Skurvey Dog's 90G Reef Project

[Skurvey Dog]

You know PVT, you can buy just a florescent light strip, one like comes for a freshwater tank and light your fuge with that. That's what I have right now and it works. Didn't costa lot either.

Here's my Ocean Fairy

[Skurvey Dog]

I keep telling him he's a fairy as he is so graceful in motion. He personally seems to think he likes the dark side. During the daylight hours he likes to hang upside-down and pretend he is a bat! He loves his corner of the tank and his rock formation has a neat platform like disk shaped coral rock. He likes to laze on top of that also when he feels more socialable.

[pvtdonut]

yeaaaa..i know how lions are. haha give him some time and he will start comin out....mine always hid on me until about a month of being in the tank....i am really thinking about getting one again for my tank,(i miss my killer =[ .. ) most likely a dwarf fuzzy. since theyre really small for a juvi..

he is def. gorgeous though. =)

does he accept frozen yet? or still only live? watching my one stubborn lionfish eat live was a cool experience. he rarley accepted silversides..he didnt survive long enough for me to train him to eat the frozen.

[Skurvey Dog]

Thanks lil buddy. They are pretty cool. I watch him very closely as I can see a slight pigment change in him, according to his moods, happy, very curious, and then cautious. He is maintained on live foods, however, he has taken a non live food before, twice only, and that was because he was very hungry. I feed him every 3 days. And if he comes to the top on his side, that is a signal that he is hungry, so I will feed him a shrimp or two. He is not an overeater and is pleased quite readily. I might get one more fish in the next few months, but not sure. I have plenty of time to think about that.

[lReef lKeeper]

so Lori, how are the new zoanthids doing ?? got any pics of them in their new home ??

[CarmieJo]

Hey Lori,

Everything looks nice! You have reset the bar on fuges, Bobby is really going to get on me about my dirty one!

You mentioned feeding the minnows before giving them to Vandamere and I think that is smart. If you don't already, I'd soak the food for the minnows in vitamins and garlic in order to get them into your fairy fish.

[Skurvey Dog]

so Lori, how are the new zoanthids doing ?? got any pics of them in their new home ??

Imma work'n on it. I have let my home go for 2 weeks and I am trying desparately to rent a bulldozer and get it in here to clean this place back up! Other than that, I have been really working on my tanks. I will get some picks hopefully tomolly. The coloring of the frags I have do not exactly match the pics when I bought them, and I am not thinking that possibly it is due to some other type of lighting than I have. Hmmmm. Just not sure. I have also when working with my water parameters and trying to get them perfect, but you know it just takes time and slow moving is the best thing to progress.

[Skurvey Dog]

Hey Lori,

Everything looks nice! You have reset the bar on fuges, Bobby is really going to get on me about my dirty one!

You mentioned feeding the minnows before giving them to Vandamere and I think that is smart. If you don't already, I'd soak the food for the minnows in vitamins and garlic in order to get them into your fairy fish.

Ya know Cjo, you're always a couple of steps ahead of me and I like that! Brilliant idea, if I must say so. And yes I do try to keep everything clean, as I have had an ongoing problem with nitrates for some reason. Like I mentioned in previous posts, I clean my floss, filtration mediums and skimmer every other day. I clean the glass every day. I keep moving around the Koralias to change up the water flow and I still have nitrates popping up. I just started about a week ago scrubbing the diatoms of my live rock and I know they have to be caused by the nitrates. Where the hades are they coming from? I test 0 amonia, o nitrites, o Phosphates. My alk was a little low around 7.9, and my calcium was low also coming in at 360. I added some buffer because of the combination of the two hoping to stabalize them. I also added calcium to the tank also. Hang on, let me test the 2 real quick..... be right back!

[Skurvey Dog]

Well, not much has changed. Ph is reading 8.0 and calcium reads still 360. Well, I just don't know. I do know that I did not use the recommended dosage as I would rather under dose than over. I only used 50% recommended dosage. I just don't want to push the water parameter too fast as I have a lot riding on my tank right now, those frags cost plenty! I just can't figure out what's fueling the nitrates. I did a 30g water change Friday and have prepped another 30 gallons for tomarrow. They keep wanting to rise to 10. I am concerned for my frags. I just don't see the colors that was in those pictures and I just wish that I knew if it was the type of lighting they used when taking the pics or they are being affected by my water. Make sense? And yes, I am a worry wart. I just know if I can finally get parameters exactly what they need to be, hopefully I can stabalize everything and keep it there. I bought another gallon baggie of spagetti macro and have some special nitrate reducer medium on the way. I know water changes is my answer, but I know what I'm seeing here. Water change brings the trates down and in 2 days time, they're right back up there. Theres gotta be something somewhere causing this issue that I am overlooking. I think I am going to wait till 24 hours after my intial dosing and take reading again before I add more calcium. Chemistry was never one of my strong points as you can well tell. Any words of wisdom would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[V]

wow not kidden, fuge envy.

Have you calculated the load going into the tank. You have rock & plenty of macro but very little in the way of sand bed from what ive seen, & thats not more than a page at this stage i think - slacko aren't i ? lol

nitrate sponge is a medium patch, increase your water changes by 5 -10% a week, bring your dosing up to normal levels over the next 2 weeks or so & monitor it at a consistent time every time to be sure of any trends.

Nitrate reactor can be deployed & at a few hundred $ for a quality unit are a worth while investment if your able to concede your load in doesn't always equate to your load out. Dont worry about 10 parts for the nitrate, Unless of course they are ultra sensitive animals, but ive seen perfectly healthy reef tanks up to & exceeding 40 parts & still displaying beautifully.
Of course we aim for the lowest values possible i guarantee that people reading this very line would have experienced higher values than that.

A few others will chime in soon, but let us know how it goes my girl!

[Skurvey Dog]

wow not kidden, fuge envy.

Have you calculated the load going into the tank. You have rock & plenty of macro but very little in the way of sand bed from what ive seen, & thats not more than a page at this stage i think - slacko aren't i ?  lol

Thanks V as I always can use good advice! Tank is stocked with the 1 lion, 1medium hermit crab, 10 snails. I know I need to throw about another 20 snails in there, but I want to get various species as I find a mix of them meets various needs of the tanks I have. I'm not real hip on crabs at all and the hermits are ok. I just only want the 1 I have as I have found that they are a little more agressive than I care for. Heres the only nutrient input to the tank as far as feeding routine goes right now. Vandamere gets 1 minnow every 3rd day, and some times I will only feed him about 10-12 Ghost instead of the fish. Maybe once a week, he'll come to the top and hover there waiting for me, as a signal that he is hungry. I will normally comply to his wishes with 2-3 shrimp to please him. The hermit crab gets maybe 2 sinking pellets once every 5 days as he hangs out on the rocks and finds food sources. I only feed him when he starts his back and forth journey across the front of the tank. Funny to watch. I have observed him cleaning up detrious from the lion, before I could get in there and siphon it out. I spot feed the dusters 2 times a week with phytoplankton about 10cc. That's it. Do you think I am overfeeding? I just don't want to malnurish my inhabitants.

nitrate sponge is a medium patch, increase your water changes by 5 -10% a week, bring your dosing up to normal levels over the next 2 weeks or so & monitor it at a consistent time every time to be sure of any trends.

In the previous months I had been doing a 20g water change every 7-10 days. After I got sick, I started paying closer attention to testing every day and started seeing the current trend that I am in. Like I said, Friday I bumped up the total volume change to 30g and will continue that trend until I see the results I am looking for which is a zero reading across the board. The filter mediums that I am currently using is for the total water volume and are carbon, Seachem De'Nitrate, Floss, and I also added some of that product called Chemipure. I have also ordered some Seachem Purigen and will put that in place when it arrives.
And I keep these media cleaned also as I have a fear of them becoming a nitrate factory.

Nitrate reactor can be deployed & at a few hundred $ for a quality unit are a worth while investment if your able to concede your load in doesn't always equate to your load out. Dont worry about 10 parts for the nitrate, Unless of course they are ultra sensitive animals, but ive seen perfectly healthy reef tanks up to & exceeding 40 parts & still displaying beautifully. 
Of course we aim for the lowest values possible i guarantee that people reading this very line would have experienced higher values than that.

I would absolutely love to have a RDSB, but am limited with space. I also, like you mentioned, looked at some of the nitrate reactors, but wondered if they really had that much of an impact. And I find that there are many to choose from and all use different types of media, but along the same lines of course. If I got one, I'd like one whose media is not that darn expensive to keep loaded. From what I could tell, they were housed in the sump and they require their on pump? I don't want to spend more than $300 on a unit and that of course would include the first go round of media to get it up and running. Do you have any reactors that you are familiar with or heard good things about? I don't want to jump the gun and buy something, only to find out 6 months down the road that if I had just "gave the moolah up" for another 50-100 bucks I could have had the ultimate reefers tool at nitrate management! At my age, I've learned that you get what you pay for and it's worth the extra bucks to get the next step up. What are your thoughts on this? In a couple of months, if I can get the water parameters adjusted and keep them there, I'd eventually like to see myself with the standard 10g a week water change. I hope that isn't a dreamers wish. PS- The RO/DI unit comes in hands down as the best investment to save money that I have yet to spend! It's in overdrive my friend.

A few others will chime in soon, but let us know how it goes my girl!

I hope you're right buddy O'mine, as I really would like to get all the feedback that I can at the moment with my current situation and really want some input on the nitrate reactors right now and how our members rate what's on the market right now.

[Skurvey Dog]

very little in the way of sand bed from what ive seen, & thats not more than a page at this stage i think - slacko aren't i ? lol

Oh yeah, I almost forgot..... Were you speaking about the sand level in the DT or the fuge? I originally started with a 4"DSB in the DT, and it is down just a touch with the cleaning. Do you feel I need to start adding more sand to the DT slowly and do it in small sections over a period of time and bring it up to a 6"DSB? Or were you mentioning the shallow layer over the screen in the fuge? The fuge is fed by a floor level section coming from a waterfall tank to the left and that is the reason why I had to channel the flow with the sand, CC and mud as it slowed down the flow too much and created problems. Do you think I need to add more sand on top of the screen? More LR? Any sugestions would be appreciated as I am in the learning mode here!

[pvtdonut]

i would love to have a DSB in my tank, i think it looks a whole lot better,i can barley see any of my sand right now because of the black trim of my tank. the sand barely exceeds that height... it stinks. i want to find a big bag of aragonite sand, like 50lbs and pour it in there. i know there are benefits to having the dsb's but i mainly want it for the good looks of having one.

[Skurvey Dog]

Olah PVT What do you have in your tank now? About 40lbs? If I remember correctly, without pulling up my tank build/testing journal, I believe I started with about 150lbs and that was mixed substrate of various sizes. Seems like I only used 1 40lbs of live reef sand to seed the whole sand bed, as the rest was dry. There's always ways to cut corners and save a little cash here and there. I've heard from others that when adding sand over an existing sand band, that it needs to be done in sections slowly so that you do not disturb the organisms living there. If you get the sand buy the dry and by the 50lb bags as they are a better buy, or at least I have found it to be here at our LFS. Just make sure you wash that stuff really good before you add it and you know about the sand storms deally. I think if I add more sand, I;m gonna put it in a wide container with about 2" sides and lower that into the tank and go to the bottom and turn it over and see if that doesn't help with the storm. Hey for that matter, the more I think about it. I am going to try this. I'll wash my sand until I feel it is suitable and then lay it out on plastic in the sun to dry. After it dries, I'll put it back in a container and I'm gonna find something to make a large funnel out of, some container or bottle. I'm going to attach that to a piece of pipe, maybe flexable and lower that to the sand bed and then start pouring the dry sand down the funnel and see what kind of results I get from that. That way I'm thinking I can control the precise area that I want to be working with and there won't be a big mess also. Whadda ya think? Hey, gotta start somewhere and you never know if something will work or not until you give it a try. It'll either be far right field or right on target!

[pvtdonut]

haha i wish i had 40lbs...i think i have about 25lbs at the moment...unfortunately... i plan on getting more though.

[Skurvey Dog]

Well guys, I'm hoping that you catch up on this thread as I still have some of those questions that I'd like to get some feedback on. I know everyone is busy.

I spent quite some time tonight perusing my DT and was amazed at the exploding population of various pods in my tank. I am assuming that they have been busy being pumped out of my sump/fuge into my DT. They are everywhere! It is awesome to watch. The smallest are on the sides of the tank and the others, well, they are crawling all over my LR and even the sand. I would venture to say that there must be over 500 in there. And I'm not exagerating. My LR looks cleaner, crisper and the diatoms are disappearing. I have coraline algae growing on my coral branches and color is starting to spring up everywhere. The branches appear to be turning pink. Absolutely georgeous. My new coral frags look like they are adjusting nicely, but the star polyps are still slow coming out. They have yet to fully extend their polyps and it has been over a week now. Should I give them more time or do you think that I need to try to place them in a higher flow area with more light? I am in the dark here and could use some advice please. I have also noticed that Vandamere is becoming more active also and his appetite is increasing as he is begging more in between meals. I am taking this as a good sign, but will not increase his normal feeding at this point. He is a lil piggy ... oink, oink

I haven't felt real swell today and didn't get to take any pics of the new frags, but will try to do that tomorrow if I am able.

[Phurst]

Howdy Skurvey, hope you get to feeling better. GSP can be terribly tempremental sometime for being such a tough coral. When I moved some from my 120 to my nano, they were closed for well over a week, and when i moved them back into the 120 from the nano, they were closed for nearly 3 weeks. They always came back just fine though.

Any idea what conditions they were kept under before?

[V]

SD - corals can sometimes just rest for awhile. Even under normal conditions one week they can visually act alive 24/7, other times only test the waters for 2 days in 7. Being moved will almost certainly take effect in various ways,& corals like people will react in different ways. however if your parameters are correct then i suggest not worrying so much. Your meant to be enjoying your animals, not stressing about them.

[Skurvey Dog]

Any idea what conditions they were kept under before?

Unfortunately, not a clue. I had realized, after the fact of course, that what I should of done is taken some water samples from the water that the frags were shipped in. Too little too late, but I'll be sure to do that next time. Surely the water composition would not have changed or deteriated withing a 18 hour period.

[Skurvey Dog]

SD - corals can sometimes just rest for awhile. Even under normal conditions one week they can visually act alive 24/7, other times only test the waters for 2 days in 7. Being moved will almost certainly take effect in various ways,& corals like people will react in different ways. however if your parameters are correct then i suggest not worrying so much. Your meant to be enjoying your animals, not stressing about them.

Yes Papa V It's just when one is not highly experienced and confident, that the overdrive is running on nitrous. I will try to gear back a few notches. The only time ignorance is bliss is when a tasty morsel, or the last of the VO has mysteriously disappeared.

[V]

i was with you till the VO comment. ?????

[Skurvey Dog]

Seagrams VO, Triple distilled goodness.

[CarmieJo]

Hi Lori,

I've been super busy (our Polish exchange daughter was "home" for a visit) and have not seen your thread for a week. First of all the colors could differ because of the lights but they could have been enhanced with Photoshop. It is not uncommon for online retailers to do this.

While your goal for nitrates should be zero 10 is acceptable for the inhabitants in your tank. How often are you changing your carbon? (BTW Chemipure is really just carbon. It is good but expensive.) I use a smaller amount of carbon (3-4 TBS) and change it weekly. This avoids detritus building up in the carbon and fueling nitrates. I started doing this after hearing one of the talks at MACNA.

[Skurvey Dog]

Hello CJo! I use 1 large mesh roll bag and change it every 2 months. I clean the mediums every other day. I also added 250ml of Purigen to the system and from that, Vandamere seems to be more active. So I don't really know if it was me trying to get the ph/ca corrected or the purigen. Maybe a little of both. I do know that the tank and rock look much better, no more diatoms. Coraline algea of pinks is taking over and starting to look good.

[CarmieJo]

The diatoms are just a part of a new tank that you have to put up with! Glad Vandamere is looking better. If you continue to see the nitrates creep up I would consider the carbon as a source. Even with the filter floss catching most of the detritus in 2 months you will get nitrifing bacteria n built up.