 2x or more amps than when they are running throughout the day. I would imagine it would be the same for T5's , VHO's, and PC's.

So are your bulbs blown or is it just the ballast? Icecap are very good to their customers and may be able to swap that unit out for you. :fingers:

I guess it could have been the moisture. How far away from the tank was the ballast. I know it is not best practice, but I have seen many tanks with multiple ballasts that never ran into this problem. And there ballasts are in the stand right next to the sump.

If you can afford them I would advise you look into LED's. They cost more to buy but run cool and the LED's last for years, not months! Here is the thread http://www.talkingreef.com/forums/lighting/4313-look-what-ups-brought.html on my Solaris.

I would love to get LED lights. I have been watching them since they came out and hopefully I will be able to get them some day ...but right now they are way too expensive for me!

I took a look at yours and they look awesome but I think it will be a while until I have a set.

Hey Hiero?



Is everything on a seperate circuit for the tank. I am wondering if your load was too much for the circuit to handle. Often with Metal Halides the power surge right at start is 2x or more amps than when they are running throughout the day. I would imagine it would be the same for T5's , VHO's, and PC's.

So are your bulbs blown or is it just the ballast? Icecap are very good to their customers and may be able to swap that unit out for you. :fingers:

I guess it could have been the moisture. How far away from the tank was the ballast. I know it is not best practice, but I have seen many tanks with multiple ballasts that never ran into this problem. And there ballasts are in the stand right next to the sump.


Well, my lights were plugged into a power bar where most of my other aquarium stuff was plugged into too. The reason I thought it was the moisture was because that is the only change that I made. The bulbs never blew either.

To be completely honest I am not entirely sure what caused it now. but I would have thought that because it was the fuse in the ballast that some moisture may have caused the short that blew the fuse.

I have now replaced the lights with a new T5 system which I really like - the light seems more natural which I like. Another thing I think I have noticed is it seems like the light isn't as intense (it was kinda blinding) but at the same time it seems to light everything up in the tank better (seems like you can see details easier). Who knows if this is just my imagination or not, but I am definitely happy with them.

I will post pictures tonight, of where the old VHO ballast was and some other progress pictures.

Here are some pictures
1. The tank with the rocks, no water.
2. The tank with rocks and water and VHO lighting.
3. The tank under 2 1watt corallife LED Moonlights.

Here is a picture of how close the ballast is (when it died) you can see the light spot in the wood where it used to sit.........

I have run into a bit of an algae problem. It seems to be a brown algae and I am assuming that it came from the big incandescent flood light I had running on the tank for a couple of days between the VHO's and T5's. It seems that all the algae is on the front of the rocks and if you look closely it developing bubbles on it...

Since all my levels are to 0!!!! now I am going to get some fish soon and I am probably going to pick up some snails and crabs to try and get this algae under control tomorrow.

The algae is probably a diatom bloom and is part of cycling a new tank. It will go away in a couple of weeks. IMO you do not want to add "some" fish and "some" snails and crabs. This will be too much bio-load for the existing bacteria and will result in an ammonia spike. Since the diatoms are a short term problem I would not stress over adding something to control them. They will go away on their own.

The algae is probably a diatom bloom and is part of cycling a new tank. It will go away in a couple of weeks. IMO you do not want to add "some" fish and "some" snails and crabs. This will be too much bio-load for the existing bacteria and will result in an ammonia spike. Since the diatoms are a short term problem I would not stress over adding something to control them. They will go away on their own.

Yeah that makes a lot of sense... So do u think I shouldn't add anything right now?

I guess when I said "some" it sounds like I am just running out and stocking the tank. My plan was to get 1 clownfish, 1 cleaner shrimp, a couple of snails and a couple of crabs... would you say that I am at the stage to do that now? or should I wait a little longer?

If you have seen your levels go up and come back down to zero you are OK to go ahead and start adding livestock. I am conservative would probably break your initial list into 2 parts. I'd add the fish and a hermit or snail and monitor your levels. If they go up wait until they come back down to add the rest. If they don't move then you could add the others in two or three days. I have found that shrimp are sensitive so I might not add the cleaner shrimp right away.

I always let my tank recover after adding any any new inhabitants. Since I QT everything that goes into my tanks for 2 - 6 weeks the recovery time for my aquarium is built in. BTW, when using a QT tank if you add any new critter to the QT tank the quarantine period starts over.

Alright so I have added some livestock. Unfortunately I didn't get CarmieJo's advice until after I had already bought the livestock and added them. But everything seems to be going well. They all seem to be healthy and my levels have all stayed stable.

I ended up adding:
1. 1-Dottyback
2. 1-Cleaner Shrimp
3. 5-Hermit Crabs
4. 3-Turbo Snails
5. 3-Nassarius Snails

I am not absolutely sure if the Dottyback I have is just a Dottyback or a Royal Dottyback From what I have heard, the difference is that a royal's head starts as purple and fades to yellow by their tail and a non-royal Dottyback start and finishes with the same colours but they have a definite line where it changes from purple to yellow.

My guy has the pronounced line so I am assuming he is a Dottyback.

For the first couple of days the Dottyback was fairly timid but he out most of the time now. The shrimp on the other hand has found a specific area that he hides in almost all of the time. He seems to be coming out a tiny bit more over time which hopefully will continue.

I will try and post some pictures of them some time over the next few days.

The reason I started with the Dottyback instead of the clown is because I have heard they are a little hardier. I realize that he may present a problem when I start adding other fish due to aggressiveness but hopefully this isn't the case. I already have a plan to rearrange some of the rocks if he is being aggressive. Plan being that this would disorient him a little and he would be more worried about finding a new home for himself then bothering the new fish. Then by the time he has found his new home the other fish would be settled.

Glad everything is going well. Do you have any pictures?

I haven't been able to update this in a while because I have been really busy with work. I had some problems with cynobacteria during this time and of course I assumed that the problem came from lack of flow. All I could think of was increasing the flow but then I realized I really wasn't doing enough water changes... Now I am doing larger and more frequent water changes and I have decreased the hours of T5 lighting to 7 hours and it has made a big difference. My cyno problem is almost solved!

I also added some more clean up crew over the last few weeks and a sand sifting starfish. They all seem to be doing well and all my levels have stayed at 0 (oh yeah during this whole cyno thing I added phosphates to the list of things I test for and I am going to keep this up to keep a better eye on the tank).

I will add lots of pictures very soon. I know just reading about my tank is kind of boring so I will do that asap to show what is going on.

Hope things have settled down for you at work. I'll look forward to seeing the pictures when you have time.

Finally... some pictures I took over the weekend:

1. Overview of the tank
2. Dottyback Goby
3. Sideview of tank
4. The two fish in the tank
5. Mushrooms, feather duster, clam and some pinkish coral
6. Cleaner Shrimp

Some more pictures:
1. Sand Sifting Star
2. Overview
3. Zoanthid

Nice! The mushrooms look beautiful with the red & blue together.

Nice! The mushrooms look beautiful with the red & blue together.

Thanks Carmie, I am not really sure what the red stuff is maybe some kind of hard coral type thing...

Thanks Carmie, I am not really sure what the red stuff is maybe some kind of hard coral type thing...
Wow! Does it look that red in person?

Wow! Does it look that red in person?

Yeah it does... kind of surprising - I have never really seen anything like it before.

I have a question to throw out there...

I am wondering about Phosban reactors.

I don't have any specific problem with Ammonia or Phosphates. There is a little green hair algae so I am sure there are some phosphates and I am sure there is a bit of ammonia too. But as far as I can tell nothing too serious.

Last time I was at the place where I buy my fish stuff I was planning on buying two reactors to run phosban and carbon. I decided not to buy both because I don't have a specific problem with either but I did buy one reactor (a compromise with myself I guess:)).

What I am wondering is should I run both just as a preventative/upkeep measure?

I guess my goal is for my tank to run as flawlessly as possible and because reactors aren't too expensive I thought it would be a good idea. But if it not really worth the time and money I would spend in setting these up, I could probably just hold onto this one reactor and only use it If I come across some issue where it would help (phosphates or amonia).

Right now I am leaning towards just running both because it may be beneficial...

When I was at MACNA there was quite a bit of talk about running both all the time either passively or in reactors. I run carbon passively 24/7 and am considering doing the same with phosphate remover. I saw the new Chemi Pure in the black jar at the LFS the other day and I noticed that it now has phosphate remover in it. I could make it easy on myself and just use that but I believe that the carbon is depleted much sooner than ferrous oxide so I that you are wasting the ferrous oxide or running depleted carbon.

I have a question...

Everything has been going well with the tank lately - I will post some pictures soon.

but I wanted to as about the long tenticles (sweepers) on my torch and hammer. They have developed on both of them over the last few weeks, the torch first, then the hammer.

I was feeding every other day and rotating between flake and mysis shrimp. But after about 1-1.5 weeks of the sweepers not going away I decided it was time to feed more volume and variety.

I now feed a smaller amount of flake food each time to occupy the shrimp and fish and then I feed one cube of mysis shrimp one feeding day and a half a table shrimp on the other feeding day.

I was hoping this would help the corals to have more food and reduce the number of sweepers over time. But I haven't noticed any difference and I have been keeping this up for almost 2 weeks. I have noticed that the cleaner shrimp take the coral's shrimp some times but i know this doesn't happen every time.

Any advice or suggestions???

Hello Hiero :) I haven't seen you around in a while. I think that the sweepers are just an occupational hazard of euphyllias although I can't explain why you are just seeing them. Both of mine have always had them.